One night about a week later, Pansy and Cassandra were making spaghetti carbonara together when Cassandra noticed, all of a sudden, that Pansy was wearing a diamond ring. It sparkled on her delicate brown finger, for Pansy Chapin was tanned all over. Even at Bennington she had been legendary for her audacity to frequent the tanning booths in town, rather than go flabby and blanched, like lesser mortals, over the course of the New England winter.
“Oh, that’s so pretty!” Cassandra exclaimed. “Is it your grandmother’s?”
Cassandra had one quite similar to it, from her grandmother. It had been passed down, along with the wedding silver and some other pieces of jewelry: an amethyst drop necklace on a fine gold chain, long jade earrings, several gold charm bracelets, and a handsome gold signet ring that Cassandra thought was very chic and just the sort of thing that Pansy herself might wear. The diamond ring of her grandmother’s was something that she used to wear to black-tie events with Edward, she reflected, and all of a sudden regretted that the spaghetti carbonara she was making was not for him.
“No, actually,” Pansy admitted. Since it was already the middle of August by now and she intended to move out of the apartment by September 1, she might as well go ahead and break the news to Cassandra. “It’s—from Jock! We’re engaged,” she clarified, seeing that Cassandra appeared to be a little slow on the uptake.
But this was madness, Cassandra thought. Just how many broken engagements did Pansy think a girl could afford to have? Nevertheless, in the spirit of hypocritical female friendships that make the world go round, she turned off the kitchen faucet so that she could come over to Pansy and better admire the ring.
“Congratulations! It’s beautiful!”
“Well, yes.” Pansy shrugged. As a matter of fact, her last ring had been even better, she thought, but perhaps there was no one in the whole world to voice such an ungrateful observation to right now, and suddenly Pansy Chapin, standing in their kitchen, glass of vino in hand, felt a lush, plaintive pull toward the wilds of memory and fiancés past. “It’s lucky that I happen to actually look good in diamonds. Anyway, it’s going to be a Jewish ceremony. Jock insisted on that. Thank God, though, I won’t have to convert. And his last name is only Kaplan, which isn’t too, too bad. I won’t even have to change my monogram!”
“Well, isn’t that convenient?”
“So, this means that I’ll be moving out, of course.”
“Oh, right, of course—” But we just moved in, Cassandra was thinking. And they had signed a yearlong lease.
“In September. Jock’s loft is fabulous, but we’ll want to start looking to buy in the suburbs. Not Greenwich!” Pansy clarified. “I think Greenwich is tacky! I’d like to be more in horse country…”
“Do you ride?” Cassandra couldn’t remember.
“Oh, no. Horses smell. I just like the clothing.”
Equestrienne wear would look good on her, Cassandra agreed, and in no time got so mesmerized by the image of Pansy sporting dark jodhpurs and a Hermès scarf that she forgot their immediate predicament about the apartment.
“Anyway, I’m sure you can find a roommate for September first. Some person, some Bennington girl…” Pansy yawned.
“I guess,” said Cassandra wistfully, not feeling convinced.