Clancy Martin - How to Sell

I figure it out,” the Polack said.

I looked up from the buy I was weighing. It was a Tiffany sterling set from the 1930s. It was a huge set, over four hundred pieces, soup ladles and onyx-handled hot chocolate tureens, and even a samovar. We paid four dollars an ounce — after deducting the estimated weight of the onyx, inlaid mother-of-pearl, and ivory — which was exactly what a smelter would pay us. We could have paid as much as twelve or even fifteen dollars an ounce, but it was brought to us by one of Jim’s oldest and best customers and we knew she would take whatever we offered her. That’s how it works with regulars: because they are already sold they are much easier to screw. But you have to screw them, to make up for all of the skinny-margin deals you did to get their business in the first place. If you don’t screw your regulars you won’t be around for long.

“I figured it. What I want for my present. My birthday.”

I had forgotten her birthday was in a few weeks. Maybe she would like a nice pair of Manolo Blahnik boots, I thought. She did not spend enough money on her footwear. But I wouldn’t get off that easy. A fur. That’s what she’s after. That coat is going to set you back, Bobby, I thought. It can’t be just any fur coat. She will know the differences between them.

“You do not know?” she said. “Guess!”

“I guess I better know,” I said. “Since I’m buying it.”

“The Rolex. I want a Rolex,” she said.

“A Rolex? Would you actually wear a Rolex?”

The jewelry business really is two things, in the end: diamonds and Rolexes. The truth is there is no other luxury brand, of any kind, that has achieved the same supremacy within its area as Rolex. It’s a subject worthy of closer study.

“I change my mind about this. The Rolex is elegant. I want the boy’s size. In stainless steel. We refinish the dial pink. To make it more feminine.”

Pink? I did not understand this woman at all.

Still, I could rustle up one of those from the Watchman for a thousand, twelve hundred bucks. I was getting off cheap.

“You want to go out tonight?” I said. Thursday was our late day, we stayed open until eight, so Wendy was always asleep by the time I came home. “Want to go to Dallas, maybe?”

“Yes, I am going to Dallas tonight. But not with you,” she said. “I have business to take care of. I leave early, in fact.”

Okay, I thought. She has ordered her birthday present and now she is going to Dallas without me, leaving Jim and me with the cases to pull on her own, to do her side deals.

Maybe Jim will want to go have a few drinks, I thought. With Wendy already in bed it was a shame to waste the Thursday night.

•

I understood how grown men should view their offices. My office was supposed to be a refuge. This is my tree house, I ought to be thinking. But I preferred Jim’s office to my own. My favorite place to sit was on the other side of his desk, in one of the customers’ chairs, after closing.

“I’m moving out. I’m leaving Wendy,” I said.

I watched his face as I said it. I knew he would be pleased. Not at my unhappiness, not at all. But between brothers, if you are close, it is a victory when your brother has serious trouble with his wife. Otherwise the wife divides the two of you, at least partially.

“What a shock,” Jim said. Then he saw my face and he was gentler. “That’s a good idea,” he said. “You know what I think. That hasn’t been a real marriage for some time now. You don’t have to get divorced right away. Separate. That’s what I like to do. It makes it easier when things turn legal anyway. They are less combative. But easier on both of you, I mean. Get a little distance. Clear your head.”

Even at this desperate moment I did not like him criticizing my marriage. But I knew he was trying to encourage me.

We were sorting South Sea pearls on oversized pearl trays into calibrated colors and sizes for three matching necklaces. Jim had already sold one of the necklaces and made enough profit on the deal that the other two were free. They were astonishing. Twelve to fifteen millimeters in diameter, and white with that undertone of pink and gold that good South Seas have. You could see half a millimeter or so into the pearl, as though it were still alive in the oyster, as if it were the skin of a living human face.

“Listen to me, Bobby. The last thing you want to do is to run straight to the Polack with this,” he said. “Keep that professional. She’s your girlfriend at work, and that’s the way you want it to stay. It would be better if she didn’t even have to know you were moved out. When you’re moved out Wendy will have a closer eye on you.”

I wanted to say something but I felt too discouraged. I tried to concentrate on the pearls.

“What you need is a little clean honest fun. No connections, no worries. Remember Sylvia?” he said. “She’s playful. She’s got a healthy outlook.”

I did not call immediately. But then one night, alone in the store with the layouts and artwork for our new catalogue, I decided I might. I found the number Jim had written hidden in the back of my main desk drawer, with the other numbers on pink and blue Post-it notes I used for phone sex. Her name was on the back of it with a comment about ear studs like she was a lead. In code, in case the Polack was digging around in my desk drawer: “2–3 carats, eye-clean and white, platinum bezels.”

I had met with Sylvia once before, about a year ago, in May, at the motel behind our health club. That was my birthday present from Jim. But then on the drive back from a weekend getaway to Austin with Wendy — which was my birthday present from her — I noticed a crab on Claire’s head among her thin white hair. She was in her car seat. I etched it off with my thumbnail before Wendy could see it. The baby yelled once and then laughed. It left a red mark on her skin near where her skull grew together. I bought a box of lice ointment at Eckerd’s and did not plan on using Sylvia again.

Before I called her I called Wendy.

“How is the new apartment?” she asked me. “We came up to see you but you weren’t there.”

“I’m still at the office,” I said.

“No, yesterday,” she said. “Last night.”

I had been in Dallas with the Polack last night.

“I was probably still at the office.”

“We came by but the lights were off.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I was getting something to eat.”

“I’m not trying to start a fight. We just wanted to see you. We wanted to see your new apartment.”

“It’s depressing. You won’t like it.”

“So come home, then. We want you to come home.”

“You know I can’t come home.”

“But we want you to come home.”

“I want to come home. But I can’t.”

“When do you think you can come home? By Christmas?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Is the baby asleep?”

“No. We’re watching a movie. You want to come watch it with us?”

“I can’t.”

“I was just joking. I was just asking.”

It made me depressed to hear how much her voice had changed since I had moved out. Well, I was already depressed before I called, but more depressed. She was asking now, instead of telling.

After I hung up I sat and looked at my phone for a few minutes. The vacant store with its empty showcases and no sales-people at the desks was very quiet. The Muzak was playing. Jim was off with his new girlfriend, a crazy nineteen-year-old stripper. That would end badly. I stood and walked into the showroom. I turned off the halogens. Then it was dark on the showroom floor and my office looked more inviting. I had a Tiffany dragonfly lamp on my desk — not a knockoff, the real thing — but the bulb was burned out so I went in back and found a bulb. I replaced the bulb and turned it on. I looked at all the colored glass pieces glowing like gems. They are prettier than jewelry, I thought. People should just wear glass with electric lights inside. Then I called Sylvia.