A Not So Meet Cute

When Huxley and Lottie enter an agreement to be each other’s fake fiancés, Lottie is gifted a large engagement ring to make their story more realistic. It’s obviously expensive, more so than anything Lottie’s ever owned, and its ostentatiousness indicates how out-of-place their arrangement makes her feel. 

More broadly, in its falseness, the ring represents the disparity between her and Huxley’s circumstances and the eventual development of their relationship, thus developing the theme of The Balance Between Authenticity and Appearances. An engagement ring usually symbolizes the love and commitment between two people, as they are agreeing to spend their lives with one another. Instead, Lottie’s first engagement ring subverts these ideas to represent inauthenticity. The subtle importance of the symbol is highlighted and resolved in the story’s ending, when Huxley proposes to her for real with a different ring, allowing their engagement to truly represent their love.

Lottie comes from a working-class background, as she was raised by a single mother in a run-down home within a poorer neighborhood of Beverly Hills. Her clothing is never outright described as indicative of her class in its quality or style, but it nonetheless symbolizes her individuality and her origins.