Chapter Seventy-One
Seventy-One
Quaddra had just deleted the message and returned the phone to his pocket, when Mary walked back into their presidential suite living room.
‘OK, honey, I’m ready!’
Quaddra turned to face her and paused, his breath catching as his lips stretched into a half smile, half jaw drop. ‘Wow!’
‘Do you like it?’ Mary asked, doing a spin – catwalk style.
She wore a very elegant red, sleeveless, V-neck, high slit evening dress, with black Christian Louboutin stiletto heel sandals and a matching clutch bag.
Her makeup was, as always, perfect, with her hair loose, falling down to her shoulders.
For a moment, Quaddra seemed completely lost for words. ‘I…’
Mary stepped closer.
‘You look…’ He blinked and shook his head, as if trying to wake up from a dream. ‘Absolutely stunning.’
‘You’re very kind,’ Mary said, reaching for his hand. ‘You look incredible yourself.’
Quaddra was wearing a brand-new tailored suit from Gieves and Hawkes, dark blue in color, with Josh Driver black shoes.
‘Danke schon, Fr?ulein,’ Quaddra replied, also doing his version of a catwalk spin, but definitely not as good as Mary’s. ‘Shall we?’
Down in the hotel lobby, as they exited the elevator, heads began turning, and Quaddra was pretty sure that none of them was doing so to look at him.
‘You two look like… perfection,’ the hotel concierge said, as they walked past his station. The name on his tag read ‘Conrad’. He was as tall as Quaddra, but not as physically fit. His smile seemed almost permanent.
‘Danke schon,’ Mary said back, nodding at Conrad.
Quaddra simply smiled his thanks.
Conrad reached behind his station for something that neither Mary nor Quaddra could quite see what it was.
‘You are going to ze bridge, right?’ Conrad spoke with a typical Austrian/German accent, where every ‘th’ took on a ‘z’ sound.
Mary frowned at him before looking at Quaddra. ‘The bridge?’
Quaddra’s eyebrows arched at Conrad. ‘What bridge?’
‘Markartsteg Bridge,’ Conrad replied, pointing east. ‘It’s just about two minutes’ walk from here.’
Quaddra bit his bottom lip as he gave the concierge a slight sideways look. ‘What’s on Markartsteg Bridge?’
It was Conrad’s turn to frown at the stunning-looking couple. ‘Ze love lock bridge.’
‘Love lock bridge?’ Mary’s gaze ping-ponged between Quaddra and Conrad.
‘Yes,’ Conrad explained. ‘Where couples write zeir names on a padlock and lock it onto ze bridge railing as a sign of zeir everlasting love. It’s for good luck.’
‘Oh!’ Mary exclaimed. ‘Like in the movies?’
‘Yes,’ Conrad confirmed. ‘And Markartsteg Bridge is beautiful. More beautiful zan ze one in Paris. Zere are so many different color padlocks all over ze railings, and zei are all zer for one reason… love. You can feel it in the air when you walk across ze bridge. It makes ze hairs…’ He rubbed his left forearm, ‘… go puff.’ He lifted his hands with his fingers wide apart and pointing up.
‘You’ll see.’ He finally offered Quaddra what he had retrieved from behind his station. ‘Zis is a gift from ze hotel.’
Quaddra took it and Mary craned her neck to have a look. Conrad had handed Quaddra a red, heart-shaped padlock, with the keyhole right at the center of it. The padlock came with two keys and a marker pen.
‘You must do it,’ Conrad urged them. ‘You are such a beautiful couple, and Markartsteg Bridge will bring you good luck and happiness… I promise you. It’s a magical bridge in a magical city.
’ He nodded at the padlock in Quaddra’s hands.
‘Write your names onto ze padlock and lock it onto ze bridge. You’ll be forever happy. ’
‘A magical bridge, huh?’ Quaddra’s eyes moved from Mary to Conrad.
‘In a magical city.’ Conrad gave them a firm head nod.
‘Do you want to do it?’ Quaddra asked, as he and Mary stepped out onto the streets. It was just past 7:00 p.m. on a beautiful, perfect night, where a full moon shared the sky with a thousand stars.
Mary bit down on a smile. ‘Do you?’
‘Why not?’ He looked down at the padlock and pen. ‘We’re here, anyway. We’ve got a padlock. We might as well.’
‘Yeah, but I didn’t think that you would be into something superstitious like that.’
‘I’m not,’ Quaddra agreed. ‘Superstitious, I mean, but I do love what it’s supposed to mean… the everlasting love part.’ His head angled to one side. ‘I really want that to be true for us.’
Mary gave Quaddra another dose of her puppy eyes. ‘Me too, honey.’
‘So, let’s do it,’ Quaddra said, his eyes sparkling with excitement. ‘Maybe it is a magical bridge.’
‘In a magical city,’ Mary said back, with a smile.
Quaddra turned to face south. ‘According to the concierge, the bridge is just over there.’ He pointed straight ahead. ‘How about we do it now, before we go for dinner?’
‘Sure.’ Mary held on to Quaddra’s arm.
It really did take them just two minutes to get to the bridge, and the bridge really was just as beautiful as Conrad had described it.
Padlocks of all different sizes and all different colors covered one hundred and twenty yards of railings…
on both sides. And Conrad wasn’t lying when he told them that they would feel something in the air when they crossed the bridge.
‘This is amazing,’ Quaddra said, reaching for his phone to snap a couple of pictures.
Mary nodded and did the same. ‘There must be tens of thousands of padlocks here.’
‘At least,’ Quaddra agreed. ‘And like the concierge said, they’re all here for one reason – hope of everlasting love.’
Mary hugged herself and rubbed her arms. ‘And yeah, the hairs on my arms have gone “puff”.’ She mimicked the concierge’s hand gesture from earlier.
They walked past two other couples locking their padlocks onto the railings and found a spot towards the center of the bridge.
‘How about right here?’ Quaddra suggested, indicating a large enough gap at the bottom of the railing.
‘Looks good.’ Mary nodded.
Quaddra unwrapped the padlock and handed it to Mary, together with the marker pen. ‘How about we do it like this – you write my name and I’ll write yours, like we’re wishing for each other.’
Mary laughed. ‘For someone who isn’t superstitious, you sure caught on quick.’ She took the pen and the padlock. ‘Do I write it anywhere?’
‘I guess,’ Quaddra replied, with a single shoulder shrug.
‘OK,’ Mary said before narrowing her eyes at Quaddra and pointing at him. ‘It’s Quaddra, right?’
Quaddra dipped his chin to look back at her. ‘Oh, you’ve got jokes tonight, have you?’
Mary blew him a kiss, as she wrote Quaddra’s name onto the padlock, just above the keyhole. ‘Here you go.’ She handed the padlock and the pen to him.
Quaddra took it and wrote Mary’s name directly under his. ‘OK, here it goes.’ He unlocked the padlock and handed one of the keys to Mary, keeping the second one for himself. He then got down on his knees to lock the padlock to the bottom of the railing.
‘You know, Mary?’ he said, his gaze still on her.
‘Every time I look at you – when I’m waking up in the morning, when you’re stepping out of a shower, when I’m coming home from work or a trip…
it doesn’t matter when… it doesn’t matter where…
you always take my breath away… every time.
And tonight, when I saw you walking into the living room back at our hotel, my heart almost stopped. ’
‘Aww, baby!’ Mary reached down and placed her right hand on his left cheek.
Quaddra kissed her palm before locking the padlock onto the bridge, but he didn’t stand up…
he stayed down on his knees. ‘I know that in modern society, everlasting love is becoming something of a unicorn. Couples don’t really stay together like they did in the old days.
But just look at this bridge and all these padlocks – every single one of them wishing for that everlasting love…
hoping that this bridge really is magical, but if you allow me, Mary Smith, I’ll show you that the magic of my love for you comes from here.
’ Quaddra brought his right hand to his chest and tapped it twice.
‘From deep inside my heart.’ He threw his key into the river. ‘Not from a magic bridge.’
‘What…?’ Mary shook her head ever so slightly. ‘What are you saying, honey?’
‘Look up,’ Quaddra told her.
‘What?’
‘Look up,’ he said again. ‘Right over there.’ He lifted his right arm and pointed at the sky to the east side of the bridge.
Mary’s gaze moved from Quaddra to the star-filled sky.
‘What am I look—’ She paused midsentence, her eyes narrowing at what she was seeing.
All of a sudden, it looked like the stars were moving.
Either that, or a whole bunch of UFOs had just come calling.
‘What’s going on right now?’ Her eyes went back to Quaddra.
‘Don’t look at me. Look at the sky.’
Mary did… again. The stars… the UFOs… whatever those were, they were still moving, and there were more coming… from both sides.
Passersby were now stopping to look as well, all pointing at the moving lights, which were now starting to form a pattern.
Mary finally realized that the lights weren’t stars, or UFOs… they were drones, flying at high speed.
In the blink of an eye, they all bunched together to form an enormous red heart, just like their padlock, before exploding in all different directions to spell the words:
MARY SMITH, WILL YOU MARRY ME?
An unsynchronized chorus of gasps and ‘Aww’s’ came at them from all corners of the bridge.
Mary’s jaw dropped, as her gaze returned to Quaddra, who was still on his knees, but now holding the most beautiful diamond ring, displayed inside an open Tiffany’s ring box. Her hands immediately cupped over her mouth, as her eyes welled up with tears.
Mary knew that Quaddra would propose during their trip to Europe, but not in a million years was she expecting it to be something as magical as this.
‘And if you give me the chance, Mary Smith…’ Quaddra said, as if he could read her thoughts, ‘… I’d love to show you how this magic will never end.’
The tenderness in his voice was like nothing Mary had ever heard before – from anyone.
Over the years, Mary had become an expert in pretending.
She could cry on demand and at the blink of an eye…
she could appear to be madly in love, when inside she was burning with hatred…
and she knew how to lie and deceive better than any lawyer north or south of the Mississippi…
but right then, the tears in her eyes were one hundred percent real, and so was the rapid beating of her heart. She chuckled nervously, as she nodded.
‘Yes!’ She smiled and the tears that had welled up in her eyes began streaming down her face.
‘Yes?’ Quaddra asked, just to be sure.
‘Yes,’ Mary repeated it, much louder this time, offering Quaddra her left hand.
Quaddra retrieved the ring from the box and slid it onto Mary’s ring finger.
Over in the distance, the drones dissolved into another crazy dance in the air, reshaping and reforming… first into a new, pulsating heart… and then to spell out a new sentence.
SHE SAID YES… CONGRATULATIONS!
The entire bridge erupted in cheers and applause.