Elena smiled, thinking of the "tooth test" she鈥檇 read about. Real pearls are gritty, like fine sandpaper, because they are built layer by layer from an irritant. Fake ones are smooth and glassy. "They鈥檙e consistent," Elena replied smoothly.
"A trade," Mrs. Sterling said. "For the ones you broke to save us."
The next morning, Mrs. Sterling appeared at Elena鈥檚 small apartment. She held a single, gritty, imperfect pearl鈥攐ne of the few she鈥檇 recovered.
"Don't move!" Elena called out. She began tossing her fake pearls toward the sound of Mrs. Sterling鈥檚 gasping. "Follow the sound of the plastic!"
That night, at the gala for the city鈥檚 most prestigious historical society, Elena wore them. She was surrounded by women wearing "investment pieces"鈥擲outh Sea pearls that glowed with a deep, internal luster and felt heavy against their silk gowns.
Elena stood in the drafty aisle of the "Everything for a Dollar" shop, her fingers hovering over a strand of plastic pearls. They were aggressively white, perfectly spherical, and held together by a flimsy thread that looked like it would snap if she breathed too hard. They cost three dollars. She bought them anyway.
Later that evening, the lights flickered and died. A transformer had blown three blocks away, plunging the marble hall into pitch blackness. In the scramble for phone flashlights, a frantic cry went up. Mrs. Sterling had tripped, and the silk thread of her $20,000 heirloom had snagged on a stray nail.
The cheap beads bounced loudly on the marble, their light weight making a distinct, hollow clack that the heavy, organic real pearls couldn't mimic. In the dark, the guests used the sound of the bouncing fakes as a trail to find their way toward the emergency exits.
