Ruby Rift

We came into the world together, knowing we would depart it alone as we grew older and understood we were two and not one. We were born an hour apart, but a day and a month separated our timelines. I arrived on the last day of April, she on the first day of May. We were named for our respective months; identical in image, contrasted in idea.

She perched across from me on a high-rise seat for brunch at a restaurant elevated enough to serve drinks in crystal decanters, but not sophisticated enough for the kind of evening soirées that required linen tablecloths. We came here to celebrate our birthday each year. Bottomless mimosas and laughter dripped from the crow lines of our gray eyes as we held hands with matching mauve nail colors. Our two-top table pressed against an east-facing window awash in sunlight on the corner of Main street and Providence. Passersby’s would pause to take in our animated reflections, but we hardly noticed it anymore.

A velvet jewelry box rested atop a matching black notebook on the table between us framed by a pair of empty decanters and unused silverware sets. May tapped the box with an index finger and smiled at me to open it. Where others needed words, we needed only gestures.

I opened the box and angled its contents so that we could admire it together. Tiny prism cuts reflected light across the ruby earrings pinned to the velvet cushion. Mesmerizing to gaze at; the colors varied from fire to blood. Burnished gold framed the edges in a delicate teardrop suspended by a curved hook begging to pierce a delicate piece of skin.

Heirlooms could be blessings rich in history and sentiment, or curses to threaten the ties that bind. This one had been in the family since the late 1800s, originally gifted to our great-great aunt from her husband. An ostentatious gift for its time. Childless, she had passed it onto her nieces to share and they had bickered over its ownership for decades. Our grandmother ultimately won it on her sister’s deathbed only to gift it again a few years later prior to her own passing. She had three daughters and twelve granddaughters to choose from. She chose her only son, our father.

May swept the jewelry box to the side and opened the little black book beneath it. She turned to the pages saved by a frayed leather ribbon, pinning the pages back on each side with her splayed hands. Under her left hand in bold silver lettering was written ‘pros’, beneath her right hand, ‘cons’.

Perusing the list before her, she met my eyes with a bemused smile, “Dad had it valued at twenty thousand, but I doubt we really want to sell it.” She absently tapped her finger next to the first line item on her list.

“Twenty thousand?” My eyebrows raised involuntarily. I felt conflicted over its value as I considered the debts it could make a dent in. I longed for financial freedom, even as I also recalled a picture I had seen of our grandmother in her youth, bedazzling the camera lens, her ears twinkling in red. “We can’t sell it.”

“No, we can’t, you’re right,” she sighed as she dragged her finger across the page to line up the first item on her list of cons. “We would lose a family heirloom and we don’t have many of those.”

“So, we’ll keep it,” I suggested. “We’ll each wear one earring, like a bad 80’s fashion statement.” I plucked one of the rubies from its cushion and held it mockingly up to my left ear as I struck a pose.

She grabbed the other, holding it to her right ear and batted her eyelashes in exaggerated hauteur. We laughed at our reflection in the glass window. I tucked the earring back into the cushion as our waiter took our order without writing it down. He appeared focused, speaking rapidly and repeating the items to memory before leaving our table as quickly as he had arrived. It always made me nervous when waiters refused to write down orders. An unnecessary flourish with more risk than reward.

May gazed carefully at the earring she held before her, twisting it subtly in the light to catch its rays. “We could turn the earrings into necklaces, one for each of us?”

“Not a bad idea,” I mused as I tried picturing the ruby at the base of my neck. It looked gaudy somehow lacking the old-world glamour of the matching set. I thought of the ballrooms they might have seen as a pair and it felt disingenuous to separate their original design. Identical sets belonged together in tandem.

She watched my expression change from whimsical to serene and tilted her head slightly to her right to better assess my unspoken thoughts. “Perhaps not a bad idea, but not a good one either.” She looked down at the little black book and considered the next item on the list. “We could always share them.”

I heard the catch in her voice, knowing she thought of the heirloom’s history as I did and abhorred the possibility of inviting that pettiness into our relationship. She lifted the other earring from its cushion and deftly pierced first her right ear and then her left. They dangled elegantly, softly brushing the sides of her neck and catching the light in a way that made the gemstones glow from the inside out. “April-May, how do we look?” She turned to the glass window to admire our reflection.

I absently watched the crowd of pedestrians crossing the street corner on the other side of the glass. The shadow of the building lined up with the curb of the sidewalk before my drink and entrée arrived. It shrunk backwards a foot before I pushed my plate away and relished my last sip.

The waiter pressed a receipt into my hand as I exchanged my phone into his, “Would you mind taking a picture?” I asked and he smiled, stepped back and held up the phone to capture the scene.

I leaned in towards the table and smiled into the lens. He pointed and clicked a few times before handing it back to me. I flipped through the pictures as I glanced over the expense of a drink and one entrée. “Oh, this is the best one,” I whispered to myself as I laid the phone across the split in the pages from the little black book.

I gazed down at the picture before me nestled between the pro and con list. I smiled directly at the camera, light danced off the white of my eyes and teeth. Blood-red ruby earrings dangled from my ears, casting crimson sparkles against my skin. I looked so much like my grandmother from that angle. I sat alone at the table, holding a glass out in a victory toast to the empty chair across from me. Heirlooms surely could not be cursed for those who share so easily.