The Lost and Found Necklace

by Louisa Leaman

  A twinge in Jess’s hip forces her to stand, and with searing sharpness, the memory comes back to her: that moment at the airport, waving goodbye to the Hoppits. Just a quick trip, she’d said, promising Aggie she’d be back in time to see Marcus get his next grading in karate. A knot of regret fills her chest. Why did she do it? What the hell motivated her to quit her job in teaching and buy a one-way ticket to Mexico City?

  Why didn’t she see it then? The infamous Taylor “spirit” reconfigured as a load of old nonsense. How about a simple, straightforward life like everyone else, with a good man and a sound job and a nice home and maybe…maybe a child? Why didn’t she see it then, that a normal life could be just as rewarding as a wild one?

  Those nights in hospital. The sensation of Aggie’s hand on her forehead, gently stroking the hair from her eyes.

  “Maybe it’s time to stay in the quiet lane, Jessy,” she’d whispered.

  And in that soft light, unable to move, unable to speak, machines beeping all around her, Jess had made a silent pledge. From now on, she would make better choices. She would stay in one country, live one life, get one job and stick to it. She would avoid all men owning more than one mobile phone. And make a conscious effort to replace the words spontaneous, thrill-seeking, and adventurous with erratic, unreliable, and fraud. She would rebuild her life, step by aching step, and in healing, and in time, she would make her sister proud.

  Mission refreshed, Jess empties the dregs of her tea and goes to turn out the light, hopeful she’ll reap the benefits of an earlyish night come morning. Just then, however, she hears her phone buzz. Out of habit, she checks it, then stalls and blinks. It’s a friend request from Guy Arlo van der Meer. A booty call? She checks out his account and sees what she thought she’d see: a photographic carnival of glamorous parties, gallery openings, and film premieres, supported by a cast of art collectors, fashionistas, and super-wealthy Instagram influencers. And in his profile he describes himself as a treasure hunter. She laughs heartily.

  “What kind of overblown job title is that? What a nob!”

  She laughs some more, then clipped by annoyance that he wouldn’t sell her the necklace, she denies the request and shuts off her phone.

  Chapter Eight

  With her laptop, her jewelry stock, and a box of packing materials spread across the Hoppit kitchen countertop, Jess spends a productive Friday afternoon sorting and preparing shipments for customers. A quirky 1950s rhinestone brooch in the shape of retro sunglasses is going to Kent; a Deco revival bracelet with pearlized frog clasp is destined for Inverness; and a 1980s statement necklace with coral cabochons is traveling all the way to Japan. Carefully, she wraps the coral necklace in three layers of turquoise tissue paper, ties the package with a magenta ribbon, and adds one of her gold stickers: Miss Taylor’s Retro and Vintage Costume Jewelry.

  Jess’s one-stop online shop—specializing in vintage jewelry from the forties to the eighties, with the occasional early twentieth-century treasure thrown in—is starting to grow. She hand-selects every piece, sourcing them from auctions, estate sales, and flea markets. She never buys in bulk, only sells items she would wear herself, and always looks for quality, distinctiveness, and the possibility of a signature or known designer. It’s not as stable as teaching snarling fifteen-year-olds to gouge linoleum, but it feels a lot more joyous.

  She deals in the orphans of the jewelry world, all those once-loved, now-forgotten pinnacles of female glamour, lost to the shadows of dingy attic shoeboxes and flea-market cabinets. She finds them, revives them, gives them another lease of life. There’s some great old jewelry circulating, she thinks, as she admires her next offering: a chunky 1960s bangle with a mound of prong-set agate. She slips the bangle over her wrist and considers the possibility of its original owner, imagines it paired with a crepe maxi dress, and swung through Carnaby Street, among the rebel music, street art, and fashion boutiques. Who saw it there, dangling from its wearer’s arm? Whose attention did it attract?

  There are so many untold stories: a hidden myriad of birthday parties, balls, restaurants, theater trips, job interviews, anniversaries, and first dates. Her regular customers understand this. They love the magic of heritage, the way that jewelry can tell stories and connect people. There are those who ask her to find specifics things. One of her clients loves anything themed around ladybugs; another only wants amethysts. Occasionally she gets inquiries from people looking for their misplaced favorites, hoping she’s some kind of lost-and-found service. The idea of reuniting some longed-for family brooch with its owner… That’s true treasure hunting. The chances are slim, but, well, it worked for the Taylor butterfly necklace. Almost.

  Jess sighs, places the bangle into a gift box. At least this piece will get to have more fun. She writes the recipient’s address on an envelope, seals the box inside, then clears away the evidence of the day’s work. Aggie gets stressed when, after a long day of insurance brokering, she finds the bowels of Jess’s “hobby business” spread across her kitchen countertop. Not long now, however, and Jess will have a kitchen countertop of her own from which to run her empire. Right on cue, her phone buzzes. Tim’s number flashes up on the screen. She grabs it, eager to hear the news.

  “So?”

  “So…I got it!”

  “You did? Woo-hoo! Does this mean I’m officially moving in with a deputy head teacher? I mean…how did that even happen? Honestly, Tim, if you knew what I’d been like at school, you’d see the irony—”

  “I can only imagine.”

  “We should celebrate—”

  “Got it covered. My workmates have organized drinks for this evening. The Star Tavern. Eight o’clock. And…maybe we should announce we’re moving in together as well. Make the night extra special.”

  “That’s a lovely idea. Although shouldn’t we go somewhere more exciting than the Star? Change it up a bit? It’s not every day you get a promotion and a new flatmate.”

  “You’re more than a flatmate, Jessica Taylor!”

  “Exactly. This requires somewhere fancy.”

  “Nah. It’s got to be the Star. Friday night tradition. We’ll have fun, promise. Right, I better get back to work. Love you. See you tonight.”

  “Love you too. And…well done.”

  Jess sits back, smiles, and sighs. Her horizon is changing. This time last year, the view was very different. She’d only just gotten back to London and was in constant pain. But the aches in her body were at least something concrete, something she could understand—smashed bones, fixed back together, making measurable and ongoing improvement thanks to a regimen of physical therapy, painkillers, and rest. She’d never wanted for kindness and support. Everyone had rallied around. Aggie, Ed, all her friends… They’d been there for her. They could see the damage. Aggie had even seen the X-rays. And then, of course, there were those big, loud injured-body claxons: the wheelchair followed by the walking cane. What her family and friends hadn’t seen, however, was the damage to her mind.

  That’s where it really hurt.

  But now…now she has Tim, the archangel of men to keep, and the horizon is changing. Aggie and her Cupid’s dart had scored a direct hit. And this, if anything, has been the medicine for the emotional damage.

  Step after clunky step, Jess climbs the stairs to her bedroom—formerly the Hoppits’ expansive guest suite—and starts plundering her wardrobe. A denim shirt-dress to match her favorite chunky brooch, with a pair of Tatty Devine rainbow earrings. Then she switches the dress to a more dainty chiffon number, then swaps the brooch for an enamel choker. Rings? Bracelets? More? Less? The balance between amount and style of jewelry has to be right, and there should be no conflict between clothing and adornment—all of it coming together in a beautiful homogenous whole. Although sometimes it’s difficult to resist wearing everything at once.

  She wonders what Tim’s teaching colleagues think of her, always dressed
in some big, fancy statement thing. Their physical embellishments are mostly restricted to smart watches and wedding bands, practical people with schedules to keep. Except for Tim’s closest ally, Duff, the IT teacher, who wears a wolf pendant on a leather thong and a replica Starfleet combadge. The women of the group, mostly science and math teachers, are silver chain wearers—understated femininity, modest manners. Jess smiles to herself, imagines shaking them up a bit, getting them going with a bunch of old-school hip-hop bling.

  “How about this then?” she ponders, picking a black sundress, then pairing it with her turquoise scarab-beetle bib necklace. She checks the combination in the mirror. The simple dress allows the artistry of the necklace to stand out. The necklace itself is historical, a classic example of twentieth-century Egyptian revival, when the world went crazy for all things ancient, inspired by the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922.

  “Bingo!” she says, pleased with her choice.

  The scarabs will be a talking point, helping her handle a pub full of supersmart high school teachers. She jumps in the shower, belts out three verses of the Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian,” brushes her teeth, then starts drying her hair. Through the noise of the dryer she doesn’t hear the door when Aggie comes home, doesn’t hear her calling, doesn’t immediately notice her in the doorway. Finally, she shuts of the dryer and grins.

  “Hey, Aggie, how was your day? Help me get my hair right, will you? We’re celebrating. Tim got the job.”

  “Jess—”

  “I’m now officially the girlfriend of a deputy head teacher! Can you believe it?”

  “Jess—”

  “You can come out with us, if you like. It’s just the usual school crowd over at the Star—”

  “Jess. It’s Nancy.” Aggie pauses to breathe and frown. “The care home, they called on my way home from work—”

  “What? What’s happened?”

  “I’m sorry, Jess. They think she’s really deteriorated.”

  Jess shudders, a cold shroud descending over her.

  “But I only saw her a few days ago—”

  “Her stats are all over the place. Her heart rate keeps slowing. They said days, weeks maybe, if we’re lucky.”

  Jess sinks to the floor, swamped with sorrow. Aggie goes over and pulls her into an embrace. She brushes Jess’s semidamp hair from her eyes and whispers.

  “It’s the natural and orderly way of things. She’s had a long life, Jess. Eighty-two. That’s really something. I know how much she means to you, but…it has to happen.”

  Jess can barely hear her sister’s platitudes. All she can think of is the sadness on Nancy’s face when she told her she’d failed to reclaim the necklace. Through her tears, staring over her sister’s shoulder, she catches her reflection in the mirror and thinks of Nancy’s words:

  We called it the True Love Necklace.

  Where is it now? The thought of it being driven away in the back of Guy van der Meer’s taxi is crushing. Why did she let it go? Four generations of Taylor women had owned it, cared for it, and worn it. They had also—according to Nancy, perhaps with a touch of Anna Taylor hyperbole—found their soul mate because of it. Quite a legacy for one small pendant. Her thoughts sweeping into a sudden and all-commanding sense of purpose, Jess releases herself from Aggie’s grip.

  “I–I have to go,” she says. “There’s something I have to do—”

  She checks her watch. There is time—just about.

  “Do what you have to,” says Aggie, kissing Jess on the cheek. “And it’s great news about Tim’s job. Really it is. Nancy would be thrilled to know you’ve finally sorted yourself out and bagged a good one.”

  “Uh…yeah,” says Jess, sniffing, wiping her tears, a little less convinced of this than Aggie.

  ***

  When Aggie has gone, Jess picks up her phone and scrolls through her feed to find Guy van der Meer’s friend request. She clicks Accept, then without thought or fear, starts typing:

  Please. I need the necklace. Buy/borrow. It’s urgent. Can we meet in an hour? Will explain then. From one “treasure hunter” to another, thanks in advance. Jess (of the doughnuts)

  If he will meet her, central London somewhere, and if it’s a quick transaction, she can get the necklace and still be back in time to toast with Tim. She stares at the handset, wills Guy to reply. What if he’s one of those people who never checks his messages? Surely not. His show-off profile hints of an ego that’s far too interested in social status to risk being out of the loop. She drums her fingers on the dressing table, contemplates the multiple journeys she’ll have to make, a normal day suddenly made crazy. But then she thinks of poor Nancy, alone in that room. Yes, she’s lived a long life, always on her terms, and, yes, at eighty-two, it has to happen. But…there is still so much to talk about.

  Her phone buzzes. Two minutes. That’s all it took. She grabs it and reads his reply.

  Jess (of the doughnuts). How you intrigue me. Heavy schedule, but I’ll make you priority. Meet me in the jewelry galleries of the Victoria and Albert Museum. In front of the best stuff. One hour. Guy

  She smiles. The best stuff? What would that be? And how is it that he’s chosen her favorite place in London—the jewelry galleries, the most intimate gathering of history’s finest sparkles. Why does he have to…get it right? She can hop on the Central Line, change at Mile End, take the District Line all the way to South Kensington, hobble through the tunnel, and be there in fifty minutes. She downs a painkiller, stretches her leg, pummels some life into her left thigh, then sets to work on the rest of her body. She ruffles her hair, draws on a pair of eyebrows, adds a dab of color to cheeks and lips, then dons the black dress and scarab necklace. Finally, she checks herself in the mirror and is surprised to see something like exhilaration gazing back at her.

  “Only for the necklace,” she tells herself. “For Nancy. Get the necklace and go. That’s all.”

  Then with a faster pace than she’s been used to, she is out of the house, race-hobbling into the bright, fresh day.

  ***

  The Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington, the grandfather of London’s museum quarter, houses five thousand years of human creativity. Jess knows her way through the grand entrance, down the marble stairs, along the corridor, to the two-tiered cavern of the jewelry gallery. The black walls are like the interior of a gift box, their velvety depths punctuated by rows of illuminated glass cases, all focus on the exhibits themselves, which range from Celtic breastplates to plastic punk chokers to the tsavorite ring of a well-known pop star.

  He is not here.

  Yet.

  The gallery is quiet, save for a few fashion students sketching medieval torques. It is a place for peace. The darkness is contemplative. The best stuff? She scans her eyes across the rows of cabinets, all eras and movements represented. Instinctively she is drawn to the twentieth-century cabinet, where she seeks out her long-time favorites: an unerringly sexual art nouveau hair ornament in the shape of an orchid and a Lalique pendant in the form of a female head with snaky tentacles curling out of the hair, beautiful and terrifying at the same time. And certainly a world away from the dainty floral motifs that preceded them and the stark geometry that came after.

  Jess’s attention is then drawn to a nearby screen, where black-and-white images flicker. The inscription reads: Original footage from the Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1900. She gasps. Here, in moving glory are the very things necklace creator Minnie Philomene Taylor would have been inspired by: the foreign pavilions, the Eiffel Tower painted bright golden-yellow, the palace of electricity, the Ferris wheel, the moving walkway—the sheer wonder of what humans can make and do. Through these distant, grainy, silent scenes, magnificence blooms. Minnie, she can only imagine, would have been in a constant state of visual seduction, the art nouveau aesthetic of fluid, whiplash curves appearing almost everywh
ere in every form: from posters, with their languorous females stretching in sultry sleepiness, to glass, to ceramics, to the buildings themselves.

  Then there in front of her, captured on camera, is René Lalique’s jewelry boutique, surrounded by crowds of onlookers. Is Minnie among them? she wonders, her nose pressed to the window, awed by the dark fantastical beauty of the objects displayed: large pins in the form of hummingbirds, combs in the shape of bats, nymphs entangled in fauna, picked out in pearls and opals. Eerie, beautiful, and impossible to forget…

  Suddenly she hears a voice behind her.

  “You chose well.”

  Guy is reflected in the glass, eyes glinting, framed by those telltale curls. As he steps toward her, a nervous flutter fills her stomach, which she suppresses with a tight, reasoned smile.

  “So the art nouveau is your best stuff too?” she asks.

  “Close but not quite.”

  He takes a seat beside her and points to the glowing case of Queen Victoria’s sapphire and diamond coronet, its intricate formal gem work glinting in the light.

  “That,” he says emphatically, “is the best stuff.”

  “Hmm. Impressive for its sparkle,” says Jess thoughtfully, “and its enormous market value, but too stuffy for me.”

  “Never mind the value,” says Guy. “The point is, you don’t wear a headpiece like that and get ignored. You rule an empire. You make history.”