With this ring, I abscond

In my head, I know the diamond goes back when the engagement is broken. In my heart, I want revenge.

By Alexis Quinlan

Aug. 22, 2002 | I've kept the engagement ring from the last man I didn't marry.

It isn't something I planned. In fact, it was the last thing on my mind as I drove away from him on a harrowing May midnight. At that point it was stashed with my passport and favorite CDs, and I was only wondering if my sister really was willing to put me up for a while. But in the days that followed, as I bulleted out of L.A., I admit I dreamed of selling it to fund my return to New York. Or to buy myself a really good watch. Or to donate to a woman's shelter. (This fellow was from the occasionally aggressive line of fiancés. Not recommended.)

And in the wee Pepsi-and-Hershey's hours, I remembered old Aunt Helen, who pulled me and my sister aside at family dinners to hiss, "Get jewelry!" We were initially puzzled. "From mom?" She'd roll her eyes in despair, but kept up her campaign.

Sadly, I mostly got books from my men. My first two loves proffered heavy feminist tomes. (Yes, I turned out to be a writer, but gee.) Subsequent beaus migrated to novels and poetry, but it all added up to a lot of homework. As for my fiancé, the only thing he knew about feminists was the old light-bulb joke. (Q: How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: That's not funny.) I liked it -- no surprise, since I told it first. All his friends had wives that were dripping with ice. Once, when his boring company was bought by a larger, even more boring company, he gave me a lovely pearl necklace. Aunt Helen would be relieved at last.

By the time I hit Texas, he'd taken stock. "Where is that ring! Where is that ring? Where is tha--" I hung up. The shouting, after all, was a big reason I was whipping through the scrubby desert in the first place.

Sitting in my sister's Houston driveway, exhausted from the trip, I fished out the ring. I didn't want it -- that was definite. I knew the rules -- I went to girls' school, as had my mother and her mother, and so I'd heard that the woman returns the ring when breaking off the engagement. And I knew him, knew he'd turn his monstrous, occasionally charming determination, famous for outbidding competitors and getting us bumped to first class, on this very ring if he had an inkling I was keeping it from him. He'd call my sister, my brother, friends across the country. He'd plead his case to my despised relatives. He'd probably win.

I locked the ring in the glove compartment.

All along, he'd had it all. For five years he had more friends, more invitations, more personality and lots more money. To add insult to injury, he was better looking. As a quasi-serious quasi-feminist, I struggled not to care about such trifles. Upon moving in with him, I cosigned on a joint checking account into which we put a fixed and equal monthly sum for household expenses -- normal ones like groceries and electricity; and abnormal ones, like the little guy who came to wash the cars Sunday mornings, and pool men. (I got to like the pool men. Got to see why housewives might have a go with them.)

The exceptions to our 50-50 split were telling. He covered the mortgage on his overlarge Santa Monica house and paid for our dinners out, while I bought the filtered water. (He had an inexplicable moral-political stance against delivered water.) The problems arose when I tried to keep pace with him -- a first-class world traveler with 40 designer suits. A real live captain of industry. I'd undergo spasms of greed, rush to Saks, and return home with an $800 purse I'd had to charge and wouldn't use. When I finally bought an Armani suit it was at the right price -- Christmas sale-- but the wrong time -- post-flu. I'll never be so thin again.

It was grand to finally have something he wanted. I drove to New York and found my own beautiful one-bedroom with a view. Hired a lawyer so I'd never have to talk to him again.

"Lawyer!" cried my sister. "You never even decided between church and synagogue!"

True, but there was a small condo we'd bought together in a mad moment and I didn't have a clue how to sell my part of it. Given the property values at the time, the $5,000 retainer didn't faze me -- until his lawyer started mentioning the ring in letters to my lawyer. My ex-fiancé wouldn't buy me out until I'd returned the ring. Soon that's all my lawyer talked about. At lawyer prices.

In the fall, his lawyer called my lawyer and said it is against the law for a woman to keep the engagement ring if she isn't going to marry. Breach of contract.

The law! Hell. I capitulated immediately.

But before I could unearth it from the glove compartment, my lawyer did some research and said that in California, an engagement ring was an ordinary gift, and could be kept like any gift. Secretly sighing relief, I denounced the sexist code that makes women chattel and forces us to return rings, which only symbolize patriarchal possession anyway.

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