This morning, Gillian calls on her cell phone from the park down the street from me. She’s walking her dog Nuki as she always does on Sundays, and today is a perfect day to be outside since it’s sunny, sweater-weather. "I’m wearing that floppy hat you gave me for my birthday," she says, and then tells me the bad news: "Jared is going to sue his fiancé Lila. Actually, she’s now his ex-fiancée," Gillian adds with affirmed correction.

"That’s disgusting," I say inside my apartment where I’m searching the closet for running shoes. "Here’s two people who were supposed to be in love!"

"Yeah," Gillian says. "He wants the ring back, and she won’t return it. Now it’ll be for a judge to decide. Jared has gone from courting her to taking her to court!" Then she laughs at her own pun until she has to tell her oversized, black-furred mutt to slow down. "Heel Nuki! Heel!"

I’ve heard for weeks now that Jared has wanted that engagement ring back which Lila insists is hers to keep. If this was California he’d have his way since I’ve heard the law there orders that the guy gets it back no matter what. And in other states the ring is considered a gift for the girl to keep, but this is New Jersey where the answers to ownership aren’t as clear-cut as the diamond in question.

What I’m wondering is when two former fiancés fight over such an object in a court of law is it really about the possession or something deeper like vengeance? Could settling a monetary score in public be compensation for what was never gained intimately? And can the ultimate decision of a judge truly provide justice for robbed hearts?

But getting back to Jared who I know, and Lila who we’ve never met. All we ever knew about her was from that picture of herself and Jared on MarriageVows.com that is one of those web sites where couples post smoochy pictures of themselves along with their gift registry lists. Their photo was taken on a frosty slope at a Utah ski lodge where he had proposed. Although it has now vanished along with the rest of their web page, I remember it distinctly. Lila stood in a shiny, blue ski suit, smiling as bright as the sun-reflected snow. Eagerness was expressed across her red-painted mouth, and her eyes looked like two little, green, crystal balls, whirling with scenes of the perfect future she surely had in mind. Jared looked as he always does --stray cat skinny and tall with an inflamed puffiness around his gray eyes as if he’s never had enough sleep. He had his arm around her in the casual way frat brothers do when posing for the yearbook. Lila held up for the camera her bare knuckles reddened from cold, showing off her now-infamous engagement ring. The diamond looked like a block of ice chiseled off that mountain.

"You know what I told him?" Gillian asks, sounding out of breath over the phone from Nuki dragging her along.

"What?"

"I said, ‘Hey Jared, why don’t you go out with Natalie?’ and he said, ‘You know, that’s not such a bad idea! I just might do that.’ What do you say to that, Nat?"

I am silent. This is not a good idea. I can’t get involved, and don’t want to. Whenever I saw him, he was always next to Gillian. Looking at her. Staring at her. Following her. He was in love with her (and I think he still is), but Gillian told him she only wanted to be friends. The only reason he finally stopped hanging around Gillian and the rest of us --her friends – was when she began dating Paul (who she’s still with). That’s when Jared disappeared.

Although, I might be flattered that Jared would consider asking me out, I’m not, and am annoyed at how easily he’s so willing to play any card pushed his way.

"Jared says he paid $10,000 for that engagement ring," Gillian informs me.

Upon hearing the cost, I’m a bit surprised. "Jared is a baker’s assistant," I say. I look outside my bedroom window. On the street, kids ride bikes past two-family homes decorated with Virgin Mary statues on the little, square patches of lawn. "How could he afford it?" I ask.

"Obviously, he can’t. It’s so stupid because they’re throwing away money on lawyers. I asked Jared why don’t’ they both just sell the ring and split up the money. He said ‘no’ because he feels he’s invested so much emotionally and financially into their defunct relationship and he’s not skimming on one more dime. The thing is Lila feels the same. It’s hard to believe now that their wedding was to take place in two months."

"I wasn’t invited," I say, turning from the window to flop down on my unmade bed.

anyway. He and I have never been anything more than mere acquaintances."

If it wasn’t for Gillian, I would never hear from or see that guy at all. I only found out his wedding was cancelled through Gillian. She told me about the breakup six weeks ago when I was with her and Nuki at Montgomery Park: "Natalie, guess what Jared told me! He and Lila just had a fight. It’s over. Really over."

"What was their fight about?" I had asked, watching master and dog play tug of war with Nuki’s leash. Nuki, the stronger, was winning, pulling Gillian against her will.

"I don’t know yet. Jared won’t say," Gillian had said, getting yanked ahead by wag-tailing Nuki. "And what does it matter anyway?" Gillian had asked, swinging her black hair around to look at me. "They’re through. Through is through no matter how they got there!"

Even now, that remark still echoes in the back of my head. Through is through no matter how they got there. It almost makes me never want to put out the effort of going on another date ever again. It’s made me wonder how it was for this Lila -- if she had spent too many hours hot ironing her hair for nights out with Jared. Did she stress over wearing a red dress or beige suit when meeting his parents? Did they over-analyze each others’ actions? Like changing radio stations in the middle of songs – does such an action imply hastiness, flexibility, impatience or a proactive character? Did either of them lose sleep (as I have in the past), wondering if the others’ bad habits were ones they could live with? Habits like scraping the fork against the dinner plate as if it was a head being scalped.

All that examination.

All that work.

Just to end up through.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’m putting my faith in these two for my own sake. It’s just I’m not sure if I’m up to the seemingly exhausting job of attaining an engagement-ring level relationship, and let’s face it -- those two were no inspiration. It seems to me that committed relationships are a lot like the creation of a diamond. For a carbon rock to crystallize into a gem of sparkle and luster it must first undergo extreme temperatures and greater pressures.

"I would never go out with Jared," I say, still rummaging through my closet where I finally find a pair of sneakers. "Never had feelings for him."

Although I appreciate her trying to help me find love, I can’t help wondering if her efforts are out of guilt for not loving Jared back? And is she playing matchmaker to solve two riddles – finding me a husband while also finding a reason for Jared to hang out with us (since Gillian’s boyfriend doesn’t like him near her)? Is something subconsciously suspicious going on as well where I’d be the excuse to keep her adoring Jared by her side? I wonder because let’s face it -- even if I became his girlfriend, he’d still worship Gillian completely, continuing to give her that doting attention she always got a high out of. I feel she’s a romantic who wants to do right, yet isn’t thinking it all through if she assumes Jared and I could suddenly make a rapturous go of it. But she’s always been a believer in those 1930’s movies, starring actors like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland who always played platonic pals until one night, when both of their dates stand them up at some dance, they waltz with each other instead. During a slow song, Cupid strikes them with arrows – or as in Jared and Lila’s case, javelins.

"Besides," I add, "It would be anticlimactic for the two of us to start up. And Jared isn’t my type."

What I don’t tell her is that unlike she and our other friends who all consider Jared to be ‘our poor buddy who got ripped off by Lila,’ I don’t. I’m on her side. Not Jared’s. I feel sorry for this Lila who I’ve never met.

This is why: Jared knew Lila first. He dated Lila first long before he ever met Gillian. Once he did, he dropped Lila for months until he realized Gillian would never love him back. So you see, Lila got the runaround before Jared even proposed. It’s obvious to me that he only went back to Lila, and got engaged to willingly, and hopefully forget about Gillian.

During Lila and Jared’s now-severed engagement, Jared had stopped hanging out with Gillian, but couldn’t fully give up all ties to her. He even admitted that once saying to me, "Lila hates it whenever I email or phone Gillian." In my estimation, she’s right to break off the engagement and keep the ring. After all, she’ll need to sell it to pay for the nonrefundable gown and veil from Macy’s (that Jared said she still has). Plus there’s that big down payment at Giordano’s Banquet Hall.

"Natalie, are you sure you don’t want to give it a shot with Jared?" Gillian asks.

"I’m sure," I say with a laugh since it’s a bit amusing. Jared wants to take up with me to forget Lila who he had taken up with to forget Gillian!

"You know," Gillian says, "Most couples that end up in court are already married. Those two never even made it down the aisle."

"Lila was wise to break it off," I say.

"Huh?"

"I said I believe Lila did the right thing."

"Natalie! How can you say that?" Gillian’s voice crackles like dried leaves. Then her cell phone suddenly goes dead.

I hang up, slip into my sneakers, grab my keys, and run out the door. I make it down the stairs and into the street where I break into a run as the cool air tingles my pores like Noxema. I build up speed, running past neighbors carrying bags of groceries, and head straight for Montgomery Park. Here amongst the trees, I’m sure to find Gillian resisting Nuki’s pulls by digging her boot heels into the mud. When I do find her, and get to finish our conversation, I’ll say to Gillian, ‘Good for Lila!’ Lila had warning signs that helped prevent her from spending the rest of her life with that man. That man who would make her feel like he was just settling for her.