1
EASTON
My best friend was proposed to on a Ferris wheel near the Louvre, under a moonlit sky. It was the annual holiday market that’s held there—La Magie de Noel—and just as they reached the wheel’s pinnacle, a sign unfurled from the tower across from them that read,Kelsey, will you marry me?
Thousands cheered below and like magic, flakes began to fall from the sky—the first snowfall of the year.
I guess the story of my proposal will be a little less interesting.It was our two-year anniversary, I’ll say.He took me to the restaurant where we’d had our first date. We’d already chosen the ring.
I won’t mention that the restaurant is a steak house, because he’s forgotten I don’t eat red meat. I won’t mention that he is late—fifteen minutes, at present, or forty-five minutes, if you consider the fact that he was supposed to have picked me up at my place.
Or maybe Iwillmention it.He was stuck in the lab and nearly didn’t make it, I’ll say.So I knew what I was in for, ha, ha, ha.
I’m sure today was crazy—he was away shooting season three of his TV show last week in California, then hanging with an equally famous podcasting friend there all weekend—but it’s not the sort of proposal story that will make anyone say, “God, he loves her so much.”
The waiter sighs as he returns to the table. “Would you like to go ahead and order?” he asks, stopping just short of rolling his eyes.
I shake my head. “He’ll be here any minute now.”
If the situation was different, I’d tell Thomas to forget about it and meet me at my apartment later. But I don’t want to ruin any surprise, if there is one. I just hope he hasn’t hidden the ring in my food.
According to research, two years is the ideal amount of time to spend with someone before getting engaged, he’d said on that first date. He wanted to make sure I wastheoreticallyready for marriage and family, being more than a decade younger than him. It was unreal, a date withtheThomas Prescott—he was famous even then, before the show, at least among scientists—and a lotmoreunreal discovering he was already talking marriage, but here we are.
And maybe none of this is all that romantic, but neither are we. We don’t exchange gifts, and we don’t stay up all night having sex. We don’t send flirty texts, and we always do Valentine’s dinner a week ahead because it’s easier to get a reservation. Honestly, I’m just glad he’s getting this out of the way before we go to Kelsey’s wedding; no one will be talking about my childhood crush on her brother or how shitty my family is when there’s a two-carat diamond on my hand.
I’ve eaten most of the bread in the basket and am contemplating ordering a glass of wine simply to ease my irritation when Thomas finally appears, slightly more rumpled than he should be, given the dress code—he’s still in the Oxfordhe wore all day, the tie askew, the sleeves rolled up. I think the restaurant has a rule about jackets, but he’s so well-known that they’ll let it slide.
“Sorry,” he says, slipping into the chair across from mine before he launches into some story about a whining graduate student while he peruses the menu. On our first date, he’d told me I was so beautiful I made him tongue-tied, though I’d made almost no effort. Tonight, I spent forty-five minutes on my makeup and had my hair blown out, and I’m not sure he’s even looked at me long enough to notice.
I won’t mention this when I tell the proposal story either.
The important thing is that no one back home is going to look at my job or my degree or my fiancé and say, “Those Walsh kids all came to nothing.”
Take that, Oak Bluff.
Though what I really mean isTake that, Elijah.
And I really should not be thinking about Elijah right now. One more thing to leave out of this proposal story.
Maybe I just won’t tell it at all.
Thomas’s steak and my pretend-steak-that’s-actually-a-mushroom arrive just as he begins discussing his trip to California and the time he spent with Devon Hunt. Once upon a time, Thomas thought Devon—a biohacker who gives his own anecdotal research more weight than anything coming out of a lab—was a charlatan.
It’s funny how you can grow to embrace someone’s unhinged views and junk science when he keeps putting you in front of his twenty-five million listeners. I’m not judging Thomas: I’m sure I’d sell a little of my soul to get funding too. If the unprincipled move helps you accomplish in five years what might have taken ten, isn’t it worth it?
Thomas says the first person to live to five hundred has already been born. I’m not sure I agree, but what if it’s true? Ifthe funding Thomas gets thanks to his show or Devon Hunt’s podcast makes the difference, then why shouldn’t he do them? I’m pretty sure that first person who hits five hundred will appreciate the extra effort.
“So he’s gotten super into forest bathing,” Thomas is saying. “He’s created this whole spa and the setup is amazing.”
Forest bathing is the exact sort of thing that would have had Thomas rolling his eyes two years ago, when he was more into scientific rigor thanvibes.
“You might have a tough time replicating it in Cambridge,” I reply mildly.
He barrels right past that, telling me about the podcast and Devon’s experiments with ayahuasca, his knee jiggling beneath the table all the while.
Is he nervous? I can’t imagine why. We’ve already had the ring fitted and set a date, after all. I couldn’t be more of a guaranteedyes.
“So I’ve been thinking,” Thomas says.Here we go. I sit up a little straighter. “We’ve been together for two years now, but, you know, we’re both still really young.”
