Read Online The Widow Waltz by Sally Koslow - Free Book Online

street-level emporiums: Harry Winston, Tiffany, Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, H. Stern, and Bulgari. Stephan sells impeccable riffs on their wares as well as fine estate pieces. Customers reach him through recommendations, whispering the language of money in their native tongue, be it Arabic, Spanish, or Staten Island English. Nobody shouts. Nobody sweats. The customer is always right, because Mr. Waltz has asserted his subliminal yet strategic influence—Buy this stone, not that; Go with the platinum over the gold; Do not allow this one-of-a-kind ruby bracelet to leave the shop on a lesser woman’s arm.
    Stephan James Waltz inspires confidence. He is highly regarded within a coterie of elite jewelers, many of whom have been trying to hire him away for years. This amuses anyone acquainted with my sibling, who could never have a boss. That included our father, whom Stephan deserted when he was twenty-six, abandoning Philadelphia—a city he’d never call Philly—along with cheesesteaks and Eagles season tickets, for an apprenticeship in London. Before he was thirty, albeit a very old thirty, he opened his own small New York operation. Stephan was never Steve, Stevie, or Steph, never easy and never young.
    “For the sake of argument,” I say, “let’s say Nicola came to work with you. What would she do?”
    “Besides track the inventory on Excel? Greet customers, answer the phone, serve cappuccino, polish the goods, look absolutely splendid, model jewelry, make people feel good about spending fifty-thousand dollars in fifteen minutes.”
    I take in the restaurant’s tiny white lights, inhaling the fragrance of evergreens.
    “It might work.” It might.
    “She won’t be bored and quit after a week?” Stephan asks.
    My brother’s eyes, which are my eyes—almond shaped, charcoal, deeply set—are sharp upon me. There it is, the rusty nail waiting for my bare foot. Is he going to remind me that Cola left her first job, in the fashion department at
Elle,
when she was asked to come in on a Saturday to pack eleven trunks? “You know my daughter,” I say. “She’s got her virtues, but if you don’t want to be disappointed, you better find someone else.”
    “I see you’re not suggesting Luey.”
    “I’ve only lost my husband, not my mind.”
    “All right, have Nicola call.” He finishes his martini. “How is Luey?”
    “Distant.”
    “Aha,” he says. “And you. Holding up?”
    I was able to confide in Daniel because I knew he wouldn’t suggest that I was responsible for getting screwed. But now I face a higher judge who may or may not have been informed by Daniel. I drain the last few drops of my cocktail, shifting in my seat.
    “You look like hell,” Stephan adds. At least he has noticed. I read this as a term of endearment.
    “Do you know anything about Ben cheating?” I ask, emboldened by the drink.
    His eyes hold me. “On you?”
    “That’s a good place to start.”
    Stephan brushes back a lock of his black hair, his temples distinguished by a feathering of silver. “Couples have their indiscretions,” he says. “Look at our parents.”
    “I’d rather not.” I’m bleeding enough without reliving the six months after my father packed his stalwart leather luggage, leaving us to minister to our mother cursing in a dark room, complaining of a migraine. Not that much changed when they reunited. More migraines, more moaning.
    “Why do you care about cheating now?” he asks. “The poor bastard’s buried.”
    “It matters because I may have been left with next to nothing.”
    He frowns. “Georgia, don’t play the thespian.”
    “You’re allowed showmanship and I’m not?”
    “Cut the accusations, too. You’re one exasperating, prevaricating woman. Just the facts, please.”
    “This is what you need to know.” Although I wish I didn’t have to repeat them, I tell him. “The worst-case scenario safety net Ben assured me was in place—well, there is no net. He’s sold stock,