Her body thrums with an urge to run, to leap, to be more than it is.
Mary is behind her. "Julienne." A nod at a customer looking at a spotlighted case: in it, rubies set in platinum. Necklace, bangle and earrings that together can reduce a body from comfortably middle-class to homeless poverty overnight.
She switches on her professional smile—elegance over simpering, expertise over eager-to-please—and glides over. The man is thickly built, his suit tailored, gold everywhere and a Rolex that might even be real. Clean-shaven head and eyes like an owl's: immense. "Sir," she says, "does this set interest you?"
He adjusts his spectacles and glances at her. "Where are the rubies from?"
An accent, she thinks, trying to place it. "Burma, sir, of course. The fluorescence, as you can see, is a b
