Three Ring Bind
THREE RING BIND – December 6, 2024 – Bloomington, Minnesota, USA
Louisa’s silence was an obvious sign she was unhappy. She sat in the passenger seat of the car and quietly stared at the Christmas lights decorating the dark streets. Her boyfriend, Carter, tried to lighten the mood as he drove.
“We’ll only stay at the party for a few minutes and then we’ll do something you’re going to love.”
“I know. You already said that,” Louisa answered flatly.
“It’s gonna be one of those parties where you can come and go. Lots of people there so you won’t be noticed if you don’t want to be. You don’t even have to talk to anyone.”
“I know.”
“They specifically invited me. They know I’m around. I can’t just blow them off.”
“It’s fine. You can say hi and then we’ll leave. But I don’t get why you care about their opinion. I know I’ve said this a million times, but she’s your ex-fiancé. For most people, that means a break and moving on with your lives.”
Carter sighed. “Yeah, I know it sounds weird. But also kind of mature that we can still be friends, or at least friendly.”
Louisa rolled her eyes. “You always bring up the maturity thing like you’ve solved world peace. I’m just saying that I’ve only known Blaine and Paige after your breakup. I’ll never see them as friends like you do.”
“Thanks for coming along anyway. I promise it’ll only be a few minutes.”
Carter and Blaine had once been not only friends but best friends and roommates. That was when Carter was engaged to marry Paige. Before the wedding date, things simply fizzled out between the couple. Neither cheated on the other and they did not suddenly uncover terrible personality traits. They simply decided they were incompatible in the long run. Years later, when Paige and Blaine started dating and eventually got married, Carter felt no envy or regret. He still liked them both and was happy to hang out on weekends and meet up at concerts and sporting events.
When Carter and Louisa became a serious couple, Louisa inevitably met Paige and Blaine and disliked the unusually sticky connections. “I have no romantic feelings toward Paige. I swear,” Carter repeated to Louisa. “There’s nothing to be jealous about.”
No matter how many times Carter claimed his relationship with Paige was no big deal, Louisa could not shrug it off and move on. And she did not think Carter should ever expect her to.
Now on the way to Paige and Blaine’s holiday party, Carter reached over and turned up the volume on his car’s sound system. It played what he liked to call “island music” – songs he and Louisa learned during a trip to Jamaica. He knew the sounds energized her and he hoped for a dramatic boost to bring her up to her usual cheery mood.
In Carter’s mind, the holiday party would be a minor distraction before the night’s main event. He planned to take Louisa ice skating on an outdoor lake surrounded by glowing Christmas lights and hand-warming fires. They had visited the same place a year earlier and Louisa agreed it was the most romantic scene on earth. After circling the lake a few times in the frosty air, they would find a cozy spot and drink hot chocolate. And that’s when Carter would pull out the ring in his coat pocket and propose.
Carter knew the proposal would not be a major surprise. He and Louisa had talked seriously about the next step in their relationship and reached the conclusion marriage was inevitable. Louisa dropped cute hints about the kinds of rings she liked. Carter joked about the funniest places for a proposal and asked if she would prefer it shown on the big screen at a hockey game or have it involve a ring hidden in food at a restaurant. Undoubtedly, Louisa was on the lookout for the big moment.
The couple reached Blaine and Paige’s address and parked behind a cluster of cars near the single-story home.
“Let’s get this over with,” Louisa said as she pushed her door open.
“We won’t be long,” Carter replied in a consolatory voice. “And I’ll tell you my surprise. When we’re done here, we’re going ice skating.”
Ten guests had already arrived inside Blaine and Paige’s house. They ate finger food and sipped holiday drinks while they laughed and chatted. As they arrived, Paige promised they would eventually play some group games and maybe even sing karaoke.
Paige originally wanted a dinner party with a set eating time. She and Blaine switched it to more of a reception format so that people could come and go on their own schedule. One reason for the change was the invitation to Carter and Louisa. Paige recognized how uncomfortable Louisa was around her and did not want to preside over an awkwardly long evening.
The party hosts spent much of the afternoon baking festive pastries, which were now arranged on trays covering the kitchen table. Paige’s favorite, peppermint cupcakes, sat in the center, surrounded by cinnamon rolls and homemade doughnuts. Blaine insisted they try a recipe for an Italian dessert called Struffoli or honey balls. They were deep-fried, like doughnuts, but round and glazed in honey.
Blaine answered the door when Carter and Louisa knocked. “Just in time! Come in and grab some food. Throw your coats anywhere. We might start up a game.”
“We can’t stay long,” Carter replied apologetically.
“No problem. Leave whenever you want. Just make sure you get some food and check out all our baking.”
Paige smiled and waved from across the room but kept her distance.
Carter and Louisa shuffled into the kitchen and felt obligated to pick up paper plates. They bypassed the lineup of meats and cheeses and went straight for the pastries. Louisa had never seen honey balls before and put four on her plate. Then she and Carter squeezed into an adjoining room and sat in two empty folding chairs, surrounded by all the other guests. Carter knew everyone there and called out greetings whenever someone looked in his direction. Louisa concentrated on her plate of honey balls.
The little pastries had a sweet and crunchy exterior and a soft center that reminded Louisa of cake. She nibbled her first one and eagerly moved to the second, temporarily forgetting her social discomfort.
Right about that time, Paige stood watching her guests’ reactions and congratulating herself on her baking. She happened to look down at her hands and realized she was not wearing her engagement ring. She was not in the habit of removing it, so a panic wave slithered from her heart to the base of her neck. When had she last seen it? Could it have fallen off at work? How about when she was kneading pastry dough?
Across the room, Louisa bit into her third honey ball and felt something hard against her teeth. She pulled the fried dough from her mouth and dug through it with her fingers to find a diamond and sapphire ring.
As Louisa rubbed crumbs off the ring, her emotions ran way ahead of her thought process. Her heart rate doubled. She turned toward Carter with a bright smile and flushed face. A voice in her head may have asked why Carter had chosen to unveil a ring at this party and how he had slipped it into a honey ball, but Louisa was too excited to pay attention to skeptical questions. She slipped the ring on her finger and held it up. She gasped and then squealed.
“Oh Carter! It’s beautiful. And I never suspected.”
Nothing else being discussed in the room compared to what was happening on the folding chairs. Every head turned in amazement and took a collective breath. Carter froze in surprise, staring at the ring.
Paige moved first. She hurried toward Louisa at almost a jog and cried automatically, “Hey, that’s my ring! That’s my ring! I’ve been wondering what happened to it.”
Louisa’s head and neck flew backward like she absorbed an invisible punch. Her joy disappeared in a millisecond. She snarled at Carter and yelled, “It’s her ring? You’re recycling her ring and think I’m going to wear it?”
Louisa defensively jumped to the conclusion that the ring on her finger had once been worn by Paige when she was engaged to Carter. Lousia quickly yanked it from her finger and threw it to the floor. Carter was still piecing together what was happening as Louisa stomped her way out of the room. She grabbed her coat, ripped open the front door, and then slammed it behind her.
Carter and Paige called for her to stop and that she was mistaken, but Louisa did not listen. Paige rushed to pick the ring off the floor and attempted a rapid-fire explanation.
“I must have lost it kneading dough. Then it got cooked in one of the honey balls. I had no idea she’d end up with it.”
Carter grabbed his head with both hands. “This is crazy. I’ve gotta catch her and hope she believes me.” He ran outside without his coat and spotted Louisa marching down the sidewalk, three houses away. He ran to catch up.
“Stop! Wait! That was an accident! It’s not what you think!”
Louisa slowed her pace as Carter continued to shout. “That was the ring Blaine gave to Paige! She accidentally lost it in the dough when she was baking! I had nothing to do with it, but I’m sorry!”
Louisa stopped and let Carter catch up to her. “I’m sorry,” he repeated breathlessly.
She shook her head and wiped tears off her cheeks. “She lost it in the dough?” Louisa asked pitifully.
“A total accident.”
“So you weren’t proposing?”
“I would not have done it that way.”
“I’m so stupid. Everybody saw me. I’m sure they’re all laughing.”
“No, they’re not. It wasn’t stupid. It was natural for you to think that way. I was the one who put the idea in your head when I talked about hiding a ring in restaurant food.”
Louisa smirked. “I guess it is kind of your fault.”
“I’ll tell everyone I’ve been joking about the food trick.”
“And maybe tell them I knew it all along and I was just being dramatic to get a laugh.”
“I’ll say that too. But I better get my coat before I freeze to death out here.”
“We’re leaving, right?”
“As soon as I get my coat.”
“We’re still going ice skating?”
Carter hesitated. “How about if we save that for another time? I don’t think I want to be outside. We could catch a movie or something. Maybe see what’s happening at the mall.”
Carter raced back to the house for his coat and then met Louisa next to his car. He had a good reason to save the romantic ice skating for a different night. The very next day, he quietly went to a jewelry store and exchanged the ring in his coat pocket for something completely different.
Before the honey ball fiasco, he had planned on giving Louisa the ring Paige once wore. Paige had returned it after ending their engagement and it sat useless in Carter’s underwear drawer. It seemed logical to put a perfectly beautiful ring to good use and Carter assumed Louisa would love it. A ball of dough saved him from what he now knew was an unforgiveable, anti-romantic mistake.
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