28
Customers want to feel like they’re buying something with history,” Alvie said. “Do you know the difference between an antique and a collectible?”
“Yes. Age.”
Gemma had a lot to learn about the shop, and Alvie was an eager guide. She walked Gemma through every table, piece after piece, sharing encyclopedic knowledge about each one.
“Exactly. For something to qualify as antique, it has to be a hundred years old at least. Anything ‘younger’ is considered a collectible. We sell both.”
“Did you study antiques in school? How did you get into this?” Gemma said.
“I learned everything from your aunt. Absolutely everything,” Alvie gushed. “I can’t pretend that I can teach you all you need to know in one day. You have to just be here and absorb.”
When customers wandered in, Alvie greeted them with enthusiasm and made sweeping declarations like, “Vintage copper is back!” In between, she grilled Gemma about her connection to Celeste.
“My mother was her sister. But after my parents died I was raised by my father’s family, away from the Pavlins.”
“That’s so Dickensian. So romantic.”
Gemma rolled her eyes. “It’s really not.”
“Do you have a boyfriend? Girlfriend?”
“No.” Not her favorite subject, but at that point she was relieved to just be off the topic of family. “I have terrible luck in that department.”
Alvie tilted her head in sympathy. “Let’s grab drinks tonight.”
Before she could answer, her phone rang. Sanjay.
“I’m sorry—I have to . . . do you mind if . . .”
Alvie waved her on. “Be my guest. But let me warn you: Keep that thing out of Jack’s sight. He considers cell phones a personal affront.”
“No calls in front of Jack—got it.” She slipped around the counter and crouched out of sight. “Hello?” she said quietly.
“Gemma?”
“Yes. It’s me. Hi.”
“You sound weird,” Sanjay said.
She straightened up a little. “Sorry. I’m at work, so I’m trying to talk quietly.”
“Work? Where?”
“In Provincetown. At my aunt’s store.”
“You’re still out there?” he said.
“Yes. Um, my aunt needed some help in the shop.” If she was honest with herself, Celeste had looked completely surprised by Jack’s offer last night—and not entirely happy. But she quickly recovered and agreed it was a good idea, and that Alvie could train her before her last day.
“What about your jewelry?” he said.
“What about it?”
“I thought this summer was all about finding an investor.”
“It is. That’s definitely a priority. But I told you I want to find my mother’s ring and maybe that can help.”
His silence made his disapproval loud and clear despite the three hundred miles between them.
“Is that why you called? To check up on me?” she said.
“No. I’m calling because you left the storage locker key in my car. I didn’t know if you realized it was missing or if you’d need it soon. But I guess it’s not a pressing issue.”
She’d been so distracted in her last week in the city, it was a miracle she hadn’t left more things behind in random places.
“Thanks. Can you just hold on to it for me?”
“Yeah, yeah. Sure. But, Gem, I’m worried you’re letting this family stuff distract you. You won the NYSD award. You’re at the start of such great things. Just come back here and get to work.”
She felt a flash of annoyance. “Why are you lecturing me? You’re working a hotel desk more than you’re doing photography. We all have to make compromises.”
“Yeah, but you’re more talented than I am. That’s why I take all those pictures for you. Your work makes my work better.”
She smiled, even though he couldn’t see her through the phone. It was classic Sanjay: admonishing her and then complimenting her all at the same time. “Then I guess you’re going to have to come out and visit me,” she said flirtatiously.
“Gemma,” he said, decidedly not flirtatiously, “as your friend, I really think you should get back to New York.”
Celeste reached for Jack’s hand and he helped her onto the skiff. She hadn’t expected today to be the inaugural sail for the season, but the conditions were perfect and his sailboat was tuned up and ready to go. When his father died Jack inherited his vintage 1964 Bristol 40.
Marco had given them a lift out to the moorings.
“All right, you two—have fun. Say hello to Pacheco for me,” Marco had said. Jack’s father had named the boat Pacheco, after Duarte Pacheco Pereira, a fifteenth-century sea captain and explorer from Lisbon. The Barroses were fascinated by the seafaring legends in their culture. Apparently, Duarte Pacheco Pereira had been the first to calculate the degree of the meridian arc with remarkable accuracy for his time.
Celeste settled onto a bench and Jack motored out past the breakwater.
“I don’t know if the wind is going to cooperate today,” he said from behind the wheel.
“That’s fine,” she said. There was a transcendent calm when the motor was off and they were reliant just on water and wind, but today she wasn’t in the mood to drift along. She wanted speed, forward motion. Something to distract her from her troubled thoughts.
She still hadn’t confronted him about his overstepping last night with Gemma. After all the wine, she was too tired to get into it before going to bed.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Jack said. The sails were up and he’d cut the engine. She heard the water gently lapping against the boat.
“Don’t you think maybe you should have talked to me before offering Gemma a job?” she said.
“It seems like a win-win,” he said. “You have some family around; we fill the spot Alvie left open.”
“But, Jack, you know I don’t necessarily want my family around.”
“She’s a good kid. And you know it or else you wouldn’t have taken her antiquing yesterday.”
“That’s beside the point,” she said, softening just a little. She knew he meant well. “You should have asked me first.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right. But Provincetown always makes room for its wash’ashores,” Jack said. As someone born and raised in P’town, he could say this with authority. Anyone else was a “wash’ashore” for life—no matter how long they lived there, no matter how rich, no matter how famous. And some of the most famous artists of the twentieth century had called Provincetown home. “Celeste, look at this gorgeous day. The open sea . . . what more could we ask for?”
She smiled at him. It was true.
Jack asked her to fetch his sunglass case from underneath the bench. “Can you take the glasses out for me?” he asked from behind the wheel.
She set the case on her lap and opened it. Inside, instead of sunglasses, she found a ring. A delicate 1920s ring with a transitional cut small diamond. It had a deco platinum setting with small diamonds surrounding the main stone in its square bezel. It was absolutely stunning.
Celeste’s stomach dropped.
“What is this?” she said, looking up at him but not removing the ring.
“That, my love, is my sixtieth birthday present,” he said.
“You bought yourself a ring?” She wanted to keep things light. She wanted to not go down this road.
“No. The ring is for you. I’m asking you to do me the great honor of becoming my wife.”
Celeste snapped the sunglass case shut.
“Jack.”
“I know, I know. You don’t believe in marriage. But, Celeste, I hope by now you do believe in us. We’re great partners.”
“Of course we are. So why change anything?”
“Because I’m turning sixty years old in August and I want you to be my wife. Forever isn’t such a long time anymore, Celeste. After all these years, I want to make it official.”
Celeste knew this should be a romantic moment. She loved Jack and didn’t want to spend her life with anyone else. But that didn’t mean she wanted to get married. But he did. So now what?
It would be insensitive in that moment to remind him of how badly her first marriage proposal had turned out. Of course, that had nothing to do with Jack. Unless, of course, the rumors of the Pavlin curse were true.
She wished she’d never given in to her father’s insistence that she go back to New York City that fateful weekend. She should have seen the red flag when he insisted she bring her boyfriend. And she didn’t just bring him to New York. She pulled him into the white-hot center of Manhattan media and society only to find out the whole evening was just a publicity stunt.
After the Electric Rose party, they took the first Amtrak back to Philadelphia in the morning, and she promised Brodie—and herself—that they wouldn’t be going back again. Not for a long time at least.
Two nights later they went to a concert at Penn’s Landing. It was an all-female group from Seattle that was one of Celeste’s favorites. Brodie surprised her with the tickets.
“Sitting here, it’s like New York City doesn’t even exist,” she said to him that night, relieved to be back in her own milieu, her feet solidly on the ground. “I’m sorry the other night was such a circus. But I’m glad you were with me.”
“I’m glad I was with you, too,” he said, his arm around her shoulders. She smiled at him and then glanced at the women onstage rocking out against the backdrop of Center City.
She felt Brodie’s eyes on her, so she turned back to him. He slid a few inches away, so they were facing each other instead of side by side.
“Celeste, the past year has been amazing. But going to New York with you . . . it makes me realize how close we’ve really gotten. And how much more is ahead for us.”
“Brodie. That’s so sweet.” She felt her chest swell with happiness. Maybe bringing him home hadn’t been a disaster after all. Maybe she’d been silly to even have worried about it.
“I’m not trying to be sweet. I’m trying to say . . . that I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” At first, the words didn’t register. But understanding slowly dawned with the intensity of fireworks.
“Wait, are you—”
“I love you, Celeste. Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she breathed, leaning forward to kiss him. After a moment he pulled back.
“I almost forgot,” he said, handing her a small box. She opened it to find a silver claddagh ring.
“It’s beautiful,” she said as he slipped it onto her left ring finger.
“It’s just a placeholder,” he said.
“For what? It’s perfect.” She knew he didn’t have a lot of money and certainly didn’t expect—or want—a diamond.
“Well, until you get the pink diamond from your father,” he said.
Her mood instantly plummeted.
“You didn’t feel pressure to propose to me because of my family, did you?”
“No—no. Of course not.”
She wasn’t so sure.
“For the record, I don’t want that insane diamond. I don’t want anything from my parents. I’m here to live my own life.”
“Well, let’s live it together,” he said. She told herself to stop being cynical, to just accept the happy moment.
The following days were a blur of sharing the good news, drinks to celebrate with friends, and the delicious feeling her life was about to begin for real. The only people she didn’t tell were her parents and sisters. She wanted to savor the happiness inside their little bubble for as long as possible.
“We should go to New York this weekend and tell your parents in person,” Brodie said.
“A phone call will be fine,” she said.
“I’m sure they’re going to want to see us. And besides, your father will want to give you the ring.”
She pulled back. “I already told you I don’t want that ring. Maybe you’re the one who wants the diamond.”
“Celeste, you come from a family with money. Why are you pretending you’re just another broke grad student?”
“Well, when you thought I was ‘just another broke grad student,’ we never even talked about a commitment. Now that you’ve seen my family, suddenly you want to get married?”
“That’s unfair,” he said.
Her heart was pounding.
“Well, that’s how it feels. And yes, my father pays my tuition, but aside from that, I have no intention of taking money from them—or help in any way. Do you understand that?”
She went home to her own apartment that night, wanting time to cool off. And never heard from Brodie Muir again.
If that had been the end of it—the drama with the Electric Rose—she maybe could have chalked it up to one random bad experience. But then, Paulina’s engagement. Paulina’s death. And the tabloids starting up with the Pavlin curse. Like several other accounts of extraordinary diamonds bringing misfortune—the Hope Diamond, the Black Orlov—the Electric Rose became tarnished with tragedy.
She couldn’t talk to Jack about this; he didn’t understand her interest in tarot cards and belief in the zodiac. The last thing he would give credence to was her feeling, her deep-seated certainty, that she and her sisters were under a dark cloud of bad luck, and that getting engaged would be tempting fate.
The sun beat down on her face, and she used it as an excuse to close her eyes. Don’t blow it, she told herself. The past is the past.
“So, my dear . . . whadya say?” he said.
She opened her eyes, ignoring the glare, focusing on the face that she loved so much.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, Jack, I’ll marry you.”