She might be older than me. But only by a year or two.
“Emily’s a sophomore at Tanglewood College,” Dad says, waving a hand like it’s not worth discussing.
I know the real reason he doesn’t want the conversation on me. Because I’ll shout something wild, like the sky is purple. Or I’m a captive in this house. Or maybe I’ll just tell this Sergio that my dad isn’t trustworthy enough to do business with. The deal might still go through but pulling out all that paperwork, all those diagnoses to discredit me would be a pain in the ass.
Sergio doesn’t take the hint. “College?” His glacial blue eyes run over me as if he re-examining me, placing me where the girl beside him is, drawing a shiver to the surface of my skin. “What are you studying?”
Dad presses his lips together, unwilling to field this one.
“Geography,” I supply. “Specifically earth sciences and sustainability.”
There. I told the truth and I told it as simply and straightforward as possible.
Gold star for me.
A derisive noise punctuates my words. I keep a blank smile on my face, accustomed to my father’s opinion of my major. I’m not really sure what would have made him happier, though. I could have said fiction writing for a little inside joke, but I don’t think he would have laughed.
“You’re interested in the environment?” Sergio asks.
He sounds doubtful, though whether of my interest or the merits of the environment I can’t tell.
“I’m interested in the interplay between human society and our eco-system. How we use the resources and what we impart back to the earth. In particular my focus is on global food and farming.”
Now there’s surprise. “Farming?”
“It’s shocking to me that there’s still hunger in the year 1995, sir.”
“Ah,” he says. “Charity work. Anastasia is on the Tanglewood Society for the Arts.”
And with that, I’m carefully boxed and tucked away. Placed on a shelf alongside society wives who plan parties for the elite to give away a tiny percentage of their money.
The worst part is that I’m not even sure he’s wrong. It’s my dirty little secret that while studying the terrain and history of every region on the globe, I’ve never stepped one foot outside the city limits of Tanglewood. I can’t go anywhere without permission I’m never going to get.
The conversation moves to business with startling efficiency, the social portion of the evening concluded, Anastasia and I having done our duties as polite female add-ons.
“Do you have them?” Sergio asks.
“Of course,” Dad says, pointing to the wet bar. “In that black box.”
It takes a moment of awkward stillness for me to realize that had been a command. I’ve been the dutiful daughter at dinner parties plenty of times. This is my first time ever standing in for my mother for drinks and illicit deals with mobsters, though.
A half-wall made from teak hosts an array of antique pieces from Asia. A priceless vase. A sculpture of an elephant. A bamboo plant that I’m pretty sure Mom picked up at the Rite Aid. As worldly as she liked to appear the farthest she ever traveled was the dusty antique store downtown.
A red-lacquered box carved with a landscape of bamboo reeds and clouds sits in the middle. I’ve never opened the box. Never seen it moved. But when I pick it up, it’s heavy.
I didn’t need to take out my old Barbies to play with dolls; I’ve become one, my arms made from plastic, half-bent as I carry the box in unfeeling hands. I set the box down on the glass-top coffee table between the two sofas, lifting the lid to see black velvet inside.
Sergio doesn’t quite snap, but it feels like that. A quick gesture, a sharp sound. That’s all it takes for me to sit back on my heels. All it takes for Anastasia to reach for the velvet pouch with cool efficiency. She seemed docile, but that looks like a mask when she pours diamonds onto a leather mat, no shock on her porcelain face, no expression of any kind.
She produces a smooth metal bar, kind of like a nail file, and separates what must be thousands of dollars in diamonds. Distantly I remember Mom mocking an engagement ring after a society party. Hardly a family heirloom. What did it cost? Two thousand at most.
And that diamond had been smaller than these. There are so many.
Not thousands. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in diamonds.
I have no idea how actual jewelry businesses operate, but I have an image of armored cars and glass cases. Not a secret antique box in our house.
“I’ll have to examine it at the lab,” Anastasia says with a hint of an eastern European accent. “But it appears to be quality. The right amount.”
My father nods as if impatient. “And the money?”
The look on Sergio’s hard-lined face could freeze water. “I’ll send a fax to my banker when we get home. The money will be wired to your account next week.”
“Next week?”
“Surely you didn’t expect me to carry a briefcase full of money.”
From the annoyed look on Dad’s face, he expected exactly that. “What guarantee do I have that you’ll follow through?”
The temperature in the room drops ten degrees. “We need time to verify the stones. And since your daughter is in the room, I won’t tell you what happens if you question me again.”
Dad doesn’t back down. Instead he leans forward, looking like a bulldog facing down a mountain lion. I can’t decide whether that makes him brave or stupid. “Since your jeweler is in the room, I don’t see why you need a week to pay me.”
Sergio gives a small laugh, as if impressed by my father’s stubbornness. “You can keep them until the transfer is complete. Anastasia will collect a random sample to look at under microscope. Nothing will go wrong as long as these are quality.”
After considering this a moment, Dad gives a short nod. “Next week.”
Sergio and Anastasia leave quickly after that, taking only a small pouch of five diamonds with them. Small compared to the rest of the stones. The largest one was still the size of my thumb nail.
Part of me wants to ask Dad where he got those diamonds. How long he’s had them.
His scowl through dinner doesn’t invite questions. It quickly turns into an argument once Mom comes home, looking sharp with French-tipped nails and what appears to be Botox.
I slip upstairs, still feeling more like plastic than flesh, more air than blood.
It’s one thing to know my father does shady things for money. Another to take part in them myself, to see the glittering fruits of his labor. I know about diamond mines, the way the earth is ripped apart for a few compact pieces of stone in the center, the laborers who break their backs for pennies. The regional violence for control of the mines that takes the lives of women and children.
Not every diamond is sold to fund armed conflict, but with this kind of secrecy, this underhanded dealing, a living-room deal with a mobster, I can only imagine these are the worst. I may not know much about purchasing jewelry, but I learned about the international diamond certifications, designed to confirm the ethical providence of the stones in my class on natural resources. There were no little plastic cards accompanying those diamonds, however little reassurance those might be.
Which means they’re definitely blood diamonds. I held them in my hands.