The Necklace: Thirteen Women and the Experiment That Transformed Their Lives

by Cheryl Jarvis

  “The second time Jonell asked, I said yes. One thing I’ve learned is that life is full of second chances.”

  THE DAY OF THE Van Gundy wedding, Jone met clients in the morning, then drove straight to the reception hall to make sure everything was in order. The Jewelia Wedding Planners exited early from the ceremony to join her. They lit the votive candles, set out the wineglasses, checked on the food: appetizer trays of salsa and chips, raw veggies and artichoke dip, garlic rolls, and fresh fruit. A Mexican feast of barbacoa, arroz, frijoles de la olla, and bolillos.

  Guests poured into the hall, claiming seats by laying their jackets and purses on the stackable chairs. When more people showed up than had R.S.V.P.’d, Priscilla panicked. Patti put her hand on Priscilla’s arm. “Don’t worry, doll,” she said. “We’ll handle it.”

  Patti nabbed two of the women to set up another table.

  Patti scanned the room. Oh my god, she thought, one bartender but no waiters for 150 people! Patti acted fast.

  She instructed the bridal party to tote the champagne to all the tables, to introduce themselves to the guests—and to make it quick. Chop, chop!

  The women of Jewelia, all seated at the same table, felt like a collective fairy godmother as they watched the bride circulate among the tables. With her long white strapless gown and their diamond necklace, Nicole sparkled like Cinderella. Yes, the diamonds had adorned a lot of attractive necks, but none more beautiful than Nicole’s. The women devoured the food, which they all agreed was delicioso. Patti scanned the room again. She didn’t see anyone to clear the tables. My god, she thought, guests at a wedding can’t clear their own friggin’ plates!

  “Okay, ladies, time to clear,” Patti commanded, rising from her seat. “Spread out and start bussing.”

  As fast as she could snap her fingers, the women became waitresses, each taking one section of the room. Priscilla paled when she saw the women clearing the tables. Her color returned when she saw them smiling as they worked. She smiled, too. She relaxed. She breathed.

  Priscilla needed to breathe. She was about to sing publicly for the first time in a decade. She knew she looked good—she’d never had so many women compliment her on a dress. She was confident of her voice, but she was terrified of forgetting the lyrics.

  She walked onto the stage. Ten mariachis followed. Her son Sean looked up in amazement. When he had asked her to sing at his wedding weeks ago, she’d said no. He had not understood why she couldn’t do this one thing for him. She was always saying no. When he was growing up, she was the family enforcer, the bad cop. At family reunions watching his mom sing, he’d seen her other side. He loved that mom, with the voice and the stage presence. He’d always associated her singing with good times.

  Guitars, violins, and trumpets accompanied Priscilla as she sang the Spanish love ballad “Sabor A Mí.” Her voice was alto-deep and resonant like a cello, her powerful pipes developed from childhood singing mikeless with a mariachi band. The women of Jewelia couldn’t believe what they were hearing. Priscilla with a voice like that? She sang like a Mexican Edith Piaf, emotionally, with her whole body. Most of the group didn’t know the Spanish words, but from the way Priscilla sang, they didn’t need to. By the time she’d sung the last note, not a woman in the room had dry eyes.

  One man was crying, too: Priscilla’s son Sean, the object of her affection. His mom had lent Nicole—his wife!—the diamond necklace to wear. With her friends, she’d done all the work for the wedding. And now with her singing, she’d given him the best gift of all.

  When Priscilla’s older son, Aaron, a professional deejay, spun Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Let’s Groove,” the women of Jewelia stormed the dance floor to begin the party. One of the mariachis grabbed Tina. Priscilla and Patti and Nancy danced with one another. Priscilla’s face radiated with her successes. She’d pulled off the wedding. She’d pulled off her singing. And she’d made her son happy. She was utterly in the moment, enjoying this day, this music, these women.

  “IT WAS MY FIRST social outing with the women of Jewelia,” designer Jone said after the wedding. “I thought, ‘Oh my god, we’re clearing tables.’ But it was a big moment for me, seeing the women rise to the occasion to take care of Priscilla, seeing a group of thirteen working as one. My mother belonged to many women’s groups, and when my dad became ill, her friends came daily to comfort and support her. I saw what those visits did for my mom, and I realized that I didn’t have that in my life. I’d never belonged to a women’s group. Seeing everyone come together for Priscilla’s wedding comforted me to know that, down the road, a group of women would be there for me.”

  SIX P.M., FRIDAY, one month after the wedding, Priscilla’s taking her third voice lesson. She’s standing by a small, upright piano in the living room of her teacher, Toni Janotta. The room is the bohemian, eclectic space of an artist, with colorful mobiles, stained-glass lamps, and a five-foot-tall carpeted scratching post for the Russian Blue cat slinking across the wood floor.

  Priscilla’s wearing a jungle print top with multicolored spangles and chocolate brown slacks. Toni begins the exercises. Priscilla vocalizes the scales. She sings them breathing deeply from her diaphragm. She sings them widening her range. She sings them in short, staccato sounds that crunch her stomach. She sings them—over and over.

  She struggles. She sweats. She perseveres.

  Finally, the fun part: Toni leafs through The Great American Songbook to select a number in Priscilla’s key. She hands Priscilla the book open to a Sinatra classic. Priscilla puts on her tortoiseshell-rimmed reading glasses. She looks down at the sheet music and begins softly:

  Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum

  You came along and everything started to hum

  Still it’s a real good bet the best is yet to come

  By the third verse she’s belting out the lyrics. She’s already absorbed the message.

  PRISCILLA IS TIRED and hoarse but energized. She climbs into her silver Mercedes, “my first luxury car,” driving with her left hand as the right one constantly gestures. She wants to start auditioning, be in a musical, do community theater. First, though, she has this dream: to perform a cabaret for friends and family. She’s set a deadline: two years. She’ll rent a restaurant or lounge, hire musicians. select a theme, and then perform her repertoire one or two nights. She’ll hire her vocal coach, who’s a professional singer, to advise her. Priscilla’s excited just thinking about it: An Evening with Priscilla.

  “Growing up, I knew I had a gift,” she says. “But after I married and had children I didn’t use it. I let it all go. But sharing your voice is a way to connect to people. I’m determined to have a singing career before I die. It’s not too late. Without this group of women I wouldn’t have imagined it. Now I have friends who will support me in doing something risky. I know they’ll be there, and they’ll encourage all their friends to be there, too. They’ll fill the room.

  “Before meeting these women, I lived in a world where I wasn’t worthy, wasn’t good enough. It’s the story I’d told myself all my life. These women taught me that it was just a story, a story I’d told myself because I was afraid. My only fear now is that I’ll be a disappointment to myself, that I’ll get to the end of my life and know I didn’t take advantage of everything that was given to me.

  “Before Jewelia, I thought, ‘I wonder what’ll happen to me?’ Now I think, ‘I wonder what I’ll do next?’ For the first time, I’m composing my life.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mary O’Connor, the rock ’n’ roller

  . . .

  Shaping a legacy for our daughters/ourselves

  . . .

  PATTI WAS SO MOVED BY THE SIGHT OF PRISCILLA’S daughter-in-law in the diamonds that she offered the necklace to a friend’s daughter for her upcoming wedding. Patti didn’t have a daughter, but she doted on those of her friends. She was a godmother to ten, including this bride-to-be, who’d grown up with some of the Jewelia women’s daughters.
The news that her “something borrowed” would be Jewelia spread quickly through Ventura.

  Some of the Jewelia women’s daughters were surprised, one miffed, one frankly “bummed out” that an outsider to the group would be wearing the necklace on her wedding day before they’d be wearing it on their wedding days. The mothers groused. That their daughters could wear Jewelia on their wedding days had been one of the reasons they’d bought the necklace in the first place. They didn’t like this turn of events.

  And they didn’t like hearing about the loan through the grapevine. Shouldn’t they have been consulted? Whoa, shouldn’t there have been a discussion? The wedding wasn’t even during Patti’s month. She borrowed the necklace to loan it to a third party. Is this the way the women were going to operate?

  The chain that bound them chafed once again. And once again, all hell broke loose.

  AT THE NEXT MEETING, Patti opened with an apology. Her intention had been only to share, she said. Isn’t that what the group was all about? Isn’t that what they’d been doing for a year now?

  Well, yes, that was what they were all about, said Nancy Huff. But weddings were different. Weddings were sacred events that blessed and honored family life. The necklace was to be a family heirloom bestowed on their daughters for their wedding days. There’s a difference between loaning it to someone for a few hours at work, she said, and loaning it to someone for a wedding.

  Patti looked at Nancy incredulously. Could this be the same generous, compassionate Nancy she’d known for twenty years? What happened to her?

  “There’s no difference,” Jonell responded. “Sharing is sharing.”

  “Something that is common and easily available loses its value,” opined another mother of a marriageable-age daughter. “If anyone can wear it for her wedding, then it won’t be special for our daughters.”

  “No,” declared Jonell. “What makes the necklace special is the sharing.”

  “I think we should go back to sharing the necklace just among the thirteen of us, the way it was at the beginning,” said a third mother of a marriageable-age daughter.

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” Jonell exclaimed. “What’s happening to this group? What are we all about anyway? The only interesting thing about this experiment is the sharing.”

  “Yes, we’re about sharing,” someone answered, “but we’ve never talked about how we’d share. Maybe we need to set up some guidelines.”

  Guidelines? Jonell was aghast. Not this again.

  “We just want to preserve the specialness of the necklace for our daughters. I don’t want my daughter to not want to wear the necklace because so many others have worn it before her.”

  “You’re forgetting the basic premise of this experiment,” Jonell reminded them. “It’s about inclusion, not exclusion.”

  Jonell, too, had a daughter of marriageable age but no affinity for this point of view.

  “At the least,” interjected another mother of a twentysomething daughter, “we should discuss loans for weddings and other public events ahead of time, reach a consensus.”

  Jonell lost her patience. “You’re telling me that I have to go through some committee before I can share this necklace with someone?”

  To Jonell, this argument was worse than the one over the LLC. This controversy went to the heart of her experiment. She’d shared it with the twelve of them. How dare they not share it with others?

  “This was my idea, and the necklace is for everyone,” she flared. “There are no constraints.”

  The room grew very quiet.

  Finally Nancy, Jonell’s oldest friend in the group, spoke. “Yes it was your idea, Jonell. But the necklace isn’t just about you anymore. We’re a group now.”

  “You’re right,” Jonell acceded. “I’m sorry.”

  Half the group said nothing. Those without children couldn’t even wrap their heads around the discussion. Those who’d survived major illnesses couldn’t sit still for it.

  The woman who broke the silence said the necklace should mean something to the wearer. Maybe those who wear Jewelia to public events, like weddings, should do something in her name, like give money to charity.

  Jonell finally erupted. “Now you’re saying that women have to pay to wear the necklace?”

  Emotions surged and spilled and exploded. By the end of the evening, the women had resolved nothing.

  Nancy went home upset. She felt like quitting the group. Jonell went home upset. She wished she’d never started it.

  NO ONE HAD listened to the debate with more interest than Mary O’Connor.

  Mary was one of the few who’d written a check for the necklace without seeing it. She didn’t need to. The lure had been one thing, and one thing only: She wanted the necklace in order to lend it to her daughter Karen on her wedding day. Mary reasoned that, after she died, Karen, as her beneficiary, would come to know—and become friends with—the daughters of her friends.

  When December rolled around and with it her annual time with the necklace, Mary O’Connor turned the meeting into a party with the legacies. December was the perfect time to host a party, though Mary didn’t need an excuse.

  At sixty-two, Mary O’Connor was the oldest member of the group, but she still partied and dressed like a rock star. She wore snug, pastel leather jackets, cleavage-revealing camisoles, mid-thigh skirts. A delicate, gold ankle bracelet circled a smooth, bare leg. Blond waves cascaded past her shoulders. Her look was not typical for a former chair of a high school English department, but hers was a look that helped make her the groovy teacher all the kids wanted to have.

  She still joined the crush at six rock concerts a year with her second husband, a space systems engineer ten years her junior. She’d taken her two kids to their first rock concerts, shared a love of Led Zeppelin with her son;

  Hall & Oates with her daughter. The couple’s partying habits were rooted in their early years in Buffalo, New York, when they’d pick up their babysitter at eleven-thirty P.M., hit the bars and clubs until four A.M., grab some breakfast, and head home. Now that their children were adults, Mary and her husband were invited to parties hosted not only by their children but also by their children’s friends. The couples’ youthful spirit made them A-list invitees.

  Mary O’Connor liked to throw a party as much as she liked to attend one. For her evening to cede the diamonds, she went all out decorating her five-level Spanish-style home. She festooned the stair railings with pine garlands, interspersing the greenery with twinkling lights and ribbon bows in burgundy and gold. She hung three evergreen wreaths, decorated a twelve-foot-tall Noble pine, and strung lights across her three-tiered deck overlooking the Pacific. Everyone, as usual, congregated around the buffet in the dining room. Potluck had reigned at previous meetings, but Mary supplied all the holiday fare herself: jumbo shrimp, salmon and crab dips, assorted croissant sandwiches, and tamales, a Southern California holiday staple.

  The women arrived with their beneficiaries—daughters, stepdaughters, nieces, and sisters. Seated around the living room, with half the women sprawled on the floor, Mary had so much fun hosting the generations that at the end of the evening she spontaneously invited the women of Jewelia to her home in the Florida Keys. No one in the group had ever seen Key West, but no one was surprised that the party girl had a second home twenty miles from one of the country’s great party towns.

  “First seven who get plane tickets can come,” she said with cheerleader enthusiasm. Three months later, in her floral halter tops and white shorts, Mary introduced the women to the best conch fritters and mojitos on the island. She took them to every legendary bar: Sloppy Joe’s, Captain Tony’s, the Hog’s Breath Saloon, and her favorite, the Green Parrot. She led the caravan to tour the Hemingway Home and Museum, cruise the shops on Duval Street, and watch the sunset at Mallory Square. Each night, Nancy and Tina, usually in bed by ten P.M., would start yawning and ask, “Can we go home?” Mary’s response: “But it’s only two A.M.!”

&nbs
p; Back home in Ventura, Mary’s daughter, Karen, couldn’t keep up with her, either.

  A younger version of her mother, Karen has Christie Brinkley looks: an animated, pretty face and a curvy, athletic body. Like her mother, she’s an emphatic speaker and gesturer. The two women work together at Mary’s computerized sign business. Together they attend church, the LA Opera, and the Super Bowl when they can snag tickets. They’re avid sports fans and best friends.

  “When I first heard about the necklace, I trivialized it,” says Karen, thirty-nine. “When my mom told me I could wear it on my wedding day, I thought, ‘Yeah, right. That’d be nice, but it’ll never happen.’ I’ve never been married and thought every other woman’s daughter will wear it before I will. But the first time I saw my mother wear the necklace, to a family Christmas party, it changed everything. The necklace was so beautiful, and she just glowed. I think it’s because of what the necklace means to her, it’s like wearing your heart on your sleeve, although in this case it’s her neck. I thought, ‘That’ll be so beautiful to wear on my wedding day.’

  “But now, if everyone in town’s gonna get to wear it, it doesn’t feel special anymore. I’d rather wear my grandmother’s pearls.”

  Mary O’Connor didn’t care that another young woman would be wearing the diamond necklace before her daughter. She cared about only one thing: Her daughter wasn’t as excited about wearing it as she once was.

  MARY ANN O’CONNOR was raised in an upper-middle-class family in Williamsville, New York, a suburb of Buffalo. Her father was a radiologist; her mother, an Irish beauty who promenaded in the grocery store in high heels and a mink. As the oldest of four and the only daughter, Mary often babysat for her younger brothers. Her household was a male-dominated one.