Diamonds
by Susan Holcomb
Everyone at the company knew Jenny was getting married. It was all she talked about, flashing her little diamond in front of her mouth whenever she laughed. “Tom works at Google,” Jenny told Kara the first time they went to lunch together. They were in downtown Palo Alto, and already Kara had seen three men walk by wearing the exact same white-and-purple checkered button-up. Jenny stabbed her fork into her salad. “He makes three hundred thousand a year.” She started giggling and the diamond ran over her mouth again.
It was natural that Kara should befriend Jenny, because at the fifty-person company there were only five women, and of those five women only Kara and Jenny were still under thirty. It was unlikely, however, that their friendship would ever progress far beyond the office, due to the fact that they each lived on opposite sides of Palo Alto. Kara lived to the north, in San Francisco, and Jenny lived in the suburbs to the south. But one night Jenny’s train got delayed and Kara offered her a ride home.
“You really don’t mind?” Jenny asked.
Kara shrugged. “If I try to drive north now, I’ll just be sitting in traffic anyway.”
And that was how Kara came to see Sunnyvale for the first time. Driving with Jenny in the passenger seat, Kara was surprised by how ugly the place was. The little houses one might have found there twenty years before had all been replaced by high-rise condos, identical and white like the color had been bleached out of them by the sun. The condos looked to Kara like they had been constructed out of old milk cartons. If she were to squint, she would surely see the advisories on Vitamins A and D, the guarantees of pasteurization and homogenization, the percent fat. Around the back there would be photographs of missing children. The buildings would smell, up close, of sour dairy. It seemed to Kara that three hundred thousand a year should afford a person a real life, or at least a chance at one. How had Jenny and Tom failed to notice that they were living in recycled trash?
Jenny was looking out the window, running her hand through her straight black hair. Her diamond caught the light and glittered. “Do you want to know a secret?” she asked.
“Sure,” Kara said.
Jenny glanced toward the back seat as if she were checking for spies. “I think Dan’s in love with me.”
Dan was the company’s marketing director. He had worked with Jenny at a previous company, and recruited her to join this one.
“Dan?” Kara said.
“Oh, he’s never said anything, of course. But I can tell. Just by the way he acts around me. By certain things he says.”
Kara gripped the steering wheel and looked straight ahead. A trap door opened in her chest and set her face burning. Kara and Dan had been sleeping together for three months. No one at the company knew. There was no way Jenny could know.
“This is me,” Jenny said. The building she pointed to was as ugly as any of them. “It’s nice, isn’t it? It has a pool.”
Wanting you, Dan texted Kara later that evening. Her chest an open pit again, Kara switched off her phone and went to bed.
Listen to the full story here.
It was natural that Kara should befriend Jenny, because at the fifty-person company there were only five women, and of those five women only Kara and Jenny were still under thirty. It was unlikely, however, that their friendship would ever progress far beyond the office, due to the fact that they each lived on opposite sides of Palo Alto. Kara lived to the north, in San Francisco, and Jenny lived in the suburbs to the south. But one night Jenny’s train got delayed and Kara offered her a ride home.
“You really don’t mind?” Jenny asked.
Kara shrugged. “If I try to drive north now, I’ll just be sitting in traffic anyway.”
And that was how Kara came to see Sunnyvale for the first time. Driving with Jenny in the passenger seat, Kara was surprised by how ugly the place was. The little houses one might have found there twenty years before had all been replaced by high-rise condos, identical and white like the color had been bleached out of them by the sun. The condos looked to Kara like they had been constructed out of old milk cartons. If she were to squint, she would surely see the advisories on Vitamins A and D, the guarantees of pasteurization and homogenization, the percent fat. Around the back there would be photographs of missing children. The buildings would smell, up close, of sour dairy. It seemed to Kara that three hundred thousand a year should afford a person a real life, or at least a chance at one. How had Jenny and Tom failed to notice that they were living in recycled trash?
Jenny was looking out the window, running her hand through her straight black hair. Her diamond caught the light and glittered. “Do you want to know a secret?” she asked.
“Sure,” Kara said.
Jenny glanced toward the back seat as if she were checking for spies. “I think Dan’s in love with me.”
Dan was the company’s marketing director. He had worked with Jenny at a previous company, and recruited her to join this one.
“Dan?” Kara said.
“Oh, he’s never said anything, of course. But I can tell. Just by the way he acts around me. By certain things he says.”
Kara gripped the steering wheel and looked straight ahead. A trap door opened in her chest and set her face burning. Kara and Dan had been sleeping together for three months. No one at the company knew. There was no way Jenny could know.
“This is me,” Jenny said. The building she pointed to was as ugly as any of them. “It’s nice, isn’t it? It has a pool.”
Wanting you, Dan texted Kara later that evening. Her chest an open pit again, Kara switched off her phone and went to bed.
Listen to the full story here.
Susan Holcomb holds an MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and studied for a PhD in physics at Cornell. Her writing has been published in the Southern Indiana Review, Epiphany, The Boston Globe, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and her daughter, who was born five days before this story was accepted to Crab Creek Review.