Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Porcelain Proposal
W e spend the rest of the weekend tangled up in sheets, taking long showers together, and playing the occasional weird board game.
When it’s time to get back to reality, there are only a few days left until the proposal.
I’ve booked the carriage ride, the airplanes are ready to go, and a couple hundred dancers have learned all the moves to the song Tina chose.
I even found the right fireworks for the show, but after everything I’ve planned and all of the arrangements I’ve made, I still feel unprepared.
I need this to go perfectly, because Tina needs it to be perfect.
Oliver and I stand outside a bar, waiting to catch Ryan’s mother before she goes inside.
“Why couldn’t you just call her?” Oliver asks.
“Because I don’t have her number,” I remind him. “And I couldn’t ask Tina or Ryan for her number, because then they would figure out that something was up. This way is better, anyway.”
“How do you know she’ll be here?”
“Tina mentioned once that Marjorie comes to open mic night here every Wednesday. She loves singing.”
“If she comes every Wednesday, then why did you wait until now to catch her?” he asks.
“I couldn’t risk telling her sooner,” I say. “I’ve met her enough times to know that she’s not any good at keeping secrets. Not for long, anyway. If I tell her tonight, then that’s only a couple of days that she needs to keep this bottled up inside.”
Oliver nods. “Makes sense.” His gaze flicks away from me, settling somewhere behind me. “There she is.”
I turn around. Marjorie heads toward us with a couple of her friends on either side of her. All three women are dressed in different colored blazers. Marjorie is in red, her two friends in purple and green. She doesn’t notice me or Oliver as she reaches the door.
“Marjorie!” I call out as she pulls open the door.
She stops and looks at me, and then her eyes go wide when she recognizes me. “Oh! Hi, Penelope! I didn’t see you there.”
I smile. I don’t know if she will ever get my name right. “It’s Priscilla.”
She doesn’t acknowledge my correction. “Oh, and Oliver! What are you doing here?” She moves in to give him a hug. At least she knows one of us.
“We came to see you, actually,” Oliver says.
“Me?” She smiles wide and puts her hand over her chest.
“Yes! We have something we want to talk to you about,” I tell her. Her smile starts to fade. “Nothing bad, I promise. Want to go inside?”
She leads the way inside. We grab a booth big enough for all five of us.
Marjorie’s friends head over to the bar to grab some drinks while the three of us settle into our seats.
A couple on the stage sings a duet. I’m surprised by how good they sound.
I’ve never been to an open mic night, but I guess I assumed that it would sound a lot more amateur. I stop to listen to them for a moment.
“What do you want to talk to me about?” Marjorie asks, pulling my attention away from the singers. I look at Marjorie, but I’m still listening to the song. I have to force myself to focus on what she’s saying. “Is Ryan okay?” she asks.
“He’s fine,” I assure her. “We do want to talk about him, though.”
She leans closer to me and lowers her voice. “Is this about him planning to pop the question?”
“Oh, good. You already know.” I can’t explain how relieved I am.
“He told me about it last night,” she says. I guess Ryan had the same idea that his mom couldn’t be trusted with a secret like this for longer than a few days.
Her eyes go wide. “You don’t think he’s making a mistake, do you? Is that why you’re here?”
I frown. “No. Do you?”
She shakes her head. “Of course not. I love Tina.”
“What did he tell you about the proposal?” I wonder.
“He said he’s doing it this weekend, but he wouldn’t tell me much else. Only that it’s going to be a big spectacle. I wish I could be there.”
I smile at Oliver. “We might have a way to make that happen,” I tell her.
Her face lights up. “Oh? How?”
“Oliver and I are putting on a little show for Ryan to help make the proposal memorable,” I tell her. “He doesn’t know all the details yet, but there’s going to be a flash mob. I was wondering if you would want to be a part of it?”
“A flash mob,” she repeats. Her smile widens. “I’ve always wanted to be part of one of those.”
“The only thing is you can’t say anything about this to Ryan,” I tell her. “Or Tina, obviously.”
She nods. “Of course not. But I don’t know why he can’t just take her out to a nice dinner and pop the question. That’s how Ryan’s father proposed to me. I don’t know why people these days want all this attention on them.”
“I think Tina is going to love it.” I intentionally leave out the fact that Tina is planning the other half of this proposal. I’m not sure Marjorie could keep that big of a secret. “Tina loves big things like this, and Ryan loves that about her.”
Marjorie purses her lips. “A restaurant proposal doesn’t have to be boring. It could still be a special surprise. Could you talk him into putting the ring in a champagne glass?”
I exchange a look with Oliver. He smirks. “Why?” he asks. “So she can accidentally swallow it?”
I elbow him. “Then Ryan will be forced to wait until she goes to the bathroom to pop the question.”
“I can picture that,” Oliver says. “Tina on the toilet with Ryan down on one knee in front of her.”
“Look into the toilet, babe,” I say, doing my best impression of Ryan’s voice. “Will you marry me?”
We both laugh while Marjorie rubs her hand over her face like she doesn’t want anyone to know we’re with her.
“Sorry,” I say, pulling myself together. “A dinner proposal won’t work, anyway. Ryan already has this whole big thing planned out at the fair this weekend. Oliver and I just wanted to tell you about it because we thought you might want to be in the flash mob.”
She crosses her arms. “Fine. Yeah. I’ll be in the flash mob.”
“Great.” I tell her the details of the last practice. I’m sure we can get her up to speed quickly. Many other participants have joined late in the game, and it hasn’t been an issue so far. Lana has reminded us multiple times that the dance doesn’t need to be perfect.
“I have to go up and sing now,” she says. She gets up and heads for the stage, where her two friends are waiting for her. The couple that was singing before is leaving the stage. I watch as they head over to the bar.
“You know,” I say to Oliver, “I was thinking about something Lana said a few weeks ago.”
“What’s that?”
“She said that the instruments your students are playing might clash with the songs on the stereo.”
He shrugs. “It is a little hard to avoid one of them overpowering the other. Please don’t tell me you want to cancel the band.”
“Of course not,” I say. “I was just thinking that we could have hired someone to sing instead of having the songs playing on a stereo.”
“Why can’t we?” he asks.
“I put it off too long and now there’s not enough time. We would have to find someone on short notice, and then also expect them to be able to sing both of those songs perfectly in the arrangement we have set up.”
Oliver looks around. “Why not ask someone here? I’m sure most of the singers here are dying for a chance at a paid gig.”
Just as he says it, Marjorie and her friends start singing on stage. Oliver and I exchange a look, and then we both snort, laughing.
“Not her,” he says.
“I’m glad we’re on the same page,” I agree. “Can you imagine hiring Ryan’s mom to sing a proposal song to him?”
Oliver shudders. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
“But what about the couple that was on stage before them?” I suggest.
“They were nice,” he agrees. He points over my shoulder at the bar. “They’re sitting over there.”
I stand up. “Let’s go talk to them.”
* * *
There are too many people to fit in Lana’s studio, so we meet up at the high school football field instead.
Oliver’s school gave us permission to bring everyone here when it became clear that Lana’s studio wasn’t going to work anymore.
We have high school students, parents, improv actors and their friends, and others who have heard through the grapevine about what’s going on and decided to join in.
Marjorie is here, too, and so are the two singers we hired the other day.
They’ve been practicing the songs they’ll be singing this weekend.
This is the last rehearsal before the state fair.
“I got Ryan out of here just in time,” Oliver says. “I told him there was going to be a fire drill. He just pulled out of the parking lot when all the other cars started pulling in.”
I spot Lana approaching from the parking lot. I think about how many times she’s expressed her dislike of combining the two proposals, and I start to wonder if she might be right. I wonder if I might be ruining Tina’s special day. Or even Ryan’s.
“What’s the matter?” Oliver asks.
I shake my head. “What if what we’re doing is all wrong?” I ask. “Am I taking away something that’s supposed to be special for Tina? Am I ruining her moment?”
He frowns. “I think you know Tina better than anyone else. If you thought for even a second that she wouldn’t love this idea, you never would have done it.”
“And what about Ryan?”
He shrugs. “You just worry about Tina, okay? I’ll handle Ryan.”
I take in a breath. “I hope you’re right.”
I shake the thoughts away and look up at all the people who are here to make this happen.
With Lana and Oliver’s help, we go over the sequence of events for this weekend, practicing every move and every note until everyone is confident that we can pull this off.
As the song comes to an end, a couple of kids who were watching from the sidelines run through with their arms spread wide, pretending to be the airplanes.
I laugh, loving how invested everyone is, even those who are just here to watch.
“And then, when one or—hopefully—both of them say yes, the fireworks will be set off. By then, the planes should be safely away from the park, the horses will be gone, and the flash mob will be over.”
Marjorie raises her hand. “What do you mean if both of them say yes?”
“Oh. Uh.” My face heats. “Nothing.”
I look back out at the crowd, hoping to find a distraction, and I spot a guy near the front also raising his hand. I point at him. “Yes?”
“Will there be a camera crew?”
I exchange a look with Oliver. In all of my planning, I hadn’t really thought of having a camera crew.
Tina didn’t explicitly ask for it, and neither did Ryan—though Tina did say she wants the type of proposal that you might see go viral online.
I guess I figured I would record the whole thing on my phone for her, or have someone else do it.
Oliver shrugs. I look back at the guy who asked the question. “No, there won’t be.”
He steps up closer so that he’s only talking to me and Oliver and not the entire football field full of dancers. “Seems like a shame to be putting on this whole show and not even have it on camera. Don’t you think the couple would love to see it all after the fact?”
He has a point, but there are only a few days left before the fair. I’m not sure I can find a camera crew on such short notice. “You’re right, but?—”
“I can do it if you need it,” the guy says.
“I own a local documentary production company here in town. I make short films all the time to help promote businesses. I could make sure neither of your friends see our guys with the cameras. I have drones, too, for an aerial shot of the whole thing. Even if the couple doesn’t want the video, something like that could go a long way for your company, don’t you think? ”
I nod. A professional video would look better than one recorded afar from my phone. I don’t have to think too hard about my answer: “Okay. I’m in. Your company is available this weekend?”
“Of course,” he says. “I’ll have to be filming instead of dancing, but…” He looks out at the crowd. “I don’t think you’ll miss me out there.”
I laugh. “Thank you so much for offering this. Can we talk about rates after practice?”
He agrees, and then we go through the whole set one more time. By the end of the evening, everyone knows where they need to go and in what order they need to be there, the transition from the dance to the band looks perfect, and I’ve officially hired a camera crew to record the whole thing.
“How do you feel?” Oliver asks me as the football field clears out.
“Nervous,” I admit. “But good. I think that Tina is going to love it. I just hope that Ryan does, too.”
“I think that everything you’ve put together is going to be too amazing for him to not love it,” he says.