Act Like a Clone

The subtlety of mimicking yourself

“Diva”, by Matt Ricardo

One

She called me “One” when I came out of the OBA, cold and shivering - the world white, twinkling and fluorescent. They wrapped me in something soft and blue to make the cold and wetness go away. Then Kathleen – my master, as I would later come to know her, a woman with light hair, periwinkle eyes, and red lips – handed me a reflective plate.

“Look into it,” she said. I saw a face – her face – gazing back at me. I knocked the plate away, feeling the first bloom of pain in my hand. I heard her chuckle, “She came out even better than I thought..”

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” the man in the white coat said. “She takes after her master, of course.”

Kathleen smiled. As she lifted my face up into the blinding light, I squinted. My breath caught in my throat and I began to cough. I heard the beeping of the machine as my throat tightened.

“What’s wrong with her? She’s coughing blood.” Kathleen looked at me in concern.

It was the last thing I heard before falling into darkness.

---

Kathleen told me that they had misprinted a section of my lung, that the damage, though not serious, was chronic. She strapped a portable, teal oxygen tank to me, to make my breathing and my work easier. She explained why I was created: to fulfill the basic needs of my master. I began to do small errands for her: sweeping the checkered, marble floors as she went to her auditions, tending her gardens, bringing her friends tea as they discussed their arts, sometimes even watching her practice her lines.

“What do you think, One?” she would ask, after she finished reading her lines. I could never quite understand them, or the point of them. She’d give me a pitying look. “You don’t get it, do you? I always forget no matter how human you look, that you simply are not. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have my genes for creativity snipped away like some flyaway branches.”

She referenced this about me frequently – that I didn’t understand her, that I wasn’t human, that I didn’t know pain or emotion. As if to prove this, she and her friends liked to do “Spellings” on us over tea.

“Dance on Colette’s lap, One,” she’d command. I’d feel my insides clenched like a fist, followed by a heat spreading into my body. My body’s movement would take me unawares. The physical exertion made me wheeze, sending my master’s friends into peals of laughter.

“No wonder you don’t dance, Kathleen. It’s absolutely hideous.” Laura would say, contorting her face until she would cry from laughing.

I could see my master’s jaw tighten as she looked at me. She’d wave away the command with a swipe of her fingers on her tablet, and I’d fall into a heap on the Persian rug, trying to catch my breath.

“I assure you, my dancing looks nothing like that. One just isn’t made for strenuous exercise; the lab misprinted her lung.”

“That’s quite uncommon at my lab, Kathleen. Perhaps you need to upgrade.” Isa said as she stroked her Number’s long, jet-black hair. It was a perfect image of her, sitting at her side.

---

I could feel my master’s excitement from the care she put into her dress, the slight lilt in her voice, and the brilliant baubles she stacked on her wrist. She even asked me to change out of my usual white muslin uniform, handing me a sky blue, boat-neck dress from the back of her closet. She put it on me, and it was unlike anything I had ever worn: soft, cool, and satiny against my skin.

“All of the best Talents will be there, One. I was so lucky Colette secured us an admission.” She brushed my blond hair as if I was a doll, until every strand was secured into a tight, low chignon.

“I do hope I run into Damon. Surely he’ll know who they chose for Anastasia. Or perhaps he can put in a good word with Logan, if the part is not decided yet. What do you think?”

Her eyes met mine in the mirror. My master was a vision in red, wearing a long, low-cut dress that swept the floors like she would sweep hearts.

“Yes, Kathleen, if you think that is best.”

Kathleen sighed in exasperation. “Don’t you Numbers have anything to say other than, ‘yes, master, no, master’? I’ve never understood why they delete so many of your talkativeness genes . I’d prefer that to this complete stoicism.”

---

The house was perched on the hill amidst a Milky Way of city lights. We heard the chatter of voices even from the outside. We wound our way into conversations.

“How good to see you!”

“I loved you in Midwives of Verona! You were absolutely brilliant”

“What do I have to do to work with you, Kathleen? Kevin is a bore to deal with when I’d rather just deal with you.”

“I’m looking to go into film exclusively for the next year, Peter, so I won’t be up for any of your pilots this season,” Kathleen said with a coy smile.

“Stay here with the other Numbers, while the adults talk,” Kathleen whispered to me, as Peter took her arm and led her away.

I wandered the party aimlessly, from the table with the miniature bites to the tall windows looking out onto the brilliant, aqua pool. The other Numbers acknowledged me and I dangled my legs into the lukewarm water. There wasn’t much to say to one another – we did our duty, and our duty was to not talk unless we were spoken to.

There was a commotion behind me at the hall’s entrance, a crowd, and a surge of whispering energy. When I walked into the room, my eyes were drawn to the man at the center of adulatory pats.

“We all knew it would be you, Richard! Man of the hour.” The man held a golden statue in his hand that matched his cropped, silver hair and tanned skin. His blue eyes glimmered as he replied,

“It’s about time! It only took twenty two years and five nominations –I thought I was going to become the next Scorsese.”

“Are you comparing yourself to Scorsese, now?” The group laughed. I leaned against the spiral staircase, observing them from afar.

I wondered if I’d know that feeling of laughter. And as if he had heard the question in my mind, the man named Richard shifted his gaze, from the man next to him to me. I could feel a strange thing – a heat climbing into my neck and face – the feeling of my breath catching. He strode towards me, chest high, confident.

“You must be Kathleen Newland. I was hoping you would be here.” I couldn’t answer, so I simply looked at him. I wanted to ask him why he was hoping, how he knew my master’s name, and who he was. He seemed to waver a little at my silence – a small worried furrow of his brow.

“How are you doing tonight?”

“I am ... well.” I replied. I wondered what my master would say in my place. She would surely have a witty remark, a quick response. Instead I asked, “Why were you hoping?”

“Excuse me?”

“You said you were hoping to see me here. Why?”

The man blushed. “Well, I just always thought it would be great to work together on something.” He turned to me with his blue eyes, a little sheepish. “All right, it’s not as casual as that. I have a story, and it’s never gotten made. It’s a strange story – maybe too much so – but it’s stuck with me. And I always thought of you in it, even though we’ve never met. Do you think I’m crazy?”

My breathing stopped and the world spun. I fell into him, listening to the sounds of my own rasps. My purse. I saw a swirl of familiar red swoop in and Richard’s shocked face as my master caught me in her arms, and pulled the oxygen mask over my face.

“Sometimes, I feel as if I’m the one taking care of her.” Kathleen said. “I’m Kathleen Newland.” She said, stretching out her hand to Richard. “And this is One.”

---

We saw Richard more and more in the coming weeks. He brought dinner over, or wine or little gifts. He brought bright fuchsia orchids. Kathleen preferred the white ones, but never told him otherwise.

It was after the twelfth bouquet that he brought up the project. I poured coffee from the French press into porcelain cups for them in the sunroom, and his eyes flickered to me momentarily before turning to my master.

“You’d be amazing for it. The character is beautiful, untouchable. Thomas wants Laura Anderssen, but he doesn’t know I already have you in mind.”

“My Laura? I didn’t know she was up for the part at all,” Kathleen said, sipping her coffee to hide her satisfaction. Richard had pleased her, though I could not quite tell how. They sidled closer together on the couch.

“All you have to do is say the word, and it’s yours.”

“Well then … yes.”

They leaned into each other, and sealed the promise with a kiss.

---

“Just because he’s won an Oscar doesn’t mean he’s loaded, you know,” Colette said at one of their weekly high teas.

“The artsy ones never make the big bucks.” Isa nodded in agreement, “What was the last tentpole he made anyway?”

My master sniffed in disapproval as I massaged her shoulders and neck.

“You know none of that matters to me. Just his talent, which he has a tremendous amount of. Have you seen Raven? It was visionary.”

“My dear Kathleen, your tastes have changed in so short a time. I never took you for the artsy, horror type,” Laura smirked.

Her muscles tensed underneath my hands like the tension of the conversation. They had stretched just a bit too far. Kathleen took a slow sip of her coffee, considering Laura over the rim.

“Yes, you’re right. That’s much more up your alley, Laura. It’s too bad about the Truly, Madly role. If only Richard had written two parts for it instead of the one reserved for me.”

My master’s uncoiling muscles showed her pleasure at Laura’s embarrassment.

---

Richard made me dress up for the occasion. The inside of the store glimmered softly, its walls in midnight velvet, as if we had walked into a jewelry box ourselves.

“You know Kathleen better than anyone,” Richard said. “Just walk around and pretend you’re her, and pick out something she would like. I’m sure they designed your tastes to be similar.” He gave me a boyish grin. “I actually feel rather clever, thinking up something like this.” I avoided looking at him for too long, and simply nodded.

The lady took out a tray of glittering rings. “Madam, take a look at these – they are some of our finest.” She laid three rings in front of me: the first, a large yellow cushion diamond the size of my thumb with a halo of white diamonds surrounding it, the second a sizable solitaire, simple and elegant, and the third, which I picked up gently.

It was delicate and pink, and the smallest of the three. I couldn’t help but bring it closer to my eye, its color was so pure and brilliant.

“Ah, the lady has good taste. It is rare to find a true pink diamond these days, but we were able to procure one from Western Australia just a few months ago. It’s one of our owner’s favorite pieces, even if it is just under one carat in size.”

“Do you think she’ll like it?” Richard asked me in a whisper.

“Yes,” I answered honestly. “It’s the most beautiful one.”

Richard smiled as he turned towards the woman helping us. “It looks like we have a winner.” He pulled a thick yellow envelope from his briefcase and slipped it across the glass table. “Tell Tim Graff this should cover it.”

“Of course, Mr. Henderson,” the woman said with a smile. “Come back soon.”

Richard strode out the door, as I followed with some effort.

“I wonder if she’ll say yes,” he mused to no one, tucking the box into his worn jeans.

I wondered the same, but never got to find out.

---

Two

I didn’t like the way she ordered me around – furious when I did something wrong, and ungrateful when I did it right. I didn’t like the way her friends were always saying things with smiles and grins as weapons, their words full of hidden meanings I didn’t understand. I didn’t like the way she looked at me, accusing and exasperated, full of insults and reprimands at the tip of her tongue, and Spellings at her fingertips.

“I much preferred One,” she said wistfully to Richard, glaring at me. “Even if One was wishy-washy and slow, and breathed like a locomotive, at least she wasn’t stubborn like Two.”

I didn’t like the way she pretended I didn’t have two eyes, a slightly hooked nose, and ears like hers – pretended that I couldn’t see, smell and hear just like her.

“Stubborn?” Richard laughed, “Numbers are just toys. They are as stubborn as you want them to be, my dear.” He patted Kathleen’s hand, and she flicked his off carelessly as she turned back to her script. Richard looked a little hurt, but continued after a cough, “What script is that?”

“Just the new Nate Resnick script that’s making the rounds.” Richard’s face looked pinched.

“I never understood the town’s infatuation with him. He writes such garbage! Just empty lines that require millions of dollars of special effects per page. You aren’t actually thinking about going after that, are you?”

I could see Kathleen bristle. It was easy for me to sense the annoyance in her motions, in the whiteness around her lips as I poured their drinks.

“I don’t see why not. It’s strong in the eighteen- to thirty-five demographic, so Kevin recommended me for the audition,” Kathleen replied casually, flipping through the pages in a more concentrated fashion. “And besides, the pay isn’t bad.”

“But it’s so unlike you!” Richard’s forehead scrunched up like a misused rug. “I can’t imagine you as just some bimbo in an action movie–”

There was a snap as the script’s brads hit the glass coffee table, perhaps harder than she intended. I set down their drinks.

“Well that’s what acting is, isn’t it? Being unlike yourself.” Kathleen took a sip of her cocktail. “At the end of the day it’s entertainment. It doesn’t always have to be so deep.”

I headed back to the kitchen island to prepare the fruit, and heard the tension in Richard’s silence. I took the honeydew I bought from the market, and broke into its flesh with a thunk. I knew how much the sound grated on Kathleen’s nerves, but sometimes I liked to make her suffer the way she made me.

Richard spoke in measured tones, “Is that really all it is to you? Anyone can make entertainment, but not everyone can make art. If that’s all it is, then Two here could be a dumb blond in an action movie.”

Kathleen’s eyes flicked towards me in irritation, and gave a mean laugh. “You’re joking. Two couldn’t be counted as attractive to anybody with eyes. She’s so … off.”

“And who do you think that comes from?” Richard said as he belligerently gulped down his whiskey, missing the gash of hurt on Kathleen’s face.

Kathleen touched her nose, a tic I noticed she had when she felt insecure. She recovered with her own barb. “Well, someone has to put money on the table.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“At least I don’t think I’m above working and earning my keep. At least I’m not bitter about other people’s success. At least I can admit my failures –”

“Truly, Madly was not a failure – it was an experiment! And you agreed to it–”

Kathleen cut him off, “An experiment that ruined my film debut, something that you were happy to risk because it didn’t matter to you. And now, just because I’m trying to pay for our lifestyle by doing something commercial, you look down on me as if I’m a Number to be controlled and manipulated? I don’t need this.”

“Your reputation? I put my reputation on the line when I put you up for the role – an actress who had never even been in a real film. Do you know how many strings I had to pull? How many people I had to convince? You know, maybe Thomas was right: I should have just gone with Laura. She, at least, would have appreciated the artistic vision, and not been a total sell-out.”

My Master’s face flushed, “A sell out? Why don’t I hear you calling me that when I pay for your trips to New York? Our vacations to Italy? Your car collection? Why don’t I hear you complaining about my hard-earned money when you haven’t had a real directing job for the last six months?”

Richard stood up abruptly and commanded, “That does not warrant an answer. Two, give me my keys.”

In the kitchen, I stopped mid-chop.

“You don’t get to boss her around. Two, come here. I’m your Master.”

“Unbelievable,” Richard muttered, picking up his keys on the table.

“Where are you going?” Kathleen asked in a measured voice.

“Out.” He slammed the front door shut.

Kathleen faltered in the silent aftermath, her face crumbling. It was strange to see her so weak. I wasn’t sure whether what I felt was a wave of disgust or smugness. When her eyes met mine, I sensed her fury.

“Don’t you judge me,” she spat. Her command twisted into me like thorns, working its way into my insides until I thought I would faint from the agony. Even so, I knew my master was only passing her pain onto me so that she could tolerate it.

I still hated her for it.

---

They’d set the stakes beforehand, and sat us Numbers around the table with colored pencils and paper. A house in Aspen, the newest Tesla model unreleased to the public, an antique watch – expensive things treasured by each of them. I didn’t understand why they’d want to gamble it all away. But perhaps sometimes it was a thrill to fall.

A woman named Colette lifted the drapery to reveal a golden birdcage. A bright-bellied robin fluttered about inside.

We turned to it as Kathleen’s friend said to us, “A bird. Draw this bird.” She recited, “A bird is a noun –”

Laura, a blond and blue-eyed beauty, chuckled, “it’s not like they’ve gone to grammar school, Colette. A noun. An educated Number – how ridiculous!”

“Next we’ll have them recite ‘the rain in Spain.’” Isa added, sending the group into a peal of laughter as Colette gave them a stern look.

She alone remained stoic as she continued, “A bird is a warm-blooded, egg-laying vertebrate distinguished by the possession of feathers, wings and a beak, and typically by being able to fly. Numbers, you may begin.”

The other Numbers, dumb as sheep, each picked a colored pencil from the table and studiously observed the bird in the cage. I disdained them, their blank looks and blind obedience. My lips curled in a snarl, as the other Numbers’ gazes flicked cautiously from me to their task.

“My, Kathleen, your Number certainly has a temper. She’s so unlike you,” the woman named Isa said to her.

If only she knew Kathleen like I did, I thought to myself.

“I’ve told Richard how stubborn Two is, but he doesn’t believe me. Two – draw. Now.” I directed a growl towards my master, but could feel my hands moving of their own volition, picking up a red colored pencil and scribbling onto the sketch paper as the other Numbers watched me.

I saw the smirk of satisfaction on my Master’s lips, and I hated her power over me.

“How is that Richard of yours anyway?” Laura chirped, diverting Kathleen’s attention from me.

“Yes, I’ve heard he has a new project. Darling, isn’t it? I heard it’s just been attached to that new indie starlet – what’s her name–” Colette chimed in.

“Penelope Grave?” Isa asked.

“Yes, that’s the one,” Laura recalled.

“She came out of nowhere didn’t she? No one’s even heard of her, and I heard she was working at Cecconi’s when she was discovered,” Colette said with disdain.

“I’m surprised Richard didn’t ask you, Kathleen,” Laura said.

My master swallowed as she managed, “It conflicted with my time on Transistor II. He asked me of course, but Kevin just couldn’t fit it in.”

I knew this was not the truth. I’d seen the script on Richard’s table when I took him his late-night snacks of peanuts and a glass of coffee liqueur and warm milk. He had worked on it painstakingly for the past three months, waking up at two, then writing until the break of dawn before settling back into the bed next to Kathleen, locking it up on the second shelf of his drawer.

I had also seen Kathleen, biding her time until Richard was at the studio or running an errand, carefully taking the first shelf out of Richard’s drawer, then slipping the script out from the second shelf, feasting on the latest draft before tucking it back inside.

Her lips grew thinner each day Richard answered, “Nothing of note!” when she asked if he was working on anything. I saw the way that she coveted the role, sometimes making me recite the lines with her, even tolerating my gruff, broken speech to practice until she got it perfect. All for an audition that Richard never asked for.

“Such a pity!” Laura’s tone seemed far from pitiful. “Can’t Richard reschedule around you? After all, you are his fiancé now–”

Isa clapped her hands together, “Oh yes, do show us your ring, Kathleen! I haven’t had a chance to examine it.”

Kathleen was happy to change the subject, and displayed her hand proudly. The pink diamond was small but brilliant, shooting the light from its rose tinted facets into the sunlit room.

“Richard was quite clever. He asked my Number to go with him to pick it out! Not Two of course, thank god – her tastes are horrid.”

I clenched my teeth at the insult, as I tried to make sense of the bird in the cage. I could see the women lean in towards my master’s hand, squinting at the glittering thing.

“It’s on the smaller size, isn’t it?” Laura laughed, as I saw a flicker of doubt on Kathleen’s face.

“It must be the writer’s salary,” Colette said. “Prestige doesn’t always bring money, you know.”

“I’ve always respected those who are keen to make art rather than cheap entertainment,” my master replied. Though I noticed she retracted her hand, hiding her ring hand underneath her right one.

“I think it’s quite beautiful,” Isa said. “Besides ladies, it’s the man who matters –”

The alarm went off. Instantly, we Numbers set our pencils down. The women rose from their couches and walked around the table as we bowed our heads obediently. They pointed and laughed at our drawings – all of them scribbles.

“Don’t you know you’re drawing a bird, not an elephant?” Colette said, as she smacked her Number on the back of her head. The other women laughed. I swallowed the bile in my throat, and hid it with a snarl. If only I could shake out of these shackles they’d coded into me.

Laura walked around to my side of the table and carelessly picked up the paper I had scribbled on, insult ready at the tip of her tongue. Instead, she gave a little gasp of delight. “My goodness, I do believe we have a winner.”

“Don’t keep us waiting, Laura, what has the rebellious little Number done now?” asked Colette.

Slowly, with a smirk, Laura turned the paper over. Just like the others, scribbles of red spread over the page in nonsensical whorls. Then unmistakably, in no more than dark scribbles, the word “Die”.

Although I had meant it as an insult, the hatred bursting through my veins, spilling out onto the page as I stared at these worthless beings that thought they were better than me, I realized I had written my own fate. I knew it when I saw the way my master looked at me.

---

Three

“What happened to the others before me?” I asked my master. She was taking special care approving my hair and my makeup today, though I knew her schedule by heart and there were no auditions on the calendar. I could feel her hands, more wrinkled and freckled than mine, touch my face and turn it towards her as if it was a porcelain cup she meant to drink from. Her hands were so soft. Mine were like cowhide in comparison.

“Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.” In the cupboard behind the kitchen where I slept, there were relics of others like me, like her: marks on the walls counting the days, secret compartments under floorboards. They’d been cleaned so thoroughly that the smell of bleach still woke me up sometimes.

She shrugged, curling my hair in voluptuous waves. “They weren’t as perfect as you. The last one was an animal.” She said that with her teeth gritted, and I knew not to push further, knowing her expressions as well as my own.

“Master, what role are you preparing me for today?”

It was something she started doing when she got her last role. I’d been sitting out in the audience after bringing her her coffee (black but sweet), watching the director explain for the tenth time that he needed more from her, he needed her to imagine the pain, take on the character he had written – a woman living through the Dustbowl, with the mouths of five hungry children to feed, watching her baby die of starvation as they waited for her husband to return from the next town with news, sustenance and hope.

“I need you to understand this woman’s suffering. Not just seeing the death around her, but choosing to live through this pain every day for the survival of her family. You get it?” The director said, barely able to contain his frustration. My master nodded confidently at the note.

“Of course Evan. I’ll hit it in the next scene tomorrow.”

I could see past all that with her. I knew she was shaking in her boots, not knowing what to draw from. She stayed awake that entire night, practicing the same lines over and over in different tones, making minute changes to her facial expression, none of them convincing. “What do you think he means by suffering, Three?” she asked me when I made her her nightcap of whiskey, lemon and chamomile. “And choosing living versus death? I’d have chosen a quick end if I was ever in the Dust Bowl. Might as well give up at that point and save yourself the trouble.”

She didn’t wait for my answer.

When call time rolled around at dawn, she had lost her voice as well as her confidence. In an effort to avoid the whole thing, she gave me an Implicit Spelling. It was what she did sometimes at their terrible tea parties, so she didn’t have to face Evan’s wrath for another day. She typed in a few strings of text on her keyboard, which coded the commands into my neurons, executing the lines into the ribosomal motion of my cells and limbs. “Go to work.” “Act like I would.” “Act out the lines attached.” Kathleen had uploaded the scene’s lines, so that I knew them by memory. She left everything else open to my interpretation – either by accident or laziness – and in front of Evan, I delivered what he was looking for. How could I not know the suffering of someone whose fate had been sealed by forces beyond her control? How could I not understand the hopeless struggle time and time again to break free of those chains?

When it was over, the director was dumbstruck, letting the camera run longer than intended as he took the moment to recover.

---

She’d expected him to fire me on the spot, so that she could blame me rather than herself. But when the call came from Evan, with compliments, elation even, she continued the ruse. She sent me to filming every day after that. I knew by her commands, less and less exact, that she trusted me now. It gave me power over her. I was starting to understand her desires as if they were my own.

So when she told me to get the title from Richard for the ring, I knew she wanted me to seduce him, to make him want me, to hurt him more than he had hurt her with the barbs and insults, and the broken engagement.

---

“I know who you are.” Richard’s smile fell from his face the moment he opened the door and saw me. “She would never do this herself.”

“And what’s that exactly?” I asked coolly, not giving in.

“She would never come here like this and face me head on. She always takes the easy way out.” His look was derisive, confident.

“Oh, really?” I stood up to my full height, letting the waves of hair that my master curled for me cascade down my shoulders with a flip. “Well, Richard. I’m actually not here to go to battle with you—I’m here for the title to the ring.”

There was a shudder of uncertainty in his eyes, then some emotion. It might have been wistfulness.

“It was always about money with you—her wasn’t it?”

I stayed silent. Kathleen had left the lines optional in my Spelling this time. I toyed with my words, played with the idea of tears. Instead I settled on the mimicry of the emotion of his eyes and the words, “It was never the money. It was about feeling loved, and you could never make me feel that way.”

He looked at me, stricken. Of course it wasn’t all true, but my master had Spelled me to hurt him. He went inside the house and moments later, he appeared with the piece of paper he shoved into my hands, “Maybe you—she—whoever you are—will understand after this.” Then he closed the door with a heavy thunk.

---

The moment I stepped into the small jewelry shop, there was a wave of recognition, and a hint of peaked interest from the attendants.

“Ah, Ms. Newland, you get more beautiful every time I see you. Are you sure you are not getting younger?” The man, somewhere in his sixties, looked elegant in a dark navy suit, his gray hair slicked back, a flash of white teeth on tan skin.

I recognized his picture from the binders of faces Kathleen made for me to learn. “Mr. Graff. A pleasure.” We kissed on both cheeks as a greeting.

“I’d like to return an item of yours,” I said, taking out the velvet box.

With a slight crinkle in his brow, he replied, “I’m sorry to hear that. We so rarely have unhappy customers –”

“It’s an absolutely beautiful piece. I truly wish I could keep it, but my life circumstances have changed. We’ve decided to go our separate ways.”

There was a hint of curiosity on Graff’s face as I opened the little ring box to show him the forlorn engagement ring.

“I’m sorry to hear it.” Graff said gently. “Shall we take a look?” He slipped behind the glass cases, setting the item on a tray.

“Ah!” A smile hovered on the ring maker’s lips as he held it closer to his eyes. “This is a very special piece, one of the most valuable pieces we own. I always wondered who had made off with it.”

I was surprised by this tidbit. Kathleen had described it in the journals I organized for her as “a ring so small and ordinary that it appeared Richard had simply accepted any ring he could buy with his meager savings.”

“Oh?”

“Yes Ms. Newland. There’s quite the story behind this piece. Didn’t your … friend ever tell you?”

I shook my head, as Mr. Graff folded a piece of white paper and polished the gem. “This diamond came to us through auction. You can see from the color how special it is.” He placed the ring onto the white paper and shone a light through it, scattering the diamond’s pink facets onto the neutral background.

“You see, pink diamonds are among the rarest finds in nature, and even with all the technology we have today, we cannot unravel the mystery of why and how such a color can manifest itself in diamonds. It is so valuable that countless people have tried to reproduce the effect in labs, so much so they have actually reduced the value of seeing a true natural pink diamond in person. Do you know how much a true pink diamond is worth, Ms. Newland? Over $500,000 per carat.”

“Few people in the world could afford such a gift for their beloved. He must have cared for you very much.”

I slowly nodded my head. Would Kathleen believe such a story? She had always been skeptical when it came to Richard, especially after the affair.

“How in the world did Richard convince you to let go of such a valuable piece?”

Mr. Graff smiled mysteriously. “It’s not my story to tell; it’s Mr. Henderson’s.”

There was a softness in Mr. Graff’s rejection, as if he was waiting for an excuse to tell me. I took out the title from my purse and slid it across the glass case.

“Richard gave me ownership of the ring, Mr. Graff. Don’t you think I deserve to hear its full story?”

Mr. Graff paused for just a moment before taking the title and answering, “Very well. Do you know the actress Penelope Grave?”

I recalled a face in a screener Kathleen had watched, and a name discussed at one of her friends’ tea gatherings.

“Yes, of course. She’s had quite the trajectory to stardom, hasn’t she?” I said.

There was a look of pleasure on Mr. Graff’s face as he put the ring back into its box. “Yes, well.” He leaned in closer to express the intimacy of the subject, “Penelope is my only niece. I adore her, and have known her dreams of becoming an actress since she was just a little girl.”

He pulled out a photo from his breast pocket, a headshot of a girl with deep auburn hair and gray eyes, beaming into the camera. “You know how competitive the field is, don’t you, Ms. Newland? I’m sure you remember your first auditions. Well, Penelope had all the right credentials – she graduated from the Yale drama school, she had a great demo reel, and she had the right work ethic, but she chose to never reveal her family connections. She changed her last name to Grave instead of Graff. She said she wanted to earn her place like everyone else instead of just getting it like that.” He snapped his fingers for emphasis.

“That’s very admirable.”

“Indeed, she worked as a waitress for years! Can you imagine, with her pedigree! So when Richard came in here looking for a Graff ring, I found an opportunity I could not give up. He was very much in love with you, and insisted nothing would do but the very best. Yet even a man of his stature could not afford it. So I offered him a deal – a role for a ring.” Graff was smug with his own cleverness.

My brow furrowed in confusion, “I don’t quite understand.”

“Penelope’s first role, of course – you must have seen it. Darling. Your husband’s best work in my opinion! And the role was so sought after.” His eyes narrowed a little, a hint of suspicion behind the pleasant veneer. I had seen Darling many, many times, though until now, I had never understood why.

“Yes, of course. The story played so well with Penelope’s method acting and Richard’s naturally contemplative shots.” I assured the jeweler.

“Exactly!” Graff said proudly. “Can you imagine her pleasure when she got the call back? When she got the most coveted role in town, without any help from her family?” He lifted a conspiratorial brow. “And all because of this little ring.”

And as I gazed at the ring in question, I understood that this is what Richard meant my master to understand – that he had tried so hard, in so many ways, with his actions to love her.

---

When I returned, with the ring consigned, my master was eager to see me. I imagined it was because she’d stayed inside all day, shuffling from one room to the next, making note of some other task she’d put me to once I got back, some imperfection to iron out. I had turned my day over and over in my mind so thoroughly – each revelation a small twinkle of a ring’s facet – precious and glittering, the little beauties in flawed understandings, missed meanings of the human heart, that when she asked me what happened with my day, I answered with a pleasant smile that held the secrets close to my chest.

“Nothing of note.”

---

Anne is a product manager, consultant and writer based in Hong Kong. She spent her early years in the entertainment industry and never lost her passion for storytelling, and has completed several full-length and TV pilot specs. She primarily writes in the YA, Fantasy, Sci-fi, and Mystery genres and is currently working on her first novel.