I hear the couple settle on a stone and a setting. Jess explains that since she doesn’t have the setting in stock in the woman’s size, they’ll need to come back in two to four weeks to pick up the custom order. Jess takes the guy’s credit card information and registers the deposit. I’m glad that Sophie must be hearing this significant sale now; it’ll make the conversation we’re about to have even easier.

The customers leave a little after six, and I join Jess and Sophie in the front room so we can close up together. The routine is old and well-worn; we’ve divided this ritual into parts ever since we were all kids together at Helen’s shop. There would be upbeat music—disco, more often than not—to guide us through storing trays of jewels into the safe, wiping down counters, and taking out the trash. Here, as adults, it’s no different. When we’re done, Jess grabs her purse from the back room and turns to head out.

“Greg is actually taking me to dinner tonight,” she explains, a note of excitement in her voice. Greg, her friend with benefits, rarely asks her to hang out beyond the walls of his bedroom. “Otherwise, I’d stay for pizza.”

I’m glad she’s not staying. The pizza is meant to soften the blow of the conversation I need to have with Sophie.

“Stay and eat with me?” I ask Sophie.

“I don’t know . . . I was planning on making dinner tonight,” she hedges.

“Please,” I say.

I think she gets it. I let her have Helen’s old leather armchair. I sit cross-legged on a gray folding chair and pull a cheesy slice from the box.

“So, I got some news,” I say.

“From Roy,” she supplies.

“Yeah.”

She leans back in the armchair. A defeated expression crosses her face. “He said no, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, he didn’t go for our plan,” I admit.

A half smile curls around her lips. “So you bribed me with pizza so I wouldn’t get too upset.”

“I tried.”

She sighs heavily. “October, then. That’s the deadline to decide whether or not we can keep the shop open.”

What she does next burns straight into my memory: she looks slowly around the cramped, musty back room. Her eyes roam over the safes, the file cabinets containing stacks of tax documents, her design equipment on the shelf. And then she finally meets my gaze with tears brimming in her eyes. Her voice cracks when she tries to speak.

“I’m not ready to give all this up,” she says.

“Not yet,” I say. “It’s not happening yet.”

She crumples a slice of pizza in half and takes a sad bite. “You can’t say that for sure.”

“I’m not going to let us go under,” I insist. “We’re going to make this work.”