1
Stella’s napkin fluttered to the floor. She twisted around as far as her new dress would allow but a smiling waiter had got there first. He spread the fine linen back across her lap.
‘Thank you.’ She took a spoonful of her sorbet, the deep raspberry red dangerously dark against the pristine white cloth.
‘Palate cleansing,’ Joe said, his voice filled with a forced bonhomie. Perhaps he was regretting booking them both in for the nine-course tasting menu. Though as a self-professed gourmet he had treated her to several similarly extravagant dinners.
It wasn’t the quantity of food that shocked Stella – each dish a mere tiny island marooned in a puddle of jus or stacked in a quivering tower that threatened to collapse at the first touch of a fork – it was the odd juxtaposition of ingredients that surely shouldn’t be combined together. Maybe it was old-fashioned to prefer the simple fresh ingredients and bold flavours of the Ligurian dishes she’d learnt to cook at her mother’s knee. She felt old-fashioned, old in fact, in here. The black lace-trimmed dress she’d thought so sophisticated and suited to her olive skin and short dark brown hair looked positively funereal against the hummingbird wallpaper and turquoise upholstery.
The two waiters hovering near the fashionable open kitchen kept looking over at her, adding to the feeling she was acting in a play. Act three: the last supper.
‘Perhaps we should have booked one of those booths tucked in the corner,’ Joe said.
‘I’m happy here.’ She smiled; it wasn’t his fault their table was stuck slap bang in the middle of the room. It didn’t matter anyway. She wasn’t likely to see him again. Eighteen months of dating apps had taught her the signs. Tonight, something had shifted between them. Perhaps their three-month relationship had been too good to last. She’d never really imagined she’d find a life partner at the age of fifty-nine and was amazed she’d met Joe online, a man who ticked all the boxes: handsome, well mannered, own teeth and more importantly considerate and kind.
The sound of violins, something she recognised from a perfume advertisement, drifted towards her. The music was a pleasant distraction from Joe, who was now shifting awkwardly in his chair. Heads were turning towards the entrance; the other diners had lowered their voices. Joe looked to be on the verge of saying something: kindly expressed wishes for the future, a well-intentioned, never-to-be-kept promise to remain friends. The seven courses she’d sampled – she couldn’t help counting down – swirled in her stomach. The modern habit of vanishing without trace – ghosting, didn’t they call it? – suddenly seemed preferable to this very public goodbye.
Perhaps she should jump in first and call it a day before Joe said, ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’ But the four musicians dressed in black tie were heading straight across the travertine floor towards Stella and Joe’s table, grins wide as clowns’. One stood at each corner, bows flying. Oh dear. She wished it was a single squawky accordion player who could be swiftly dispatched by the purchase of a single red rose.
The musicians withdrew to a smattering of applause. Strangely they headed back the way they’d come in, instead of making their way from table to table. Stella was about to comment on this when a waiter appeared holding two sundaes, one with a sparkler aflame. Course eight. No doubt cheese would follow.
‘Madame.’ The waiter set the boat-shaped dish in front of her. The squidgy pink dessert was decorated with swirly chocolate piping. It looked like writing. Merry something? She hadn’t been able to fit her reading glasses in her ludicrously small evening bag. She felt Joe’s eyes on her.
‘Stella?’ How strange his voice was. Beads of sweat bubbled on his forehead despite the near-glacial air conditioning.
‘Joe, are you okay?’
For a moment she thought he was going to stand up but he sank to the floor. Stella gasped, alarmed. The restaurant chatter ceased abruptly.
Then she realised one of Joe’s flannel-clad knees was resting on the hard shiny tiles. He rummaged in his jacket pocket, producing a small square box. He held it out to her.
‘Stella, will you do me a great honour? Will you be my wife?’
He flicked open the box. A square-cut diamond ring flashed in the velvet cushioning.
Stella gasped. Applause rippled across the dining room.
‘You do like it, don’t you?’
‘Yes, yes, it’s beautiful, perfect.’ It was rather large, but what sort of person complained that a diamond was too big?
He wiped his brow. ‘Thank goodness. I’m glad I can stand up now, my knee’s killing me.’
He sat back down, took her hand and slipped the ring onto her finger.
She turned her hand this way and that. It really was a huge stone.
‘It fits perfectly! I can’t believe you’ve proposed! I thought… oh, never mind. I’m just bowled over.’
‘I wanted to make it special, different from the last time.’
‘Yes.’ She rather regretted sharing the story about Ricky’s proposal with Joe. She’d been just nineteen when Ricky had pulled into a motorway service station, screeched his motorbike to a halt, ordered them a couple of plates of egg and chips and slipped the ring pull of his can of cider onto her finger. ‘Fancy getting married?’ he’d said with a smirk. Stella had screamed out ‘Yes’ and ‘Yes’ again! And it felt as though she’d leapt onto the back of a galloping horse – out of control, but what an adrenaline rush!
Joe was right. This proposal was different. She couldn’t expect to feel that heady excitement now. Not at her age. She was different too. She wanted different things from the girl who’d married Ricky. Joe was a grownup, someone who understood the seriousness of a lifetime’s commitment. This marriage was going to last.
Joe seemed to be waiting for something.
‘It really is beautiful.’ She smiled, looking at the ring again.
