THEY SAID AT work, especially Ruby, who sat at the next desk. Mr. Glynnis was known to call them the Jewels. “I got tired of long hair,” said Pearl. Everyone accepted that but Ruby. “You always said you’d never cut your hair,” she said. “If I had hair like that, I’d never cut it.” Pearl looked up at her. Ruby was passing her desk and had stopped to sort papers she was taking to different parts of the building. They hadn’t even been talking about hair. Ruby filed the letters going to Mr. Glynnis between her first finger and middle finger, the ones for Mr. Carmichael between her middle finger and ring finger. She had a system. When she had letters to go downstairs, where the company now had an accountant working, she put them between her ring finger and her pinkie. Ruby was short and her fingers were thick and stubby. Pearl had always liked the way she held them out with the letters gripped between them. Now Ruby looked back in a funny way as she left the cubicle. Over the partition Pearl could hear the sounds of the floor, where women packaged blouses and men hauled boxes.
