As I walk up Fifth Avenue at the end of my business meeting marathon, I see a store to my right that you all know and that I entered last 12 years ago.
A young trainee lawyer at the time living on a tight budget, I wanted to purchase a piece of jewelry for my wife. I had traveled to New York to be sworn in as an Attorney to the New York Bar, which I had passed three years earlier following my LL.M. program at Emory. I stayed with my Dutch friends in Greenwich Village at the time.
It was one week prior to our wedding, and I wanted to get my wife a special wedding gift. So I entered the store not knowing whether I would find anything I could afford. After a while, I found a pair of pearl earrings that caught my attention. As I wasn’t sure whether they would suit my wife, I looked around for someone with the same complexion as my wife: Fair skin, reddish hair. And I found Jane, one of the sales ladies.
She was very kind and put on the earrings for me. I hesitated, went home to my hosts, shared my hesitation with them, and my friend Julie encouraged me to pursue the purchase, arguing that my wife would love it and that the gesture itself was the thing that mattered.
So I went back the next day and bought the earrings. Stepped out of the store and felt like Rockefeller. Gave them to my wife at the next possible occasion. That little turquoise bag with a little turquoise package rapped with a white ribbon. My wife loves the earrings and regularly puts them on.
Back to 2017. So I stand in the store and look around, thinking about this story and whether again I could find something for my wife that would please her. I wander the aisles with blinky blinky jewelry left and right, nothing of the kind I am looking for.
And all of a sudden, there she stands in front of me: Jane. 12 years later, but I recognize her immediately. Her kindness and the respectful way in which she treated me as a customer back then, made an impression on me I will never forget.
“Oh my God, it is you!” I exclaim and look into her puzzled face. She does not recognize me of course, although after I tell her the entire story she gives me the impression that it rings a bell somewhere. But that may also be because she is just very good at what she does. It is actually quite a coincidence that we meet here today, because she only works there occasionally now.
Anyway, just like 12 years ago, she takes me by the hand, we find another pair of earrings that hopefully my wife will like as much as I do, and then she offers me a glass of Champagne (and another one actually) to celebrate the moment. And we take the picture that you see above. And then I step out of the store with that little turquoise bag in my hand, strolling into a sunny New York evening.
