Ring of Truth

by Ciji Ware

  Arturo explained how Daniel had arranged to take over the hotel on Saturday evening for the proposal and for a party of his friends and family. It seemed odd to her that Daniel would pick the Belmont for his proposal scene. Of course, he didn’t know where she worked. They had not kept in touch. They had not even kept the friends they’d once shared, but if he wanted to impress Nicola Solari, there were more extravagant venues.

  The next few minutes passed in a blur until Hadley nudged her again. “Tara, Arturo wants to know who you have lined up to do the flowers.”

  “Flowers?”

  “For the proposal scene.”

  She had been imagining how Justin would propose to her at the base of Coit Tower, looking out over the bay. It took a moment for her brain to catch up.

  Daniel had apparently requested the Tower Room for its view of the slender white tower on top of Telegraph Hill. He wanted the room strewn with red rose petals. He wanted champagne and chocolate-dipped strawberries and a photographer to capture every moment. He wanted a string quartet to play. In short he wanted a perfect cliché. Weeks earlier, before she had connected those requests with a specific client, she had ordered exactly what the client wanted. Now, however, something teased her memory. She had seen plenty of images of Nicola, and Daniel’s generic romance choices did not seem right.

  “Does Nicola have a favorite flower?”

  Arturo nodded as if she were a bright pupil. “Thank you, Tara. Call Mr. Lynch, will you?”

  Tara made a note. Call ex.

  She could imagine how that conversation would go. She and Daniel had practically invented the IDO/NOWIDON’T romance. When they’d moved in together, she had started imagining Daniel’s proposal, picking sites and times, always ready to look her most radiant. Daniel had focused on furnishing their apartment. He left the day the design store delivered the last piece they’d selected as a perfect fit for their odd-shaped living room. He left her with a huge rent, a camel-colored leather sectional, and a collection of matching all-clad cookware. In the end she had sublet the apartment and sold the furniture on Craig’s List. She had dated persistently and unsuccessfully for eight months, and then one day, she just couldn’t do it any more, and invented Justin. Can’t find the perfect boyfriend? Invent him.

  She had made Justin Daniel’s opposite. He was indifferent to home furnishings, he preferred going out to cooking gourmet meals, and he would never break up with her.

  When she looked back on her time with Daniel, she could see that she stuck with him out of her own fears rather than out of genuine admiration for his sterling qualities. When they’d met in those first days of college, she had been daunted by U C Berkeley’s vast campus, endless course offerings, and hordes of students, and had appreciated Daniel’s confidence in navigating the bewildering new experience. He was a planner and a tech whiz. He knew how to get a jump on housing or courses or events. He had strategies for the best place to sit in class, the best places to work on campus, the best ways to get across campus. She had envied his skill and worked to hone her own planning abilities. Only later did she understand that all Daniel’s strategies were about Daniel needing to be first in whatever he tried.

  As Arturo wrapped up the meeting, reviewing their assigned tasks, Jennifer pushed a note across the table in front of Tara. Cough drop?

  Tara nodded. She realized she was still clutching the mystery box and put it back in her pocket. Under the table she passed Jennifer the cough drops Eddie had rejected. Jennifer mouthed a thank you, unwrapped a drop, and popped it in her mouth while Arturo looked the other way. She had been quick, but not quick enough. Arturo’s ears caught the rustle of the wrapper, and he frowned at all of them. “Everyone’s had a flu shot, right?” he asked.

  They all nodded. Arturo had a horror of illness. No one came to work with even a sniffle at the Belmont. As they waited for his signal that the meeting was at an end, Arturo held them in place a moment longer with his stare.

  “I don’t need to tell you that we have a unique opportunity to begin a connection with two of the most prominent families in the city. If we want them to think of the Belmont as their home in the city, everything must be perfect this weekend.”

  He turned to Tara.

  “One more thing. Ms. Keegan, I need you to tell me where your friend our neighborhood homeless man is camping out these days.”

  “You mean Eddie?” Tara was shocked. “But he never bothers the hotel’s guests.”

  “Nevertheless, he needs to disappear, so to speak.”

  She met his gaze as squarely as she could. “You don’t think I can tell you where he sleeps.”

  “Oh, I know you can, and the hotel expects you to recognize where your loyalty lies in this case. Just let security know, and they’ll take care of it.”

  Tara didn’t move. The last thing she would do was to put security onto Eddie. Even the cops would be kinder. The police did sweeps of certain neighborhoods, and San Francisco had special cleaning teams that rousted homeless people from the alleys around Market Street in the wee hours in order to clean up the ugly side of street life. She had never seen such a team in their neighborhood, nor did Eddie leave trash behind, but Eddie had a thing about authority, and there was no question that the hotel security team would be ruthless.

  Tara resolved to avoid security, at least until she could warn Eddie.

  The door closed behind Arturo, and she went straight for her bag. She didn’t know what she was looking for. Her hands shook until she finally upended her bag. Her tidy kits came spilling out, but she could see nothing likely to help the your-ex-is-getting-engaged situation. She didn’t need a Band-Aid or a phone charger or spot remover. She needed... What did she need?

  She stood with her empty bag clutched to her chest, looking down at the items on the table—her kits for make up, and toiletries and hygiene needs, her wallet with IDs and credit cards, her business cards. Her water bottle, her dark chocolate, her grandmother’s house keys, her music, an extra pair of flats, a zip drive, a phone charger, a pink jeweled LED flashlight, her chopsticks and measuring tape, and her pocket knife with all its tools. She had that feeling of an impending disaster for which the jumble on the table would be useless.

  Against her hip she felt the bulge in her pocket and remembered the mystery box. She drew it out and looked at it closely for the first time.

  The box had the look of something passed from hand to hand over a long time. She ran her fingers over the places where the burgundy leather was thin and scratched, exposing a soft dull brown under layer, like the toes of old shoes. A fleeting image of the sort of box she imagined Daniel giving his fiancée later in the weekend passed through her mind, black velvet with a Graff diamond the size of a fava bean.

  When she flipped open the lid, she found a different ring from the engagement ring she’d been imagining. Nestled in a groove of the red silk lining was an old gold band made of two hands clasping a heart-shaped emerald wearing a little crown. She put the box down and removed the ring from its groove. In her palm it felt warm and alive. Immediately a familiar surge of longing for things long lost spiked in her. She felt as if she’d been hooked up to one of those hospital machines designed to record erratic heart rhythms, its needle swinging wildly up and down.

  For a moment, with the ring in her palm, it was a September day, and she was eleven lying with her back against her shaggy black Bernese Mountain dog Sherlock, her bare legs stretched out on the warm boards of the porch of their Oakland hills house. She could smell her mother’s oil paints, hear her father’s endless rock music playing from his office, taste her grandmother’s Sunday morning soda bread, and nothing would ever change. Her throat tightened. That had been the last day her father had been home with them.

  She swallowed down the lump in her throat. Whoever had once owned the ring had lost things, she was sure. She lifted it up as if staring at it eye to ring would explain why it had the power to evoke such memories.

  At eye level, the light
caught an inscription on the inside. She turned the ring to read it. Know Thy Heart. The stranger’s smile came back to her. Perhaps knowing her heart had given the woman that particular aura of happiness. Tara, however, was pretty sure she knew her heart, her unattached heart, and she couldn’t claim to be floating on air. The woman’s instructions came back to her. Read everything. Trust me.

  She put the ring down and picked up the box again. Tucked against the red silk lining inside the box’s lid was a small, folded square of yellowing paper. Tara unfolded the paper and read the message penned in a spidery script.

  Be brave!—for the ring of truth will test you. Once on your finger, its power to speak endures but seven days. Listen and learn, lest you lose its wisdom and your heart’s desire. When seven days pass, prepare to give the Claddagh as a gift. Once her face you see, you’ll know the one who must the ring receive. On her bestow the ring of truth.

  Tara looked from the paper to the ring. Its emerald stone seemed to glow, but the whole thing had to be a hoax. Though the paper looked authentic enough, and the script had the long, slanted letters of old documents like the Declaration of Independence, the idea of passing the ring along reminded her of the chain email letters that her college friend, Melissa, sent around, each promising extravagant life changes within the hour if she would just forward to five friends Now!

  She refolded the message, returned it to its box, and picked up the ring again. So she was supposed to listen to it? She held it in her open palm again, waiting for it to speak, wondering whether it would sound like Johnny Depp or Morgan Freeman. Please not Scarlett Johansson.

  Nothing. The ring sat in her palm without saying a word. No more memories came. A wise woman poet said there was an art to losing things and that it took practice, but Tara felt she had practiced enough. She glanced at the clock. She must have spaced out.

  It’s a ring, stupid, put it on.

  Really, like wearing it would make a difference!

  Tara’s life did not need changing—perfect job, perfect boyfriend—and the ring was just a piece of metal and stone in spite of the greeting card sentiments attached.

  What was she going to learn from a ring?

  What harm could it do to test the thing?

  She slipped it on her left hand ring finger, where she’d once imagined a very different ring would be. Oddly, it fit, and it looked surprisingly right on her hand. Tara stretched out her arm to admire the thing. Though it was nothing like the diamond she had imagined, the emerald stone seemed to glow again with a white inner light, and a voice that sounded suspiciously like Eddie’s echoed in her head. I know the man for you.

  She had plainly lost her mind.

  The staff room door opened and Hadley poked her head in. “Tara, hello, time to work, you know.”

  “Oh, coming. I just...” She looked like a crazy person hugging her bag, with her hand stretched out over its contents littering the conference table.

  Hadley’s gaze zeroed in on the ring. “Ooh, is that a ring? I mean a ring? Did your guy Justin Whatsits finally propose? When was he in town?”

  “Wright. His name is Justin Wright.”

  Hadley crossed the room and seized Tara’s hand in both of hers. “Let me see. Oh, it’s a Claddagh, how romantic? He’s Irish, then, is he?”

  Irish. The ring was Irish? Tara nodded. She couldn’t say why. She wasn’t ready to take the ring off her finger after it had just spoken to her, if it had spoken. She couldn’t be sure, but she couldn’t explain it to Hadley either. Better to let fictional Justin Wright save the day one more time. It came to her in a flash that she could wear the ring for the weekend, while Daniel courted his glamorous heiress. Her friends would not pity her. She wouldn’t look like a loser. Then she would break up with her fictional fiancé. It would be the perfect ending to their story, and it would fit the rules of the ring. No reason she couldn’t pass the thing on a few days early. She glanced at it again. It looked different in some way, dulled, less vibrant, but that didn’t matter. She’d found a way to deal with Daniel’s engagement party happening under her nose.

  Chapter Two

  Tara found herself needed as soon as she reached the concierge desk, a beautiful five-drawer mahogany Chippendale piece out of an English country house. Mrs. Alfred P. Woodford pushed her wheelchair bound husband across the lobby with energetic determination and a militant gleam in her eye that did not suggest satisfaction with the Belmont.

  “Where’s our driver, Ms. Keegan? We expected him at eight.” The clock in the lobby began to strike the hour as she spoke, and a uniformed young man came striding in the front door.

  “Ah,” said her husband. “I believe Thomas is here.”

  “Yes, but, we should be pulling away from the curb already. Now we have to get you settled and wrestle with your chair and explain where we’re going when we could have been underway.”

  “Of course, dear, but you’ll manage. You always do.” His eyes twinkled at Tara. For their anniversary each year the Woodfords made a pilgrimage to Notre Dame des Victoires, the French national church a few blocks away on Bush Street, where they had been married. In the past two years, with Alfred in a wheelchair, all the anxious fretful elements of Mrs. Woodford’s nature had intensified. She would not be cheated out of her chance to complain.

  “Yes, but, you know how traffic in the city makes it impossible to get anywhere on time.”

  “The church will still be there.”

  “Let me help, Mrs. Woodford.” Tara took over with Alfred’s chair, while Thomas got the door. “Shall I call Father Pierre for you? Then he could meet you at the curb.” With a little more fretting, a call to the church, and a great deal of patience from Thomas they were underway.

  After the Woodfords left, Tara managed to get a much-coveted reservation for two foodie guests at the restaurant Frances, signed a younger guest up for the Uber phone app taxi service, and booked a spa day for a pair of sisters. It was just what she loved most about her job. When she handed a wine country tour packet to a visiting couple from Rhode Island, the green ring flashed on her finger. She smiled. She could deal with Daniel’s proposal plans.

  ***

  By any measure Jack Reeder could call himself a success even in San Francisco with its changing mix of fabled old fortunes and fabulous new ones. The medical practice he and his fellow physician Anne Campion had established in downtown San Francisco was thriving. The way they combined different kinds of expertise with new technologies for patient care felt right for a city of innovators and decidedly old-fashioned traditionalists. He could bike to work from his house in lower Pac Heights. He had a dog, lots of friends, male and female, and if he didn’t have a CEO-sized yacht, he had a kayak to glide smoothly over the bay’s waters or anchor in McCovey Cove to catch a splash home run from a Giants’ game. Not bad for a farm boy from Eastern Washington who had made his way through school on student loans and odd jobs.

  This morning Anne had reminded him that his success required him to give back a little to the city. He sat at his desk, staring at the email she had forwarded to him from one of her former sorority sisters. The Charity Chicks and Benefit Babes Fundraiser was looking for bachelors to compete in a Mr. Single San Francisco contest. The money would go to the city’s homeless shelters, and the publicity would boost Anne and Jack’s medical practice. So he shouldn’t hesitate. They had already written up a bio on him.

  Who can resist a doctor with blue eyes and healing hands? Dr. Jack Reeder will win your vote and steal your heart. Trained as an ER doctor, a veteran of medical missions in Latin America, Jack studied at Washington State and did his residency here in the city, where he has his own medical practice, Whole Person Health. This hunky MD bikes to work, so he’s as easy on the environment as he is on the eyes. No girlfriend—that we know of.

  The write-up was technically true, except maybe the part about the healing hands. He had a curious brain and lots of good training from great physician teachers. He liked to listen to his
patients, and he was willing to test more than one theory before he jumped to any diagnosis or prescribed a course of treatment. And he did like to do medicine, to see results, rather than simply refer his patients to specialists. That’s what the ER had been all about, doing medicine on the spot, acting directly for the patient’s benefit. And that was the thrill of a medical mission.

  “Why are you balking at this contest?” Anne had asked him the day before. “I’m curious. I never see you hesitate.”

  He’d put her off, but the answer was simple. The write-up made him feel like a fraud. While most of his patients were pleased with his work, the words of one dissatisfied patient from his ER days stayed with him. More than anything he had wanted to fix that patient, so the man’s words stuck, outweighing all the good comments on Internet rating sites since.

  As that one homeless man had put it, jabbing Jack in the chest with a bony finger, “You may be smart, boy, but you try to fix people. You can’t fix people like you fix cars. Fixing is not healing. To heal a person you’ve got to be in a relationship with the person. If you just see the disease or the broken body parts, you won’t heal anyone. You heal by working with a whole person.”

  At the time, he had rejected the advice. He didn’t appreciate anyone questioning his new skills, especially not someone whose lifestyle had landed him in the ER with a smashed nose and a concussion. Jack had been living in a small apartment with a crushing amount of student loans, but he had a degree and self-discipline and big plans. What did some homeless guy know anyway?

  But the words had stuck. And when he heard the ideas of the homeless man echoed in the conversation of one of his more outspoken colleagues, he found himself thinking about whether he could practice medicine a bit differently from the way he had imagined doing it.

  When he was ready to go out on his own, he’d sought out the fellow student who had been so outspoken in her views about what it meant to treat people. They’d hammered out a partnership, raised the start-up money, and begun their Whole Person Health practice, which they had located where even the homeless could find them. He owed Anne a favor, or two, or a hundred, so he should say yes to this request.