The Perfect Proposal Chapter One

Jackie Meredith perused the selection of engagement rings waiting for one to jump out at her. She wanted something amazing.  For six months she had been saving money and waiting for the right time to ask Mary to marry her.  They had been living together for almost a year and life was perfect. She wanted to make their commitment to each other official.

They both worked during the day, Jackie at her UPS delivery job and Mary as a legal secretary. They were saving money for their first vacation together. Jackie convinced Mary to go to Maine to check out the lighthouses. Before she asked Mary about going to the lighthouses, she already knew she wanted to propose to her. Jackie toyed with proposing to Mary in Maine and then having a ceremony in Kentucky, but since gay marriage was still banned in Kentucky, she decided she would rather have a small ceremony in Kentucky for their friends here and have the actual ceremony in Maine. At least that was what Jackie wanted, and hopefully Mary would agree to her plan.

The woman working the counter of the jewelry store glared at Jackie disapprovingly. She probably guessed that Jackie was looking for a ring for her girlfriend. Standing at her full height of five foot, ten inches and dressed in her UPS uniform, Jackie knew that she carried herself in a very masculine manner. She wasn’t ashamed that she looked like a butch dyke.

Shaking her head in disappointment, she decided she was not going to find what she was looking for here. Jackie left the store and headed to the only jewelry store in town that she hadn’t been to yet.

The store was small and in a middle class part of town.  The salesman was a middle aged, balding man in a light gray suit, who was slightly effeminate. “Good afternoon,” he said with a thick southern accent when Jackie entered the store.

“Good afternoon,” Jackie replied.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes,” Jackie said, “I’m looking for an engagement ring.  I want something different and really beautiful."

The salesman directed her to a case filled with of engagement rings. Jackie studied them but wasn’t happy with any of them. She let out a sigh of frustration.

The salesman said, “I have another collection of engagement rings that are a little more expensive.” He directed Jackie to look at a grouping of rings at the end of the glass counter.

Jackie’s breath caught in her throat. In the center of the group was the perfect ring. Pink gold surrounded a collection of diamonds in the form of a flower with a large heart shaped diamond in the center. “This is the one,” she said, pointing to the ring in the center.

The salesman opened the case and took out the ring Jackie pointed to. “This is a floral vintage ring with fourteen carat rose pink gold band and a point four carat heart shaped diamond. There are twenty-four point two carat diamonds in the leaves and band.” The salesman took the ring out of its box and handed it to Jackie for a closer inspection.

“This is just beautiful,” Jackie said, studying the ring in awe.

“It is,” the salesman agreed.

Some other people came into the store. The salesman wrote some numbers down on a piece of paper and handed it to Jackie. “This is the price for this ring.”

“Wow,” Jackie said looking at the numbers.

The salesman smiled. “Would you like to take a few minutes to think about it?”

“How much do you need to hold it?”

“Twenty percent,” he said.

Jackie took her checkbook out of her back pocket and started writing the check. “How long will you give me to come up with the rest of the money?”

Surprised that Jackie didn’t hesitate, the salesman said, “We do have financing plans if you would like to apply for one.”

Jackie thought about that for a few minutes. “What kind of interest are we talking about?”

“It varies depending on your credit, but the minimum interest is twelve point ninety-nine percent.”

“Let me put this deposit down and look into some financing from a few other places.”

The salesman nodded. “I can hold it for up to a month without some kind of financing arrangement.”

Grinning, Jackie handed the man her check. “It won’t take that long for me to get something worked out.”

“Okay,” he said and handed Jackie a form to fill out for holding the ring.

Jackie handed the filled out form back to the salesman, turned and walked out of the store. She’d been to every store in town and hadn’t seen anything as perfect as this ring. It cost almost twice as much as she had saved. She went to her truck and called her boss. “Hey Darren, do you know if I can get a loan on my retirement?”

Darren wanted to know why she wanted to get a loan. She explained that she was going to propose Mary and had found the perfect ring. He told her he would meet her at the store and see if he couldn’t get the salesman to come down on the price.

The salesman was surprised when Jackie came back in the store with Darren.  “Which ring?” Darren asked.

Jackie asked the salesman to bring the ring out for Darren to look out.

“Wow,” Darren said. “That’s beautiful. Let me take a picture of it and send it to a few dealers. Maybe someone has one similar for a lower price.”

The salesman’s eyes bugged out of his head. “We are the only dealer in town that has this ring. You are not going to find it cheaper.”

“There are hundreds of dealers online,” Darren said and took a picture of the ring. “We’ll send this picture around and see if we can’t find someone who has it or something similar for less money.”

Jackie watched the whole deal wondering if Darren was serious about checking with other dealers. The salesman pursed his lips and grabbed his notepad. He wrote a new number that was about a hundred dollars less than the first quote.

Darren looked at it and wrote down a number that was four hundred less than the first.  The salesman took the pad back and wrote a new number. This was two hundred less than the original price. Darren looked at Jackie. “What do you think?”

“I’ll still have to borrow some money, but I like that price a lot better.”

Looking up at the salesman Darren said, “This includes any resizing that may need to be done, right.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve got a deal,” Darren said and pulled out his checkbook.

Jackie watched in shock as Darren started writing a check for the balance of the ring. “Wait,” she said. “I don’t have the money to pay you back unless I get a loan.”

“I’m sure you can get one, so don’t worry about it,” Darren said, tore the check out of his checkbook and handed it to the salesman.

Fifteen minutes later Jackie and Darren left the jewelry store. “Thank you,” Jackie said. “I’ve never bought anything at a jewelry store, and definitely not for that kind of money.”

“I spend seven months hunting for the perfect engagement ring for Jane,” Darren said, referring to his wife of ten years. “I didn’t think I was ever going to find one I could afford that I really liked. I finally found the perfect ring, but it was a thousand dollars more than I had. I haggled the dealer down and even got him to let me make payments on it.”

“How long did it take you to pay it off?”

“Six months,” Darren said. “Did you talk to the salesman about payments?”

“Yeah, but the interest was really high. If I borrow from my retirement fund, there’s very little interest,” Jackie said. “What do I need to do to get a loan on that so I can pay you back?”

“We'll figure something out tomorrow,” Darren said, giving Jackie a pat on the back. “I’m going to head home. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Thanks, Darren,” Jackie said. “I really appreciate your help.”

“No problem,” Darren said as he climbed into his blue Avalanche.

Jackie got into her truck and patted her jacket pocket where the ring rested. It was going to be hard to keep from asking Mary for a few more days, but she wanted the moment she proposed to be perfect, and she still had plans to map out.