‘Because it’s a girl,’ I stated, and nodded, even though I’d never really understood this need to assign colors to the sexes. It all seemed like a rather archaic ritual, if you asked me. Mind you, when it came to babies and the rituals surrounding them, it was all rather archaic. At the only baby shower I’d ever been invited to, the mother and father had willingly eaten melted chocolate out of a diaper while everyone hooted with laughter and cheered them on.
The next encounter was very much like the previous two, except this time we’d had to endure a very long story about a wedding that had taken place in Iceland under the Northern Lights. The story had been so extravagant that I’d almost expected them to conclude it by saying that a trained penguin had waddled up the aisle carrying a ring on his little wing stump. The next story was even more elaborate, featuring a hot-air balloon and the words ‘Marry Me’ mowed into a large wheat field. Granted, the husband’s family did own the farm. It wasn’t as if he’d driven his lawn mower into some poor unsuspecting farmer’s crops.
These couples we met all jumped straight into stories of their engagements, weddings, gender-reveal parties and even births, much to my horror. I was starting to look at each one of them as a story, and not two humans. It was as if whatever story they told had somehow became their personality. But it all fell apart when the fifth story asked a question that they actuallydidwant answered.
‘And what about you guys? Any plans to tie the knot?’ A woman who I’d totally forgotten named Nobuhle asked.
‘Well, that’s so strange you should ask,’ Andrew said quickly, before I could set the record straight. ‘Strange, because we’ve actually just gotten engaged!’
‘We have?’ I couldn’t disguise my obvious shock.
He let out a slightly strange-sounding laugh and then pointed at me. ‘It only happened a few hours ago, so she still forgets.’
I glared at Andrew. ‘I don’t forget things.’
‘Usually you don’t, but we were both just so overcome with emotion when it happened. It was a very intense moment.’
I turned back to Nobuhle to tell her he was lying but didn’t have the chance to as Andrew launched into the most far-fetched story I’d ever heard.
‘It happened so spontaneously. In fact, it was so spontaneous that I haven’t even gotten her a ring. It was very spur of the moment. But when it feels right, it just feels right, you know.’
There were some breathy sighs at this point and, much to my horror, Andrew continued. ‘We’d just taken off in the plane. I’m a pilot, and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect. Crystal-clear skies and no wind whatsoever. And I remember thinking that there was just something special about that day. And then, this massive. beautiful dam came into view, and the sun was casting a glow on it, making it look silver, and I immediately thought of Pippa. Because it was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen, and because silver is also her favorite color. And that’s when this moment of clarity hit me. I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, and so I picked up my intercom and, right there and then, flying over the Free State at thirty-one thousand feet, with a cabin full of passengers and crew, I asked her to marry me.’
Nobuhle let out a soft ‘aaaah’ sound and put her hand to her heart. A few others had moved towards us during Andrew’s very tall tale. Did they actually believe this nonsense that he was spouting? And here I thought he was a pilot, not a romance writer.
‘On the intercom!’ Katie said on a long, loud exhale that at the end went breathy and silent and melted into the air around us. ‘That is the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.’
‘That’s so romantic,’ one of the other Katies cooed – or was she a Chloe, or a Cath? – it was hard to tell. But she did coo. That was really the only way to describe the silly thing her voice did. A dove-like murmuring that I found, frankly, disconcerting.
‘I thought so too,’ Andrew said, and then faced me. ‘What did you think, my angel?’
‘Uh . . .Uh . . .’ I stumbled, I’d never been good at lying, and now everyone was looking at me expectantly.
‘Sweetheart, are you lost for words?’ he asked.
I nodded, and spoke the first bit of truth that had been uttered in the last few minutes. ‘I don’t have words for it at all,’ I concluded.
More ‘aaaah’s rose up from the crowd and I forced a smile. Maybe if I smiled, I wouldn’t be required to talk again. I could just fix my mouth like this permanently. So I arranged my lips and teeth into something that I hoped conveyed the depths of my supposed emotion. I wasn’t sure if I was making the right smile for this moment, though. But there was certainly no guide called ‘How to smile when a man you barely know tells a room full of your ex-schoolmates that you are engaged when, in fact, you’re not.’
‘So what happened next?’ someone asked. I looked at Andrew for this one, because of course I had no bloody idea what had happened.
‘Well, when you’re at cruising altitude, the pilot is allowed to leave the cabin, so I turned the plane over to my trusty co-pilot and walked down the aisle towards her. Everyone was watching. I got down on one knee and because I didn’t have a ring with me, I tied a small piece of thread around her finger and I promised to love her for ever.’
People looked down at my empty finger.
‘Needless to say, it fell off in the bath,’ he said quickly. ‘But I’ll get you a real ring soon, love.’
More people had gathered around, and all of them were concurring that this was indeed the most romantic thing that anyone had ever heard. Personally, I wasn’t sure why this was so romantic; I could think of nothing worse and more cringy than sharing your feelings publicly like that in front of a flying cylinder full of strangers. But I smiled and nodded, and this seemed satisfactory. Andrew then embellished the story even more, telling them that as soon as we were back home he was going to be giving me his beloved grandmother’s ring, a ring that she’d bestowed on him on her deathbed. More ‘aaaah’s were made – apparently me receiving a dead person’s ring was also considered far more romantic than a store-bought one. But he took it too far when he told them that I’d always dreamed – since I was a little girl – of getting married in a glass-bottomed boat while floating over a coral reef. That was the last straw for me, and as soon as I could I pulled him away from the crowd, out the hall, down the corridor and into my old science classroom.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ I said, closing the door behind us.
‘I know! I know. But I couldn’t take it any more. They were driving me nuts with all their stories about gender-reveal parties, exorbitant engagements and weddings. And they were all trying to one-up each other – I mean, this one had a three-day baby shower and the other one had a bachelorette party in Barbados or Greece or whatever. And I’m competitive, and I’m sorry, I cracked. I couldn’t look at one more blinding engagement ring or listen to one more story of tears on bended knee.’
‘Yes, it was getting pretty sickening,’ I admitted, walking over to my old desk and running a hand over its wooden surface.
‘God, now I understand why you didn’t want to come to this alone.’
‘Exactly. Hence the need for this arrangement,’ I concurred, flopping down in my old chair. It felt different. Or maybe I was different. Bigger? ‘But still, you took that way too far.’
