“It’s not that complicated,” he said, his voice tightening. “It’s a yes or a no. Really, that’s all it is.”
She held his gaze; his beautiful gaze she had come to love so much—the green eyes rimmed in blue, almond shaped with thick black eyelashes; usually gentle and teasing at the same time. But now serious.
He was right; it wasn’t that complicated.
For the second time within a single minute, he lifted the blue velvet box for her to see. It was open and inside rested a two-carat solitaire round diamond surrounded by sapphires, her birthstone. Lachlan didn’t miss a beat. He never had and probably never would. He loved her as deeply as she could dare ask. And she loved him. His shoulders a shelf for her to rest upon; his laugh a symphony, and his voice deep enough to make people turn when he spoke. Yet he wasn’t a pushover—this ask, for the second time, was as good as his heart exposed.
But marriage? My God. Not again. The first had lasted fifteen years; years that Beatrice had believed were true and real, but that marriage had been over for ten years now. Why would she do that again?
“Will you, Beatrice, marry me? Yes or no.”
Other patrons of the candlelit restaurant were beginning to stare, whisper quietly, maybe prepare to clap in an outburst when she assented.
How easy it would be to say yes. But the word stuck in her throat, or somewhere even deeper than her throat for that matter. She leaned across the table and placed her hand over the box, shut it, and held his hand under hers. Annoyance rose like smoke—why did he have to do this in public where it would now shame them both? But she wouldn’t show irritation; he was trying to be romantic.
“Lachlan, I don’t want to say no. It’s the wrong answer. But I can’t say yes either. I don’t know why. I beg you to understand.”
“I think I understand.” He stood and his face burned red with embarrassment. She wanted to fix it for him, to say yes and get it over with, to lessen his despair.
He turned and walked out of the restaurant, deliberately, with wide strides, his long legs taking him to the door within seconds. He was a proud man, and there was no way he would sit there in humiliation—he’d left his full champagne glass on the table, yet had taken the velvet box, tucked it in his pocket. The hushed voices around Beatrice rose; they sounded to her like buzzing cicadas on a summer night—if cicadas could be judgmental and appalled, that is.
Beatrice sat still and quiet, trying to catch her breath while the crème brûlée turned soggy where she’d stuck her fork in it right before Lachlan had slipped the box from his coat jacket. She took a long sip of her champagne he’d ordered (that should have been a hint; he only orders wine, and red at that) and sat back to catch her breath.
What the hell was wrong with her?
Why would the word “yes” not rise to her tongue? There were many reasons, she knew. A good marriage gone bad. Or to quote Dorothy Parker, she’d put all her eggs in one bastard, in a marriage she’d thought was good but turned out to be a sham. She’d come to terms with that years ago. She’d wept on a stranger’s couch in therapy and had eventually found her way through the pain and the lies and the deceit. It’d been ten years; a decade since her marriage to Tom had ended. He could not be the reason she didn’t want to marry again. He couldn’t hurt her anymore. She wouldn’t allow it.
She’d found her way. She’d built a life handcrafted of her own making. But the truth was this: saying no to Lachlan might mean she would lose him. And she loved him. She loved their life together. He had his house and she had hers only two blocks away in downtown Savannah where the cobblestone streets echoed with their two hundred years, where the gas lanterns flickered at night, and the jeweled emerald park squares with their statues and monuments allowed reprieve. From Lachlan’s small roof patio, past the steeple of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, they could spy the Savannah River, its gray and silver body moving toward Tybee Island while they watched the sunset and talked about their day.
She was an artist who painted birds—birds in habitat, birds in flight, birds in their nests, birds in cages—anything she could imagine. And he taught art history at Savannah College of Art and Design, where he was by far the most beloved professor on staff: Dr. Lachlan Harrison was an icon. His distinguished face and sardonic smile adorned the cover of the SCAD magazine’s student manual. He emanated comfort, reassurance, and bravado all at the same time, and they used his image.
Beatrice and Lachlan loved Savannah. They loved each other. They loved art. What was the full stop?
She didn’t know. Honest to God, she didn’t.
It was a dilemma faced all over the world, she also knew. Was marriage even worth the trouble? She wasn’t special in the face of these larger questions, but so many others seemed to be able to jump in, to make bold decisions one way or the other.
Beatrice picked up the champagne bottle and didn’t bother pouring it into her glass; she was the only one drinking. She sipped from the bottle and sat back, heard the laughter at a nearby table. Yes, she was a joke. But she hadn’t paid the bill yet; she couldn’t just up and leave like Lachlan had.
The waitress, she’d said her name was Sandy or Candy, arrived with the bill and a look of pity. Or was it disgust for sending away the handsome man? Sandy or Candy dropped the black padded envelope on the table and walked away. Beatrice pulled out a credit card and slipped it into the envelope before partaking of more champagne.
There’d been a day, many days, in fact, when she’d dreamed of marriage proposals. In the late eighties, in college, it had consumed hours of conversations with her roommates. Who would get married when? Who first? Who last? How many bridesmaids?
How ridiculous. As if being chosen as a wife and having a wedding was the epitome of life. As if being proposed to verified one’s worth.
Ha!
Beatrice made a noise halfway between a laugh and a choke, and a young man with a very big beard two tables over gave her a look as if she’d just burped. Beatrice smiled at him, and he turned away.
As the piano player set off on his next song about tomato tomahto, potato potahto, Beatrice smiled. It’d been a favorite of her college roommates, a song that celebrated their differences. Her much-loved roommates, who’d eventually been her bridesmaids.
All four of them had been with her the first time: her first wedding, when she’d been so sure, when she’d walked down the aisle in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Savannah wearing all white, head to toe white, flowing about her like meringue. Her bridesmaids had worn blue velvet dresses with a bow at the back. Her wedding dress had shoulder pads as large and sparkly as a character from Dynasty, and she’d stood in front of Tom and solemnly said, “Till death do us part.”
Well, they’d parted and there hadn’t been any death.
Why would she promise the same thing again?
The waitress returned and took the credit card, her mood not improving one iota. The champagne was doing its job and Beatrice sat back and listened to the music, now onto the truly demoralizing “Let’s Stay Together”—Whatever you want to do is alright with me.
She didn’t believe in those kinds of sentiments anymore. Yes, at her first wedding she’d believed in all of it, she’d believed in love and in staying together for good and all. She’d made vows while four other women stood by her side.