Octavia had read the shop's operations manual during the transition. She had read it carefully, the way she read everything that governed a business she was about to own. There was no by-appointment viewing rule in it. There was a procedure for showing high-value pieces, which involved a second staff member being present and the piece being shown over a tray, and there was a procedure for verifying a customer's identity for pieces above a certain value, but there was no rule that a walk-in customer could not see a ring. She knew this, and the man across the case did not know that she knew it. She did not say so. She said, instead, "I understand. Could you tell me a little about it, then? The setting, the stone?"
"We do not discuss the finer pieces without an appointment," the man said, and he began to turn away, as if the conversation were over. At that moment the door opened again, and a man in a tailored coat came in, a man Octavia did not know, carrying a leather portfolio and wearing a watch that caught the light. The man in the dark suit turned toward him at once, his whole manner changing, his face opening into a smile that had not been there a moment before.
"Good morning," he said, warmly, stepping around the case. "Good morning. We have the piece you asked about right here. Let me open the case for you."
Octavia watched him unlock the case beside the one holding the emerald ring, take out a tray, and lay it on the counter for the newcomer, all without a word about appointments. She stood where she was, and she felt the particular stillness that comes when a person realizes that a rule has been invented for her alone. She did not feel anger, not yet. She felt attention, the sharpened attention of a person who has just learned something important about a place she owns. She turned away from the case and walked toward the window, where the younger woman was dusting, and she stopped there, not because she wanted to buy something else but because she wanted to see what would happen next.
The younger woman looked up. She was Tamsin Kirkland, though Octavia did not yet know her name, and she had the open, slightly tired face of someone who has been on her feet since nine and is determined to be kind anyway. "Good morning," she said. "Is there something I can help you find?"
"I was hoping to see the emerald ring," Octavia said, "but I understand it is by appointment."
Tamsin's expression flickered, just for a second, and Octavia, who had spent years reading faces across counters, saw something in it that she recognized: discomfort, and the effort of hiding it. "I am sorry about that," Tamsin said quietly. "Would you like to see something else while you are here? We have a lovely peridot pendant that just came in, and I can tell you about the setting. It is not the emerald, I know, but it is a beautiful piece, and I would be glad to show you."
Octavia said yes, and Tamsin opened a different case, took out the pendant on a tray, and laid it on the counter with care. She talked about the stone the way a person talks about something she has actually looked at: the cut, the color, the way the setting held the light. She did not hurry. She did not look over Octavia's shoulder for a better customer. She answered Octavia's questions directly, and when Octavia asked about the price, she said it plainly, without embarrassment and without apology. It was a small kindness, competently done, and Octavia, who had been shown many pieces by many people over the years, knew how rare it was for a salesperson to treat a stranger in work clothes as if she were a customer like any other. She thanked Tamsin, and she meant it. She left the shop without buying anything and without saying who she was, and she walked back down Glisan Street in the morning light, thinking about two things at once: the man who had invented a rule for her, and the young woman who had not.