... down a hole.

 
Fake 06/21/2009
 
Picture
We were having cocktails at our apartment one evening, my wife the picture of elegance as usual; a charming black gown accompanied by a tasteful necklace. 

The champagne flowed freely, as did the hard-boiled eggs and caviar; roe, not sturgeon--our present company was incapable of distinguishing, and besides, the market had been punishing of late. Black pearls before swine seemed a needless expense. 

The conversations centered on the superficial.  My wife’s friend, Deborah, has a terrific pair of legs; it was all I could do, to keep from literal salivation. 

Our company’s eyes darted around, fascinating in all things inanimate.  I was the only one reveling in flesh.

The group was young, spawn of middle class intellectuals with skin to shed, inexperienced at pretension, but eager to flex their chops--diplomas and designers--with an HBS here, an MIT there, here a Louboutin, there a Galliano, etc., etc. 

Chide me aristocratic, but flaunting material tastes and hard-won achievements always struck me a tad peasant.  What do I know?   

This chap Richard, a queer--‘Richard The Lionfart’ I called him to my wife-- began talking watches and flipping intermittent glances at my wife’s Rolex.  It was a fake. 

I’d bought it for her as a gag on our first trip to the Orient.  She wore it often, as a matter of sentiment.  Richard had obviously mistaken it for an error in fashionable judgment.  And apparently he’d rather seem comically over-interested than tell us what he really thought. 

I could see Richard was titillated by the thought that not only was someone trying to play off a designer forgery, but also that my wife had mismatched the watch to her attire. 

After dropping Breguet and Girard-Perregaux, Lionfart had worked up some courage and asked to see my wife’s piece. 

His initial reaction was it's own forgery of acceptance and admiration, then a quick shift betrayed impatience, as surprise and concern was his chosen expression in which to tender his query-- imploring my wife’s attention as if he were a doctor with the duty of reporting an unsuspected cancer-- “did you know this was a fake?”

Richard's face was pure syrup made from artificial sweetener, I thought it was going to melt off and onto our 15th century Persian.

“Of course!” My wife happily retorted. 

Richard was stunned for a second, so I moved in for the kill. 

“Richard” I say, “whatever made you think that?”

...“Well,” he coos in the signature effeminate, “the second hand fails to sweep, and it doesn’t say ‘Swiss made’ on the bottom.”

 I bustled up to the edge of my chair with a furrowed brow--"give me that"-- sweepingly and authoritatively extracting the watch from Richard’s hand and exclaiming in self-confident but subdued bravado,

“Of course it does sport! You see?" 
                                                                    -JPF