A MONTH LATER WE GOT A ring. It was a Sunday afternoon in late September, and we were uptown. It was quiet. The weather was still nice, and on the Upper East Side people were taking advantage of the extra warm weekends out East. It felt like we had all of Park Avenue to ourselves—as if that was in some way desirable. We had just come from the Guggenheim. There had been a retrospective on Edward Hopper that Tobias wanted to see, and afterward we decided to stroll. We may have had lunch at Serafina or picked up bagels at Murray’s, but for right then we were just walking. It was a bright, cloudless afternoon, just bordering on skin-burning but not quite there. There was still movement on the street and we were both wearing hats. Invincible.
Our hands were intertwined and I remember looking down at them. Pure skin. No metal or even plastic. We hadn’t talked about the wedding at all in the last month. In fact, with the exception of a few key friends and family—Kendra at work, my mom, who miraculously asked nothing; I had the sneaking suspicion Jessica had gotten to her first—we didn’t talk about the engagement at all. It was starting to feel as if it had never happened.
“I think we need a ring,” I said. Tobias was looking in the direction of a French bulldog that had become untethered from its owner. I could tell he hadn’t heard me.
“Tobias,” I said. He spun his head to look at me. “We’re engaged. We should get a ring.”
I wasn’t sure how he would take it. He had been so irritated on the phone when I had brought it up weeks ago that I hadn’t wanted to again. But I was beginning to feel like if I didn’t mention it, no one would, and we’d forget and the engagement would never have happened.
“Okay,” he said. “What do you want?”
I swung our hands, still interlaced, around me. I pulled myself into him and kissed him on the cheek. “I don’t know. I just know I want something.”
I hadn’t really thought about it. I wasn’t one of those girls who dreamed about the big diamond ring. Even if we could have afforded it, which we couldn’t, that wouldn’t have been for me. I thought maybe a colored stone—amethyst or ruby. Something deep in color and ancient-looking.
“Come on,” Tobias said, tugging me forward now. “I know a place we can check out.”
We walked down to Seventy-first Street and then made a left. Between First and Second Avenues was this tiny antiques shop. Tobias had never taken me, but he’d mentioned it before as somewhere he sometimes went. He had sold an old leather briefcase there when I’d first known him in New York—back when he needed a quick hundred bucks. I guess he still did; I just didn’t think he pawned things anymore.
The shop was down a flight of stairs in an old brownstone building on a modest block. The owner, a woman named Ingrid who appeared to be in her seventies, let us in when we buzzed. She kissed Tobias twice—once on each cheek. She seemed happy to see him but not surprised.
“Handsome,” she said, holding him at arm’s length. “With a little bit of the devil.”
Tobias smiled. “Ingrid, this is Sabrina. Sabrina, Ingrid.” He leaned in close to her like he was revealing a secret. “Sabrina is my fiancée.”
Ingrid’s eyes went wide, and she clasped her hands together, turning to me. I was hanging back, letting them have a moment, but Ingrid extended her hand out to me and I stepped toward.
“You,” she said to me, patting my hand, “are a charmed woman.”
I shook my head. I could feel Tobias’s hand find my waist. “She is,” he said. “I’m very lucky.” He spun his thumb up under my shirt. “And now we need a ring.”
This was the most we’d talked about the engagement since he’d proposed. I felt dizzy, delighted. Like everything I needed was right there in that little shop on Seventy-first Street. Ingrid included.
“Let’s look,” she said. She took my hand in hers and with the other she took her glasses from where they dangled around her neck and put them on. The closer I got, the more I could smell her—the headiest, sweetest vanilla fragrance I’d ever encountered.
Ingrid peered down at my hand. “Beautiful,” she said. “Very delicate extensions.” She picked up a finger and wiggled it around like she was testing it, like she was trying to find a loose piece. “Follow me.”
There wasn’t a single other customer in the store as Ingrid took us into a second room. Here were racks of coats—most of them dried-out fur. I cleared my throat in an attempt to stifle a cough.
“Here we are.” Ingrid went behind a glass case, took some keys out of her pocket, and opened it. She reached inside and took out a velvet tray on which were set rows of rings. “Pick one,” she said.
At first glance, they all looked antique—Victorian, even—but as I peered closer I started to see all kinds of different periods and styles. There were some diamonds, although small. There was a large array of bands, too. Pavé and sapphire and one with tiny threads of white and yellow gold.
“They’re beautiful,” I said.
“Many happy marriages,” Ingrid told me. “I try and see if a marriage is happy, and if it is? I buy. No divorces.”
I didn’t stop to think about the impossibility of that—if people were happy, why were they getting rid of their rings? Had they all died? And if so, how could you be sure?
Tobias laughed. His hand was now on my shoulder and he started kneading there. I suddenly wished this was all being recorded—that I’d be able to see the replay tonight, next year, a decade from now.
“What about that one?” I pointed to a ring with three small emeralds in yellow gold.
“No, no,” Ingrid said. She shook her head. “You need something more traditional.”
“Oh,” I said. “I’m not really…” I looked up at Tobias. “I’m not that traditional.”
“No?” she asked. She peered at me for a moment. “Here. Try this.”
Ingrid handed me a white gold ring with a small diamond solitaire surrounded by yellow amethysts. To this day, it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it right away.
“It’s gorgeous,” I said. “But I think it’s a little too much.” What I meant was expensive. The ring looked like it would cost our rent for the year.
“Just put it on,” she said.
Ingrid didn’t seem like a woman to disobey, and so I did as she said. I slid the ring over my finger. It glistened on my ring finger, proud. I shifted my hand gently in the light, watching it sparkle.
“Let me see.” This from Tobias.
I spun around and shook my hand like I was in a rap video. “Bling, no?” It was ridiculous, I knew. But it was still fun.
“That’s serious,” he said.
“I know.”
“How much?” he asked Ingrid.
“Normally, five thousand,” she said. “But for you, three.”
That was triple what we’d be able to pay. I immediately took it off.
“That’s too much,” I said. “But it’s beautiful. Is there anything else?”
“Sure, sure,” Ingrid said. “But nothing like that one. I call her Rose.”
Tobias had gone quiet behind me. I went in search of his hand. “Hey,” I said, tugging him closer. “What do you like?”
“I like that one,” he said. He looked determined. “The one you had on. We’ll buy it.”
“Tobias,” I said. I moved toward him and lowered my voice, trying to give us the illusion of privacy. “It’s way too much, come on.”
“Isn’t the man supposed to buy the ring?” he asked me. But it wasn’t a question. It wasn’t fun anymore. It was tinged with aggression.
“Yes, but baby, I don’t need that one. Let’s just pick something else, okay?”
I rifled through the rings. There was a sweet one with small chips of diamonds and amethysts in an intricate gold pattern. “How much is this one?” I asked Ingrid.
“Seven hundred,” she said. “It’s very sweet.”
I slipped it on. It fit perfectly. “What do you think?” I asked Tobias.
He barely looked down at my hand. “It’s fine,” he said.
“Tobias,” I said. “Fine isn’t good enough. Do you want to keep looking?”
He shook his head. “Sorry, it’s really nice.” He picked up my hand gingerly. “It looks great on you.” He gave me a small smile I knew was taking a lot of effort.
“I love it,” I said. I meant it, too. It wasn’t the first ring, but it felt good on my hand. I knew I wanted to leave it there.
“We’ll take it,” Tobias said.
I snuggled into him. He put his arm around me. We were trying at the moment. I wanted to recapture some of that playfulness I had felt when we first walked in.
“It’s a wise choice,” Ingrid said. “It looks lovely on you.” She didn’t seem any more or less pleased that we were going with the ring that was five times cheaper, and I felt a rush of affection for her.
We followed Ingrid back past the coatracks and into the main room. She stood behind the register and I watched Tobias take out his wallet. Seven hundred dollars was still a lot of money, money he didn’t have, and I knew it, but something told me not to offer to chip in. Tobias put a credit card down.
We hugged Ingrid good-bye and climbed the stairs to the street. It was markedly cooler than when we’d gone down. “I love it,” I told him. I looked down at my hand—the ring was twinkling in the last rays of summer sunshine. “And I love you.”
He pulled me toward him. “You sure you’re happy?” he said.
I wanted him to add with the ring, but he didn’t.
“Of course,” I said. “The happiest. I get to marry you.”
“Yeah,” he said. He nodded a few times.
I reached up and took his head in my hands. “This is all I need,” I said. “It’s all I’ll ever need.”
He hugged me then so tightly I almost couldn’t breathe. We clung to each other on that late afternoon as if we saw what was coming.