lawyers. The idea of anonymous donations was the best they could come up with. They had both wanted to donate the money in their parents’ names, but that would only have raised more questions.
Kevin and Erica took a short walk through the construction. The renovations seemed to be coming along nicely. Most of the linoleum was being replaced with carpeting to deaden the sound of footsteps, and new, comfortable cubicles took the place of the torn and battered ones. The rest of the money was spent on restoring or replacing worn-out books.
As they left the building, Erica said, “It’s amazing that all this was made possible because of a process that makes shiny little stones.” She looked down at the one-carat diamond on her finger. Kevin had tried to tell her that diamonds weren’t going to be worth much as gems much longer, but she had insisted on a traditional engagement ring. A simple gold wedding band was next to it.
“I like to think that we had something to do with it, too.” He took her hand and smiled. “Now, Mrs. Hamilton, where would you like to eat dinner. The sky’s the limit: Wendy’s, Taco Bell, you name it.”
“I was thinking about a nice quiet dinner at Cenn’tani’s and then back to the apartment for a bit of R and R.”
“Rest and relaxation?”
She winked at him. “Rum and romance. You didn’t have more interesting plans, did you?”
The idea of going to the gym after dinner fluttered out of his mind like a moth escaping a suddenly opened trunk.
“Didn’t you know?” Kevin said, leading her by the hand toward his car. “Nothing interesting ever happens to me.”
Afterword
When I completed this novel in 1995, the technology at the heart of this story did not yet exist. Diamonds had been made in a laboratory, but the process was difficult, expensive, and didn’t produce gem quality stones in large quantities. Then in September 2003, Wired magazine unveiled a cover story about the invention of revolutionary new chemical processes for making diamonds, processes very similar to Adamas.
Now chemically-perfect diamonds can be produced artificially at reasonable prices and great quantities. It is such a huge threat to DeBeers that they have spent millions of dollars convincing consumers that mined diamonds are better than laboratory diamonds, even though the two are identical in structure. A diamond is a diamond, no matter whether its natural or artificial.
However, I still don’t have diamond-coated sunglasses yet.
