Garnets Are a Girl’s Best Friend

We received my sister’s phone call around dessert, and by the time after-dinner coffee was served, we had pictures of the ring emailed. Somehow I got stuck amidst the pilgrimage of family members making their way to a viewing on the large screen of my parent’s bedroom computer. It was like I was the guardian of the gate, and everybody had to offer up some bit of advice or commentary in order to make passage.

“Looks like you’re an old maid now,” my uncle joked. I laughed at that one. It was the first ribbing, and I could see how someone might think it was funny.

“Always a bridesmaid,” said my aunt. I laughed at that too. It was a traditional saying, after all.

“Better hurry up and find yourself a husband or you’ll never catch up,” my mother said. Now that was unfair. I already had a boyfriend. I wasn’t entirely hopeless.

“Didn’t you try this once?” Another uncle. I had been engaged briefly before. “She let that one slip away,” my father informed him.

I could handle the jokes, though. They didn’t bother me because I was unequivocally happy for my sister and not ready to get married myself. But it seemed rather unfair to me that she’d got the earrings on top of the ring. That was just excess. Nobody needed that many diamonds at one sitting.

Fortunately, my parents had also bought me a pair of earrings for Christmas. They were a large pair of garish garnets, and I wore them home to my loving, non-gift-giving boyfriend.

“Those are hideous,” he told me.

I told him to shove it since he hadn’t bought me a pair himself.

“If you take those off, I’ll buy you diamonds,” he said. “You look like my Aunt Bertha.”

I told him his aunt must have been a lovely woman and that until I had replacements, I’d just keep the earrings on, thank you very much.

I’m still waiting, but the pressure’s getting to him, I can tell. Yesterday he even asked me how much, exactly, diamond earrings would cost. I told him the price range. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “Isn’t it?” I agreed, tucking my hair behind my ears so the afternoon light could highlight the garnets in all their glory.