Girl Titanium

A musing from the jewelry store

Dear Reader,

You have found me in the early evening, standing in front of a diamond display inside an understaffed jewelry store waiting to pick up my wedding ring, which I had to take in to be resized. A young man, full of chaotic energy, hops from person to person to couple to family. He asks my name. I tell him. He insists I take out my driver’s license to prove my identity, which I do. I am in workout clothes, sweaty and hungry after my twerking class, which I have been using to fill my body with joy chemicals because I’ve had the blues due to *checks notes* the country. Funny, I mused to myself, when I dropped the ring off last week on a random morning, the store was empty. No less than six well-dressed young people huddled behind the counter having a conversation about the pros and cons of a particular dating app. If there is an Oscar to hand out for Excellence in Staffing, this jewelry store should receive one.

An older woman with sharp, metallic nails and thick, sassy olive-green glasses emerges from the back. Asks me again for my name. She says she can’t find me. Girl, same. But then she’s like, I can’t give you your ring back because you don’t exist. With a sigh, she says she’ll go back and look again.

Some number of minutes tick on. The diamonds in the case sparkle, and what I really want, where I might find the real joy chemicals, is to open the case and drape myself in jewels, then twirl in front of a mirror. Briefly, I think about writing a heist story. Then, I think about my first husband, and the light argument we had before getting engaged, where he asked if I’d be okay with a lab-grown diamond because lab-grown diamonds were less exploitative. Blood Diamond was in theaters. I said, well? And also they’re cheaper, which is the real reason we’re talking about this, isn’t it? I said if he tried hard enough, he could find stores that carried bloodless diamonds, right? Ethically sourced? This jewelry store claims to have cruelty free diamonds. Both my wedding rings ended up coming from this store.

An older man, woman, and young girl are next to me. The older man speaks about titanium rings.

Don’t buy a titanium ring ever, he says. If you get in an accident, the hospital will not be able to cut it off.

Is that true? Can I get a fact check at the jewelry counter?

The young girl he is with (his daughter? Stepdaughter?) says is there like a girl titanium? I’ll make sure to tell my future husband not to buy me any girl rings made of titanium.

The chaotic young man swings by again, tells me he appreciates my patience, asks me again for my name, which I tell him now for the millionth time and then hold up my license to be like, I’m ready. I’m just picking it up. I know it’s here. He says he’ll check for me, but instead he stops off at the titanium ring brigade. He launches a conversation about the metals used in NASA rocket ships. I tap my license on the counter to let them know I’m still here.

I have Real I.D. I’ve had it since 2019. Eight days after my father’s funeral. My husband and I had planned to travel out of the country in late spring 2020 (a trip that did not happen), and I thought back then I needed the Real I.D. I guess I just rolled out of my father’s funeral and went to the DMV. I guess I had to occupy myself with a completable task.

The woman with the olive-green glasses is back. She still can’t find me. Then she asks if it’s under a different name, perhaps my husband’s name. I give this to her. AH! She is delighted. She thinks this is the problem. I exist under my husband’s name because he bought the ring not because of patriarchy or anything. She whisks herself away again.

I look at my license picture from 2019. My hair is still red (for real red, its natural young state). My weight is ten pounds less than it is now. My ring had gotten so tight in the last few months it left a big red indent on my finger. I ignored it, thought perhaps it was water retention. Flares of perimenopause. Or, perhaps, as my daughter is turning 10, the age I was when my parents blew up my life, my body is swelling with memory of the cross-country move, changing schools, the divorce, my mother’s quick remarriage to a rage-a-holic, another move to another house across the new town, and then, finally, changing schools a third time, all of that mixed in with multiple friend turnovers and new stepbrothers. I do not believe that children are as resilient as adults wish they would be. They simply do not have the emotional capacity to process what has happened to them, so they seal it up in a leaky container, that, as they age, slowly leaches the bad stuff back into their adult personalities.

I mean, or it’s the weight gain. Most likely my ring got tight because of the weight gain. I can’t possibly think sitting around eating nut clusters and absorbing the news is good or healthy.

The woman is back, and she has my ring. My parents were both married and divorced two times each. She confirms with me this is in fact my ring I dropped off, the inclusions are the inclusions I know or whatever, and I put the ring on, which has also been cleaned, hold it up to the light and watch it sparkle, this, the ring of my own second marriage. After the adjustment, it fits and is no longer tight or constricting.

I would be remiss not to shout out my own self at the end of this missive to let you know my chapbook, Something I Might Say, about my father’s death (sad but sometimes funny!) is part of a warehouse sale right now, and you can purchase it for $7. A bargain! Additionally, I have an essay alongside some amazing writers in the forthcoming anthology If I Can Be Honest: Selected Prose from the Four Years of Autofocus Lit. My essay is in the Death section, and I couldn’t be more proud.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

Yours in Sparkly Things,

Stephanie

Reading: Dead Dad Diaries by Erin Slaughter (ARC)

Listening: Amy Poehler’s podcast Good Hang (v funny! also good for the joy chemicals!)