Lindsey Kelk - I Heart Forever

‘I’ve been thinking about this for the longest time,’ Mason went on, inching closer to his girlfriend, still on one knee. Even kneeling he was almost as tall as I was. He really would be a handy person to have around if you needed something getting down off the top of the wardrobe. She had done well. ‘Since I met you, my life has changed completely. You make the bad days better and you make the good days fantastic – and I need you to know how much I love you.’

‘Oh.’

Jenny looked up at me as she realized what was happening. From my spot at the counter behind Mason, I gave a nod so big I thought my head might drop off.

‘This isn’t exactly how I’d envisioned it,’ Mason said, ‘but you are the most exceptional, intelligent, ridiculous, beautiful and incredible woman I have ever met and I want to spend the rest of my life beside you.’

He really was very good, I thought, tearing up again as I trained my phone’s camera on Jenny’s face. Impressive proposals were one of the upsides to dating a professional writer.

‘Jenny?’ he reached out and fumbled on the counter for the ring. ‘Will you …’

‘Yes?’ she said, manically combing out her hair with one eye on my phone.

Mason opened his mouth to seal the deal but instead of saying ‘Will you marry me?’ he barked like a wounded sea lion and keeled over, huge, rolling sobs shaking his giant shoulders. Jenny looked at me with fear in her dry eyes. There was a chance this wasn’t exactly how she’d imagined this going down.

‘Mason?’ I said, poking him with my toe. ‘You all right there?’

‘I’m just so happy,’ he choked out each word in between a fresh wail. ‘Jenny, I want to ask you, will you … will you?’

Just as I thought he was going to get through the sentence, he rolled over again, tears streaming down his face and getting lost in his beard before they pooled into a stain on the front of his plaid shirt. For the want of a comprehensible sentence, he held out the ring and squealed.

‘I will,’ I mouthed at Jenny over the top of his prone, checked form.

‘I will!’ she said, rushing towards him and skidding to the floor on her knees to plant a kiss on his lips and, most importantly, get the ring on her finger.

‘Congratulations!’ I shouted, circling around them with my phone, still recording the perfectish moment while all the staff and customers breathed a group sigh of relief and began a round of thunderous applause. It was like something out of a very expensive, slightly odd, fairy tale.

‘Dude!’ yelled Backwards Baseball Cap Man. ‘Sweeeeet.’

‘Yes, congratulations,’ the assistant added, while Jenny and Mason continued their celebratory make-out session on the floor of Tiffany & Co. ‘Will sir be paying with cash or credit?’

‘Oh, it’s credit,’ I said, handing him the credit card Mason had left on the counter before slowly removing all my borrowed baubles. Who walked around New York with thousands of dollars in cash on them? And were they currently in the store and looking for a new British friend? ‘Thank you so much for your help.’

‘Not at all,’ he replied, smiling at the newly engaged couple. ‘It looks perfect on her. I’m so glad he decided to go with the one-carat ring, so much more impactful than the half carat.’

I bit down on my lip as my eyes opened up, saucer-wide at the sight of the half-carat ring still on the counter. Down on the floor, Jenny was laughing deliriously, staring at her own left hand. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he was getting it off her finger now.

‘What’s the price on the one-carat ring?’ I asked as the assistant quickly and carefully put everything away. ‘Just out of interest.’

‘That one is actually 1.18 carats, and will be twenty- one thousand five hundred,’ he replied without looking up from the task at hand. ‘Plus tax.’

There was that nauseous feeling again.

‘Worth every penny,’ I said, snapping another photo. It would be nice to have as many as possible before Mason saw the price tag and had an aneurysm. ‘It’s a fairy tale come true.’

‘Angie!’ Jenny crawled over to me and hauled herself upright. ‘I’m engaged!’

‘I know!’ I replied, watching Mason sign for the ring without reading the slip. Wow, that was going to be a rough day when his credit card bill came in.

‘My wedding is going to be perfect,’ Jenny whispered, glittering eyes locked on her dream ring. ‘Just you wait and see.’

And for some reason, I couldn’t help but think it sounded more like a threat than a promise.

When a washing machine crashed through my ceiling a week earlier, it had been somewhat disconcerting. But now I had become oddly used to squeezing past the hunk of Hotpoint determined to get between me and my breakfast cuppa.

Right after they completely destroyed my kitchen, Lorraine and Vi had promised they would have it all sorted out before the weekend, but after a failed attempt at trying to pick it up and drag it out to the street on our own, I’d been living with what could have passed as modern art to some people, and a huge hole in my ceiling, for more than a week. On Sunday morning they’d lowered down a basket of pastries and, after that, it was fair to say I wasn’t nearly as upset about the situation as I could have been.

‘Good morning!’ Vi called through the Hello Hole as we’d christened it. I waved back and grabbed a Tetley teabag out of the pot and tossed it into my travel mug. You could take the girl out of England, etc. ‘Sweet outfit. Big day at the office?’

‘Trying to make a good impression.’ I flipped the ends of the black ribbon I’d tied in a bow around my neck and prayed the white silk shirt wasn’t a mistake. ‘Do I look presentable?’

She squatted down to take a closer look and I gave her a quick twirl.

‘Very nice, the shirt is smart, the skirt is sexy, everything’s working for me,’ she gave me a thumbs-up and I poofed up my little black mini. ‘Great getaway sticks, lady.’

‘And now it’s black tights season again and I don’t have to shave every day, you’ll be seeing a lot more of them,’ I replied, returning her thumbs-up as the kettle boiled.

‘And if all else fails, you can just spill water on your blouse and call it a day,’ Vi suggested. ‘Your boss is a dude, after all.’

‘Note to self, buy water,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

‘I’m sorry it’s taking so long to get everything figured out.’ She pulled at the hem of her Harvard T-shirt as she folded over to sit on the floor. ‘Lorraine’s brother’s best friend is a builder and he specializes in restoring townhouses and period places. I’m really hoping he can come and take a look tonight.’

I poured boiling water from the kettle into my travel cup and swished the teabag around until the water was more or less brown before removing the bag and tipping in half a pint of milk. My mother would have died if she could see what passed for tea in this house these days.

‘Any chance he’ll be able to clear this out?’ I asked, tapping the washing machine with my black Saint Laurent pointed pump. ‘If I’m honest, a great big washing machine in the middle of a small kitchen is more of a problem than the Hello Hole.’

Naming the gaping chasm in the ceiling had probably been a bad idea. It now felt more like something from a Nineties sitcom than a potential structural disaster.

‘You’re telling me,’ Vi sighed. ‘I’ve got Lululemon leggings in there – no way I’m going to be able to save them now. I guess it’s better not to try and force it open, though, right? In case it explodes or something?’

I chose not to tell her how I’d spent fifteen minutes trying to jimmy the door open with a butter knife three nights earlier. It was late, I couldn’t sleep and curiosity had got the better of me. Bloody thing would not budge.