Cheryl Jarvis - The Necklace - A true story of 13 women, 1 diamond necklace and a fabulous idea

Maggie smiled warmly at Priscilla, but actually she felt just as much an outsider. So many women in the group had long-term husbands, while her marriage was disintegrating. So many came from the area, while she had moved there. Although most of the women in the group were mothers, she was the only one whose children still lived at home.

Priscilla smiled back at Maggie, then found her eyes drawn to another woman in the group, the woman at the head of the table with cascading blonde hair, a red sweater and the diamond necklace. Priscilla had seen the necklace in the shop for over a year but she’d never seen it look the way it looked today. The midday sun, streaming rays of light through the inn’s tall windows, magnified the brilliance of the diamonds and cast an aura around the Woman in Red. It wasn’t just her face that was suffused with light – it was her whole being. Was it that the necklace needed to be worn to look this beautiful, Priscilla wondered, or was it this time, this place, these women?

Priscilla believed in signs. The first time she’d laid eyes on Tom Van Gundy she saw a light surrounding him, knew in that moment he was the man she was going to marry. The feeling was powerful, spiritual even. She felt something momentous happening here, too. Not as potent as when she’d been a teenager, this feeling registered more as a tremor, but still, she felt something shift in the ground beneath her and she knew she wanted to belong.

Meanwhile, the women were thinking their own thoughts about Priscilla. Every one of them admired her courage in joining a group where she knew no one. A few wondered how this quiet woman would fare with the loud and bawdy characters among them.

When the women were finished with their salads, Jonell passed out an agenda for the meeting.

Number 1: Who’s been naughty and/or nice? Hopefully both.

Number 2: The cost of the insurance on the necklace: $88.46 per woman.

Number 3: How does everyone feel about donating towels for a community project to help the homeless?

The women wrote cheques to cover their share of the insurance, they chatted about what had happened to the necklace in the last month, it was handed over to the next woman and then at last they got up to leave. They warmly said their good-byes to Priscilla, one by one effusing over how delighted they were to have her in the group. Priscilla, herself, couldn’t stop smiling.

That evening at dinner Tom saw Priscilla smile for the first time in a long while, her smile revealing teeth as white as the whites around her warm, brown eyes, now crinkling. He’d fallen in love with that smile when they were both at school, when he was a starting quarterback in the football team and she was a cheerleader.

‘It’s a great group of women,’ Priscilla said. ‘Thank you for making me part of it.’

‘I didn’t do anything.’

‘Of course you did.’

‘I just saw those women having so much fun together and I wanted that for you.’

‘I didn’t realise how much I wasn’t like that.’

‘You used to be.’

‘I don’t know what happened.’

‘I don’t know either.’

Can any of us pinpoint the moment when we’ve lost our younger selves, lost joy in the simple things, stopped celebrating life? For years – decades – we work, raise a family, plant begonias. Then one day we wake up to chemotherapy and eulogies and nursing home visits and the realisation that we haven’t had a real holiday in years. And all we can do is ask: how did life get so hard?

When Jonell e-mailed the group with the date and place for the next meeting, Priscilla responded immediately: ‘I’ll be there. Looking forward to it.’ This time she really meant it.

But once at the meeting, Priscilla was her reticent, quiet self. She wondered if she’d ever have the confidence to speak as easily and assuredly as so many of the others. In the neighbourhood where she grew up she’d learned survival skills, but not the fine art of small talk. She noticed the women expressed differing opinions, but without raising their voices like the male pundits on the TV news. The women didn’t call one another ‘wrong’ or ‘stupid’. Priscilla had never encountered such civility in dissension. She wondered if the women would be as gracious when she spoke. She felt the same acceptance at the second meeting that she’d felt at the Pierpont Inn – more than acceptance, a sense she was valued, someone special. Her enjoyment in being with the women was beginning to outweigh her fear of not measuring up.

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