As we walked back to our cars after the party, my ex-boyfriend said, “I have something for you,” and dropped an object in the center of my palm.
I opened my fingers and was delighted to find a large diamond cocktail ring. “What is this?”
He smiled. “Isn't this what you always wanted? So I can give you a big ring?
I laughed. Her sense of humor was like kryptonite. We hadn't been together in five years, but once you get past it, the fun is hard to forget.
“What's the trick?” She knew there had to be one. I studied the tiny pavé diamonds that covered the elaborate floral design. It was lovely, although not exactly my style. But I couldn't get too lost in the moment. I knew I hadn't bought this trinket.
“Where did you get it?”
“I found it in the mixed bathroom,” he said. “Sitting at the sink.”
Suddenly things made a lot more sense. “So, you mean we just ran away with someone's ring?”
“More or less,” he said.
The party we had just left was held after hours at an upscale retail store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. A fashionista had left him behind without realizing it.
“Don't you think we should return it?”
He shrugged. The store had closed. The ring was my problem now. Maybe he was right about the ring. I didn't want to give it back to him, even if it wasn't rightfully mine. It was exciting.
He could have gone back into the store and knocked on the window, as a reasonable person would have done. Instead, I slid it onto my finger and admired it. The thing is, I was raised to want a ring from a man. When I was a child, my single mother played the song “Diamonds Are Forever” by Shirley Bassey and we danced with her in her living room. It was basically our main theme.
Diamonds are forever, they are all I need to please myself.
They can stimulate and provoke me.
They won't go away in the night
I'm not afraid of being abandoned…
I never thought much about it, but in retrospect, what was helpful in that message? Get the diamond because the man might not stick around? My mother kept a Harry Winston ad featuring an engagement ring taped to her refrigerator. For a woman who didn't care about marriage, she certainly savored the symbolism.
As much as I enjoyed the fantasy of a man's ring, that is, one bought with me in mind and not acquired in a bathroom, experience told me that getting one was often the beginning of a new series of problems rather than the end. . from them.
Sometimes the ring is the simplest part of an important emotional equation. It could become a glamorous placeholder: I like you enough to consider marrying you and I don't want you to go anywhere while I'm still thinking about it. Or even: this is what society tells us we should do next.
I took this cynical view because I was used to things not going well. I got divorced once when I was 30 years old. Then my four-year engagement to a handsome, wonderful man was called off, and I was left considering that I might have deliberately ruined it. Commitment after a certain age was confusing and complicated. Maybe I inherited that ambivalence from my mother.
She still had her beautiful engagement ring, kept in a box at home. My ex-fiancé had not yet asked me to return it, which gave me hope that we would still find a way to work it out. But of course, he had heard that she was dating.
“Good,” my mother said. “Let him see what else is out there.”
So when my kryptonite ex emailed me and invited me to the party at the last minute, it sounded better than watching reality TV while my daughter was at her dad's house. “Maybe I'll stop by,” I replied casually.
An acting teacher of mine once said, “Every time you do a scene with an ex, no matter what, you still want them to find you attractive.” I thought about that statement as the dresses piled up at my feet. Why did he want to see me now? There was a lingering connection, a fun story, and a flutter in my stomach every time I saw his name flash on the screen during the credits of a movie.
It was enough to make me go over to meet him for a quick drink. He was easy to find in the crowd. He usually looked for the most famous person in the room and he was talking to her.
He hugged me when I found him and we established a good relationship. I told him about my broken engagement and he showed me vacation photos of his lovely (young) girlfriend.
Later, when we left, there was a brief moment when we almost kissed in the elevator, and we could have ended the evening as we had spent many others. But we didn't do it. It was a test. He had a girlfriend and I was still in love with someone else. Maybe we needed one last look before moving on.
We said goodbye with a hug. I didn't need a man whose heart didn't belong to me, and I certainly didn't need someone else's ring. What I longed for was true connection, to be fully included; the ring was incidental.
In the morning I called the store and told them I had the ring. They didn't ask any questions, but one of his clients had been looking for him. I left it and wondered about the owner of it.
Months later, my ex-fiancé, Rob, came to me and said, “I can't imagine my life without you.” I felt the same. We have been married for 12 years now. One surprise I didn't see coming was that Rob admitted that he had seen the jewelry ad on my mother's refrigerator and assumed it was my dream ring. He had that cut sapphire in mind when he designed mine. So in the end I manifested my mother's ring, or maybe she manifested it for me.
The author is a freelance writer and screenwriter living in Los Angeles. You can read more of his work at taraellison.com.
Los Angeles Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the Los Angeles area, and we want to hear your true story. We paid $400 for a published essay. Email [email protected]. You can find shipping guidelines. here. You can find previous columns. here.
