“I won’t! But can I have it a few more days? I won’t critique your emails anymore,” I add tamely. “Promise.”
“OK, guys!” Mark interrupts us. “Good news. I’ve found a mount. Now I’ll select some stones for you to look at. Excuse me a moment… .”
As he heads out of the room, my phone bleeps with a new text.
“It’s from Willow,” I say, glancing down. “Look.” I gesture at my hands. “Forwarding. Not passing any comment. None at all.”51
“Hrrmm.” Sam gives the same noncommittal growl he gave before when I mentioned Willow.
There’s an odd little pause. What
I know he can be growly and curt, but I still can’t see him with a self-obsessed, whingy bitch like Willow. Especially now I’ve met him in the flesh. She must be really, really,
“Loads of people are replying to the email about Lindsay’s birthday,” I observe, to fill the silence. “
“Round-robin emails are the work of the devil.” Sam barely misses a beat. “I’d rather shoot myself than reply to one.”
Well,
This Lindsay is obviously popular. Every twenty seconds some fresh
Oh, I can’t stand it. How hard is it to type
“Can’t I write
“Fuck’s
Happy birthday, Lindsay! I type defiantly. Hope you’re having a great time today. Well done again on that website strategy, it was awesome. Best wishes, Sam.
Hurriedly, I send it, before he can wonder why I’m typing so much.
“What about the dentist?” I decide to push my luck.
“What
“Here we are!” The door opens and Mark appears, holding out a dark-blue velvet tray. “These are our simulated emeralds.”
“Wow,” I breathe, my attention torn away from the phone.
In front of me are ten rows of gleaming emeralds. I mean, I know they’re not real, but quite frankly I couldn’t tell the difference.52
“Is there any stone which strikes you as having a resemblance to the one you’ve lost?”
“That one.” I point to an oval rock in the middle. “It’s almost exactly the same. It’s amazing!”
“Great.” He picks it up with a pair of tweezers and places it on a small plastic dish. “The diamonds are obviously smaller and less noticeable, so I’m fairly confident of a match. You want a little distressing?” he adds. “Take the shine off?”
“Can you do that?” I say in amazement.
“We can do anything,” he says confidently. “We once made the Crown Jewels for a Hollywood movie. Looked absolutely genuine, although they never even used them in the end.”
“Wow. Well … yes, please!”
“No problem. We should get this knocked out in”—he glances at his watch—“three hours?”
“Great!”
As I stand up, I’m astounded. I can’t believe this was so easy. In fact, I feel quite exhilarated with relief. This will see me through a couple of days and then I’ll get the real thing back and it’ll all be OK.
When we return to the showroom, I sense a rustle of interest. Martha’s head pops up from the book she was writing in, and a couple of girls in dove gray are whispering and nodding at me from their position by the door. Mark leads us over to Martha again, who beams at me even more widely than before.
“Look after these lovely people for me, Martha, will you?” he says, giving her a folded piece of paper. “Here are the details. Bye, again.”
He and Sam shake hands warmly, then Mark disappears off to the rear of the shop.
“You look happy!” Martha says to me with a twinkle.
“I’m so happy!” I can’t contain my delight. “Mark’s brilliant. I just can’t