The Necklace: A true story of 13 women, 1 diamond necklace and a fabulous idea. Cheryl Jarvis
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу The Necklace: A true story of 13 women, 1 diamond necklace and a fabulous idea - Cheryl Jarvis страница 4
Название: The Necklace: A true story of 13 women, 1 diamond necklace and a fabulous idea
Автор: Cheryl Jarvis
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Биографии и Мемуары
isbn: 9780007380435
isbn:
‘Whatever,’ she said. And that was all she said.
Priscilla stayed in the back room. She had no curiosity about the women. She had no interest in being part of the group. She had no interest in owning a necklace she could have borrowed any time she wanted anyway. All she could think was that if her husband kept making deals like this they’d be out of business. She went back to the books to try to work out a way to make up for the day’s losses.
But Tom Van Gundy saw something his wife didn’t. He saw a group of women unlike any others he’d come across in his twenty-seven years of selling to women, talking to women, understanding women. He saw a collective vitality, an unexpected opportunity. He saw possibility.
Possibility was what Jonell’s vision was all about. It wasn’t about a necklace as an accessory. It wasn’t about diamonds as status or investment. It was about a necklace as a social experiment. A way to bring women together to see what would happen. Could the necklace become greater than the sum of its links, thirteen voices stronger than one?
Jonell’s confidence wasn’t misplaced. By the time her Visa bill arrived three weeks later, she’d found the final four investors she needed. Apart from the jeweller’s disgruntled wife, there were old friends, new friends and friends of friends. Their ages ranged between fifty and sixty-two so all but one qualified as part of that eclectic generation known as the ‘baby boomers’. One of them had been married and faithful to one man for thirty-plus years, while another had had three husbands and dozens of lovers, and some were single but dating. Some were childless while the rest had up to four children, of ages ranging from ten to grown-up. There were doting grandmothers, card-carrying conservatives and lifelong liberals. Some had advanced degrees, others high school diplomas. They had stuck to one career or jumped from job to job, and they worked in finance and farming, medicine and teaching, business and property, media and law. Some came from wealthy families and others were completely self-made. They were Catholic and Jewish, feminist and traditionalist, blonde and grey-haired.
No woman said yes to Jonell’s proposition just because she was interested in jewellery or diamonds. No woman said yes to the necklace because she lusted to wear it. Some wrote a cheque without even seeing it. Each bought a share because, as Tom sensed intuitively, it represented possibility.
What the women didn’t know was that over the next few years the necklace would animate their lives in ways they could never have imagined. More importantly, it would start a conversation. About materialism and conspicuous consumption, ownership and non-attachment. About what it means today to be a woman in her fifties, potentially looking at another thirty to forty years of life. About the connections we make and the legacies we leave.
This is the story of a necklace but it isn’t the story of a string of stones. It’s the story of thirteen women who transformed a symbol of exclusivity into a symbol of inclusivity and, in the process, remapped the journey through the second half of their lives.
CHAPTER TWO Patti Channer, the shopping queen
Rethinking her love of possessions
JONELL SAILED OUT OF VAN GUNDY’S with the diamond necklace and a quick prayer that the other women would come through with their cheques. But she didn’t have time to worry about that now. She was throwing a party that evening and, being the last-minute hostess that she was, she still needed to clean the house and sweep the patio and pick up the food. But nothing could dull the excitement she felt at the thought of wearing the diamond necklace. At six o’clock, she slipped into her black yoga leggings and a silk zip-up top the colour of aubergines. Her philosophy of clothes was simple styles and the best of fabrics. She circled her neck with the diamonds and stared at them.
Looking in the mirror, she realised that the necklace was perfect for her. Her short blond hair, her frameless glasses, her minimalist make-up – the necklace looked good with all of it, including her one concession to glamour, her acrylic nails with their deep red varnish. She adjusted the arc of the diamonds to the scoop of her neckline.
No question, she thought, this necklace is amazing. I think I’ll keep it. The feeling of possessiveness vanished as quickly as it arose, but Jonell was astonished to discover that she had it at all.
The next week, Jonell composed her first e-mail to the women: ‘It’s about time we got this fabulous group together. Let’s meet Thursday, 11 November, at four p.m. Please come prepared to talk about the following: the necklace’s name, how to divide up the time, insurance, considerations (how we’ll refer to rules) and anything else that seems fun, relevant or not…You realise we have created the possibility of being in each other’s lives for the rest of the ride. I can’t wait to see what happens next.’
Priscilla Van Gundy read the e-mail. She’d forgotten all about the necklace and the deal her husband had negotiated; she’d probably repressed it since it was a financial loss for them. ‘Jeez,’ she thought, ‘Who’s got time for a meeting with a bunch of women?’ Her reply was terse: ‘I won’t be able to make it. I have to work.’
Seven kilometres away, Patti Channer read the same e-mail, relieved to see an agenda. Patti liked structure. She had agreed that the meeting could be held at her house, so she replied playfully to the e-mail: ‘I’ll be there.’
Well, she pulled it off, Patti thought to herself, remembering their conversation four weeks ago when Jonell had first approached her.
Patti had been driving around downtown Ventura, running errands and listening to a talk show on the radio when her mobile phone rang.
‘I want to run something by you,’ Jonell said in her typically excited way, talking faster than the rate of knots. Nothing unusual there. What Patti hadn’t heard before was Jonell speed-talking about – could it be jewellery? A diamond necklace? Patti pulled over to the kerb so she could focus.
‘If you and I could do this together and get ten others…’
The more Jonell talked, the more confused Patti became. How could Jonell want to spend money on something she’d always considered frivolous? Jonell hadn’t even bothered to replace some jewellery that had been stolen from her house. She’d met the loss with dismissal: ‘They were just things.’
When the two of them went shopping in Santa Monica last year, Patti bought an expensive shoulder bag of crochet-wrapped burgundy leather and Jonell was aghast. ‘How can you spend five hundred dollars on a handbag?’ she asked.
Patti defended the purchase as a piece of art. Jonell parried that with the fact that she could feed six people for a month with the money.
It was easy to understand how the two women had arrived at their different philosophies of spending. Jonell’s income from estate agency commission fluctuated, so she had to be careful to plan for the troughs with the money from the peaks. Patti’s income from managing her husband’s dental practice was steady. Jonell had two children she helped financially. Patti didn’t have children, so she didn’t have to deny herself. It’d been a running tension between them for the twenty-five years СКАЧАТЬ