Emily's Ghost Read Online Free Page B

"Five hundred dollars?"
    Emily's hopes
sank.
    "It really is just costume, then,"
Cara said, disappointed.
    Emily's hopes
rose.
    Why, why, why, you dopey
fool! You don't keep five hundred dollars in your sugar bowl; Cara
does .
    Cara held the necklace up
around her throat and gazed at herself in a gilded mirror on the
wall. "Pretty," she said musingly.
    "Your color sets it off
well," said Ms. Chanel, tilting her head and touching one red
fingernail to her chin.
    Emily thought she might
possibly explode. "May I?" she asked through clenched teeth. Never
had she wanted to possess the way she was wanting now.
    Cara smiled and handed it
over with an "I can't decide, I really can't." Clearly she did not
consider that Emily was in the competition for the
purchase.
    Emily felt the sheer
weight of the necklace in her hand, held it up before her, stared
at the odd shafts of light in the pinkish crystal. Her hand was
trembling.
    "Oh, look, the stone is
chipped!" cried Cara. "On the back. How really too bad!"
    "Well, of course it isn't
a diamond . And
it's old," said the saleswoman, a little irritated. "But if you
were really interested," she said to Cara, still pitching to her
alone, "I suppose I could --"
    "I want it," Emily said
suddenly. "I want the necklace."
    "You do ! Oh, I'm so glad," Cara said,
breaking into a surprised and beautiful smile. "It suits what
you're wearing so well."
    "Cara, these are not my
normal --" Emily began, and then gave it up. It didn't matter to
her whether the necklace suited or not. It didn't matter whether it
was chipped or not. It almost didn't matter whether it cost five
hundred dollars or not. It only mattered that when she held it in
her hand, she felt completely, bizarrely satisfied.
    "And how will you be
paying for that?" asked the saleswoman politely. She had dropped
all mention of what she could or could not do, seeing as it was
chipped and all, but Emily did not dare or even want to
re-negotiate the price.
    "VISA," she answered
faintly, handing over her card.
    "Let's put it on you,"
said Cara excitedly as the clerk wrote up the sale.
    She undid the heavy clasp
and lifted the chain over Emily's head. Emily watched the big pink
stone pass in front of her and come to rest on her breastbone. The
necklace felt heavy and icy cold. She caught her breath -- she
couldn't breathe -- and let out a sharp, frightened cry.
    "Oh, sorry; did I catch
your hair?" asked Cara off-handedly as she struggled to close the
lock. "This clasp is a wicked thing to work."
    "No ... no, it surprised
me ... with its weight, that's all."
    "Okay, turn around and
let's see what we've got," said Cara, ready to be amused. Emily did
so, and Cara said in an altogether different voice,
" Emily . It's
wonderful on you -- strange, and overwrought, and --wonderful. I
can't get over the change it makes in you," she said, sounding
puzzled. "It makes your cheeks glow, your eyes shine --"
    "Embarrassment is making
my cheeks glow, Cara; stop it," Emily murmured as she eyed the
saleswoman approaching with a tissue slip for signing. "It's just a
piece of jewelry. Nothing more. Nothing less."
    When Emily was finished,
they stood outside on the brick sidewalk in the late warm sun,
deciding what to do.
    "I'm shopped out; how
about you?" Cara asked. "Maybe a cup of coffee before we split
up?"
    Emily, suddenly exhausted,
agreed. "I think I'm having an attack of buyer's remorse," she
admitted. But even as she said it she brought her hand up to the
rose-colored stone and was comforted by its being there.
    Her ambivalent mood lasted
through coffee with Cara, and on the subway ride home to
Charlestown, and all though supper and an evening of dull summer
reruns. The facts were undeniable: Five hundred dollars would've
paid for a toaster oven, a new muffler for the Corolla, a year of
cable T.V.., a whale-watching trip in Provincetown and, say, half a
dozen seafood dinners at the No-Name Restaurant. Instead she'd
blown it on -- what? A chipped crystal and a