That’s where I come in. It was 1979 and Bethany and I were 29. Trying to make a go of India Inc., our occult-bookstore-with-art-supplies. We didn’t (make a go), but Bethany and Tom made lots of sparks and then a pretty amazing relationship.

They were so into each other then that Bethany and I had some rough spots between us. It took me awhile to make room for Tom, and it took Bethany some time to learn how to share her attention between us. But we were settling into it by late 1980, when Bethany and I faced the facts and closed the store. Even knowing her as well as I did, I was surprised that she turned Tom down when he tried to marry her and give her that gemstone.

She brought the diamond to me right after that. Although she had told him no, Tom asked her to consider for awhile and hold onto the velvet-covered box while she did so. I remember when she showed up at my place that bright December day; she was wrapped in her pigskin-suede belted jacket with the fur collar and cuffs, an un-Bethany jacket that she could only wear in the few chill weeks each winter when it didn’t rain. She came into the room pink-cheeked, shining-eyed, and she only shrugged out of her jacket after she sat on the couch. She was wearing dark colors underneath, probably jeans and a black turtleneck like now, and I remember after she pulled the box out of her pocket and took the ring out of the box, how bright the stone looked against the dark colors and beneath her winter-chilled chin.

“Look at it,” she breathed on the diamond as she spoke. “It has twelve sides. One for each sign.” That was just like Bethany. She’d been into astrology and Tarot for as long as I’d known her, and she does love diamonds. Personally, I can leave them alone; I admit they’re great for drilling and polishing, but as a gem I find them cold. Called ice for a reason. In fact, they conduct heat so well that they are colder than glass or surrounding air…

I took the ring into my palm when she handed it to me. It was faceted and colorless, the way I don’t like stones, but I had to admit it was fine. When I looked into it I could find every color I’ve ever seen or even imagined. I wasn’t crazy about the ring it was set in, but that could be changed.

“You look pale. Like the stone,” she said to me then. I remember looking up at her and thinking something about how maybe she should marry Tom. I don’t know what I said. “I’m not into marriage,” she stated firmly. She was looking straight at me. “I don’t need to be married for economic reasons,” she said. “And you know I don’t want kids. I love Tom, sure, but what’s the hurry? And anyway, as great as our relationship is, sometimes I know he’s not seeing me. There are times when he relates to me like I’m some sort of representative of women, or of women his age, or of women-who-like-to-read-and-tend-to-render-opinions-readily. Like I’m not really present. Like he’s thinking out loud and making it appear to be dialogue – that’ll fool everyone but the person who’s supposed to be on the other end of the dialogue, you know?

“I’m not interested in that. We can take our time. If that means I refuse this beauty, well… it’s kind of cursed anyway. I sense it’s been wrapped in guilt for most of its refined existence. It can wait too.”

The thing about my friend Bethany is, she meant it. Nearly 20 years have passed since that day, and she has held the marriage line. Till now. When she told me last week that she can’t live without the diamond any more, I knew enough to not believe her, of course. But when she said she wanted to marry Tom I didn’t know what to think.

She had the diamond again. She pulled the box out of the pocket of her lined black coat, opened it, placed the old ring into her other gloved palm, breathed on it, and said, “I’ve decided to marry Tom now. After all this time I am committed to him. I knew it would happen this way. You see,” she said as she sat back on my couch and looked around for a second, “it never could have worked for me to say some words and hear him say them and have that be enough. I had to live it and come to trust that we really can respect each other and pay attention. Of course we could go on the way we have. But it would mean a lot to him for us to marry. There’s room for that. The relationship will bear up under the form.”

She tossed the ring at me then and I caught it with both hands, almost in my lap. “We want you to have this stone.” I gaped at her. She laughed. “Really. Tom and I agree. It’s done more than enough for us. It’s been our light at the end of the tunnel, and we don’t need it any more. And we like to think we’ve worn off its guilt by now. Maybe repaired its karma. Besides,” she said as she got up to find wine or something to drink. “You’ll be its lucky twelfth owner. It’ll be interesting to see what you do with it.”

“Only if you count owners creatively,” I said as I walked to my refrigerator for the open wine. “Like if, say, Herschel and Gus were just middlemen.” I looked once more at the brilliant gem before I closed the box and put it in my pocket.