A loud horn sounds, startling everyone in the audience, then red lights flash while a canned voice repeats: “Spoiler Alert. Spoiler Alert.”
Dylan smiles. “I’m sorry, Arabella, you can’t answer that question without giving away what happened in the jungle.”
Brilliant. Let’s just let that answer hang out in the wind until it reeks up our relationship.
Arabella glances at me, the word sorry written all across her face. I give her a thumbs-up. “We got one right at least.”
She tips back and forth, managing to regain her balance.
“Moving onto question five,” Dylan says. “How many children do you want?”
Arabella has given the safe answer of ‘two,’ while I have written ‘five.’
“Five?” she says, falling backwards and landing on the stage floor.
The audience bursts into laughter. Dylan looks positively gleeful at this revelation. “Well, that’s certainly surprising news for the princess.”
Quickly recovering, Arabella says, “Two, five. Basically the same.”
“Tell that to your lady bits,” Dylan mutters.
“You don’t really want five children, do you?” she whispers.
I shrug. “I love kids.”
“I also love children, but not necessarily in large groupings.”
“Oh dear,” Dylan says. “It looks like these two have a lot to talk about when we’re through here. But first, you’ll need to eat the next item from our Gross Out Kitchen since yet again, your answers didn’t match.”
Arabella tucks her card under her arm and carefully climbs back up onto the post. When she stands, she’s got that determined look on her face that I’ve grown to love.
The dome is lifted and a pungent stench of rotting fish hits my nostrils. My head snaps back and I cover my nose instinctively while Arabella reaches out and plucks a piece off the tray, popping it in her mouth before Dylan can even tell us what it is. She chews furiously, swallows it, gags twice, then says, “Your turn.”
“This is a delicacy from French Polynesia called farfaru,” Dylan says. “It’s fish that has been sunbaked and fermented. Apparently, Princess Arabella is a big fan.”
“Not really. I’d just really like to get down and go home now.”
I pick mine up and toss it in my mouth, swallowing it whole. Here come the fish burps. Blech.
“Well, Princess Arabella may soon get her wish. Last question! And it should be a fun answer. Who won the last argument the two of you had, and what was it about?”
I flip my card over, knowing we’re sunk before I even look at hers. My answer: We haven’t had an argument since we became a couple.
Hers:Me. Bill Paxton, not Bill Pullman, starred in Titanic.
She looks at me. “You can’t lie in your answers and expect us to win.”
“Sorry if I wanted to protect our relationship. Besides, you didn’t win that argument.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No, you thought BillPullmanwas in Titanic.I’mthe one who knew it was Bill Paxton.”
Arabella scoffs, then steadies herself. “Sorry, darling, but you said it was Pullman, remember? You said, ‘the guy from the one with Sandra Bullock about the woman who works in the subway toll booth?’”
“I was mixed up about which Bill was inWhile You Were Sleeping, but I knew who I meant. I meant Paxton.”
“Well, just because you meant Bill Paxton, doesn’t mean that’s who you said.”
