16. Harry
16
HARRY
My head, my chest, the blood gushing around my veins … everything is scrambled. It wasn’t the proposal I’d planned, but I’m starting to worry that nothing will ever go to plan with me and Ruby.
Is that a bad thing?
I haven’t got as far as working that out yet.
Bill claps my shoulder, shakes my hand, and his congratulations are lost in the rising sound of voices all around us. Donna is hugging Ruby tightly, examining the ring, holding it up to the light so that she can get a better look.
And suddenly everyone in the pub congratulates us. So many faces. So many handshakes and hugs. And the landlord cracks open another bottle of champagne—on the house.
Ruby is surrounded by women all oohing and aahing over the engagement ring, and she goes with them, moving with the crowd, a glazed look in her eyes whenever I get the chance to look at her. It seems everyone wants to celebrate our engagement; everyone wants to share our excitement; everyone has already dismissed the brief appearance of the cops as nothing.
Apart from the one person who matters.
I’m gutted. I’m disappointed that I didn’t give Ruby the special proposal that she deserved, but like a fish swimming against the tide, I’m starting to believe that it was always destined to be this way. No point fighting it now. I did what I had to do, and although it’s a relief to get the ring out of my pocket and onto her finger, I have no idea how she feels about it.
“I feel like we’ve stolen your thunder today.”
Bill stands next to me, a glass of champagne in his hand, and watches the group of women congregated around Ruby all raising their own drinks in a toast. Donna’s voice is the loudest, and no mistaking the raucous laughter.
“Not at all. If anything, I should apologize to you—this is your wedding day.”
A silver-haired man wearing a tweed jacket over a claret-colored waistcoat comes over with another bottle of champagne. “I hear congratulations are in order. Oh, how I envy you having the rest of your life together ahead of you.” He winks at us and walks away.
“I hope you and Ruby didn’t have any other plans for today,” Bill says. “It’s party time.” He rejoins his new wife, slipping a hand around her waist and kissing her on the lips.
Each time I try to get close to Ruby, to get a moment alone with her, it seems that the rest of the world has other ideas. The music gets louder. People are dancing. Champagne and beer and spirits mixed with soda keep appearing in my hand. And my brain gets foggier and foggier, the niggling feeling still there, but clawing now at the fuzzy surface of my liquor-soaked brain cells.
I need to talk to Ruby…
Suddenly, I’m seated back at our table. I don’t even know how I got here, but the room is starting to sway a little, and I have the overwhelming urge to go outside, breathe in the cold air, and down a bottle of water.
“Here.” Ruby puts a pint glass of clear liquid in front of me. “Water. You look as if you could use it.”
“Ruby?” I guzzle half the water without coming up for air.
“Wow, you’re drunker than I thought you were.” She’s smiling, so I know she isn’t angry with me.
“I’m so sorry, Ruby.” My voice hitches in my throat.
She blinks, her expression unreadable, or maybe it would be if I hadn’t drunk so much champagne. “Sorry for what?”
“For not proposing to you properly. I wanted to get down on one knee…”
My stomach lurches, and I pause, waiting for the water to settle. I should go back to our room, sleep it off, attempt this conversation with a clear head in the morning, but it can’t wait. I have to let her know how I feel.
“I didn’t want to just spring it on you like that.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Harry.”
The water is already working its magic, reviving, reenergizing, clearing some of the cotton candy from my head. “I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want them to take you home, take you away from me.”
She narrows her eyes and gives me a sideways smile. “Is that the only reason you proposed?”
“No!” I say too quickly. “No, I meant it the first time I asked you, in the hospital. I’ll mean it every time I ask you, Ruby, until you say yes.” Because it suddenly occurs to me that she hasn’t accepted … yet.
“How long have you had the ring?”
“I bought it in Edinburgh. With breakfast. I mean, I didn’t buy it with breakfast, I bought it that morning. Then, the cops arrived at the hotel, and the moment was gone, and, well, I was waiting for the right moment.”
She chews her bottom lip and raises her hand in front of her face to study the diamond.
“Do you like it?”
Her smile is gentle, genuine. “It’s beautiful, Harry. I couldn’t have chosen a more perfect ring myself.”
I wait for her to say more. When she doesn’t, I say, “But…?”
It takes her a beat too long to answer, giving my heart enough time to start tearing in two. She’s going to hand the ring back to me, I think. This is the part where she says it’s been fun, but she doesn’t want to get married.
“There’s no but.” She shrugs. “I don’t care about you going down on one knee, Harry. That’s not our story. This is.”
“It is?”
I’m still trying to process what she’s saying. She doesn’t want me to take the ring back. I glance at her finger, and it’s still there, and she hasn’t said yes, but it doesn’t matter because we’re not like anyone else, and this isn’t a fairytale.
I lean closer. Our lips meet, and the room spins when I close my eyes, but Ruby is right here, keeping me grounded.
“We do need to figure out where we go from here,” she says, when I pull away.
I nod. We can’t keep running forever, and besides, we don’t need to run now. Celia will know that we’re engaged to be married, and there’s nothing she can do to stop us. But I want to give Ruby the best of everything, which means that I need to go home at some point and start paving our future path with gold.
“Come with me to New York. Not right now. When we’re ready to leave. I want you to come back with me to New York, Ruby.”
Her gaze drops to the empty champagne bottles on the table. “I want to tell my dad. I don’t want him to hear it from the cops. I… I know that he’ll be happy for me. For us.” Her eyes widen as the word ‘us’ lingers in the air.
“We’ll go see your parents first.” I check out the time on my wristwatch. “Or we could call him now. Chicago is six hours behind the UK.”
“How do you know that?”
“From business meetings with British clients.”
I shake my head to clear it, grateful the room has stopped spinning so violently thanks to the half pint of water I downed. I’m not in the right headspace to think about work, so for the moment, it’s staying outside of our bubble.
“Okay.” Ruby is even more beautiful when she smiles. “Let’s call him.”
I take her hand and ask the landlord if we can use his telephone to call home and give our folks the good news. I’ll pay for the calls, of course. He points us in the direction of the phone out the back, in the dingy hallway between the bar and the kitchen, and we make an international call to Ruby’s dad.
He picks up on the first ring.
“Dad? It’s me, Ruby.” She grins at me, her eyes dancing. I know her smile is really for her dad, and that’s okay.
I hear the gentle buzz of his voice from the handset although I can’t decipher what he’s saying.
“We’re in Scotland, Dad. A place called Gretna Green.” There’s a pause during which Graham must ask what we’re doing here. “We got engaged, Dad. We’re going to get married.”
There’s a brief silence followed by Graham’s excited congratulations. Ruby covers the mouthpiece with her hand and grins at me. “I think he’s excited.”
I wonder if he knows that his wife has had us tracked down by the police.
“Dad,” Ruby says, “don’t say anything to Mom. I’ll tell her when I get back.”
She’ll know soon enough anyway, but I guess if Graham knows nothing about her reporting Ruby missing, she’ll either have to explain the whole story or keep quiet about it when she finds out.
“No, Dad.” Ruby’s smile is still wide—her dad’s approval obviously means a lot to her. “No, we haven’t thought about where we’ll get married yet, but I promise I won’t do it without you. You’re walking me down the aisle, remember?”
Graham must ask about me then.
“Harry’s fine. He sends his love, Dad.”
She ends the call and throws her arms around my neck. I know how she feels. It’s as if inviting Graham into our secret has made it finally feel real for us both, and now she’s ready to tell the whole world.
Minus her mom.
It’s something that they will have to work out between them, but I already know Celia will have to work hard to regain her daughter’s trust after this.
I call my dad next. He’s in the office and comes to the phone holding a second conversation with someone only he can see.
“… until Harry gets back. Karl Weiss speaking,” he says into the phone.
“Dad?” Pause.
Why is my heart skipping right now? I hear the muffled sound of him covering the phone, his voice sounding as if it’s underwater, and then he says, “Where the fuck are you, Harry? I’ve not heard from you since the funeral.”
“I know, sorry, Dad. Something really important came up, and I had to get away fast.” Another pause. “I’m in Scotland.”
“Fuck!” I can picture his shoulders slumping as he turns away from the desk to face the window. “When are you coming back?”
“Soon. I don’t know.” I sense Ruby’s eyes on me, curious, waiting for me to tell him, and I can’t look at her. “Dad, I?—”
“I don’t know isn’t good enough, Harry. You go off gallivanting around the world and leave me here to deal with this shit. You’re needed here, unless you want this business to?—”
“What do you mean?” The words stick in my dry mouth. I knew I should’ve finished that pint of water. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not telling you over the phone. Let me know when your flight gets in and I’ll arrange for the car to pick you up from the airport.”
“I wish you would tell me.”
It’s a lie. I wish I hadn’t called him, saved our news for when we got back, because I’m sober now, and this feels like the end of our adventure and our first steps into God only knows what.
“I’ve got to go, Harry. Someone has to keep this business afloat.”
“Dad, wait a sec. I have news.”
The line clicks and I’m left with the buzzing sound of a dead conversation and a swirling sensation in my gut.
“What is it?” Ruby’s eyes are wide. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” I don’t want to spoil our time here talking about my business.
“We have to go home, don’t we?”
I nod. The party is over.