He bought the ring at an antique shop in Harlem. Walking out of a generic cafe with a brown cup of browner coffee, he crunched through leaves until he saw the little hole in the wall. It was dodgy looking – chipping paint crumbling down broken framework. Bare rays of sunlight highlighting stains across the walls. A great chunk taken out of the door. He tried not to look at the molding edges as he kicked open the hatch.
A faint electronic ding sounded somewhere in the depths of the shop. The sound seemed to reverberate through the cluttered emptiness. He stepped precariously through piles of boxes, all unopened. Shelves stretching from floor to ceiling showcased old jewelry and antique-y furnishing pieces and an eclectic assortment of other treasures. Several beheaded mannequins posed in gowns and suits complicated by layers of dust. He climbed through the piles of stuff and stopped in the center of the store. Someone with a strong grip and a musty scent gripped his arm. Only, it wasn’t a someone. The waves of intensity that were pulling him in were emanating from a plastic hand. On the ring finger was a simple gold band with three white diamonds encrusted in its surface. It was plain. It didn’t quite pluck at his heartstrings enough to play a melody. But as he imagined it on her hand, he could almost hear a faint tinkling. And so, using the fountain pen in his pocket, he wrote out a check for $250.49 and slid it across the glass case to a woman who looked like her skin had grown too loose, and was sagging at the corners. The woman looked at him sadly. Or perhaps her eyes were just sad. He couldn’t make up his mind.
Out on the street, he ran a hand through rampant hair, wishing it would behave. New York City sprawled before him like a book. Words were everywhere; falling from mouths, hanging off of fingers, floating through the smoky air. There weren’t as many words in the Cotswolds. Somewhere in that English countryside, a woman with hair like ribbons and a mind strong as an anvil was waiting for him to come home. She would be pacing the floor, almost in slow-motion, dragging her feet behind her. Except, she wouldn’t be in slow-motion. She was always saying how the idea of slow-motion made her feel empty, like things had no weight and the world had forgotten about them, so they were simply drifting. Fast was where she lived. Quick, swift, rapid. Whatever you must call it. That’s how she thought, breathed, dreamed. He hadn’t seen her in years.
Something was tugging at his leg. He looked down but saw nothing. Tied to where he was standing for no particular reason, he stared up at the sky. It was November, meaning that tree branches stretched across the gray clouds like cracks in glass. Although, in the city there weren’t any cracks. Just huge blocks carved out by skyscrapers. The thought of the trees and the glass was prettier in his mind, so he went with that. All of a sudden the sky began to drop hard pellets of rain. He hurried into a doorway, ignoring the pain in his leg. Happening to be several blocks from his apartment, he looked around at the bodega in which he was breathing.
“You look troubled, boy,” said a voice. The voice came from a thin woman with no hair and lines across her face. This woman smiled knowingly and handed him a cup of coffee. The coffee was dark as her skin, and tasted like it should have been illegal. Even though he’d already had two cups, he drained this one.
“What’s got you so bogged down?” she asked in a voice mellow like April sunlight.
“M-my leg,” he answered. He pulled the ring out of his pocket. “It’s rather heavy, I think.” The woman smiled slowly. She plucked the ring from his hand and ran her fingers up and down the band. They chased each other round and round in circles of gold for a while. Then she dropped it in her other palm.
“Who’s the lucky girl?” she asked. He chuckled nervously.
“Elvira. That’s my girl. She lives around here.” He wasn’t sure why he was saying this. Where else should she live?
“That’s funny; my name is Elvira, too. I’ve never heard of anyone else with that name, besides the mistress of darkness,” Elvira laughed.
“Strange, isn’t it? Um, I’m Chester by the way,” he stretched out a hand and shook hers. With the shake she deposited the ring in his hand and his skin burned again. He ran it between his fingers slowly. A customer stepped into the bodega. The customer turned out to be two teenage boys – one tall and stringy with straight brown hair, one short and round with golden curls. Elvira attended to them while Chester slowly stepped through the shop. The fluorescent lights blinked at him from above, as if asking him, Are you ready for this?
In New York, the lights never stopped blinking. There was no off switch for the city. At night, outside his apartment, he would sit on the balcony, legs dangling over the railing, and try to find a single star in the sky. He used to stargaze in the Cotswolds. The vast openness of the sky was so big, so consuming. He liked to think of it as a patchwork of black squares. In New York, each square of blackness was starting to fade at the roots, tesselating into a dull gray. Soon there would be no night anymore. Just burning sun and endless days. This was fine by him. He left behind the rain of England a long time ago. And Elvira loved the sunshine, anyway. Imagining her face when he gave her the ring, his leg began to ache again. Only, it wasn’t just his leg, this time. It was his whole body, humming with a distant, blurry pain. This was love, wasn’t it?
Love was running away from a place full of gray skies and wet fields. Love was booking a ticket to the city where dreams ran rampant. Love was meeting a woman who made him forget his old life. This was how the story ended. As he thought about this, the ring grew heavier and heavier. His vision began to spiral, plummeting into darkness.
The front door swung shut behind the boys and they disappeared through the glass, swallowed by the city. He made his way back to the counter. Elvira – the one with skin like coffee – looked at him with a peculiar expression.
“Well, I hope you two are very happy together,” she smiled. For no reason at all, or at least one, he couldn’t lock into focus. The ring clattered out of his hand, onto the checkout counter.
“Um, you keep it,” he said, stricken by a sudden compulsion. Elvira’s eyebrows knit together.
“Excuse me?” she said. Chester backed away, practically shaking.
“I’ve just – realized something,” he said. Brain racing, he plodded out of the shop, rain threatening to pull him apart. Booking a flight to England, he called for a taxi. Elvira; bold, beautiful, a brain like cotton. She would cry, he knew. Mascara would fall in clumps down her icy cheeks. He would hold her, crying as well. It would take so, so long. Like slow-motion. And then he would go back to a place where trees broke the sky, and a woman with a mind like an anvil would hug him again.