I did, but I didn’t think she’d like watching me read from the creased-up paper. This is worse than giving a speech to a class where I’d be graded on presentation, memorization, and persuasiveness. At least then, I was always given the rubric ahead of time. I pull the paper out of my pocket and the box falls to the ground. “Shit! Sorry.” I bend down to grab it and, in my haste, knock my head against the table. “Fuck!”
“Alexander!” Theresa hisses. “You areembarrassingme.”
“Sorry, I—” I fumble for the velvet box with one hand while holding the table with the other, but all my searching fingers find is the restaurant’s smooth floor.Where the fuck is it?I peer around, squinting at the shadows, trying to make out the shape of the slightly curved top. God, the box seemed so much bigger in my pocket.
There.At some point during my flailing and searching, I’d kicked the box into the aisle, right into an incoming waiter’s path. “Excuse me, can you—”
The waiter’s foot connects with the box and sends it skidding under the neighbor’s table. I mutter apologies and excuses as I shuffle awkwardly toward it, still hunched over because there’s no point in standing if I’ll have to crouch again in three feet. “Sorry, just grabbing something.”
The older lady at the table gasps, scandalized, as I crawl underneath the furniture to grab the box. Her foot kicks out at me, the blunt heel clipping my ear.
I hurriedly back out from under the table before she attacks me again. I’m already a bit dazed from the first blow to the head, I don’t need a second.
Theresa stares at me, mouth agape, a storm brewing in her gray eyes. As soon as she recovers herself, she demands through clenched teeth, “Get. Up.”
So much for a respectable spectacle. I ignore the demand. It takes a few seconds for me to switch from crawling on the ground to posing on one knee.God, I really wish there weren’t so many people watching us right now. Taking a deep breath,I open the box, presenting her with the diamond ring inside that she heavily hintedat months ago, and say all in one rush, “TheresaAckerswillyoumarryme?”
The whole restaurant silently stares at us. Our waiter stands nearby balancing a tray holding our food. He’s too stunned to even put it down on the tray stand.
Theresa forces a laugh. “What a ... sweet and earnest proposal, honey. Of course I’ll marry you.”
Her answer should fill me with happiness, or at least relief, but mostly I’m just numb and achy. She holds her left hand out to me, like a queen waiting for her knight to kiss it. My own hand shakes so badly I miss her finger the first time. Finally, I manage to slip the ring onto her ring finger. It’s a bit too big, twisting around and slipping toward the second knuckle, as if it’s as happy to be here as I am.
The clapping is delayed and hesitant. It sounds like a single person has tried to start a slow clap and the rest of our audience hasn’t caught on.
I stand up and retake my seat. There are smudges on the knees of my suit from crawling on the floor, so I push my chair in close to the table to hide them. The restaurant is too high-end to have a sticky floor but after a full day of serving people, it’s bound to get a little dirty.
After a few painfully long seconds, other people begin clapping. The gesture becomes a little more cheerful and sincere as people rewrite the story in their heads, turning it into something charming and funny rather than straight up awkward.
The waiter finally remembers to set our food on the table and murmurs his congratulations. Theresa thanks him, touching her left hand to her chest in an exaggerated gesture of gratitude to show off the ring. Even crooked, the large center diamond sparkles in the restaurant’s intimatelighting.
As soon as the waiter leaves, Theresa starts cutting her scallops into small, bite-sized pieces. She doesn’t look at me or say anything else.
We eat in silence.
Before I can ask for the check, the waiter returns with two glasses of champagne. “For the happy couple!”
Theresa thanks him profusely, her hand on her chest again. She’ll be performing that gesture a lot over the next few months, making sure everyone sees the perfect ring her fiancé chose with only alittlebit of prodding.
“To our future,” I say, earning a smile from her. Then I tilt the flute back and chug the whole thing in one long gulp. The waiter hasn’t even left yet when I set the glass down. He stares at me, bewildered.
He’s not the only one staring, though I think it’s more apt to describe Theresa’s furious eyes and clenched jaw as a glare. I’m pretty sure the other nearby tables are back to staring at us too, but at this point, I’m too worn out to care.
“Check?” I ask, not quite up to full sentences.
That shakes the waiter from his reverie. He nods and hurries away.
Theresa and I still haven’t said a goddamned word to each other since she accepted the proposal.
Once the bill is paid, I assist Theresa with her chair and offer my arm. Several people congratulate us on our way out of the restaurant. Since we drove here separately, I steer her toward the valet, but she has other plans. Digging her fingers into my arm, she drags me around the side of the building. We’re not quite standing in the decorative bushes, but it’s enough to put us out of view of the other patrons.
“What the hell was that, Alex?” she demands.
“A proposal,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck self-consciously. I don’t really know what other answer to give her. I was on one knee, I had a ring, I popped the question, shesaid yes. Everything leading up to that point really shouldn’t matter.
“That was not a proposal, that was a fucking joke.”
“It’ll make a funny story to tell our kids?” I suggest, then flinch. I don’t have to hear the grinding of her teeth to know that was the wrong thing to say.
