The second time he asked me it was 10:42 on a Sunday evening.
We had gone to an afternoon movie using passes we got as a present last Christmas. We had forgotten about them all these months and today was the perfect day to use them. When we exchanged the passes for two tickets to ‘Garden State’ the guy behind the counter also handed us a surplus fiver. Score.
After the movie we went to the book store and looked for the movie score on cd. They didn’t have it. We split a turkey sandwich at a new bread shop near the theater. We wrote down the groceries we needed on the back of a brown paper napkin along with what we guessed they would cost. On the way out of the store we picked up a demi of Kalamata olive bread for later.
Next: grocery shopping. We ended up spending $8.72 less than we had budgeted and even remembered the cat food. Score deux.
After putting all the groceries away, I worked on painting some cards and he checked his email.
Later for dinner we fixed fish in beer and lime juice and had left over potatoes from dinner the other night. He sliced a tomato for a vegetable with a splash of color, setting each slice just so and exactly the same on both plates next to the sliced fresh bakery bread.
When he got back from running to the corner to get some chocolate for dessert, I was lounging in the living room, careful to keep any bare skin from sticking to the vinyl couch by staying on the jean quilt. He ripped off a piece of the Hershey’s with Almonds foil wrapper and made it long and thin. He grabbed my hand and wrapped the foil around my finger twice and looked into my eyes.
‘Will you marry me?’
‘Sure.’
I smiled.
He kissed me hard.