My creation evoked such extreme emotion that her hands began to convulse, almost to the extent that I thought she might drop it.

The Only Masterpiece

By Scott D. Zachary Ó 2003

It was one of the most bleak and desperate days of my life that spawned one of the most magnificent creations of my life. The events of that day erupted from within me the ring that brought tears to the eyes of most people who saw it. "Masterpiece" was the common thread in everyone’s evaluation. Awe spouted from every pair of eyes. Gaping jaws and a rush of adrenaline followed suit without one single reneg.

A bad divorce progressing toward disaster and an adopted son seeking acceptance from peers of the worst kind had taken an extreme toll on my spirits. Scrambling for a way out of my calamitous ordeal, I gladly sacrificed my dream house with an enclosed pool and carpet-like lawn to my wife and moved my residence to "The Bat Cave." Quaintly referred to as "The Cave," it reminded me all too much of the tenement where my soon-to-be ex-wife and I had begun our odyssey, where I ventured—way back when—to save a princess from the clutches of physical battering.

A princess no more, instead a ravenous jackal merely because I wouldn’t—and perhaps couldn’t—continue to partake from the poisoned well of bitter love.

Laboring through the previous night and into this day to save my tiny financial empire from crashing to the ground, I prepared a soft place in the back of my store to rest. Having barely closed my eyes, my enthusiastic teenage sales girl, Jackie, snatched me from my slumber. She shook me and said, "There’s a nice lady with a big potential sale up front—it’s a custom job."

Supine on the floor behind my desk, I reluctantly pulled the sheet down, which shrouded my face like a corpse. I said, "Take care of her; I don’t have anything left."

"I don’t know what to tell her," replied Jackie. "She’s been to many, many jewelers and they all said they either wouldn’t or couldn’t do it."

That was my wake-up call. Since I purchased this run-down jewelry store a little more than a year before, I had made a point of fulfilling every customer’s needs—whatever it was—especially when other jewelers said they couldn’t do it. That’s how I had built a clientele that sometimes stood in line to the door, some thirty feet of floor space. One particular case comes immediately to mind where a lady brought me a family heirloom made of "pot metal," which had been crushed beneath the tires of her car. The lady was desperate—her grandmother, on her death-bed, had given her this broach shortly before she passed away. As Johnny Cash might have said, "What could I say?" Knowing that I would have to struggle throughout the night to restore her priceless piece of costume jewelry, I said, "Sure! That’ll be ten dollars and I’ll have it for you tomorrow."

Jackie returned to the customer waiting in the front of the store and explained that the jeweler would be out shortly. I ran cold water over my head in the sink for several minutes, dried off, and combed my hair. Still bordering on exhaustion, I walked out to the sales counter and greeted one of the most strikingly beautiful women that I had ever seen—not exactly the kind of beauty of a Miss America, but more like the bold beauty of a Greek goddess. We shook hands and introduced ourselves. I admired Susan’s long, silky black hair and prominent cheek bones. There was something about her eyes that reached deep into my soul.

Susan handed me a ring. At a glance, my first impression was "boobies."

"From the expression on your face," she surmised, "I think you can see the problem. My mother had a jeweler custom design this ring and sent it to me as a gift, but I can’t possibly wear it in public. The diamonds are dazzling and the basic design is good, but the gold ring itself is hideous—ugly even. And worse than that are the way the two large diamonds look like headlights because they set perpendicular to my finger."

I hesitated before saying, "My first thought was ‘boobies.’ "

Both of us blushed and laughed.

In more than a year in the jewelry business, I had never seen such fancy-color diamonds in person—only in my gemology textbooks. I flipped out my 10-power loop and examined the stones in the ring. I ballparked the two large brilliant-cut diamonds at approximately a half-carat each. Their clarity approached flawless. The fancy yellow color pierced my eyes. Diamonds or otherwise, I had never seen a yellow so yellow.

Through my schooling with the Gemological Institute of America, I knew well, generally speaking, that pure white diamonds are the most valuable. But when they become as extremely colorful as these, the value leaps well beyond that of the whitest white. Also set, swirled between the half-carats, graduating from four points to about a sixth of a carat and back to four points again, were nine super-white brilliant channel-set (set in a channel-like crevice) diamonds.

Beseechingly, Susan asked me if it was possible to improve the appearance of her ring, yet at the same time, not change it so much that it would be obviously apparent to her mother. She didn’t want to hurt her mother’s feelings.

Conscious of the fact that I had never looked into the eyes of another person who exuded so much wisdom and intelligence, I said, "I’ll give it my best shot. To save you some money, I’ll reshape it with gold solder and move the settings of the large diamonds so they’re offset and not straight across your finger."

I told Susan that I would charge her $175.00 to reshape it in gold solder, but that I might decide to make a mold and recast it; if I decided to go in that direction, I would call her with a price before I proceeded. We said our good-byes and I closed the store. I went back to my jeweler’s bench and eyeballed Susan’s ring for hours. At last, I decided that the ring would have to be completely redesigned in order to do a proper job of it.

On Saturday morning, I called Susan and described my plan for her ring: pop the stones out, make a mold of the ring, clean up the design in wax, recast the gold, and reset the diamonds. Without taking even a second to consider what I had proposed, Susan said, "Scott, after talking with you yesterday for forty-five minutes or so, I have complete trust in your judgment. Do whatever you think is best and tell me afterwards what the cost will be."

I don’t believe she had any idea what effect those words would have on me. During our previous day’s discussion, I learned that Susan worked as a lawyer in the district attorney’s office. Intuitively, I knew that she must deal with the worst kind of people on a daily basis. Surely her job would make her the worst kind of cynic when it comes to judging people; however, after only knowing me for a number of minutes, Susan gave me her absolute trust. That, along with an extreme chemical reaction to her magnificent being, triggered a volcanic upheaval of creative desire that totally possessed me.

At two o’clock that Saturday afternoon, I closed the store and bicycled to "The Cave." I napped for two hours and then picked up seven or eight quarts of fruit juice on my way back to the shop. From about five o’clock Saturday afternoon straight through to three o’clock Monday morning, I lost complete touch with reality. The only event that I clearly remember during that time was when my clock and watch maker stopped in on Sunday morning to pick up some clocks to deliver. Now, keep in mind that Mark had been a jeweler for some twenty years or so before changing careers, and I had often tapped Mark for his vast experience and extraordinary abilities. I, on the other hand, had only been a jeweler for a little more than a year.

Up to the time Mark walked in the store that Sunday morning, I had removed Susan’s diamonds from her ring, made a rubber mold of it, created a wax model, and redesigned her ring in wax, scantily remembering her instructions with regard to her mother. I had also cast the wax model in gold and had just cut the gold sprue from the shank. It was very rough at that point.

Mark looked at my rough model. His eyes grew with utter disbelief and his voice was loaded with skepticism as he asked, "You’re going to channel-set that curved row of diamonds without seats?! I’m not sure I could do that!"

"Sure!" I whipped. "Not a problem."

"Good luck!" His face twisted in a doubtful expression.

There was no doubt in my mind.

At three o’clock Monday morning—as I placed Susan’s ring in a black velvet ring box—I returned to reality. I nearly went into shock. Over and over and over, I said to myself, "Oh my God, Scott! What have you done?!" A torrent of tears gushed from my eyes as I gazed down upon my creation. I sat there at my jeweler’s bench for nearly five hours, hardly taking my eyes off of the ring that Susan inspired me to create. I couldn’t touch it for fear of blemishing it with even a fingerprint.

Just before eight o’clock that morning, Mark walked in and sat down at his bench. I often spent the weekends at my shop creating anywhere from two to ten custom pieces for customers and for the showcases. Mark would come in on Monday mornings, look at my new pieces (I usually had them lined up on the counter) and he’d say things like: "That’s a nice one", "Pretty", or "Did you work all weekend?"

I took Susan’s ring in its ring box over to show Mark. I’ll never forget the indescribable look on his face—he couldn’t speak, but his expression said it all. The closest I can come to describing the way he looked at the ring is: It was as though he was watching the moon explode and all the stars fall from the sky. He had tears in his eyes when he finally spoke to me. "Wo-o-o-o-o-o-o-w." His astonished expression hadn’t changed as he stared at me google-eyed.

At eight o’clock, I called Susan at work and proudly told her that I had completed her ring. "I’m excited," said Susan, "but I can’t possibly come in today. I have to be in court all day, and I have three legal briefs that must be done by morning. I will be there tomorrow."

My emotions were mixed. I couldn’t wait to show Susan, but I was also glad that she couldn’t make it today. I wanted to keep her ring to show my vendors that came by on Monday mornings. My vendors’ reactions were identical—they all said something like, "A masterpiece!" My favorite vendor was an 88-year-old jewelry dealer who stopped in occasionally. He had dealt in jewelry for most of his life, and when it comes to jewelry, he had seen it all . . . until that morning. Upon seeing Susan’s ring, he exclaimed, "You must enter this in an international jewelry show! You’ll win top prize hands-down!"

By the time Susan came to the shop on Tuesday, I had begun to live for one reason—the upcoming moment in my life when I would present her with my creation, the glorious creation that her belief in me and her inspiration made possible. When Susan walked into my store, I dashed to the end of the showcases and ushered her into the back of my store. I sat down on the barstool-type chair in front of my jeweler’s bench as she walked up next to me. I opened the black velvet ring box and handed it to Susan. She duplicated Mark’s expression from the previous morning, except the sun, as well as the moon, seemed to explode before her eyes. Not diverting her focus from the ring, Susan began to whimper. Tears streamed from her enchanting eyes. My creation evoked such extreme emotion that her hands began to convulse, almost to the extent that I thought she might drop it.

I took the ring box from her. The look on her face was akin to the expression small children might make if you gave them a large rainbow-colored lollipop; then, after the first lick, snatched it away. Removing the ring from its velvetine confines, I took Susan’s left hand in mine and placed it on her wedding-ring finger. Susan palmed her left hand in her right and gazed down at the ring, the creation of which had given me a glimpse of what da Vinci felt as he created his precious Mona Lisa.

When I placed the ring on Susan’s finger, I realized that it would flop due to the arthritis in her knuckle. I apologized and said I would have put an arthritic shank on it had I noticed. I asked her to take it off so I could put a ring guard on it to prevent it from spinning around her finger. Still gazing in total disbelief at her beautiful ring, Susan declared, "I’m not ever going to take it off!" After extensive coaxing, she conceded her ring to me. While I carefully put a ring guard on it, Susan walked over to talk with Mark at his bench. Overhearing bits and pieces of their conversation, I bubbled over with joy.

Susan’s ring guard installed and her ring polished clean and shiny, I once again placed it on her wedding finger. She looked at me intensely and asked, "How much do I owe you?" I think she expected me to say "hundreds" or even "thousands."

I said, "Nothing."

Susan vigorously protested. "We had a contract. I have to at least pay you the $175.00 that we agreed upon, though I feel that I owe you much, much more."

"Nothing," I whispered, while restraining an ear-to-ear grin.

Susan snatched her checkbook from her purse and declared, "I’m going to pay you!"

"If you pay me, I’ll just take the money and use it to create another masterpiece for you."

"You’re impossible!"

"How could I possibly charge you?!" I declared. "You did it. You made it happen. Your inspiration created the only masterpiece that I can claim. I might never have achieved that without you."

Susan put her checkbook away and stared at me in consternation.

I finally relented and said, "I’ll only accept one form of payment—a hug."

And we did.

Susan requested an appraisal of her ring. In her appraisal, I wrote that her ring is priceless because the elements that resulted in the creation of which might never be duplicated. I was determined that it would be one-of-a-kind and had destroyed the rubber mold. However, I added in the appraisal that I would personally insure it—to the end of my days.

I have the love of my life now who inspires me similarly. But wherever you are out there in the world, Susan, if you happen to read this, my warranty against theft, loss or damage is still good.