THE NECKLACE

by Leslie Ann Moore

     It was an open secret in the town of Courcieville, Louisiana that the white de Courcies and the black Couries were kin.

     Gerard de Courcie, patriarch of the family from which the town derived its name, and Samuel Courie, owner of the local home improvement store, shared a common ancestor—none other than Jean-Phillipe de Courcie, the town’s founder.

     The de Courcies had inherited ten thousand acres of prime farmland and a grand, antebellum mansion they opened up each July Fourth for a town barbecue. 

     The Courie family had received no share of the original fortune of their ancestor; nevertheless, they’d done well for themselves, despite the many obstacles that folks of color in a small southern town had to overcome. The one inheritance they did have was great-great grandmere Celeste’s necklace.

     Courie family tradition held that, upon the birth of her first child, Celeste had been gifted with the gold and aquamarine necklace by her master, Jean-Phillipe, who also happened to be the father of her son, Luc.

     The necklace passed to Luc’s daughter-in-law, Marie, born a free woman in 1917, and then to her daughter, and finally to Samuel, who had formally presented the necklace to his eldest daughter Jessica on her eighteenth birthday.

     Jessie wore Grandmere Celeste’s necklace to every Fourth of July barbecue at the de Courcie mansion. Sauntering through the crowd, the pale blue and gold glowing against her mocha skin, Jessie felt strong and beautiful. She always made a point to walk past willowy blond Danielle de Courcie, Gerard’s eldest daughter. Jessie secretly reveled in the naked enmity and lust she saw in the other girl’s cornflower eyes.

     Jessie kept the necklace in a red silk pouch which she hid at the back of her underwear drawer. No one knew it was there except her.

     One cold Tuesday evening in January, Jessie came home from a late class at the local community college to find her tiny apartment had been burglarized. The thief had jimmied the bedroom window, left muddy shoe prints on the threadbare carpet, and emptied all her dresser drawers.

     He’d taken three things: her portable television, her new camera, and Grandmere Celeste’s necklace.

     Samuel accompanied his daughter to the police station that evening. A bored desk cop took the report and assured them in a desultory voice that the department would do its best to find the thief, but they shouldn’t get their hopes up.

     “House burglaries where there’s not a lot of value stolen just don’t get priority, not with the department having its hands full dealing with all the meth labs poppin’ up ‘round here like mushrooms after a rainstorm,” the cop said, mopping his sweating brow with a blue handkerchief. “Damn heat’s turned on too high again…Like a fuckin’ oven in here. Oh…beg pardon.” His gray eyes flicked to Samuel’s face, then, with an embarrassed cough, he busied himself shuffling the stack of papers on his desk.

     “Thank you, Officer,” Samuel muttered. “Come on, Jess. Let’s go.”

     Heartbroken, Jessie returned to her apartment to clean up the mess and get on with her life.

     Days turned into weeks, which melted into months. After a year had passed, Jessie stopped calling the police station. She also stopped searching her apartment in the foolish hope that the necklace had never really been stolen at all, it had simply gotten misplaced, and if she looked hard enough, she’d find it.

     On a hot Saturday in July, a year and a half after the theft, Jessie found Grandmere Celeste’s necklace in a place she never would have expected.

     Stunned to immobility on the sidewalk in front of Kathy’s Kountry Kreamery, Jessie stared at the neck of Isabelle, matriarch of the de Courcie family. She had just emerged from Kathy’s, her granddaughter Danielle in tow, both of them attacking double scoop cones with relish.

     Grandmere Celeste’s necklace gleamed against Isabelle’s freckled décolletage. Jessie’s fingers curled into fists, her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. Freed from stasis by anger, she surged forward, then abruptly stopped.

     What the hell are you doing, her inner voice shrilled. You can’t just run up to Isabelle de Courcie and snatch Grandmere’s necklace off her!

     A sudden flood of tears wet Jessie’s cheeks as she forced herself to admit she could do nothing to retrieve the precious heirloom, not now, anyway. She stood and watched Isabelle and Danielle as they moved up the street, bright heads bobbing with laughter. Anger wrapped icy fingers around Jessie’s ribcage and squeezed until she thought she might pop. Questions swooped through her brain like frantic sparrows.

     How did Isabelle de Courcie get hold of Grandmere Celeste’s necklace? Has she had it all this time? Did she pay someone to steal it from me?

     A cloud passed over the sun, plunging the earth below into cool shadow. Jessie sensed a kindred darkness uncoil itself like a snake within her heart.

     It doesn’t matter how the old bitch got it, she’s not keeping it! It doesn’t belong to her, it’s mine, and I don’t care what I have to do, I’m getting Grandmere’s necklace back!

     Jessie followed Isabelle and Danielle to a parking lot and watched them climb into Isabelle’s shiny silver Escalade. As the SUV roared past, Jessie resisted the urge to run after it, screaming. Instead, she returned to her own dusty Accord, her reason for coming into downtown forgotten She drove the two miles back to her apartment building with her mind in a fog.

     She made it to her door just as the thunderstorm broke. Most afternoons, a bank of dark clouds piled up in the sky and for around a quarter-hour, rain sluiced down in silvery sheets, flooding potholes, gutters, and depressions. When the sun returned, curls of steam rose from the sodden vegetation, filling the air with the smell of mud and growing things.

     Jessie retreated to her bedroom and flopped onto the patchwork quilt that covered her bed. She thought about calling her father and telling him what she’d seen, but decided against it, at least for now. There was nothing he could do either. If Isabelle had paid someone to steal the necklace, she’d never admit to it. All she’d have to say to the police was that her necklace and the stolen one were not the same. She might even claim that the missing Courie jewelry was, in fact, a copy of her own, original de Courcie necklace. The police would never doubt Isabelle’s word.

     Jessie pounded her pillow in frustration.

     That night she dreamed she sat in a rough-walled room, a cooing, pale-skinned baby cradled in her arms. A fire burned on a fieldstone hearth. A man’s voice whispered from the shadows, “Ma cherie, let me hold my son.”

     She lifted the infant and placed him in his father’s arms, then looked down and saw an aqua and gold necklace resting against her caramel colored breast.

     “My gift to you, ma coeur, for this fine boy. He shall always know the love of his father.”

     Jessie woke, her face soaked in tears.

     She lay in the muggy darkness, her throat constricted and her heart hammering against her ribs.

     How could Celeste love him? How?

     Jessie could still feel the lingering intensity of her great-great grandparents’ feelings for each other, and it bewildered and terrified her.

     It’s not possible! She had no choice but to submit to him, to whatever he wanted! That’s not love…it couldn’t be!

     And yet…

     Jessie could not shake the certainty that these two people had come together, not by violence and hate, but by something else entirely. The necklace was a testament to the power of human emotion and the ability of a man and woman to love each other in spite of their circumstances.

     By morning, Jessie had decided to confront Isabelle de Courcie and demand the return of the necklace. She thought about asking her father to accompany her, but decided against it. She wanted to accomplish the reclamation of the family heirloom herself.

     She pulled up in front of the estate just as the clock in her Accord’s dashboard read ten twenty-eight. A pair of ancient magnolia trees stood sentinel on either side of the wrought-iron gates barring the driveway. Jessie had been up the curving gravel drive many times before, but today, no holiday festivities awaited her on the expanse of manicured lawn fronting the house. On July Fourth, the gates stood open, inviting the common folk to enter, for a brief, happy time, the realm of their betters. Today, the tall iron served its customary purpose, that of marking the inviolable border between the world of the powerful and the world of the ordinary.

     Jessie climbed out of her car and stepped up to a little metal box set into one of the masonry gate supports. She pressed a button and waited. After a few seconds, a tinny voice crackled from a speaker. “May I help you?”

     “Uh, yes…my name is Jessica Courie and I’m here to see Mrs. de Courcie.”

     “Do you have an appointment?”

     “No…No I don’t, but it’s very important that I speak to her. She knows my father…Samuel Courie.” This was not strictly a lie, as everyone in town knew the owner of Courie’s Hardware and Home Improvement Center.

     “Just a moment.”

     Jessie swayed from foot to foot, annoyed and mystified as to why she suddenly had a fierce need to pee. She gritted her teeth and willed her bladder to settle down.

     After what seemed like an eternity, the intercom crackled back to life.

     “Mrs. de Courcie is not receiving visitors right now. If you’d like to make an appointment…”

     “Tell her I’ve come about the necklace!” Jessie could not keep the anger out of her voice. The intercom answered her with silence.

     Jessie took several deep breaths to slow her pounding heart.

     What if she won’t let me in? Then what? Do I climb the wall? She could have me arrested for trespassing…Damn her! She’s got to let me in!

     With a loud click, the lock disengaged and the gates swung open on well-oiled hinges. Jessie ran to her car and drove through. The gates closed behind her as she steered up the drive toward the house.

     A middle-aged black woman in a crisp grey uniform dress stood waiting at the foot of the porch stairs as Jessie parked.

     “Hello Mrs. Henderson,” Jessie said as she slammed the car door and stuffed her keys into her jeans pocket.

     “Hello, Jessie. Mrs. D is in the morning room.” Jessie followed the housekeeper as she headed past the front of the house to a path leading toward the back.

     “Um, Mrs. Henderson, may I use the bathroom, please?” Jessie flinched at Madge Henderson’s stern look as she pushed open a plain white door to reveal the house’s expansive basement kitchen.

     “Through the pantry to the left, and hurry, girl. Should’a gone before you came. Don’t do to keep Mrs. D waiting.”

     Jessie mumbled her thanks and followed the housekeeper’s pointing finger. After relieving herself, Jessie followed Madge Henderson up the kitchen stairs to the first floor.

     Jessie looked about her, taking in the beauty of her surroundings. She’d never actually set foot in the de Courcie mansion until this very moment. The July Forth celebration always took place on the front lawn, with port-a-potties provided to serve the townsfolk’s bodily needs. Only friends of the family were allowed to use the flush facilities inside the house.

     Madge paused in front of a set of half-open double doors, indicated that Jessie should stay put. She slipped through, and Jessie heard the soft buzz of voices, then Madge returned.

     “Mrs. D will see you now,” the housekeeper said, and before Jessie entered the room, added, “Whatever it is you’ve come here for, be prepared.”

     What the hell does that mean, Jessie wondered. She frowned at Madge’s retreating back, then turned and walked through the doors.

     “Jessica. You’re Samuel’s eldest daughter.”

     “Yes, ma’am.”

     “Do come in, Jessica.”

     Isabelle de Courcie sat in a leather wing-backed chair, part of a pair that formed a seating arrangement in the center of the room, along with a matching sofa. An unlit stone fireplace anchored the wall at Isabelle’s back, and a large Oriental carpet hid most of the wood floor underfoot. A grand piano stood in one corner, a concert harp beside it. Old oil paintings hung on the walls.

     Jessie walked to the sofa and sat, not like a welcome guest, relaxing against the cushions, but perched on the edge, as if she expected to be summarily ejected at any moment. She clasped her hands in front of her to stop them from shaking.

     “What can I do for you, Jessica?” Isabelle spoke in a soft drawl that, for some reason, reminded Jessie of her father.

     “I came about the necklace…my grandmother’s…great-great grandmother’s, actually.”

     Isabelle smoothed an imperceptible wrinkle in her cream silk trouser leg. The light from the morning sun streaming through a picture window brought out the highlights in her silver blond hair.

     “Would you like something to drink, dear?” she asked. Jessie shook her head and took a deep breath.

     “You have my grandmere Celeste’s necklace. It was stolen from me and I’ve come to get it back!”

     The words tumbled out almost before Jessie could form them in her brain.  Isabelle’s hazel eyes narrowed.

     “I don’t know what you mean, Jessica. I’m not in the habit of stealing other people’s jewelry.” Her coral-lined mouth set in a hard line.

     “No, that’s not…” Jessie squeezed her eyes shut for a heartbeat, took another deep breath, and willed herself to relax. “I didn’t mean to imply that you stole it, Mrs. de Courcie…A year and a half ago, my apartment was robbed and the thief took something very precious from me. A gold necklace set with aquamarines. That necklace was a gift from my great-great grandfather Jean-Phillipe de Courcie to my great-great grandmother Celeste, his slave. I know you know the story, so please don’t pretend you don’t. I also know you have the necklace now because I saw you wearing it yesterday while you and Danielle were out shopping. I don’t really care how or where you got it, I just want it back. It rightfully belongs to me.”

     “Well, well,” Isabelle murmured. She gazed through the picture window at a back garden planted with rose bushes. Her square jaw and patrician nose seemed familiar to Jessie.

     She looks like one of those old statues from ancient Rome, Jessie thought.

     “My roses are doing really well, ‘specially the Lady Dianas. Should get me a prize this year at the county fair.” Isabelle looked back at Jessie. “My granddaughter gave me that necklace for my birthday,” she said. “What makes you think it’s the same necklace?”

     “Because…Because it’s identical!” Jessie reached into her back pocket and withdrew a photo. She brandished it at Isabelle. “This photo was taken by my sister at our family Christmas party two years ago.” She stabbed a finger at the image of herself. “You can clearly see I’m wearing the necklace...You can’t deny it looks exactly like the one Danielle gave you.”

     Isabelle’s eyes flicked to the photo then settled again on Jessie’s face.

     “I can see the similarity, but I’m sorry, Jessica. It simply is not the same necklace.”

     Jessie felt like a vise had tightened around her chest. She opened her mouth to speak, but only an incoherent croak came out.

     This can’t be happening! She’s lying…Why is she lying?

     “Now, I know you feel the loss of your family heirloom quite keenly and I wish you luck in recovering it. I’ll put a word in with the police about it, ask them to try as hard as they can to find your necklace.”

     Hot tears stung Jessie’s eyes. She stood and glared at Isabelle.

     “Why are you doing this? Why are you lying to me?”

     Isabelle looked away.

     “WHY?” Jessie screamed.

     A sharp knock sounded on the door.

     “Mrs. D, you all right in there?” Madge Henderson called out.

     “Yes, Madge, everything’s fine. Miss Courie was just leaving.”

     “You’ll pay for this. I don’t know how or when, but you will,” Jessie sobbed. She flung the photo at Isabelle’s face and ran from the room, nearly knocking over a startled Madge. As she fled the house through the front door, she tripped and fell to one knee. Crying now with both pain and rage, Jessie limped to her car and flung open the door. She sank into the driver’s seat and rested her head on the steering wheel. She screamed and moaned and banged her hands on the dashboard until the storm of fury passed, to be replaced by a desolate ache.

     Her knee throbbed with each heartbeat. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she slammed the car door and turned the key. The Accord’s engine roared to life.

     “Jessie! Jessie wait!”

     Madge Henderson approached the car. She bent down and peered at Jessie through the passenger side window.

     “Jessie, I got to give you something…something you and your daddy oughtta have.” Madge thrust her hand in the car and dropped a small square of paper onto the seat. “Show it to your daddy, girl.”

     Jessie picked up the paper and stared at an old black and white photograph of a beautiful young woman holding a baby. She turned it over and saw the words Me and Jamie, Sept. 2^nd, 1960 written in elegant script.

     “I don’t understand.” Jessie looked at Madge and saw a tenderness in the older woman’s eyes that hadn’t been there before.

    “You will.” Madge nodded, then stepped away from the car. Jessie put the Accord in gear and drove back up the drive, through the already opened gates out onto the road and headed home.

     Later that evening, Jessie sat in her parents’ living room and told them everything that had happened.

     “I can go to the police and tell them what I know, but it’s my word against Isabelle de Courcie’s. Of course they’ll believe her!”

     “Are you absolutely sure it was Grandmere Celeste’s necklace, honey?” Agnes, Jessie’s mother, asked. “I mean, it could have been a different one, just like Isabelle says.”

     “No Mama. I know what I saw. It was my necklace! The old bitch knows it, too…That’s why she wouldn’t show it to me, the thief.”

     “Jessica, watch your language,” Samuel admonished. “Whatever you think of Isabelle de Courcie, she’s not a thief. She’s done a lot for the folks of this town, both black and white. She’s a good woman.”

     Jessie snorted. “I know she’s one of your best customers, Daddy, but doesn’t it bother you, even a little, that she might have our family heirloom and refuses to give it back?”

     Samuel fixed his hazel eyes on his daughter. “We don’t know that for sure.”

     Jessie stared at her father, her mind a swirl of confusion.

     Why is he defending her?

     She could think of nothing else to say that would move him. Instead, she pulled the old photo Madge had given her out of her purse and handed it to her father.

     “Mrs. Henderson said to show this to you,” she said.

     Samuel scrutinized the picture, then handed it to his wife, who bit her lip and placed it face down on the dining room table.

     “I don’t know why Madge Henderson thinks this photo would mean anything to me,” Samuel said. He cleared his throat and for a few heartbeats, he seemed to forget what to do with his hands. Abruptly, he stood and announced, “I’m getting some ice cream. Anyone else want any?”

     “Sure, Daddy. I’ll take some,” Jessie said. She watched her father leave the room, then looked at her mother.

     “Mrs. Henderson seemed so sure this picture would mean something to Daddy. I wonder why?”

     “I don’t know, honey” Agnes said. She hugged her daughter. “I’m so sorry about Grandmere Celeste’s necklace. I know you think you’ll never get it back, but I have a feeling Isabelle de Courcie will have a change of heart.”

                                               ***

     Jessie sped down the road toward her apartment, her mind a jumble of conflicting emotions.

     Why wasn’t Daddy as angry as I am? It’s like he doesn’t want to believe Isabelle has my necklace. Damn her, the bony old thieving bitch!

     Jessie gripped the steering wheel and imagined she had Isabelle’s neck between her fingers. She squeezed until her knuckles shone like pale knobs in the dim light of the dashboard. She pressed her foot down hard on the gas pedal and the old Accord shuddered and jolted forward. The trees at the side of the road whipped by faster and faster.

     That necklace is mine! It belongs to me, not her! I hate her! I hope she chokes and dies!

     Jessie’s heart slammed like a trapped wild thing against her ribs. The roadbed, a black blur in the Accord’s headlights, started to shimmer and dissolve as tears flooded her eyes and spilled down her face.

     Somehow, I’ll make her give it back!

     A black shape rushed at Jessie from out of the darkness beyond her windshield.

     Her brain screamed as her foot slammed down on the brake pedal.

     As the sound of crunching metal and squealing tires filled her ears, as the world outside the Accord did a lazy somersault, the last thing Jessie saw before the dark claimed her was a pale face topped with silver-blonde hair, hazel eyes wide with horror, coral-lined mouth stretched in an O.

                                                 ***

     Jessie woke three days later in the county hospital. She only knew how much time had passed because her family had been there at her side the entire time and had told her so.

     A parade of doctors, nurses, and orderlies came through the ICU over the next twenty-four hours, poking, sticking, adjusting, and changing all of the assorted medical devices attached to her and protruding from her. A compound fracture of the left femur, several rib fractures, a lacerated spleen, and a fractured left radius comprised the list of her injuries, along with multiple cuts and bruises.

     The day after she woke, the police came. They questioned her about the accident and Jessie answered truthfully. Of the accident itself, she had no memory. The last thing she recalled was leaving her parents’ house that night. The police took her statement, then went away, leaving a cloud of unease in their wake.

     As Agnes fussed with the gray hospital blanket covering her daughter’s torso, Jessie reached out and touched her mother’s hand.

     “Tell me what happened, Mama.” Her voice sounded so rusty and strange to her ears, like that of a much older woman.

     “Jessie, honey, you need your rest. There’s plenty of time for telling later on, when you’re stronger.”

     “No, Mama. Tell me now. I need to know.”

     Agnes sighed and pulled a chair up beside Jessie’s bed. She sat and closed her eyes for a heartbeat. When she opened them, they glistened with tears.

     “Your car hit an SUV out on Route Six, an Escalade, so it didn’t get smashed nearly as bad as your little Honda. You ended up in the ditch, upside down.”

     “What happened to the other driver?”

     “She was killed, honey. Apparently, she was standing by the side of her car when your car hit hers. The cops say the Escalade was partly blocking the road, it was dark, and she didn’t have her hazard lights on. One of her tires was flat. They’re telling us it’s probably going to be ruled an accident.”

     “The other driver was a woman? Do we know her? Who was she Mama?”

     Agnes wiped her eyes with a tissue.

     “Isabelle de Courcie,” she whispered.

     Jessie stared at her mother, unsure of what she’d just heard.

     “You mean…I ran down…I killed…” Her voice trailed into silence.

     “Now, honey…It was an accident! You didn’t mean to hurt Isabelle…”

     “But that’s just it, Mama!” Jessie twisted the edge of the blanket into a ball between clenched fingers. “I remember now what I was thinking, right before I…right before the accident. I wanted to kill her…I wanted her to die for stealing Grandmere Celeste’s necklace from me!”

     “Don’t do this, Jessie. You know you can’t just wish another person dead!” Agnes laid a hand on her daughter’s cheek. “Isabelle dying out on that road is not…is NOT…your fault!” Agnes reached toward the floor and picked up her purse. She withdrew something and placed it on the blanket. Jessie stared at a padded manila envelope with her name written on it in elegant script.

     “What’s this?” She touched the envelope and it responded with a soft rattle.

     “The police gave it to me to give to you. They found it on the front seat of Isabelle’s SUV.”

     With trembling hands, Jessie opened the envelope and looked inside. Something metallic glinted back at her, gold and aquamarine. She reached inside and withdrew Grandmere Celeste’s necklace, along with a folded piece of notepaper. Agnes gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.

     “Did you know what this was, Mama?”

     Agnes shook her head.

     “I suspected, but I didn’t want to open it. Isabelle meant this for you.”

     Jessie unfolded the note and read.

Dear Jessica, I am returning something that rightfully belongs to you. I am just so very sorry you had to meet me this way. If I’d made different choices a long time ago, you and I would not be strangers now, but I didn’t. I was too afraid, and truth be told, I still am. Forgive me.                             Your grandmother,                             Isabelle de Courcie

     “What does the note say, honey?” Agnes asked.

     Jessie shook her head.

     “Nothing much, just that she’s sorry she stole my necklace.”

     Jessie crumpled the note in her fist and shoved it back in the envelope. She handed it to her mother.

     “Please, Mama, would you throw this away for me?”

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