The reservation came in about a week before the dinner. He’d
made the reservation online and in the space allotted to notes had typed the
following:
I’m proposing to my girlfriend. If she says yes
(hopefully) please bring two glasses of champagne.
A simple enough request, but then he’d added the following: My daughter will be there too. Please bring her a class
of Sprite in a flute glass if possible.
The staff was intrigued.
“I wonder how old the daughter is,” mused Charlotte, “ and why she’s coming along on her
dad’s date.”
“Maybe he’s a widower,” Kate suggested. “Maybe she’s never
had a mom.”
I took the cynical approach: “Maybe he got his high school
girlfriend pregnant and never married her.”
“Is he proposing here? Or somewhere else?”
The waiters went back to checking their sections and making
sure the glasses were clean, the tables set. A manager walked by and raised an
eyebrow when she saw the request. The couple was late and minutes ticked by. Meanwhile a
couple in their 60s strolled up and went to the bar.
“Did you hear?” Bree asked me, as the dinner rush began to
heat up.
“That’s the proposal couple. They’re old.”
Oh.
But wait, what about the daughter? And why would some man go
to the trouble of requesting a Sprite?There was no time to think. More tables came in and I didn’t
see Bree for a while. Then, 45 minutes after their scheduled reservation, a couple
came in with a Goldilocks doppelganger. One of those adorable 5-year-olds who
usually end up in grape juice commercials…
“Sorry we’re late,” the man said, smiling. “We got held up
at the zoo.”
I showed them to the table, walking backwards slightly, studying
them to see if anything special had transpired. Mercifully, the woman excused
herself.
“We saw your note in the reservation, sir. Would you like us
to proceed?” He nodded, but nervously, I thought. Nothing’s happened—yet. Jessie, the waiter, pounced on me the minute I walked away
from the table.
“Do I bring it now?” he asked.
“Yes. Wait. I don’t know.”
We were all nervous now, wondering if we’d screwed anything
up. I kept an eye on the washroom area, worried we were ruining a script we
hadn’t read. No sign of the woman. Whew.
I went back to the table.
“Sir, I hate to be dense, but you’ll give us the sign,
right?”
“I’ll tell the waiter,” he
promised.
I went back to the host stand and checked in with Bree.
“You told me it was the old people!”
“You mean it’s not?”
Table 70 became a watched pot.
“Has he done it yet?”
“Is she smiling?”
“That little girl looks pretty well cared for.”
“The girlfriend looks older than the guy. No wonder she
doesn’t mind that he has a kid.”
In the end, he didn’t have to explain a thing.
Somewhere between the Muscat and crème brulee, he got down
on one knee, surprising both girlfriend and Goldilocks.
One cried and the other erupted in laughter.
“Congratulations,” I said, ringing them up for a bottle of
Breussin on their way out.
“We came here on our first date,” the woman said, looking
down at her left hand.
“Me too,” said Goldilocks. “This
is my first date too.”
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