Diamond Rings
by Davin Malasarn
"Her wedding ring didn't even have a real diamond," the sponsors whisper in the banquet hall of the university. But, the students know that the professor cut the quartz himself, labored for three weeks in the workshop with the ocular lens pinched between his brow and the top of his cheek, his hands trembling with love.
He wears dress shirts even in the heat and stickiness of the Caracao region where he has taken the students on a fieldtrip. The workers at the petrol station present cashew fruits, yellow and orange, on blue plastic plates. "Obrigado, obrigado," the professor says with his Brooklyn accent. He leans down to smell the fruit. Their reflection paints his drooping cheeks in gold. His doughy smile delights the students because he is usually so sad and alone now that his wife is dead. "The world's leading mineralogist, and his wife's wedding ring didn't even have a real diamond," the sponsors whisper back at the banquet hall over lamb. There is lull in the conversation afterwards, and the sound of gold tinkling can be heard among the wrists and wine glasses. In Brazil, the professor tells each of the students to hold the fruit in their hands so he can take their photo.Sugar Hill is surrounded by a ring of clouds like a halo. In the sky lift, they look through the glass to the horizon and a large sculpture of Jesus loving the country with open arms. Sarah Mildred happens to glance up through floaters and speckled glasses; she sees the professor gazing and smiling out at the infinite water; she wishes the sky lift would continue on, up and up and up; to heaven and his wife. But this is my day too, Sarah thinks. The time for the next generation to soak up this beautiful world. Not the bittersweet sadness that comes with age and buttoned shirts and days spent cutting quartz to say "I love you." Not yet, anyway.
Skewered strawberries and nectarines dip beneath the chocolate fountain and resurface coated in glossy brown. The head of the division announces that they have received a call on the satellite phone that the group is having a wonderful, and, of course, educational time on their trip. An image of the professor is projected onto the screen in the back of the room. He stands in his canvas hat and dress shirt with a python draped around his neck. A woman in a backless dress dabs at the corner of her mouth with a napkin.
They rent reclining chairs on the sand in the shade of Corona umbrellas. They wave a shirtless boy over with his carton of coconuts. He sits in the sand, toes digging into the hot grains, and cleaves the green tops off of each coconut. He asks if they are American students. They tell him about their visits to the topaz mines and how the professor has his own mineral named after him. Eric Tessera arrives late with a lipstick smudge on his forehead. He's been kissed by the prostitute hanging around the hotel entrance. At sunset, they gather their fanny packs and half-written postcards and try to describe the food they cannot name. "And what's that stuff that looks like sawdust? The more I eat it, I'm thinking this stuff isn't so bad." The students move as a clumsy herd back toward the hotel. They cross the street, barefoot and feeling so alive. They are about to cross another street, onto the black and white sidewalk that mimics the mixing of rivers, when they turn back to see the professor still in his recliner. He drinks from his coconut. He looks out at the water and at love and the years that have passed, they know.
"Should we wait for him?" Sarah whispers. No one answers, but no one moves. Their stomachs rumble. The professor sits until the lip of orange sun sinks below the edge of the water. He stands. He cradles the coconut in his arm and strides across the street. He's proud of his forty-year marriage. And, he's proud of trips to Brazil and sky lift views and coconuts that he knows his wife can taste.
A red light, and the professor stops on one side while the students wait on the other. Between the painted lines of the crosswalk a woman in a tropical sarong runs out into the street. She has two batons criss-crossed in one hand and a bucket in the other. She dips the padded heads of the batons into the bucket, and they come up wet with fuel. Suddenly, four flames dance at the ends of her batons. They twirl in her hands, circling, becoming solid rings in front and behind her. She lifts her leg. She tosses one baton under it and up into the darkening sky. It is an alien. It is a golden ring. It reflects in the eyes of everyone watching.
Davin Malasarn was born in 1978 and lives in Pasadena, California. His stories have been published in Rosebud, The Storyteller, and Smokelong Quarterly, among others. His story, "A Boy In The Sky" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2004. He's currently working on a novel that takes place in Ra-nong, Thailand.