Shaddyr's Eclectic Collection > Pretender Fanfiction > Liz Shelbourne > What Goes Around... 

 

What Goes Around…
By Liz Shelbourne

Catherine Parker walked along the crowded aisle of the outdoor antique fair, her flowered dress blowing in the wind.  As was typical, she was the best-dressed woman there, perhaps even a bit over-dressed, but going to the fair had been a last minute decision, and she had not had the time to change.

No matter what, her daughter thought that she was the most beautiful woman on the earth.  Today was one of those glorious days where she had her mother all to herself – no sharing with Daddy or anyone at The Centre, just the two of them, all day long.

 They strolled along hand in hand, pausing occasionally to look at this trinket or that, or a table that held some curious collection.  Occasionally, they would walk ten or fifteen feet away from a particular vender and then burst out giggling, but not cruelly.  Catherine knew her antiques, she also knew that more than one of the ancient looking plates, cups or knick-knacks were hardly more than a few years old.  Sometimes the nerve of some of the dealers astonished her, as did the gullibility of some of the people shopping around them.   Twice, she offered her assistance to a would-be buyer, suggesting that an item might not be quite worth its quoted price.  The venders no doubt despised her for her interference, but no one was willing to say anything to the woman with the dazzling smile and the no-nonsense eyes.

And her daughter loved her all the more for it.

Near the end of one of the rows of tables set up in the grassy field, they came upon a woman with a varied collection of jewelry and hats.  The vender, a wrinkled grandmother sitting back in a lawn chair, nodded when Catherine asked if they could try on some of the hats, and offered an oversize hand mirror with a pink plastic handle.  They looked through the collection, a nice one, Catherine thought.  The hats were even old enough to be fragile.  Catherine picked up a bonnet with faded silk flowers and Russian veiling while her daughter tried to get a flapper’s headband, complete with beads and feathers, to stay up on her small forehead.  They laughed at each other and mugged for the mirror, then tried on a few more before Catherine decided to purchase the bonnet.  If nothing else, it would be a nice hat for working in the garden.

As she waited for the old woman to give her change, her eyes wandered over the selection of jewelry on the table.  Most of it was costume pieces, a few of better quality or with semi-precious stones.  She offhandedly picked up a large silver ring, squared off along the top in a bold design.  “Sweetheart,” she called, more to summon her wandering daughter than to show her the ring.  A nice ring, but nothing that she needed badly.  She looked at it once again in the sunlight, smiled and placed it back on the velvet-lined tray. Taking her change from the old woman, she turned to find her daughter at her side.

They wandered through the last of the aisles of antiques and assorted other treasures and paused to listen to a folk band who had set up near the makeshift parking lot.  The music was neither good nor bad, but sounded better for being in the open air.

“Mom?”

“Yes, darling.

“Mom, could I run back to the fair and buy something?  I didn’t know that I wanted it, but now, I think I do.”

Catherine looked at her child, so close now to becoming a woman.  She smiled knowingly; these moments of indecision would become more and more common in the near future.  “Of course.  Do you have enough money?”

She was already calling over her shoulder as she sprinted across the grass back to the tables. “Yes, I do.  I’ll be right back.”

On the way home, Catherine tried to pry the secret of the purchase from her daughter, but to no avail. She was rewarded only with an enigmatic smile and a “you’ll find out” look.  She knew it could not be large, it fit into the girl’s small clutch purse, but she could not find out what was hidden inside.
The next morning, as she was sitting at her dresser, brushing out her long hair, a second face, fresh as the new day, popped into the mirror.

“Good morning, Sunshine," she greeted, turning to kiss the young girl on the top of the head.  “Did you sleep well?”

“Very well, thank you.”  Sometimes the girl’s formality struck her mother.  It might be time, Catherine thought, for her to get away, to go somewhere where she could be with children her own age, with other girls and, of course, boys.  The Centre was no place to raise a child.

A tiny wrapped box was placed on the table in front of her.  “Here, Mom.  I want you to remember what a wonderful day we had yesterday, so I got you this.”

Catherine’s eyes paused for a moment on the gift, then moved to see the giver.  She blinked a few times as she took in the love that was in her daughter’s eyes.  It had been a wonderful day together.  No matter what, she would not have forgotten it.

Opening the tiny box, she found inside the bold silver ring.  “I saw you looking at it,” the girl explained, “I thought you might want it.”

Smiling, Catherine slipped it onto the ring finger of her right hand, but it was much too large.  “Oops,” she laughed, and tried it on the middle, and then the index finger of that hand.  She held it out for both of them to see.  “It’s beautiful, sweetheart.  Thank you so very much.”  She hugged her daughter tightly.”

“You don’t have to wear it everyday, you know.  Only when it goes with what you’re wearing.”  The child sounded like the fashion editor of a magazine, and Catherine couldn’t help but to grin.  Her daughter already had a style of her own.  What would the boys be saying ten years from now?

She tipped her head to the side and looked at the ring more closely.  “You know, this almost looks like a signet ring, the kind that they used to press into sealing wax.  I think I might have some, here, let me show you.”

Together they walked into the room where Catherine kept her paintings, her letters.  She reached into a drawer and pulled out a pale pink envelope, a sheet of notepaper and a square of red wax.  Smiling, she wrote a quick message on the paper, not allowing her daughter to see it, then slid it into the envelope.  She lit a match, heated the wax and they both watched as it dripped onto the flap.  Twisting her hand, she pressed the ring into the warm wax, leaving a rectangular indentation.
Handing the envelope to the girl, she took off the ring once again and looked at it more carefully. “I didn’t notice it before, but see?  There seems to be design on the sides, but not on the top.  Just a little swirl or something, right along the edge.”

Her daughter peered at the ring, noting the shallow etchings that looked like tiny vines, then turned back toward the envelope.  “You can see just the tip, where the wax is thick.”  She grinned.  “It is like a signet ring, just our own.  We can send letters to each other and seal them with it.

“That sounds like a wonderful idea.”  Catherine hugged her once more tightly.  “Today I’ll wear it in to work so that everyone can be jealous. Then, tomorrow or the next day, you look for another special letter sealed with this.  Then you’ll know that it’s from me, and nobody else.”

 ~ ~ O ~ ~
 

“Hello, Daddy.”

The elder Parker looked up from the papers he had been reading at his desk and smiled.  “Angel!  What are you doing here?  Shouldn’t you be off at school already? Not that I’m not glad to see you, it’s just that…”

Miss Parker walked slowly around the office, her fingers running over the corner of the desk, the filing cabinet in the corner.  “It’s only a few days after New Years, no one is back at school yet.”  She looked at him pointedly.  “I’m not surprised that you didn’t know the date, you haven’t been home since Christmas.”

“Why of course I know the date, it’s, it’s…” His eyes searched rather frantically over his desk, trying to spy a calendar.  When they finally lit upon one, it almost seemed as if he blanched a bit.  The bluster certainly went out of his voice.  “Well, it’s your birthday, Angel.  Of course.”

His daughter looked at him from below arched brows.  “You had no idea, Daddy, did you?”

“Well, I, I…. I’ve been very busy lately, with our Arab contacts.  Not everyone celebrates the holidays, you know.  But your birthday, now, that’s a different matter” He stood and walked toward her, grasping her hands in his own.  It still amazed him how tall she was getting; she was almost looking him directly in the eye.

“How `bout you and I go out and have a nice dinner.  We can go to that Italian restaurant that you like so much, the one where the waiters are always flirting with you.”  He watched in pleasure as she blushed.  “How would you like that, huh?  And then, tomorrow, I’ll give you the credit cards and you can go and buy yourself what ever you want.  Sixteen only comes around once, now, doesn’t it?”

“Dinner would be wonderful, Daddy.  But there’s really only one thing that I want for my birthday.”

“What is it?  You name it, nothing is too good for my Angel on her Sweet Sixteenth.”

“There was a ring, a ring of Mom’s.  It was squared off on the top, just a plain silver ring.  I bought it for her before…” Her voice caught in her throat.  “I haven’t seen it since you packed up her things.  I was hoping that you knew where it was.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Angel.”  Her father walked over to his desk and sat down.  He rubbed his hands over his face and sighed.  “Most of her things I gave away, I just couldn’t bear to see them. A ring, a plain ring, I don’t think I would have kept that.”  He looked up and saw the tears forming in his daughter’s eyes, saw the struggle between anger and understanding playing across her features.  It would be so easy for her to lash out at him.  Even as he had done it, he had wondered about the wisdom of giving Catherine’s things away, but it simply hurt too much to have them around, brought up too many awful, painful memories.  He had kept a few things to be sure, for the future, a box or two for them to go through when the hurt was not so deep.  Obviously his daughter was not at that stage yet.  Maybe next year.

He rounded the desk once more and put his arms around her quivering form.  “You know, Angel, if I had had any inkling that it was important, I would have saved it.  I’m sorry.”

“I understand, Daddy,” she said, even though it was obvious that she did not.  She tried a brave smile.  “It was just a ring.  Just a ring.”

Later that night, she sat on the floor of her room, a box open before her.  The bottle of wine that she had shared with her father at the restaurant had left her feeling warm and a little tipsy.  Reaching inside, she pulled out a pink envelope, previously sealed with red wax.  She opened the envelope carefully, extracting a matching pink piece of stationery.  As she read the words written years before, her eyes misted over, and she brushed away the tear that fell onto her cheek.  She gently laid the paper back in the box, closed the cover and pushed it back into the recesses of her closet.  The envelope she slid into a folder.  Tomorrow, she thought to herself with determination.  One way or another, Daddy would get her that ring.
 

~ ~ O ~ ~
 

Another wild goose chase, Miss Parker thought to herself.  What in the world was she thinking, following this lead of Lyle’s to, of all places, a department store?  What possible reason could Jarod find for working here?

Her eyes wandered through the throng of people, following the faux-marble walkway up past Better Women’s and onto Cosmetics.  She had sent Broots and Sydney to the lower level to see if they could manage to find their quarry somewhere between Housewares and Men’s Suits (Lord knows Broots would never find anything to distract him from the chase in that department.)  Meanwhile, she scanned the pre-Valentine’s Day Shoppers and looked for the Personnel Department.  It would probably be her luck that Jarod would have the day off.

Half an hour later, she snapped close her phone and shoved it into the pocket of her coat.  He wasn’t here, that was plain.  The store had lain off most of its Christmas help and hadn’t hired anyone else since the New Year.  There were no employee’s who even remotely resembled the Pretender on their roster.  She sighed.  She was giving Syd and Broots five minutes to meet her in Jewelry, and then she was leaving, with or without them.  The paper cutout Cupids and hearts taped to the mirrored columns were making her depressed.  Another one of Lyle’s sick little jokes.

“Would you like your jewelry cleaned while you look?”  The chirpy voice surprised Miss Parker out of her reverie.  Her eyes had been wandering through the case of glittering baubles in front of her, not that any of the information had made its way to her brain.

She smiled up at the counter girl, noting that she looked no more than seventeen or eighteen.  Odd that they would give someone so young the keys to the candy store, per se.  “No, thanks.  I’m just waiting for someone.”

“That’s a very interesting ring,” the chirpy voice continued, and they both looked down at the silver band on Miss Parker’s hand.  “It’s a cool design, I’ve never seen anything like it.   I bet you if it got cleaned and polished, it would look even better, maybe get rid of that black stuff.”

Miss Parker glanced at her watch, then at the ring again.  Six minutes since she had called the Dynamic Duo.  Broots had probably gotten lost somewhere in the Hawaiian shirt department and Sydney was trying to come up with some deep psychological motivation for getting him out.
As for her ring, well, it did look a little dirty.  She could see scratches where the dirt had accumulated; it had been a very long time since she had last taken it off.  Pulling it off her index finger, she handed it to the girl.  “Thank you,” she glanced at the name badge “Anne.  If you can do it quickly.  I have to leave soon.”

“Sure, no problem.”  The young girl turned around a corner of the back display and Miss Parker could soon hear the buzzing sound of the sonic cleaner.

Left alone, Miss Parker looked into the brightly-lit case in front of her once again.  Heart pendants, heart earrings, heart rings.  Why did everyone want to wear hearts?

A hand grabbed at her sleeve.  “Miss Parker, I found you!”  Broots was breathless.  “We saw him, Jarod, going down the escalator from the third floor while we were going up.  He’s on this floor!  Syd’s looking for him, I said I’d come to get you.”

“What were you doing going-“ she started, but then stopped and shook her head when she saw the sheepish look stealing across Broots’ face.  “Never mind,” she snapped.  “Go to the mall entrance, make sure he doesn’t get out that way.  Well, go!”

Broots ran off as she reached for her phone, simultaneously looking around for the young sales girl.  She was gone, probably on a candy bar break or something.  “Damn.”  For a moment, she considered jumping the counter and retrieving her ring, but the idea of being surrounded by store security thugs while Jarod strolled by grinning was too much.  She would have to come back for the ring later.
 
 

Jarod walked around the corner of the nearby perfume display, watching as his would-be captor strode off toward another area of the store.  Momentarily, the young girl appeared from behind the display cabinets and moved toward him.  She wore a conspiratorial smile.

“Is this for some kind of a Valentine’s Day present, Jarod?” she asked as she handed him the silver ring.  “I hope you know what you’re doing, she’s going to be pretty ticked off when she comes back here and me and her ring are gone.”

Jarod held the silver ring up to the light and smiled.  “She’ll be upset, but only for a short while.  And yes, it is kind of a Valentine’s present, from someone who loved her very much.”  He looked into the young girl’s eyes.  “Thank you, Anne, I couldn’t have done this without you.”

“Anything you want, Jarod, you just name it.  You kept my daddy out of jail and found the person who was responsible for the embezzling here.  I owe you a whole lot more than just pretending to be a jewelry counter clerk.”  She hugged him, removed her nametag and ventured out into the crowd of shoppers.  Jarod turned and walked the other way.
 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
 

The phone rang on the corner of the desk.  “What?”  Miss Parker’s customary response was more acid than usual.

“Get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”

Rolling her eyes, she reached for the glass of water nearby and washed down the two pills that she had in her hand, then waved away the courier who brought a pile of envelopes and set them on her desk.  “What is it, Jarod?  I don’t have time for your cute remarks this morning.  Thanks to you, not only do I have to try to track you down, but I also have to find the ring I lost in that tacky little department store.”

“Oh, poor Miss Parker.”  The sarcasm was evident in his voice.  “You really shouldn’t let people you don’t know well take the things you care about.  A lesson your father should learn, too.”

“What about Daddy?  Is there a point to this, because I have to check on the cell that you’re going to be living in when I catch you!”

There was a pause on the other end of the line.  “You have a gift, Miss Parker, laying on your desk.  Consider it a late birthday present, or an early Valentine.”

Shuffling through the correspondences that lay before her, she found the small envelope and ripped it open.  A business card fell out.  She turned it over; it was blank on the backside.  The front bore the raised letters that spelled out “Karthauser Jewelers.”  She was familiar with the name, it was a small jeweler near her father’s home.  It had been the place that she had taken the letter with the seal so long ago…

Spinning out of her chair, she grabbed her coat and headed out the door.  Halfway through, she bumped into a startled Mr. Lyle.

“In a hurry, Sis?”

Her eyes flashing, she gave him a feral smile.  “Jarod.  Another trail.  Maybe this one will be more productive than that wild goose chase you had me on yesterday.”  She strode past him, leaving him to watch her in puzzlement.”
 
 

The bells on the old door chimed as it opened, and a grizzled old man came out from behind a red curtain that led to a back room, looking down absently at a watch he was carrying.

“You know, Julius, you really need to get better security around here.  You wouldn’t even need a gun to rob this place, just a crowbar.”

The man grinned widely and walked from behind the velvet covered counter.  “Miss Parker,” he exclaimed with delight.  “What a sight for these old eyes.  It’s been years, how are you?”

Miss Parker leaned over and gave the old man a gentle hug.  “I’m fine, Julius, just fine.  It has been a long time.  How many grandchildren are you up to now?”

“Eighteen!  And one great, although I, for one, think that the mother is a little too young.  Ach, what are you going to do with kids these days, eh?”  He smiled kindly.  “And you, I thought I’d be making a wedding band for you by now.”

A sad look flashed across the woman’s face and he quickly retreated.  “I’m sorry, Missy, I didn’t mean to bring up a sad thing.”

“That’s alright.”  She squeezed his hand and smiled at his old nickname for her.  “You know if it ever happens, you’ll be the one to do it,” she said, then changed subjects.  “I received your card today.  I didn’t think you were the type to do a direct mailing.”

“Direct mail? Me?  That’s for those big boys in the mall.  I want to sell something, I just wait for one of my regulars to come in here.  No, this is about something else.  You wait here.  You want coffee?”

“No, thanks,” she called after him as he walked back through the red curtain.  She could hear the sound of a heavy safe being opened, creaking on its ancient hinges, then closing with a resounding clang.  The old man hobbled back into the front room, a bundle of maroon velvet in his hand.

“A couple of years back,” he started, slowly unwrapping the fabric, “a young man came in here and asked about some jewelry.  Now, it had been some years, but one of the pieces he described to me sounded pretty familiar.  One sounded like that ring I made for you for your birthday all those years ago from that wax impression you had.  At the time, I hadn’t seen any of them, but he asked me to keep an eye out, just in case they might show up.

“Now, last Saturday, Joshua Milkins, you know, he’s the one with the shop up on Downer Avenue, he’s decides to retire, and he offers me first look at what he had left.  So, anyway, I went up there and took a gander, mostly costume stuff, you know.  He did a lot on trade, society ladies looking to turn their mother’s cameo into something a little more modern and the like.  Turns out he took in a few things from a relative of yours.”  The old man looked at her from beneath his eyebrows.  “Doesn’t sound much like she told her husband that she was going to do it, either.”

Miss Parker’s voice was a whisper.  “Brigitte.”

“Well, be that as it may, I found something, called that fellow and he paid for it and said to give it to you.”  He opened up the final flap of the velvet lying in his hand.

Miss Parker’s hand shook as she reached for the silver circlet.  She picked it up slowly and turned it in the light from the overhead spots.  The top was a rectangle of polished silver, smooth to the touch, but along the sides a tiny scroll, like a vine…

Her fingers went to her lips, holding back the cry that nearly escaped.  She looked up at the jeweler, blinking to hold back the tears that threatened to spill over.  “Oh, Julius, this is it, this is hers!”  She slipped the ring onto the index finger that had been unadorned for the past twenty-four hours.  Grasping it tightly with the other hand, she held it to her lips, trying to regain her composure, then impulsively leaned across the counter to kiss the old man on the cheek, and whisper in his ear.

He blushed and nodded in understanding.  “I’m glad that’s back where it should be, with you.  Your mother was a remarkable woman.  I know she would have wanted you to have that.”

Her eyes sparkled.  “Thank you again, Julius.”  Smiling broadly, she walked out of the tiny shop and into the bright of the winter sunshine.
 
 

The old man waited, watching her as she headed down the sidewalk.  “She’s gone,” he called out.
The velvet curtains parted, and Jarod tucked his head to walk through.  He wore a wry smile.  “That went well.”

The jeweler patted the younger man on the back.  “Yes, I think it did.  You did a good thing.  It’s about time she got that ring back.  Then again, sometimes it’s better to wait for things.”

“Sometimes,” Jarod agreed quietly.

“By the way, she told me to thank you.  When you came out from the back room.”

Looking out the window, Jarod watched her climb into her car and drive off.  A remarkable woman, indeed.