The Favoured, The Fair and Ms. Vérité Claire

3 Just Desserts

Julia unpinned Vérité and set her sights on the dress form. Her first official design for her best and now only customer was a shantung skirt to wear with a boat-necked sweater to a semi-formal wedding.

"Have you thought about shoes?" Julia asked.

"I thought you and I would go shopping tomorrow."

"What about accessories?"

"Julia, are you hinting at seeing my jewelry collection?"

"No," Julia said, distracted by a seam.

"Aren't you even interested?"

She turned to see Vérité wiggling steeple fingers, a gleefully greedy look on her face.

"Well...I guess," Julia laughed.

"You're relentless!" Vérité whooped. "Fine, I'll go get them. But no peeking!"

She disappeared into one of her closets and after a lot of decoy rummaging to keep her hiding place secret, (Julia thought she heard her bang a pot), she returned with a dark leather roll tied with ribbon. She flopped on the bed like a slumber-party guest and unspooled the case to show its black velvet underside and the spectacle of riches sparkling within it.

"Of course, the larger pieces are in the bank."

"Larger than this?!" Julia held up what she thought was a solid stone studded brooch.

"You silly, that's just the loupe! Now, another rule to remember is that jewelry is just as personal as perfume. It almost has to work with one's chemistry in order to come to life and reflect the light to its utmost brilliance. You shouldn't just wear anything, but you should really wear something."

Julia had a few of her own rules where jewelry was concerned, specifically, that while she would buy costume jewelry for herself, she would rather receive real gems from a loved one, as exhibited by her bare wrists and fingers. She bounced to a seat next to Vérité gamely.

Vérité selected a ring and held it before her. It was a pear shaped solitaire diamond, bigger than a giant tooth and mounted on a smooth platinum band.

"It's beautiful," Julia awed.

"One of the most beautiful things I own. This was my first engagement ring."

Julia tried to remember the order of husbands. "From Harrison?"

"No, Harry was my first marriage, but Rudy - Rudolph Colm Kelly - was my first love. His family was in oranges. Our family spent summers in Florida for a while and we met there. He was as handsome as Paul Newman with the same blue eyes. His hair was wavy and sandy coloured and he had a perfect roman nose. Oh, we were crazy for each other! We'd spend every night at the club, our parents drinking and playing cards while Rudy and I would dance and neck behind the bushes on the terrace. Then after everyone said goodnight he'd sneak over to my hotel and wait for me by the pool for a midnight swim.

"He proposed after our second summer. I was eighteen. He had a heart condition no one knew about. He died on his twenty-first birthday."

"That's so awful, Vérité."

"I should never have thrown him that surprise party. He never even finished saying, 'You shouldn't have'."

Vérité kissed the ring and tied it with ribbon back in its spot.

"Now Harrison's taste was a little less refined." She unfolded a pocket with dozens of gold bracelets, bangles and hoop earrings. "He was a confirmed bachelor till nearly fifty when we met at an auction house. I was still mourning Rudy in a way, but Harry pursued me like it was his reason for living! He was so brash; a man who got what he wanted and did he want me! Well, I thought he was the furthest thing from Rudy so it wouldn't be disloyal to him. I was eager to get married at twenty and thought I'd make a good lawyer's wife and I did. He used to call me Little Sheba. He was Solomon in his mind and he wanted me all bangled up like the Lollobrigida of Bourbon St. I liked it for a while until his mid-life crisis took off. He blamed me for his getting old and went out sniffing for the hair of the dog . Lawyer or not, there's no getting around an eighteen year old mistress who likes to brag. I tell you it was a good nine years, but if I ever fall on hard times, these toe rings will be the first to go."