Clancy Martin - How to Sell

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what I expect you to say now. Oh, fuck,” she said. “I knew I wasn’t supposed to see you tonight.”

“Let’s go back to my apartment,” I said. One step at a time. “You’ve never seen the whole apartment. Do you want to see Claire’s room?” Why did I say that? It was just a baby thing. It said itself.

“What a thing to say. Jesus. I need to get the hell out of here, Bobby,” she said. She looked like she might start to cry. “Pull over. Pull over right now.” I had never seen that expression on her face before.

“I am trying to talk to you. Give me a second, okay?” I said. “You just told me that we are having a baby. Can I catch up for a second? Can we talk for a minute?”

“Let me out of here. Get away from me, Bobby. Get your hands off me. Drive the fucking car, Bobby!”

I slammed on the brakes. There was a long, frightening noise, and I thought, that’s it. But we missed the telephone pole. We were up on the curb. The lights didn’t look right. I felt my face with my hands. Lisa pushed open her door and took off walking. I hurried out my door but I knew better than to try to grab her arm again. She needed her coat. All she had on was a skirt and a blue tank top. I had bought that tank top for her at Barneys one day, when I was in a hurry. I thought it was the wrong thing and almost didn’t give it to her, but then she loved it. Occasionally she would let me buy her clothes. But it was loose, you could see her whole body beneath the holes under the arms, she couldn’t wear it like that, walking down the street at two o’clock in the morning. Plus it was freezing. She would get sick. Who knew who might try to pick her up from the side of the road? She didn’t even have any shoes on.

“Lisa!” I shouted after her. “Lisa, you don’t even have your purse!”

She kept on going.

I turned around and looked at the car. I don’t even know if the damn thing is going to drive, I thought. I climbed back in and tried to start it but I couldn’t find my keys. When had I taken the keys from the ignition? I have to be at the store in six hours. I have a nine a.m. diamond appointment. My hangover was already starting.

•

When I arrived in the cab the two customers were outside our front door already, their hands in their coat pockets, waiting for me. I opened the door with my keys and let them in. Everyone smiled falsely up at them from their positions bent over the open showcases. Thousands of pieces of jewelry, our inventory twice as heavy as normal with the coming Christmas season, sat on the showcase tops in the white and blue plastic tubs. My salespeople were thinking: one less on the cases.

I had planned to switch these two to Sosa. They were referrals of mine but a young couple and easy to switch. I was exhausted. But I looked around for him and he wasn’t in yet, naturally. So the hell with it. I would sell them myself.

I took a deep breath when I sat them down at my desk. Okay, I thought. Maybe this is what you need right now, Bobby. A clean sale. A bit of sanity to start the day.

How do you sell a diamond to a young couple? It is very, very easy to do. Find out who’s in charge. Usually it is the woman. Then focus your attention on the other one: explain everything to the weak one, act as though the power’s over on that half of your desk. He’s grateful, he trusts you, he thinks you understand him, he thinks you like and respect him. Now, when you are getting down to selecting a diamond, subtly betray him. Let her know that you understand that she is the decision maker. How? Push on one stone that he likes. She won’t like it, for the obvious reasons. When she insists that that diamond, some other diamond, is really the prettiest one, agree with her: You know, I think she’s right. On your hand (ask her to extend the fingers of her left hand and hold them tightly together, and then with diamond tweezers lay the stone carefully in the groove between her ring and her index finger), there is something about that one, you are exactly right, I didn’t see it myself until now, but that one is just right. You picked it. That’s the one.

Sold.

It works just as well the other way, if the man is in charge. Maybe better, because they need it more. The belief you can give him. The belief you can sell him, sell them both. That way it’s not just jewelry they are buying. You can sell her belief in him.

They purchased the stone. It was a carat and a quarter radiant, I VS2, pleasant. A faked GIA certificate. Sosa had made it for me a few days before on our copier.

She loves it. It will appraise for twice that price! Sosa arrived and walked casually through my office. I asked him to take the job envelope to Old John: I was going to set it while they waited, so she could try it on before she left. He might give it to her then. They often did. Propose right in front of the jeweler. Well, the diamond would last.

I introduced them to Sosa. “One of our best salespeople.” I said it sincerely, but he laughed sarcastically to make them think I was mocking him. Why did he do that? I wondered.

The young woman, her hand oddly out as though the diamond were still balanced on her woven fingers, gave me an inquisitive, unhappy look. She did not want to believe I could be tricking them about anything, or that I was the kind of person who would ever do that. The particular sales technique I had used on them depended, like all lazy lying, upon unimpeachable sincerity. But he just kept on going, right through the office, and closed the rear door abruptly behind himself. I smiled at them and said something funny, “He’s late, and I get in trouble,” to put us on the same side, and they were fine again.

I rang up the card (you never really expect it to go through, and then like a locked door opening it does, and everyone feels reassured, both about themselves and one another), walked them to their car, opened her door for her, and told them I’d see them tomorrow. Old John was behind and couldn’t mount the diamond before closing, plus the platinum mounting took time to size.

Then I went into Jim’s office.

“Do you have time for lunch today?” I asked him. “We need to talk about the Polack.” He gave me a look. He was on the phone. It sounded like it was a customer he was talking to, at least.

He shook his head at me. While he was talking he wrote on his desk pad, “Let her go.” Then he tapped his pen on it. He smiled at me.

Okay, I thought. That’s how we were going to handle this. I went back to my office and sat in my chair. I tried to call Lisa. She was on the other line and she didn’t pick up. Or her phone was turned off. Or she didn’t have her phone because it was in her purse and her purse was still in my car, in the tow yard. I looked in my desk drawer for my coke. I was out. I picked up the phone and called Maria, my connection. One thing at a time, I thought. Another appointment had come in and was waiting for me there on the showroom floor. It was a custom order. He was coming to preview the diamonds for a necklace. I still had not picked the stones. I tried to decide on the best lie to tell him. Maria didn’t answer the phone. I used the beeper option, and then stood up to go greet my customer.

•

T he ceiling of the room was partially lit, through my curtains, by someone’s headlights outside my bedroom window, a floor below. I could hear one voice and then another voice. Go back to sleep, Bobby, I thought. This is no time of the night to think about things. I closed my eyes. But just then there was a tiny movement on my pillow. I opened my eyes and there was a movement, again, in the dark. It could have been my body pulling at a sheet that tugged the fabric of the pillowcase. I reached and turned on the light. There was a very small brown bug on the pillow. I put on my glasses. It was a baby cockroach. About the size of the ash on a cigarette, but a cockroach. I crushed it between my thumb and forefinger. I would have let it live if it had been some other kind of bug, I thought. But, even in my present circumstances, I could not let a cockroach run around in my bed at night.