The proposal by Jackie Penticost

Spencer thought he’d planned for every eventuality. He’d slipped the diamond ring to the maître d’, and as they waited for the dessert he nodded over Amanda’s shoulder for the presentation.  The waiter took the champagne flutes from the bar and presented them to the couple with a flourish. Spencer, full of anticipation at the inevitable squeal of delight, held his breath as he waited for Amanda to spot the sparkle in her bubbly.  But he hadn’t reckoned with the amount of Pinot Grigio  Amanda had consumed. To his horror she grabbed at the glass, waved it aloft, and then quaffed the champagne, and with it the diamond ring, in one draught.  ‘Cheers, darling’, she said, smiling sweetly. 

Spencer sat, frozen.   It was quite one thing to propose to one’s true love with a romantic token, quite another to ask her to search her stools for the next week until the token finally arrived.  The ring had cost thousands, and it hadn’t touched the sides.   ‘She must have a gullet like a fattened goose’ he thought sourly. ‘I wonder if I can get the money back from Barclaycard?’   Things could not get any worse.   Until they did.

Suddenly there was a loud scream from the corner table, and an orange-faced girl was clasping her startled young man in an embrace like that of a praying mantis before lunch.  ‘Oh Geoffrey, I do, I do’ she hooted, in between planting lurid kisses on her paramour.  Two champagne glasses stood on the table, one empty, and a large diamond ring sparkled on a heavily tanned and taloned finger.    

As the tiramisu was delivered, Spencer excused himself and weaved through the tables to get a better look.  The unexpected fiancé in the corner was looking stupefied, and the ring was definitely Spencer’s.  He grabbed the maître d’ and hauled him into the kitchen corridor.   

‘How can this have happened?’ Spencer wailed.  The maître d’ waved his hands to ward off the verbal assault. ‘A simple mix up between table 6 and table 9, and a dyslexic waiter. Et voila’ 

‘Voila nothing. This is life or death to me and that poor geezer out there.  You’ll have to fix it’

A fictitious phone call summoned the young man at number 9 to their huddled discussion where he stood, looking broken.   ‘We’ve only been going out for six weeks, and I’d already gone back on Tinder’, he said mournfully.  ‘It wasn’t working out’. 

The Maitre d’ waved over a flunky and hissed ‘Go get Mercedes. She’s in the American Bar’  ‘Gentlemen, all will be well’

Both men returned to their tables to continue wooing with varying degrees of conviction.

Some ten minutes later, the  door was flung open and Mercedes arrived: luxurious, well-upholstered and a smooth ride, as her card said.   She sashayed to table 9 where she hauled up the young man and planted an Olympic-level smackeroo on his lips. ‘The man is mine, honey’, she said, grasping him firmly.  The ring was duly flung, much flouncing out occurred, and the bauble was returned to Spencer hidden in a napkin.

Spencer, who had vowed not to try any more tricksy proposals, grasped Amanda’s hand and slid the ring onto it her finger, with the usual exclamations of love.  ‘I will’ she said, which is what he had hoped would happen in the first place.