The Affair of the Necklace

This is the Necklace


This necklace is one of the only things I have ever seen in a display case and instinctively felt ought to belong to me. No- I felt that somehow, it DID belong to me. Have you ever felt that way about something, Gentle Readers?

This is old history- I saw the Necklace about five years ago and kept looking to see if it had been sold. It was prohibitively expensive, and although I mentioned it to my at the time husband, I didn't really expect to ever recieve it. So imagine my surprise on Christmas morning five years ago, when I found it hanging on a little bag on the tree at my family's house! My son is a year old, and this is my combined Christmas and baby anniversary gift.

It's nice,Dear Readers, after things fall apart, to find that you can pick through the memories of your old relationship and pull out the good ones. I'm not particularly materialistic, but I was so happy to put on this exotic beautiful piece of jewelry that I just really knew was supposed to be mine.

Later, J told me how he had gone to look for it, with only my description and that the sales girls had looked all over the cases and couldnt find it. Everyone assumed it had been sold, although no one remembered selling it.Then someone found it draped around a mannaquin's neck in the front window. I stopped wearing my wedding and engagement rings even before left my marriage- but I could still wear the Necklace with perfect happiness; a talisman picture postcard of a happy moment before anything went wrong.

Fast forward...It is a few months ago and I am starting my new job. Unlike at the bakery, I can wear my nice clothes, although our office is very very casual. On the first day, I wear a new skirt, and on the second day I wear the Necklace. I wear it over a heavy sweater, as it is very cold outside and chilly even in the office.

When I get home that night, I realize the Necklace is GONE. I drive back over to work, retrace my steps even though it is dark.No necklace to be found. Later,I send out an email asking my new co-workers to please keep an eye open for it and let me know if anyone finds it. People send general good luck wishes, but that's all.

When I am out at the copier that afternoon, one of the reporters from upstairs says 'Are you the one who lost a necklace?' He thinks he saw pieces of something out in the alley behind the building and leads me out.My heart is pounding, because I remember now that I had cut through the alley yesterday to move my car.

He kneels down in the dirty frozen slush. He is strong and muscular looking, compactly built with dark hair and keen eyes and a clever expression- like you might expect a reporter to look. Like someone who might see the crushed pieces of mosiac of a colorful necklace pressed into the grit and icy mud of an alley.

I can hardly breath and the only thing that keeps me from crying is how very cold it is. I kneel beside him and scrape the pieces into my hand as he walks in a circle around me and pickes up a small row of beads, a triangle of color, a scrap of chain. It has obviously been run over. The only parts we can still find are flattened and scarred, and those are only visible because the snow must have cushioned them a little.

I dont remember what else was said. I think he said it was too bad and maybe I could get it fixed and I think I thanked him. I remember thanking him later on, when the shock of losing this and then finding it again had worn off. I remember thinking that it was, after all, only a necklace. With so many other more precious things one could lose, it just shouldn't be so important. I tried to convince myself that this was just the universe moving me on; that now my old life was really and truly done with and that this loss was just a symbol of that. But none of that really made me feel any better.

I took the pieces in a baggie into the shop where it came from. As I let them fall out onto the counter, everyone gathered around to look with dismay, and the manager gathered up the bits and said that she would send them to the studio that had made it. The artist lives in Israel and who knew if it would do any good, but she would send it and see what happened.

Fast forward again to a few weeks ago. There is a message on my answering machine, saying that they have some news about my necklace, and can I please stop by the shop this week. The next day, I take an early break before lunch and walk over, wondering if they can somehow get another one made and how on earth I would pay for it, even if they could. Would it still be the same?

When I go in, they ask me to wait. Very excited, someone runs to the back for the manager,who comes out and reveals with a flourish- MY NECKLACE!!!


The colors are exactly the same. The mosaics,the beading, every tiny detail.The manager tells me that she wrote a long sad letter about what had happened and how much it had meant to me. The agent in the States forwarded the letter and the necklace to Ayala Bar's studio in Israel.They had one necklace left from this particular design.It had been a limited editon, and not many had been made in the first place. They fastened it around my neck and I couldn't help it- I started to cry.

When I asked them what I owed them for it, they told me I didnt owe them anything. I had my necklace back free of charge.I walked back to the office feeling bouyant and light. The weight of the talisman heart settled against my collarbones and I felt as if anything might be possible.

The moral of this story, Dear Readers, is that although necklaces, even precious ones are not important in the grand scheme of things, small gestures are. People still do good deeds with no benefit to themselves.

Not even good deeds to save someone else, or cure illness or feed hungy people.But they can do something nice just to make someone else feel BETTER. I have been trying very hard to remember that. You can do something-anything-for someone else and it may not ever be enough. But you can at least do something. Maybe such a small gesture can mean more than we think.

The other moral of this story, Dear Readers, is of course to always CHECK the clasp of your Necklace. Make sure that it is tight and in good repair. It will save you a lot of heartache in the end. xxxooo, Necklacegirl