Gilt, p.26
Gilt, page 26
Fortunately, they’d managed to keep that detail out of the press; it wasn’t exactly the association Alan wanted for Pavlin & Co’s most famous diamond. When he’d shared his concern about public perception in the hours following news of Paulina’s and Liam’s deaths, Constance was appalled. How could he think of such a thing at a time like that? “It’s my job, as head of the family, as head of a global business, to think of precisely such a thing,” he’d said. “Public perception is fickle; once we lose control of it, it will be difficult—if not impossible—to regain control of the narrative.”
“I knew you never should have given her this ring,” she said now, looking up at him.
“What?”
“That stupid competition. The problems between her and Elodie. She was running away from it—from us—and it killed her.” It was the one thing she’d been thinking over and over again, on a constant mental loop. She hadn’t been able to articulate it to him until that moment. It felt good to say it aloud, even if Alan looked horrified.
He sighed and reached for her hand. “I know you want to make sense of this. I do, too. But the reality is, Paulina was driving the boat too fast. She had the motor on instead of using the sails and they were too close to the dock. The Maybrooks’ lawyer made it clear that the toxicology reports don’t work in our favor. The accident was just that—an accident. I know you’re having a hard time making sense of it all, but it had nothing to do with the Electric Rose.”
“Maybe those newspaper articles are right: There is a curse.” She put the ring down.
“Oh, Constance. Don’t start with that tabloid nonsense.”
Constance pulled her hand away from him and jumped out of bed. “We have to protect Gemma from the press. She’s our child now.”
Alan held out his hand to her once again. “Please. Sit down. We need to talk.”
“We are talking.”
“Liam’s family is prepared to sue us for wrongful death. For millions. You’re worried about the tabloids? Let me tell you, the Maybrooks are threatening to talk. Pavlin & Co, instead of being synonymous with glamour and romance, will become a symbol of wrongful death. And think of what this could do to Paulina’s memory.”
Sue them? How could those wretched people think of money? That wouldn’t bring the kids back. And her husband seemed more concerned about the company than the fact that they’d lost their precious daughter.
“Paulina is gone. She was the face of the company. You can’t sell your way around that.”
Alan started to speak, then stopped. He looked at her with something that seemed like pity. “I hate to say it, but we’ve seen a sales spike since the accident. Paulina’s become a tragic figure. But if she’s seen as the cause of the accident, then she’s the villain.”
“What a horrible, horrible world we live in,” Constance said, sinking back against the pillows. She put her forearm over her eyes, like she did when she had a migraine. “So just pay off the Maybrooks. Whatever it takes. It’s only money.”
“They don’t want money.”
“What do they want?”
“Gemma.”
Constance barked a bitter laugh, short and loud, a single syllable that sounded like a car horn. Alan furrowed his brow.
“I’m serious, Constance. They want to raise Gemma themselves, and they don’t want us to have anything to do with her. No contact.”
“That’s not happening,” she said.
“Yes,” Alan said. “It is.”
60
It felt strange to be back in New York. The minute Gemma walked into the Casterbridge, she regretted her decision to stay there. The art deco lobby, now renovated from the original Victorian, transported her back to the fall of her senior year, when she and Sanjay had been together. There he was, behind the front desk like no time had passed. But it had. And everything was different.
Still, when he noticed her walk in his dark eyes lit up.
“You made it,” he said. “How was the trip?”
“Long,” she said, smiling. “It’s good to be here, though.” The ferry had been crowded, and she spent most of the trip mentally kicking herself over her bad judgment with Connor. And as tough as that was to think about, it was still preferable to her anxiety over the meeting with Sloan Pierce tomorrow.
She didn’t know what to expect, what to hope for. What was the best-case scenario? That she’d located the ring, obviously. But where? If it had been sold, it was as good as gone. Even if it returned to the market, she couldn’t afford to buy it back. Maybe it was on loan somewhere? She didn’t know what she should be hoping for—what was realistic to hope for.
Sanjay slid her room card across the desk.
“Thanks for the help with the discount,” she said.
“Anytime. So your meeting’s tomorrow?”
“Yeah. But first I have to go back to my storage space. The auction person wants photos of my mom and in exchange she’s going to tell me where I can find the ring.”
“I’m off tomorrow if you need help.”
She looked up in surprise. “That would be great. I’d love the company.”
They looked at each other, eyes locking. Their connection was still there. It was nothing Connor Harrison or even Monica Del Mar could diminish. Or maybe Monica was out of the picture, too.
“How’s Monica?” she said, aware of the couple standing behind her, waiting to check in.
“Great, great. She just got a job with Alice + Olivia.” The way he smiled with pride made it clear they were still very much together.
“That’s . . . great,” Gemma said. “Well, I’ll let you get back to work.”
* * *
Elodie, never a fan of Manhattan in the peak of summer, found it even more oppressive after two months on the gentle shores of Provincetown. Fifth Avenue smelled like melting asphalt and the aromatic steam coming from the street food vendors turned her stomach. Her limbs felt languid and heavy, but she had to walk briskly to avoid getting jostled by the pedestrian traffic.
She threaded her way through a crush of tourists on the corner of Fifty-Third Street. The Pavlin & Co building was hidden behind scaffolding.
“Ms. Pavlin! Great to see you,” said one of the security guards out front.
Elodie gave a queenly wave, then pushed through the revolving door into the frigid climate-controlled showroom. It was so cold compared to the blistering heat of outside that she wouldn’t have been surprised to see frost on the glass display cases. Stores often set the thermostat low to compensate for all the body heat. But there were hardly any customers. Elodie remembered the days when there was a line down the block to get in, when people would press their faces up against the glass just to catch a glimpse of the famed Pavlin jewels or, if they were lucky, Constance Pavlin herself.
She headed to the elevator bank, texting her assistant that she was on the premises; they had a meeting set for noon so Elodie could confront the negative balance sheets in person. She was dreading it.
Elodie flashed her security credentials and electronic key card to an unfamiliar guard at the elevator banks.
The lower level was even more frigid than the sales floor. She stepped out of the elevator into the fluorescent lighting, the guard on her heels. She swiped her card to get past sliding bullet-resistant Plexiglas security barriers, remembering the days when her father would bring her down as a girl, a dozen keys jangling on a chain in his pocket.
Now, nothing but silence.
The Pavlin vault was similar to a bank’s security box system, but the storage units were larger than the brick-sized cubbies in a financial institution. The jewelry was kept in numbered compartments, the contents all archived digitally. It would be easy to find what she was looking for.
The pink diamond eternity band, 6.5 carats, was the last remaining piece of the Electric Rose. It was the only thing she didn’t sell after she had the large diamond cut into pieces. She kept the ring for herself, a token of the fact that the Electric Rose should have been hers all along. She wore it on special occasions, always on her right hand, lest it be mistaken for a wedding band. But now she would give it to Celeste as a wedding gift, to be worn as it was intended by design. There was no need for her sister to know the provenance of the stones.
The platinum band felt cool in her palm. She examined the ring, trying it on one last time. Even under the cold, artificial light the stones worked their magic, so radiant they seemed to glow. Yes, this will do, Elodie thought. This will do just fine.
She slipped the ring back inside the green velvet Pavlin & Co pouch, placed the pouch inside her Hermès clutch, and headed back upstairs for her meeting. Things had been running smoothly with her working remotely, but she couldn’t sustain that forever.
I’ve never been to New York City and I don’t intend to start now.
Tito’s declaration was a deal-breaker. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life in Provincetown when she had a Manhattan-based business to run. If she and Tito were both willing to travel, to bounce back and forth, their relationship could work. But if it was going to be a one-way situation? No.
So there she was, back in the store that meant everything to her. Back in her hometown.
The problem was, it didn’t feel like home without Tito.
61
I was half expecting all this stuff to be gone,” Gemma said, surveying the piles of her boxes in the storage unit. It was oddly comforting to see it all again. Now, if she could just pull the metal door closed again and lock it up, she could merrily be on her way knowing that her things were safe. But she was there on a mission.
“Why would you think that?” Sanjay said.
She shrugged, putting her hands on her hips. “It just felt like I was leaving it behind in some way. Everything in my life feels so . . . scattered.” She reached for a box but it was too high.
“Let me get that,” Sanjay said. “This one?”
She pointed to a file box second to the top of a tall stack. She could just make out the words Photos, Family, and Mom scrawled in messy black Sharpie. Sanjay was tall enough to retrieve any of the boxes, and she realized with a pang that this was only because he had stacked them for her. He set the box on the ground at her feet, dusting off his hands.
“So, the woman at the auction house located your mom’s ring?”
“I don’t know if she found it yet, but she knows something. I’ll find out in a few hours when I meet with her.” Gemma looked around. “Ugh, of course I forgot scissors! How am I going to get all these—”
Sanjay reached into his messenger bag and produced two pairs of scissors and packing tape to reseal anything they opened. Gemma smiled at him gratefully.
She sliced through the top seam of one box, opening the cardboard flaps to find the photo albums. It was hard to imagine that people used to print out every photo and stick them in these heavy books. And her grandmother had left behind so many albums, it seemed like she must have spent half her time making them. But Gemma was thankful that she had; if all these photos had never been developed, or stuffed away in closets or old shoeboxes somewhere and lost, she’d really have nothing left. Still, she wondered what compelled her grandmother to send them all to her, when she’d heard nothing from the woman for years and years.
The leather-bound albums had thick white pages, double-sided with six photos to a side and protected under a clear sticky sheet. The spines were embossed with the dates, and she had all the albums memorized. Some of the pages had been turned so many times they’d separated from the binding. Her favorite year to look at was 1994, when her parents first got together, and at the turn of the millennium, when she was a little girl. The later albums, the ones just before her parents died, were too upsetting to look at.
Digging around in the box, she found the 1994 album and pulled it onto her lap. Her mother looked so cool, with her white-blond hair nearly down to her waist, dressed in flannel shirts tied around the waist of her sundresses. Even though it had been the grunge era, Paulina couldn’t help but look glamorous.
Gemma’s father, dark-haired and rarely smiling, looked like one of the Calvin Klein models from a Times Square billboard. He had the kind of handsomeness that called for black-and-white film. They were an “it” couple, the stuff of movies and perfume ads and novels. How could she not dream of a love like theirs? Her parents had been perfectly matched.
“May I see?” Sanjay asked.
She nodded, passing him the album while she reached for 1999 and opened to the first pages, images of herself as a shy, smiling tot always clutching her mother’s hand. Page after page, photos of white-sand beaches and turquoise water, her parents tan and always touching. Her mother wore bikinis and sarongs, barefoot and bohemian except for the diamonds on her fingers and around her neck.
Sloan would want to see the 2004 album—photos from the night of the Electric Rose tenth anniversary. Her mother had worn a Chanel gown embroidered with butterflies, and Gemma wore a matching dress custom-designed by Karl Lagerfeld himself. She still remembered how it felt to step out of the car to the barrage of camera flashes, the sound of strangers calling her name to get her to look in their direction.
“Smile pretty,” her mother said, squeezing her hand. The giant pink diamond on her mother’s ring finger bit into her palm, reminding her of how it had felt to try it on earlier in the evening, how the weight of it had felt otherworldly and magical.
Gemma closed the album and tucked it into her messenger bag.
“I want that ring back,” she said.
“Gemma, it’s gone. Sometimes you just gotta let go,” he said.
She looked up, flush with irritation that he would suggest such a thing. But the look in his eyes told her he might not be talking only about the ring. She swallowed hard, meeting his gaze.
“I’m not ready to let go.”
62
Sloan Pierce’s office on the top floor of Whitmore’s Auction House had expansive views of the East River. Gemma stared out the window while Sloan flipped through the photos.
“These are incredible,” Sloan said from her desk.
“So tell me about the Electric Rose,” Gemma said impatiently. The meeting was starting to feel like a ransom exchange, with Sloan demanding the photos immediately. She’d handed them over, and now she wanted her payback: news about where her mother’s ring had ended up.
She moved from her spot at the windows to a seat in front of Sloan’s desk. Sloan shuffled the photos absently, like a deck of cards, before placing them back inside the envelope. Then she looked up at Gemma, folding her hands in front of her on the desk.
“I mentioned before that I started searching for the diamond after your aunt’s exhibit at Pavlin & Co. But every call I made, every email I sent, was a dead end. I figured the diamond had gone underground, as some pieces do.”
“Yes, you told me,” Gemma said impatiently.
“I almost gave up. But then a source came to me.”
Gemma felt a chill run through her entire body. “Who?”
“A journalist. Regan O’Rourke. I believe you’re familiar?”
Gemma nodded, her stomach tightening into a fist.
“Apparently, while Regan was doing background research for your interview, she came across a big jewelry collector—very well-known, but very private. Impeccable taste and reputation. And this collector told Regan that she had a pair of two-carat pink diamond studs that had been cut from the larger stone known as the Electric Rose.”
“Impossible,” Gemma said.
“The collector said she’d been told by a jewelry designer she’d commissioned to create custom pieces for her that the Electric Rose had been chopped up sometime around 2007 to make a few dozen pieces.”
Gemma gripped the arms of her chair, her mouth suddenly so dry it was difficult to speak.
“That can’t be true.”
Sloan looked at her with pitying eyes, her hand resting on the manila envelope.
“Maybe,” she said, “you should speak to someone in your family.”
* * *
Elodie drummed her fingers on her vintage brass and leather desk. Behind her, out the window, Fifth Avenue teemed with tourists braving the heat to shop. The day’s New York Times style section was spread out in front of her. She hadn’t thought about the press while she’d been away, but now that she was back in her seat of power—literally—the idea of the auction felt like fun, not just a necessity.
How had she spent so much time away from the office? It must have been a sort of temporary insanity. Sure, her subordinates had kept everything running smoothly. But even that delegation of work had maybe been a mistake. It was never smart to make oneself seem dispensable.
Now she was thankful Tito had been so obstinate about the trip. It made her decision very simple. She belonged in the city. She belonged behind that desk. Whatever had bloomed between the two of them, it was over. Now she just owed it to their friendship to tell him in person. She checked her watch; if she left the city in an hour, she could be back in Provincetown just as it was getting dark. She could collect her belongings, end things with Tito, and put her energy back where it belonged.
Her desk phone rang, a call from her assistant.
“Yes?” she said, the receiver cold against her cheek.
“A visitor, Ms. Pavlin. Your niece is here to see you.”
Gemma. Since the day she was born, Elodie had never been able to see her as anything but the personification of Liam and Paulina’s betrayal. But now, maybe because she herself had tasted happiness—however fleeting—or maybe because she saw that Gemma could be an asset to the company, that feeling had changed. And she found herself almost cheerful about seeing her.
