©Linda Goodman
December 30, 2015
In
Christmas 1996 my husband, Phil, got a good bonus and used part of it to buy me
a pair of diamond stud earrings as a gift. A year later, he bought me a
necklace with a water fall of diamonds as a pendant.
Except for
my engagement ring (bought at a pawn shop) I had never had such fine jewelry. Not only that, I had nowhere to wear it.
Weddings, funerals, and Phil’s annual Christmas party were the only events we
attended that required us to dress up. Phil lost his job shortly after giving
me the necklace, so the party was no longer an option.
In 1998 we
moved to Richmond, Virginia. We attended two weddings during our first year
there, and I wore the earrings and necklace to both of them. Ten years passed
before I wore those diamonds again.
In 2009 I
went to work as a senior accountant for an agency in downtown Richmond. Employees
of the agency were required to wear business suits to work. That December, a
Christmas party was held for the agency employees. “Not the gala my husband’s company used to
have,“ I said to myself, “but a good
enough excuse to take the diamonds out of my closet.”
When I
first started working in Richmond, a few friends warned me to be careful. One
had witnessed a robbery at a downtown bus stop. Another had been the victim of
a purse snatcher there. I actually rode to work in a van pool that deposited me
right at my office door in the morning and picked me up there in the
afternoon. I was not concerned with
being robbed.
Besides,
it was winter. It was cold. I would be wearing a winter coat and scarf over my
suit, so no one outside my office would even know that I was wearing diamonds.
The party
was held in our conference room. Caterers set up a delicious spread for us, and
we exchanged gifts with one another. Several of my co-workers complimented me
on my sparkling diamonds.
And then –
a surprise! We were to get half a day off. We could leave to go home right
after the party. I called the driver for
my van pool and told him that I was leaving work early and would take the bus
home.
I walked
across the street from my office and over to the next block to wait for the
bus. There were two men already waiting at the bus stop when I got there. One
of them was wearing jeans and a Richmond Braves tee shirt. The other was
wearing a dark, hooded windbreaker, and one of the legs of his jeans had been
rolled up above the knee. What a strange
fashion statement, I thought, as I took off my coat and scarf folded them
across my left arm. The day was
unusually hot for December.
A few minutes later a woman approached the bus
stop. She walked right past the men and stopped to stand beside me. After
staring at me for a moment, she exclaimed “I just love you hair!”
“I like
your hair, too,” I replied. She did indeed have lovely, gray hair.
We stood
together in silence for a few more minutes. “What bus are you waiting for?” she
asked.
“Chesterfield,”
I answered. “I’m a bit early.”
“Why don’t you come with me to the bus stop
around the corner?” she suggested. “ It’s safer.”
“My bus doesn’t stop there,” I told her.
“After it leaves this stop, it goes straight to I 95.”
She looked
over her shoulder and then turned back to me. “Do you see that man with the one
jeans leg rolled up?” she asked. “He means to do you harm. He’s a bad seed.”
I looked
at the man. He was glaring at the woman. In fact, if ever there was such a
thing as an evil eye, he possessed it.
“Come on,”
the woman urged. “I’m trying to help you.”
Suddenly,
I was no longer in my comfort zone; but I knew that my bus did not stop at the
location she was suggesting. “ I have to
catch my bus here,” I insisted.
Just then
a bus rolled up to the stop. The man in the Braves tee shirt walked up to it,
then looked at the man with the rolled up jeans leg and asked, “Aren’t you
coming?”
“I’ll wait
for the next bus,” he growled. As the bus pulled away, my heart pounded. The
man scowled at the woman standing beside me. She hissed at him. He hissed back.
She looked at me and said, “I tried to warn you.” Then she walked away,
disappearing around the corner.
I looked
at the man. He was staring at me. There were no other people on the street. In
my mind I ran through my options: run back to my office; scream; walk out into
traffic. I waited for his next move.
“Lady,” he
said, “You shouldn’t be wearing them diamonds on display so anybody can see
them. There are some bad people in this town.”
I had
forgotten I was wearing diamonds. With
my coat and scarf removed, they were visible to anyone who walked by.
“I’ll stay
with you until your bus comes,” the man told me. “But next time you might not
be so lucky. That woman is a bad seed.”
Five
minutes later, my bus arrived. “Thank you,” I said to the man. “You are a
gentleman, and today you have been my guardian angel.”
“I ain’t
no angel,” he insisted. “Next time you come to town, leave them diamonds at
home.”
I took his
advice.
