LOVELY-LITTLE-CHARMING-EVER MERRY-SWEET-THING.

The waitress served us cake even when we hadn’t ordered anything yet. A black forest cake on a single saucer, with a tiny table knife lying beside it. He grinned at me. I grinned back. He picked up the table knife and cut the cake into half. He split the pieces. We both looked at what lay on the plate and then he said something!

I gawked at him. He looked on. Expecting me to say a word. Not just any word but one in line with what he had just said. I was dumbfounded. I ogled his tiny eyes that were sheltered by his large glasses. But they didn’t shield the apprehension his eyes revealed. As much of it that I could feel mine give away. And in mine tears formed too. The words he had just said, initially I was not sure I had heard them right. However they kept playing in my mind. So much that I started seeing them. I could see them on the walls. On the plate of cake. On the back of the uniforms the waiters and waitresses wore. In the soft blue songs that played, I could hear them.

I couldn’t hold my tears any more. The minute I let them free they dripped like a tap left half open. I started to speak.

‘I am not perfect!’ I cried. ’ I am a lovely-little-charming-ever merry-sweet-thing like you always say. But you have only seen the pretty side of me. You don’t know me well.’ ‘Sometimes I will get angry. Very angry I won’t want to see you by my side. It’ll get me so nervous like a cat on a hot tin roof and I’ll whimper so hard, harder than I am doing now. And I will not be able to blether with you like this.’ Those words must have stunned him. I could see him cross his fingers while his hands rested on the table as he looked down on the plate. I got shaken up too. ‘I have to be more vigilant with my words’ I thought.

‘I’m only human you know. Am just afraid that am not the ‘Perfect-lovely-little-charming-ever merry-sweet-thing’ you think I am. It frets me whenever you say I am perfect, honey. It’s a weight I cannot manage to carry. I would only be mendacious to both of us if I accepted it’. He hoisted his head, less nervous than he was before. With sorry eyes. A sorry face.

‘Baby, I am sorry I put such a heavy lumber on you.’ He said, obliterating the tears that tainted my face with a napkin. Obliterating the tension that was still left in me. ‘I am penitent all I ever thought of you was ‘perfect’. That was callous of me, I admit. Damn me for putting all such pressure on you. Damn! I had no idea I was being such a sucker’. I could feel the aggravation and compunction in the reverberation of his voice.

‘No my sweetheart, you are no sucker’ I reassured. ‘You are the most charming-dashing- ever loving-funny-caring little pig I know’, I teased. He guffawed. I did too. We both looked at the plate at once. We simpered at each other. He held my hands slightly above the plate with our elbows supported by the table. He stared into my big eyes as if they were telling him something. He let go of my hands.

He picked up the tiny beautiful silver ring that rested between the slices. He got down onto his knee. He stared at the ring. Composing himself. He looked up at me. I was dying to hear those beautiful words he had said again.

‘Will the most beautiful- lovely-little-charming-ever merry-sweet-thing marry me?’