All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

“Not a band,” the man said. “A real ring. A diamond ring.”

“Well, we have a variety of engagement rings. In this case, I have some simple and elegant rings, starting at a quarter-carat weight.”

“Come and look, sweetheart. I want you to pick it out.”

The girl stepped up to the display and in the bright lights meant to make the stones sparkle, she was not what Miss Humphries had expected. Not a grubby girl, of the type who usually accompanied the scruffy-looking men. Her cheeks were scrubbed pink and her hair clung to her scalp not because it needed washing, but because it was so fine. She wore a pale blue dress with pin tucks down the front. Velazquez’ Infanta Margarita in motorcycle boots.

Miss Humphries hated cleaning fingerprints off the glass cases, but the girl didn’t touch the display cabinet. She stood with her hands at her sides and peered in.

“Or if you’re looking for something unusual, my brother occasionally purchases estate jewelry. We have some lovely antique rings in this case.”

Stepping down the counter, the girl looked into that display. Her stepfather followed, watching her, but not interfering. The scruffy men usually got uncomfortable by then, having glimpsed the occasional price tag, but he seemed more at ease now.

Miss Humphries took her cue from him and didn’t say anything, but she recognized the moment the girl found something she liked. Her gaze sharpened and she leaned forward. Perhaps all women were born with that attraction to diamond rings. A magpie instinct.

“Which one do you like?” Miss Humphries said. There were a few lower priced rings in the estate case. Diamond chips in delicately scrolled ten karat Victorian settings. More than a twenty-dollar gold band from the drug store, but under two hundred dollars. The girl’s father leaned over her head to look in the case.

“I see which one. What are those called, those ones that look like stars?” he said.

“Star sapphires.” She knew the ring and it broke her heart that the girl had picked such a lovely ring for her mother. Something her future father wouldn’t be able to afford. Normally at that point, Miss Humphries indicated the price before opening the case. That got rid of the persistent ones, who said, “That’s a little more than I was looking to spend.” The girl had been respectful and the afternoon was quiet, so Miss Humphries took the keys off her wrist and unlocked the display.

“It’s Victorian, late nineteenth century. The diamond is natural, slightly more than one carat, E in color with no inclusions visible to the naked eye, surrounded by five natural star sapphires, each a tenth of a carat.” She said it all for the pleasure of saying it, aware that neither of them understood what it meant. When she placed the ring on the velvet mat, she was careful to flip the price tag with her pinky, so that it lay exposed. The girl rose on her toes to look down at the ring. After a moment, she glanced up at the man.

“That one?” he said.

She nodded.

“That’s the one we want then. You can make it fit, right?”

“Yes, of course it can be sized. Do you know what size you’ll need?”

“Whatever size she wears. I don’t know how you measure that.”

Only when the girl held out her hand did Miss Humphries understand the ring was for her. To hide her shock, Miss Humphries turned away and retrieved the sizing rings. She fumbled with them, not sure where to begin. Usually she started with the size six. The average woman was somewhere near that, but for a child? She held out the size four, but it swallowed the girl’s finger. The size three was still loose. The two, the one, and the three-quarter remained, but they were problematic.

“The dilemma here,” said Miss Humphries, “is the width of the setting. I’ll check with my brother, but I worry anything smaller than a three would require the setting to be curved to fit on the band. Of course, she’ll grow and the setting would have to be redone to permit the band to be resized. I suppose, if we went with the four, and put in a plastic sizer, that might work. Then the plastic sizer could come out when she’s a bit bigger. After that the ring would need to be resized again.”

She was chattering and she couldn’t stop. The dilemma, she wanted to say, is that people don’t buy engagement rings for children.

“Whatever’ll work,” the man said. “How long will it take?”

“Oh, I should think it could be ready by Friday afternoon.”

He and the girl both looked disappointed, but he nodded.

Miss Humphries wrote out the ticket in an unusually crooked hand for her, glancing up at them as she did it. They didn’t touch, even by accident. The girl stood with her hands clasped behind her. He kept a thumb hooked in a belt loop and the other hand in his pocket. When Miss Humphries laid the ticket on the counter, he pulled his hand out of his pocket, removing a roll of bills held with a rubber band. He snapped the rubber band off and began counting out hundred-dollar bills. She felt corrected for having assumed he couldn’t afford the ring.

“The resizing fee will be adjusted, because so much excess gold will be removed. After that’s weighed, we’ll refund that amount to account for it.” She watched the bills pile up and when he finished, she counted them into the cash drawer. “You’ve given me one too many.”

“That’s for you, for being so nice,” he said.

“I, well, that’s not—”

“It’ll be ready Friday?”

“Yes.”