All That Glitters Is
Not Gold
“No! I just
can't do it. That jewelry is all I have left from my family. It was my
inheritance from Grandma Hazel. I know I don't never wear any of it, but that
don't mean I don't treasure it. It would be awful hard on me to have to sell
it,” she said.
But they
were desperate. Her husband lost his job at the mine the month before. They
discharged him with two week's pay right after the accident. The tunnel roof
caved in when the shoring gave way. Three of the men were hurt. All three were
let go. It seems just being in the wrong place at the wrong time in a West
Virginia coal mine is enough to get a man fired, no matter how long or how hard
he worked for the company.
And now the
restaurant where she had been waitressing for the past eight years had closed. The new Dairy Queen out by the interstate offered more for
less. The food maybe wasn't as tasty as it was at the Mine Shaft Cafe in town,
but it was cheaper. And cheaper is what counted in these times with jobs and
money in such limited supply.
The man and
his wife had no cash left, no savings, no credit, no anything. The rent on the
company house was past due. The cupboard was empty. The only remaining
possibility would be to sell the collection of gold jewelry the woman had
inherited when her mother, father and grandmother died in a car accident the
previous year. Her grandmother had inherited it from a rich aunt in Baltimore a
long time ago. It was the only thing the woman had of any value. If only there
were some other way. But there wasn't, and they had two kids that had to be fed
and taken care of.
Together she
and her husband took the jewelry to the gold buyer in Cowen, a bigger town down
in the valley. She showed him the list, neatly printed in pencil on the back of
an old pay envelope: one gold bracelet, one gold ring with a round piece of red
glass, one gold ring with a piece of green glass, three pair of gold earrings
with glass beads hanging down, one gold pendant on a gold chain with a heavy
clear piece of glass attached.
“How much
can you give for this gold?” she asked the elderly man behind the counter.
The man
picked up his eyepiece and proceeded to examine, weigh and study everything
closely. Finally he looked up at her, shaking his head. “Sorry mam, but your
collection isn't gold, it's just brass with a thin coating of gold gilt. For me
it's not even worth messing with.”
They were
both devastated by this news. Fighting hard to hold back the tears, she started
gathering up the jewelry as her husband turned to leave.
“But I would
be interested in purchasing the gems,” the man said.
“Gems?” the
woman asked. “Aren’t they just glass?
That's what my grandma told me.”
“Why, no, mam.
Your grandmother was quite wrong. “This one,” holding up the flower-like
pendant, “is a four carat cushion-cut flawless clear diamond. The best I've
ever seen. And this one,” picking up one of the rings, “is a near perfect two
carat Burmese ruby. This other one,” pointing to the green stone, “is as fine
an emerald as I've ever come across. And these faceted earring stones are all
very good, 18 of them all together. I could only pay fifty thousand dollars
now, but could pay an additional $150,000 or so next month after I sell it all
to the traders up in New York. Would that be okay?”
The woman
just stood there, slowly nodding her head, trying hard to grasp what the man
was saying. Then she fainted, her husband catching her before she reached the
floor. But she revived quickly when he gently sat her on the little sofa in
front of the window, sunshine streaming in from a clear sky.
“Who should
I make this check out to?” the gold buyer asked as he withdrew his checkbook
from the drawer behind the counter.
Three weeks
later, the gold buyer parked his car in front of the little company house they
rented and knocked on the door. Sitting at the old wood table with the two of
them, he set aside the sweet ice tea the woman had brought to him and opened
his brief case. He removed two items.
First, he
handed a white business envelope to the man. “Here is the remainder of what I
owe you. The gems were better that I thought, so this check is for $240,000.
That's after the 10% I took out as my fee. I hope that's all right with you
folks. It's what's usual.”
Then he
handed the package to the woman. It was a small gift box wrapped in fancy white
paper. She took it without saying anything for a moment, a questioning look on
her face.
“What is
it?” she said as she unwrapped it, carefully folding and setting the paper
aside over at the edge of the table. Opening the lid of the pink pasteboard box
she gasped, her eyes wide and starting to tear up.
“Oh, thank
you mister. Thank you so much. I can't begin tell you what this means to me.”
All of her
grandmother's jewelry was there, laid out on a bed of white cotton, although
now the real gems had been replaced with real glass.
She
delicately took the ring with the dark red ruby-glass out of the box and
slipped it onto her finger, held it up in the bright ray of sunlight making its
way through the little kitchen window and wept with joy.
Howard Schneider
3.19.14
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