What country did I rule? What pirate did I befriend? Did I know Harry Winston personally? Whatever my past lives were, no doubt, I carried my passion for jewelry with me into this incarnation. I am VS1-clear on how important jewels are to me. Before I could walk, I accessorized. Baubles have fascinated me since day one, and I remember wearing a plastic teething ring as a bracelet. How kind of fate to bring me into the world in the month of the diamond. If only I were born wearing a birthstone ring.

            While others carried dolls and toys, I carried my jewelry box with me in my young years. When playing with friends on the front stoop —yes, stoop, not porch, not steps, I grew up urban, inner-city — I’d take each piece out and position it on the top step, rearrange the necklaces, put all the rings together, then lift and coddle each piece before putting it back in the pink, cardboard jewelry box. The ballerina had stopped twirling long ago, but the music still played.

           My heart hurts now when I think about pieces I had then and no longer have. Some were my great-grandmother’s, my grandmother’s, and some were my mother’s. Some were birthday or First Communion gifts. I can see them. I still have one piece, an aquamarine bracelet with ivory thread binding one broken link. It had been my mother’s when she was a baby. The other pieces are gone — the onyx and etched silver pinky ring, the light blue stone pin and matching ring that were my grandmother’s or great-grandmother’s, where did they go? The small, gold cross with the pearl center that Aunt Maryann gave me. I know where that went. Gwendolyn L. stole it. She was sitting with me on the stoop one day when I was rearranging my jewelry on the top step. When I noticed it was gone, I asked her if she had seen it. I asked her to help me look for it on the brick steps, in the bushes, on the grey cement street, and between the dented, metal trash cans in the alley. She acted as upset as I did at its missing. She helped me look for it. No luck. I was heartbroken.

            The next day, when Gwennie came to call for me, I noticed she was wearing it. I asked for it back, but she insisted it was hers, that she had the same necklace as I had all along and had gotten it for her birthday. I knew, even at the age of seven, that was bullshit. She was not only a thief, but a liar, too. How well she played that. She never flinched. She kept my necklace. I never took my jewelry out in front of Gwendolyn L. again. I enjoyed the gems I had privately after that. You learn fast in an urban neighborhood. When people haven’t got much, they take what they can get and protect what they got. It was like that where I grew up.

            Revenge was not an option then. Gwennie was a couple of years older. She was a good liar. She lorded over the neighborhood kids and loved her authority. Parents wouldn’t let us little kids go to the movies unless Gwennie was going, so because of Gwennie, we got to walk all the way to West Side Avenue and take the #9 bus to Journal Square to see “A Hard Day’s Night” at the State Theater. Though grateful to Gwennie for that, the fact remained that I had confronted her about the necklace and lost. At seven years old, I wasn’t a wimp, but I wasn’t as brazen as a prosecuting attorney. All these years later, I wish I could have won that case, wish I had gotten my revenge, like stealing back my own necklace, embarrassing her in some way, or even just forcing her to work harder to lie. But I didn’t. Instead, I moved on.   

            The year Gwennie stole my gold-cross necklace, my grandmother bought me a gold charm bracelet for my First Communion with a round charm that read, “You are always in my heart. Grandma.”  My mother and father bought me a First Communion Charm. My Aunt Maryann bought me a Christmas tree charm that holiday. Gwennie didn’t have a charm bracelet. Gwennie didn’t have a father, either.

            During the four years after losing my necklace to Gwennie, my father had been working three jobs while my mom kept us clean and fed, and we were able to move away from that neighborhood. My parents bought their first house in a safer, better section of the city. After ten years, we moved again, out of that city to another in the same county, to a house with a built-in pool. Through old-neighborhood friends my brother remains in contact with, I learned Gwennie still lived in her same childhood house, on that same street. She never married. Has no children. Her mother is gone. Her alcoholic uncle, too. Other than that, I don’t think her life has changed much. I hope she still has my necklace.

           Since Gwendolyn took my gold cross, I’ve added so many more shiny things to my collection. Along the way, I developed a connection to emeralds. How kind of fate to bring me a husband born in May. My wedding rings are diamond and emerald to represent our birthstones. To me, it’s totally rational that I should accumulate emerald-and-diamond jewelry. With such poignant symbolism, it’s only common sense that all birthday, Christmas, and anniversary gift boxes should contain something made of diamonds and emeralds. A no-brainer. The perfect combination, like my husband and me.

            I’ve been thinking about branching out, maybe moving on to sapphires, the birthstone of our first-born, but I still can’t resist the emerald’s pull. Such a dilemma. But there is a sapphire-and-diamond necklace I have in mind. Actually, my husband put this necklace on my radar. He told me, “I went to get my watch battery fixed and saw a necklace in the window. I said to myself, ‘Maureen would like this.’ You should go see it. I don’t even like jewelry, and it made me stop. Looks like something you’d really like.”

            Of course, I paid the necklace a visit first chance I had. He was right. I loved it. I had to go in and asked about it. _­­­Once I heard the price, $48,000, I forgot all the details — carat weights, number of sapphires, quality of the stones, etc. Yeah, I loved it. Couldn’t wait to tell my husband the cost. Now here’s only one reason why I love my husband as much as the emeralds that represent him. He said, “Do you want it?”

            Truth, I totally wanted it. Totally wanted to say, “Yes!” Instantly, I felt like a cartoon character that zooms straight up, hits the ceiling, flattens out, peels away, and slowly drifts back to the ground. I saw those sapphires around my neck and felt the glee of their weight against my skin. Then, I reeled myself in, and with rare obedience to common sense, conceded that would be an illogical, irrational, selfish, crazy thing. We’re not the Kardashians. We both came from lower-middle-class, urban neighborhoods where everyone’s dad was either a cop, a fireman, or a factory worker. Kids of working-class, first-generation Americans. It wasn’t in our DNA to be financially frivolous. We couldn’t make a purchase like that, but he could only see how happy that necklace would make me, and he wanted with all his heart to give me that new plaything. I wondered if there was someone in Gwennie’s life who loved her enough to offer her a necklace like that, one she wouldn’t have to steal but accept out of pure love. Why I thought of Gwennie at a euphoric moment like this, I can’t figure. I resent that I will always see her face when a special jewelry moment arises. I resent that she casts a permanent shadow on my bling highs because of stealing that one gold-and-pearl-cross necklace all those years ago, a necklace whose monetary value didn’t register for me at that age, but the sentiment did. I loved my Aunt Maryann very much, and she gave me that necklace. Gwennie took the necklace, and I felt so hurt, so sad because it represented Aunt Maryann. I never wanted Aunt Maryann to know it was gone. 

            Admittedly, while strolling around Manhattan, I have visited 47^th Street — the diamond district, my favorite street to hang out on — several times looking for a more affordable version of that sapphire necklace. There are options at one-third the price, definitely not the same as the $48,000 version, but still beautiful. Maybe for our next anniversary I’ll branch out to sapphires. I mean, I should. It’s our son’s birthstone. And after a few years, when we’re older and I’ve had my fill of sapphires, I’ll move onto aquamarine, our daughter’s birthstone. That’s a more affordable stone, so it should work out nicely on a retirement budget. Retirement, a lot of jewelry and a long way from being seven years old and Gwennie.

            Haven’t heard anything about Gwennie in a long time. I don’t know where Gwennie is today or if she’s even alive. I know where I am, though. Losing that gold-cross necklace all those years ago doesn’t matter anymore. I have my revenge. It came to me in divine ways. Karma maybe. I never ridiculed Gwennie or did anything to avenge her taking my necklace. I even played with her and invited her to my birthday party after that incident. In a way, even then, I think I felt sorry for her. Her father had left them. Her single mom, always disheveled-looking from what I can remember, didn’t clean and dress Gwennie and her brothers and sister in crisp, new clothes. Her grandmother and uncle lived with them in their cluttered, crowded, broken house. Her live-in uncle was an alcoholic, and even the little kids on the block knew that Gwennie’s family was even more poor than the rest of us. I wonder if Gwennie’s adult life was better than her childhood. I hope it was. Really. I hope Gwennie can buy her own jewelry now.

           I am blessed by and grateful for my children who gave me two more gem stones to collect. And for my husband and his willingness and desire to make me happy. I don’t need the $48,000 sapphire necklace. I married an emerald. I raised a sapphire and an aquamarine. It’s all good, Gwendolyn L.

– Maureen Mancini Amaturo