Carriage Trade by Stephen Birmingham Page A

think: Dyke.
    Sapphires? Well, they are sort of a problem. Smitty has looked at some gorgeous sapphires in her time, but to her a sapphire has always been an old lady’s stone. Old ladies with blue hair seem to be made for sapphires. There is a particularly lovely sapphire and diamond necklace in one of her cases right now, sold to her with documentation indicating that it once belonged to the Grand Duchess Tatiana of Russia—and it may have, though the vendor’s price was almost suspiciously low—that Smitty has always admired. But she reminded herself that she is too young for sapphires. “You’ll have plenty of time for sapphires, Smitty old girl,” she told herself. “Puh- len -ty of time.”
    But diamonds—ah, diamonds are an altogether different story. They are ageless, forever young, pure, hard carbon, flash-formed in the volcanic bubbling of the young earth’s crust. A good diamond is as beautiful on the ring finger of a teenage bride as on a dowager’s lavaliere. In the glass case in front of her is the diamond he promised her: square-cut, 3.9 carats, finest gem quality, in a perfectly simple platinum setting. Using another key, she unlocks the cabinet, picks the ring out of its black velvet pocket, and slips it on the third finger of her left hand.
    She could very easily turn, now, and walk out of the store wearing the ring. It was rightfully to have been hers. Oliver, even if he notices her walking out with an item from her own stock, would not question her. She has often borrowed items from stock before—for an important party, for instance, somewhere she might be recognized, photographed, written about. “Diana Smith, Tarkington’s savvy jewelry buyer, wearing a diamond butterfly in her hair,” Mona Potter might write. Si even encouraged this sort of thing. This sort of publicity did nothing but good for the store, and it cost Si absolutely nothing. He always encouraged his executives to look their absolute and most expensive best when they went out in public. It helped the store’s image. Longtime salesladies, whom Si trusted, were even allowed to borrow designer apparel from the store’s inventory. Smitty has done this too.
    Right now, Smitty could go into her office and erase this item of her inventory from her computer’s memory and that would be the end of it.
    Except …
    Except for Tommy Bonham, of course. Tommy Bonham’s eyes always seem to be everywhere in the store. His memory itself is like a computer, and often even better, and if Tommy is about to take over, even temporarily, it is much too risky.
    She has had her share of run-ins with Tommy Bonham in the past, and she is certain he doesn’t like her. It was Tommy, for instance, who persuaded Si to open the two suburban outlets, in Westchester and Morris counties. Smitty opposed the idea from the beginning. “It won’t work,” she told Si.
    â€œWhy not? Why won’t it work?”
    â€œI’ll give you two reasons why it won’t work,” she said. “For one thing, your salespeople. Here in Manhattan, you have a supply of bright, attractive, well-bred, and well-spoken men and women who, for one reason or another, need jobs. These are people who learn to respect and care about the merchandise they sell. These are the kind of salespeople our clients expect—people with good manners and good taste. These are people who know how to write thank-you notes and who know that when a woman buys a fifteen-thousand-dollar dress she appreciates a thank-you note from the person who sold it to her. But who are you going to find in Westchester County? Wives of bankers and stockbrokers and lawyers and advertising executives who play golf and paddle tennis. They don’t need to work, and they’re not going to want to work for us. People of the sort who work for us in Manhattan aren’t going to want to commute to White Plains. We’re