The Necklace: A true story of 13 women, 1 diamond necklace and a fabulous idea. Cheryl Jarvis

in the window?’ she asked nonchalantly, as if she did this every day.

      She reached up to touch the delicate gold chain she wore. Back in 1972 a boyfriend had given her this necklace, which had a peace symbol pendant, and in 2003, at the start of the war in Iraq, she’d put it on again. She placed the diamond stunner over her old gold charm. It was, she thought, simply exquisite – and exquisitely simple.

      She took a breath, and as she breathed out, she asked the price.

      ‘Thirty-seven thousand dollars.’

      Jonell couldn’t stop herself gasping. All she could think was: ‘Who buys a thirty-seven-thousand-dollar necklace?’

      She looked in the mirror again. She thought back to the choices she’d made in her life, the ones that guaranteed she could never afford a necklace like this. She thought about how different her life might have been if she’d invested herself more in a career or married a wealthy man. If she’d worked harder, maybe she could have generated the kind of money that would enable her to indulge in this kind of luxury. In the end, none of this mattered, not really. In a world overflowing with need, the idea of owning a thirty-seven-thousand-dollar necklace was morally indefensible to Jonell, who’d acted as a mentor for disadvantaged kids for six years. Lost in these thoughts, she heard only snippets of the saleswoman’s description: ‘118 diamonds…brilliant-cut…mined from non-conflict areas…15.24 carats.’

      Fifteen carats sounded ostentatious and Jonell didn’t like ostentation. She looked at it again. There was nothing ostentatious about this necklace. The diamonds were so small, just right for her five-foot-two-inch frame, yet circling clear around her neck they felt substantial. What was magnetic was their radiance. She’d never seen diamonds shimmer like these.

      Jonell hesitated to take off the necklace. After admiring it for another minute, she laid it back on the counter and thanked the saleswoman for her time.

      Over the next three weeks Jonell was surprised how often she thought about the diamond necklace. When she was next back at the shopping centre with her eighty-six-year-old mother, she noticed it was still in the window.

      ‘Mum, I want to show you something,’ she said, and led her mother into the shop as if she were seven and heading for her first Barbie doll. ‘Try it on.’

      Her mother’s eyes widened as she clicked the clasp. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she whispered. Jonell’s mother knew quality, and her admiration confirmed for Jonell that the necklace was classic, timeless.

      When Jonell peeled her eyes away from the diamonds brightening her mother’s neck, she glanced at the price tag: twenty-two thousand dollars. It had been reduced. And then, on the counter, she noticed an advert announced a sale in which the shop would take bids on any item of jewellery on display.

      Jonell remembered being thirty and in need of a respite. Burned out from her job as a speech therapist in Santa Cruz and weary of her long-term boyfriend, she’d gone to New York City to live with her best friend from her final year at the University of Southern California. There, Jonell witnessed her room-mate washing her face with Perrier water. She saw her wrap herself in a full-length lynx coat. That’s when Jonell took stock of her own chances for such luxuries. They were slim to nil. That reality aroused not envy but curiosity: why was luxury accessible to so few? After six months, Jonell left New York to return to her native California, but the question had never left her. Now it loomed large again.

      Why is it, she wondered, that we can stand shoulder to shoulder to enjoy sumptuous masterpieces in art museums? That whole crowds can admire magnificent landscapes together in national parks? Why can’t we share personal luxuries the same way?

      And an idea was born: ‘I could wear a luxury item if I bought it together with some other women. No one woman needs to have a fifteen-carat diamond necklace all the time. But’ – and here she paused as the idea took shape – ‘wouldn’t it be delightful to have one every now and then?

      ‘I can’t spend twenty-two thousand dollars on myself, but I can spend one thousand…A thousand dollars would not be out of reach for many of my friends…If I could convince, say, at least another eleven women to come in with me, I could bid twelve thousand…It’s already come down by fifteen thousand dollars. Why not another ten?’

      And so the idea was born. Jonell started phoning friends and colleagues immediately. She talked to the women in her walking group and investment club. Women she’d met at seminars, parties, charity events, tempting them with the idea of owning an amazing diamond necklace for one month each year. Most of the women she approached said no. No money. No time. No interest in diamonds. The responses fired off rapidly: ‘A formula for disaster. Everyone will fight over it.’ ‘What’s the point of buying diamonds?’ ‘I can get a better deal at the jewellery market.’ ‘You’ll never get twelve women to get along with each other.’ ‘If I’m going to spend a thousand dollars, I want something just for myself.’

      Even her mother fired off a round: ‘You’ll lose friends over this.’

      Some comments unsettled Jonell, filling her with self-doubt. Some spurred her to argue. Some she ignored. But she stayed fixed on her goal. She went back again to the women who’d said no. She asked new women. By two months later she had a group of seven. Close enough, she decided. She could put the balance on her Visa card and by the time the bill arrived, she’d have found the rest.

      

      Three generations of Van Gundy men were in the shop on the Saturday of the sale: Kent Van Gundy, age eighty, who’d started the business in 1957 and was now retired; Tom Van Gundy, fifty-four, his son, who’d taken over the business; and Sean, twenty-nine, his grandson, who now managed the shop.

      Tom says he’ll never forget that day. Sean won’t forget it either. These women were different from the ones the Van Gundys usually encountered. So many women who come into jewellery stores aren’t happy, says Sean. Their eyes are anxious, their faces tense. Some are in tears. They’re lonely and looking for someone to talk to. Something’s missing in their lives, and they’re trying to fill the empty space. These women rushed into the shop smiling, eager to be there shortly after the doors opened to beat any competing bidders. Jonell showed the necklace to the four who came with her: two who’d said yes to her proposition, two who’d said no but didn’t want to miss the fun. Mary Karrh, a head taller than Jonell, found herself so far removed from her daily life as an accountant that her expression was one of wonder. If she’d had any fears about what she’d committed her money to, they disappeared once she was face-to-face with the diamond necklace.

      ‘Wow, it looks like a million bucks,’ she said.

      ‘Try it on, Mary,’ Jonell urged.

      The other women huddled around Mary, who found herself standing even taller. She sounded surprised as she said, ‘I can see myself wearing this.’

      Maggie Hood represented the quintessential California girl with blonde hair and a firm body. She moved back and forth, one minute admiring the necklace, the next flirting with a good-looking salesman.

      ‘We need pictures!’ said Jonell. One of the women along for the camaraderie ran out into the shopping centre to buy a disposable camera.

      Each woman – Jonell, Mary, Maggie, the two friends – posed for a photo with the diamonds. They vamped and giggled, amazed that three of them were even thinking of buying such a thing, even as a ‘time-share’. Obviously these giddy women didn’t buy diamonds every day. Throughout the posing, there was awe. ‘It’s so beautiful,’ they said. They said it over and over. They said it when they saw it on one another and when they looked at themselves in the mirror. They breathed it when Mary wore it with her sleeveless shirt and khaki shorts. They repeated it when Maggie tried it on with her vest top and jeans. And they sighed it as the diamonds lay against Jonell’s gold peace symbol charm. ‘This necklace is so beautiful!’ The women swept everyone up in their excitement as they grinned and gushed – and anticipated.

      Then it was time for Jonell to hand Tom Van Gundy an envelope. In it was a sheet of paper with her handwritten bid and the