Lindsey Kelk - I Heart Forever

‘Oh, we know,’ I replied. I’d never felt so good about buying something that wasn’t for me. ‘We know exactly.’

I threw Mason my biggest grin and he returned it with a shaky smile of his own.

‘Have fun,’ the attendant said as we arrived at our floor with a ping. He added a wink just for me as I stepped out onto the glorious showroom floor. ‘And congratulations.’

For six thirty on a Tuesday night in November, Tiffany & Co. was surprisingly busy. Multiple couples hovered over display cases with wide eyes and feverish expressions. Credit cards hovered in mid-air, and everywhere I looked, bright, white ice sparkled under the specially designed lights.

‘It’s over here.’ I led Mason over to the glass counter that held the Embrace rings. It had been a couple of months since Jenny and I had ‘popped in on our way past’ but the rings hadn’t moved. I imagined the risk of fifty thousand dollars falling into a crack in the floor or half a mill getting hoovered up by the cleaners really wasn’t worth that hassle. ‘This one.’

And there it was.

Jenny’s ring.

Bold, bright, and almost obscenely sparkly, it was La Lopez herself in jewellery form.

‘Good evening.’

A shortish, baldish, pleasant-looking man appeared behind the counter.

‘Is there anything I can show you this evening?’ he asked with an encouraging expression.

‘We’d like to see the half-carat Embrace,’ I said, pointing at the glass but not quite touching. It wouldn’t do to leave fingerprints in Tiffany. ‘Right, Mason?’

‘Yep,’ he squeaked. ‘We would.’

‘A beautiful ring,’ the assistant said as he opened the cabinet and reached inside to gently pull out the display tray. ‘This really is one of my favourites. Such a glamorous option, a truly romantic offering for an elegant woman.’

He stopped to take a breath and consider my plum-coloured corduroy pinafore dress and stripy T-shirt ensemble.

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ I said, looking down at my own toddler-inspired outfit. ‘It’s not for me.’

‘Quite,’ he replied before placing an almost identical, only slightly larger ring beside the first. ‘Just for size comparison, this is the one-carat version of the same ring. It’s still quite tasteful, perfectly suitable for daily wear. Slightly larger central stone.’

There was nothing slight about it. The new ring looked like something Barbie might have worn around her dream home. Even Elizabeth Taylor would have said it was a bit much.

‘I think we’re fine with the first one,’ Mason gulped.

The assistant nodded. ‘Is there anything else I can show you?’

‘No,’ Mason replied.

‘Yes, please,’ I countered. ‘Have you got anything that’s really massive?’

Mason elbowed me in the ribs as he stared at white diamonds on black velvet.

‘Not for you,’ I replied, eyes glazing over at the pretty things in front of me. ‘While I’m here, I might as well.’

The shortish, baldish assistant amiably opened up neighbouring cabinets and laid several giant rocks out on a separate tray. Mason continued to eyeball Jenny’s ring but made no attempt to touch it. Even though I’d seen it a million times, Jenny had never allowed herself to take the ring out of the cabinet. We only ever looked at it from behind the safety of the glass. Up close, it was even more stunning than I remembered. The central diamond sparkled under the store’s lights while the halo of smaller stones shimmered with a subtlety that belied the fifteen-thousand-dollar price tag.

‘It’s gorgeous,’ I whispered, as I slid a two-carat canary yellow solitaire onto the little finger of my right hand. ‘She’s going to be so happy, Mason.’

I held my breath as, very slowly, a huge smile broke out underneath his beard. He looked at me, and I realized there were tears in his big manly eyes. ‘This is it, this is the ring. It’s Jenny’s ring.’

As soon as he said it, I began to well up.

‘Oh,’ I sniffed, scratching my cheek with an enormous sapphire as I wiped away my own tears. ‘Mason, she’s going to be so happy.’

‘Thank you,’ he said, draping his arm around my shoulders. Given his ridiculous lumberjack build, he had to reach down quite far to give me a half hug but I wrapped my arm around his waist as the assistant gave us one happy nod and silently disappeared to fetch a ring box. ‘Part of me can’t believe I’m actually going to do it, but as soon as I saw the ring, I knew it was right. I want to ask her right now, I don’t even want to wait.’

‘Don’t wait!’ I agreed, tears streaming down my cheeks at the thought of the proposal. ‘Do it right now!’

‘I’m going to call her.’ Mason wiped his eyes with the back of his ringless hand and pulled his phone out of his pocket. ‘Maybe she can meet me for dinner, she’s probably still at work.’

‘No, I know where she is!’ I reached up to snatch the phone out of his hand. ‘She’s right next door, we were having a drink at the King Cole bar before I met you.’

Mason looked at me, confused. ‘I thought you said you were at work?’

‘I did but I lied,’ I said happily. ‘I forgot I was meeting you and I went to meet her but then I told her I had to go to work and – and none of this matters! Let’s go and do it now, her hair looks nice and she’s just had a manicure. She’ll be ecstatic.’

‘OK.’ Mason ran both of his hands through his sandy hair then threw his arms out wide. ‘I’m doing this! I’m going to propose to my girlfriend!’

Before I could object, he grabbed me around the waist and hoisted me off my feet, twirling me around in a circle.

‘Oh, steady on,’ I said, grabbing his shoulder with one hand and clapping the other over my mouth. ‘I’ve been feeling a bit gippy all day.’

Slowly, everyone on the shop floor began to clap.

‘Whoo!’ yelped one overly enthusiastic man in a backwards baseball cap across the way. ‘Congratulations!’

‘Oh no,’ I said, mortified. Whether it was sheer embarrassment or the fact a man was wearing a backwards baseball cap in Tiffany, I couldn’t be sure. ‘Oh, Mason, put me down.’

‘Yeah, Mason, put her down.’

Still holding me hoisted three and a half feet up off the floor, Mason turned to reveal a decidedly unecstatic-looking Jenny Lopez.

‘What the fuck is going on?’

‘Jenny, I—’ Mason, startled, seemed to have completely forgotten what he was doing in the most famous engagement ring shop in the entire history of the world. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Duuuuude, busted.’

Backwards Baseball Cap Man gasped on the other side of the store and I realized everyone in Tiffany & Co. was watching us.

‘What am I doing here? What are you doing here?’ Jenny demanded. Her face was almost the same shade of red as her nails and her hair was wild. She was furious. ‘Angie left her phone on the bar so I was going to take it to the office but when I followed her out, she didn’t go to her office. She came here. To meet you.’

‘You followed me from the bar?’ I scrunched my eyebrows together, perplexed. ‘How did it take you this long to find us?’

‘Because I had to pee on my way up here, OK?’ she yelled, hurling my phone at me. ‘Someone left an entire martini on the bar and I paid seventy-five dollars for three drinks. I knew you were lying to me – tell me what the hell is going on!’

‘Jenny …’ Mason dropped me like a bag of hot dog shit and I stumbled forward into the glass counter. Before she could say anything else, he dropped to one knee and everyone in the shop held their collective breath. ‘I have something I want to ask you.’

Behind him I gestured wildly for her to come closer but she didn’t move. The fury in her eyes began to shift into wide-eyed shock and her red cheeks faded to white.