Page 58 of Devil in Disguise
So he’d bought it. But he’d bought her something else, too, that was being resized right now. “This one’s for me,” he’d told her. “You love it, I love it, and, all right, I want to think that you’ll wear it every day, and know what it means.”
“On my right hand, obviously,” she’d said, and he’d answered, absolutely recklessly, which was something he’d never in his life been accused of, “If that’s how it has to be.”
It was a ring. A huge, oval opal, a good three-quarters of an inch long, its brilliant peacock blues flaring against a black background, set at a diagonal amongst a nest, or maybe a wreath, of intricately carved gold branches and leaves, the cut ends of the branches sealed with diamonds. The body of the ring sat below the finger, on the back of her hand, and it was nothing like anything he’d ever seen. That ring said, “Somebody who loves me gave me this,” and if it also said, “Somebody who could afford it gave me this,” he didn’t mind that one bit. Seemed he could do the rich-guy thing after all, when it mattered.
And then there was what the clerk had said when Dyma had asked, “Aren’t opals bad luck?” The woman had answered, “That was Sir Walter Scott, in one poem. The stone used to be seen as a talisman for the creative force, because of the way the colors dance under the surface, especially in a black opal like this one. It was also known as a symbol of fidelity and assurance. The colors can change with the light, you see, but the stone remains.”
Needless to say, he’d bought it. He wanted to think of it on her finger, and that she could look down at it and remember that he was that mountain.
And, finally,
3. The thing he’d carried around for a whole day, protecting it from soup splashes and cafeteria floors. What he’d bought her at Neiman-Marcus, all the way back in Houston, that he’d wanted to give her in person, when he could see it on her. A swirling, knee-length coat made of alpaca and wool, patterned in Peruvian designs, in rusts and browns and blacks. Like an Indian blanket, but the most refined one ever. That coat said, “Western.” That coat said, “Wyoming.” She was wearing it now over the T-shirt, over the bare feet, as she kissed him goodbye. It went with the bracelet, and it went with Dyma, all the fire and all the earthbound practicality of her. A coat to wrap her up when he couldn’t.
When he set her down at last and walked away, people were staring. And when he looked back, she was watching him go. A smile on her face and, he thought, tears in her eyes.
Her own woman. And one hundred percent his.
At last.
* * *
She thoughtabout taking a deep breath before she went into her dorm room, and then she didn’t. What was it her mom had said, that day when she’d dropped her off?
“That’s how I win,” it had been. “I’m above it all. I don’t notice. They can take me on my own terms or not at all, and I can be privately amused by their misconceptions. What does it matter to me?”
That was how she felt today. Also, she’d spent a fair amount of the last six or seven years rolling her eyes at her mom’s worldview. Either Jennifer had suddenly gotten a whole lot smarter, or Dyma had gotten a little bit wiser. She had a feeling she knew which it was.
She opened the door.
Sydney and Cassandra were both in there, so that kind of sucked. On the other hand, no question she was above it all right now. Perfect timing, really.
She didn’t say hello. She stuck the plastic bag with her dirty clothes into her closet—would those stains ever come out of those jeans?—grabbed clean clothes, and headed into the bathroom. When she came out fifteen minutes later, she hung Owen’s T-shirt up on the hook with her bathrobe, because she was wearing that thing as a nightgown tonight, and imagining she could still smell Owen on it. She went to grab her book and notebook for her Electromagnetism class and figured that she could study for that test this afternoon, and for her Statics midterm tonight, with Pavani. She could do this. Shehadto do this. And you could say she’d wasted last night, but she’d needed last night.
“Hey,” Sydney said, and Dyma just about dropped the ultra-heavy book on her toe.
She wondered what “above it all” meant in this situation. She decided that since she had no idea, she’d channel her mom. “Hey,” she said back. Not friendly. Civil. Cool. Remote. Of course, since she’d never been cool or remote in herlife,it probably wasn’t a perfect rendition of the one syllable, but still. She gave it a shot.
Sydney said, “We were wondering if you want to hang out tonight. Some of us are doing a mani/pedi party.”
“Yeah, no,” Dyma said. “I’m busy tonight.”
“Oh, come on,” Cassandra said. “It’ll be fun.”
“I know we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot,” Sydney said, “but we just didn’t have enough of a chance to get to know each other. Plus, to be honest? You were ateensybit bitchy. But like my friend Joelle always says—she’s amazing, and her dad started at Amazon back when Jeff’s desk was just an old door—‘You might not get a second chance to make a first impression, but you always have a chance to make yournextimpression.’ Joelle’ssupersmart. She went to Stanford. Shekilledit on the SATs. So Ithink we shouldalltry to make our next impression.”
“We have to live together,” Cassandra chimed in. “We might as well get to know each other better, don’t you think?”
“You mean, ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?’” Dyma asked.
“Well, notexactly,”Sydney said. “But OK.” She smiled. “And maybe wecanbe friends. Like I said, it was the wrong foot.”
“Because I’mnotpoor,” Dyma said. “Or, rather, because mymom’snot poor. Because it turns out she’s marrying Harlan Kristiansen, and he does his best to buy out Tiffany’s for her. Because my earrings that I heard you laughing about, that look like they’re screwed together, are from Cartier, and the diamonds are real, since it turns out that my boyfriend’s a star, too.”
“Well, no,” Sydney said. “I meant—”
“Yeah,” Dyma said. “I think I got what you meant. You’re wondering ifyoucan meet some NFL players. Only the quarterbacks, obviously. Or possibly a wide receiver. I mean,Idid it, and I’m from Bumfuck, Idaho, and kind of trashy, and probably only got Owen by … well, you can’t even imagine, but it was probably dirty. Which means that fabulous young women like yourselves, whose dads were ushers at Bill Gates’s wedding or whatever, should havenoproblem. You want to know why Harlan’s marrying my mom?”
“Well, obviously …” Cassandra started to say, and Sydney said, “Shut up, Cass.”
