Chapter 4
"That brand of box? It's over sixty-five thousand dollars, minimum."
"No wonder Charlotte wouldn't let go. She landed a rich one. She knows how to work it."
Before I could speak, the jeweler opened the case. A platinum chain set with small diamonds lay in the velvet, and the light coming off it was almost too bright to look at.
He lifted it out and held it up to my throat.
"Charlotte." Vanessa appeared in the doorway, crossed the room in three quick steps, and snatched the necklace out of his hand. "I'm James' wife. You pass yourself off as me to take something he bought for me? Have you no shame at all?"
She turned the glare on the jeweler. "What is wrong with you? I'm Mrs. Carter. You can't tell us apart?"
The jeweler startled. He looked at the ring on Vanessa's hand, then at my bare fingers, and bowed over and over.
"We're very sorry, Mrs. Carter. Our mistake."
Satisfied, Vanessa turned the necklace over in her hand and gave me a pitying look.
"Let it go. Charlotte didn't mean anything by it. Her family has nothing, so she probably hasn't seen a piece like this. Anyone would be tempted. Still, it looks bad if it gets out. We can't have people here with sticky fingers."
A few coworkers picked it right up.
"Ms. Brooks is being generous. I'd have called the police."
"Charlotte is all vanity. She deserves to be fired."
I looked down at the red mark the chain had left on my wrist and said nothing.
I had known it all along.
James would never have been that generous with me.
Then somebody told Vanessa to try it on.
She put the necklace on, turned her head one way and the other, and smiled, pleased with herself.
She said, "James has such good taste. It goes perfectly with what I'm wearing today."
"He spoils you. That's what real love looks like."
"Right, and some people should stop standing around ruining the view."
Just as everyone crowded around her, dress shoes came down the hallway.
James walked over.
He looked at me first, and then at the necklace on Vanessa's neck.
She went to meet him and lifted the chain a little to show it off. "James, I love the gift. It's beautiful."
A few coworkers rushed to get it in first.
"Mr. Carter, Charlotte passed herself off as Ms. Brooks and almost walked out with the necklace you bought."
"Thank God Ms. Brooks got here in time, or it would have been gone."
"That kind of vanity. Somebody should call the police."
Vanessa waved it off gently. "Don't be hard on her. She only wanted to look."
James said, "Take the necklace off."
His voice wasn't loud, and the hallway went quiet at once.
Vanessa's smile froze. "James?"
He looked at the chain on her neck and said it one word at a time. "Vanessa, take the necklace off."
Every head turned between the two of them.
Her smile drained away. "James, what are you saying?"
He walked up to her, and there was nothing negotiable in his voice.
"That necklace isn't for you."
He reached over and lifted it off her neck.
She took a step back. "Then who is it for?"
He didn't look at her. He turned and came over to me.
He held the necklace out.
"I ordered this last month. It's your birthday present."
The hallway went quiet enough to hear the air conditioning.
Everyone was watching me.
I looked at the necklace in his hand.
Six years.
In six years, it was the first thing he had ever given me.
What was in my head was my grandma on New Year's Eve, holding my hand while her fingertips went cold by degrees.
I took the necklace.
His eyes lit a little.
I put it back in the case, closed the lid, and set it on the table beside me.
I said, "Thank you. I don't need it."
The light in his face went out.
He said, "Charlotte, what is it you actually want?"
Vanessa covered her face and backed away, her voice thick with tears.
"James, you don't have to humiliate me in front of everyone to make her feel better. I don't mind. Give her the necklace. I don't need anything."
Then she turned and ran off.
He frowned after her, then looked back at me. "Charlotte, look what you've done. Everyone's upset. Can't you be bigger than this?"
I picked up the box. "Mr. Carter, sign the letter soon."
He put his hand down flat on the box.
"Nobody is leaving until you say what this is about."
Every promise he had never kept, every day of writing IOUs, every night alone in a hospital hallway calling for help and getting hung up on came up at once.
I set the box down and pulled a file envelope out of it.
A thick stack of IOUs fell out and scattered across the floor.
"James, for six years you gave me 100 dollars a month to live on. Everything else you made me write down. Four hundred slips, 5 thousand dollars in all.
"Grandma's tests, her medication, and her hospital stays over those years came to 67 thousand dollars.
"I transferred my whole paycheck into your account every month for six years, at least 233 thousand dollars.
"Now give me back the 162 thousand that's left."
He stared at the IOUs on the floor and kicked them apart.
"Charlotte, six years with me and this is what you care about? Why can't you be like Vanessa? She never asks me for a thing."
"She doesn't ask because she doesn't need anything."
My voice came out low.
"You spent 267 thousand dollars on a diamond bracelet for her and 1 million on a sports car. I ask for my own salary, and you tell me I stink of money.
"Do you understand that I earned every dollar of it?"
He kicked the filing cabinet beside him.
"Money, money, money! Is there anything in your head besides money? You would be nothing without me. What gives you the standing to bill me?
"My father was right. Poor is poor. Being with you was a waste of time."
He pulled the bank card out of his pocket and threw it at me.
The edge of it caught my cheek.
A thin line of blood came up.
He froze.
He lifted a hand toward my cheek. "Charlotte."
I turned my head away and bent down to pick the card up.
Looking at the panic in his eyes, the whole thing struck me as ridiculous.
"James, you think you're the prince in this story. I'm done playing house with you."
I carried the box downstairs.
Walking out the front doors, I didn't look back.