I Propose Part 2: The Setup

As I pulled the uneven blinds up on the front room window of the apartment I had just accepted the keys to “sight unseen”, my eye was immediately drawn to the bullet hole through the glass.  I stood there in front of the window, motionless with my arm straight out at an awkward angle, still clutching the multiple cords that drew the blinds up and down, recapping all the new lessons I had immediately learned about renting an apartment.

On paper, the apartment looked good.  It had a big floor plan, it was close to my job and was $25 cheaper per month than the place Wendy had rented a block away—that alone equated to about 1.5 Extra-large pizzas every 30 days.

My little block inside the structure sat on the bottom floor in a permanently shaded part of the gigantic, multi-building complex.  As I approached the building I realized noticed that flies were dropping out of the sky as they flew too close to the perimeter.  That should have been a warning.  Also, the presence of moss on the porch decking which looked like it was being supported in key areas by load-bearing mildew was not encouraging.  The mildew and mold outside made it extremely difficult for me to tell, when I turned the key for the first time, if the odor originated outside, was located inside, or if nature had struck one of its natural balances between both environments. 

And that lead me to the bullet hole.  I asked myself if someone shot into the apartment, but the angle suggested otherwise.  This apartment didn’t exactly scream that it was a target rich environment for a sniper.  I scanned the rest of the room for other signs of bullet holes; perhaps there had been a struggle.  I built a viable scenario of the last people to live there coming to blows over who would get the final puff of nitrous-oxide from the bottom of a whipped-cream can.  Insults were said, promises broken, a brief struggle leading to a stolen huff of laughing-gas leads to a shot ringing out, the bullet passing through the fleshy under-arm of a man who gave up on himself years ago and then straight out the window.

Yep, that’s exactly how the bullet hole got there.

Wendy and I lived about a block away from each other—in different apartment complexes, hers having things like sunshine and safety.  Wendy loved it because we got to see each other every day, but she didn’t have to deal with all my crap cluttering up her clean environment.  It’s kind of like how going to the zoo to see a lion is better than going to Africa to see one.  It’s less hassle and you still get to see the animal in a setting that looks almost like Africa, without having to get all the shots you need to visit that particular continent (oddly enough I encourage those same shots for a visit to my apartment).  The new problem was that the week after I purchased the engagement ring, Wendy would have to come stay with me for the final month in our rental agreements.

It was one of life’s little inconvenient scheduling errors.  The plan was for Wendy and I and Dave and Tessa to move into a big house and live together, but there was a month between Dave and Tessa’s lease and the date we would be able to all move into the house together.  Wendy gave Dave and Tessa her apartment as a temporary landing pad while she stayed at my apartment, despite Dave and I repeatedly offering to bunk together so Wendy and Tessa could have Wendy’s place.  Actually, I don’t think anyone really wanted to stay at my apartment.

This arrangement REALLY revved up the marriage talk.  Wendy is a numbers person and she knew that living together before marriage statistically hurt our chances of staying together.  I always felt like that was a “loaded” statistic.  If a couple is living together and one of them wants to get married and the other doesn’t want to, mentioning that statistic is going to start a fight.  That fight might even be the last fight, or it might be the one that knocks the foundation out from under the relationship.  I would be interested in seeing the numbers on how many marriages end because someone keeps bring up the co-habitation statistic. 

During this transition time, I made it clear to Wendy that she didn’t live with me and that she was only a guest.  Besides only one of us knew we weren’t getting married.  All I had to do was keep the ring hidden until our planned vacation, where I planned on popping the question, and all would be fine.  I had to remember that any argument that came up around marriage was essentially moot and I should only keep up the charade and avoid any damage to the relationship.  All of this was easier said than done.

The ring was burning a hole in my brain.  Keeping it a secret from Wendy was eating me alive.  Having Wendy in my apartment made me feel like a smuggler having his boat searched.  I felt like at any time, Wendy could come upon the ring for any number of legit reasons.

“Steve, I was cleaning the air vent duct and back inside it about 3 feet was this ring that fits my finger perfectly,” I would imagine her saying after screwing the grate back on the vent.

“You’ll never guess what I found at the bottom of your comic book box,” she’d say if I would have hid it there. 

“I was snaking the bathroom sink drain and I found this ring tied tightly to the underside of the drain plug,” yes I thought the odds were still too great of her finding it there.  I needed to do something drastic. 

I decided to hide the ring at Wendy’s apartment.  Dave and Tessa agreed to conceal it.  It made more sense to me somehow.  It was a brilliant idea, like if I were to hide the ring on Wendy’s finger while she was sleeping.  The time would come three weeks later and I would get down on one knee to ask her to be my wife with nary a felt taffeta box in sight.  Wendy would say yes of course and ask if there was a ring. 

“Check your left hand,” I would say with a sly smile, raising one eyebrow slightly.

Seeing the ring, Wendy would be shocked and burst into tears of joy.  “Oh, how?!?!  How did you do that?  You’re amazing!” 

“Three weeks ago,” I would say, “I was reading to you and you fell asleep.  I slipped it on your finger and then we went and got Chinese.”

Telling my folks I was going to ask Wendy to marry me was a relief to both of them. 

“Well it’s about damn time,” my mother said, “Do you think she’ll say yes?”

“I hope so,” I replied, “I got the ring on clearance.”

My mother was teasing of course because she knew Wendy owed her a life debt to marry me.  In the final days of Wendy’s Master’s program, she was mere minutes from her deadline on her thesis when her printer died.  Wendy needed a very specific printer and program that would print in postscript form and it just so happened that my mother worked on campus and had one of the only printers around that could do the job.  My mother agreed to print it for Wendy on the strictest condition that Wendy marry me.  Seriously. 

My mother made Wendy choose between having to spend the rest of her life with me, or lose her chance at completing her Master’s degree.  Wendy talks about it like it was a funny joke, but I’ll tell you right now, if Wendy would have taken that printed paper and then broken up with me before we got married, Wendy would have disappeared.  Mom doesn’t play around.

They were genuinely excited and both a little surprised that I hadn’t screwed the relationship up by being non-committal.  But there was always the debt Wendy owed.

Asking Wendy’s parent’s permission was a bit trickier.  I usually only saw them when Wendy was around so that meant I would have to separate Wendy from them without suspicion.  A few days before I was going to ask Wendy, we found ourselves delivering a piece of furniture to her parent’s house.  Wendy’s family trades furniture like Major League Baseball teams trade players, so it wasn’t strange for us to make a trip out to her parent’s house.

We chatted up Wendy’s parents for a while and I asked Wendy’s dad Tony to show me his plans for his new bathroom in the basement.  Telling Tony first was risky, because I think his record for keeping a secret is just under a 24 hours.  It’s not because he isn’t smart or that he wants to be mean.  He’s gets genuinely excited about the news and wants to share the happiness, whether it’s a gift or a piece of good news.  The gate that keeps information from escaping his mouth has been swinging open on its own for years—or so I’m told, I mean no disrespect sir.

Tony lit up when I told him I wanted to see the project, his wife Tish rolled her eyes at the enthusiasm and as we headed down the stairs to basement she hollered with a laugh, “Why don’t you ask him how long it’s going to take while you’re at it?  I’d like to know if we’ll still be alive!”

Tony was descending the stairs at a quick pace, probably to avoid any jokes or jabs that would be lobbed in his direction concerning his projects.  I could hear him mumble something about how great minds are always mocked for their work, but it wasn’t clear.  “It’s going to be beautiful, just you wait,” he addressed me over his shoulder as we opened the door to the basement.

He immediately started to paint the picture of the project for me with two imaginary paintbrushes moving simultaneously but in different patterns. 

“The other side will be the kitchen, see?  Over there,” he pointed around the corner. “This, THIS is going to be the bathroom,” he pointed to the wall with both index fingers and drew a door-sized rectangle.

I tried to interrupt and get his attention, but he was picking up speed.  If I didn’t stop him soon, I risked losing the opportunity to ask him in private without Wendy suspecting.  I stepped in front of him and waved my hands hoping he would come to a halt before one of his excited arms knocked me down, not unlike how someone would stop a car in a crosswalk.

“Tony, the project sounds great, and I want to hear all about it, but that isn’t why I asked you down here,” I said to Tony.  Tony blinked several times taking in my emergency stop.  “I needed to get you away from Wendy so that I could keep a secret from her.”

“Secret…” Tony repeated, listening but still REALLY wanting to tell me about the bathroom door.

“Yes, secret.  Wendy cannot find out, SHE CANNOT FIND OUT.” I emphasized.  Tony nodded in agreement waiting for me to tell him the news.  “Mr. Iwaszuk, I love your daughter more than anything and I would like to ask you and Tish for your permission to marry her.” It came out easy, because I was never more certain of anything in my life.

Tony looked at me for a second and in that second I thought I saw the image of him beating me to death with a hammer.  That may have been paranoia because after that very brief pause, he answered, “well, okay, yeah, sure.”  His hand went up again pointing to the ceiling, “I’d like to put a door on a track there to save space but I don’t think the wall is going to be long enou..”

“Tony,” I interrupted, “I just asked you for the hand of your daughter, that’s why I brought you down here.”

“Yeah?” re-confirmed, “Well, yeah, that’s real good,” he finished letting it sink in.  As I watched the weight of a man’s daughter being taken from him, I glanced around the room quickly to see if there were any loose hammers lying about.

“Now Tony, this is a BIG secret.  Wendy has no idea that I’m going to ask her and I need it to stay that way.  So I need you to go upstairs and find an excuse to bring just Tish downstairs without Wendy,” I began, realizing I was sending a notorious bean spiller into a room full of pintos.  I had to wait downstairs as Tony ran up to craftily move Tish downstairs while avoiding all suspicion.  However, I forgot the law of keeping secrets:  The bigger the secret, the harder it is for it to be kept. 

“It’s a secret,” Tony said back to me, nodded and headed up the stairs.

“Casual Tony, extra CASUAL!” my words chasing him up the stairs.

Three minutes later, Tony produces a confused Tish to the basement.

“Tony said there was a secret you need to tell me?” inquired Tish.

My face fell a little as I looked at Tony, wondering what the hell he had said upstairs to avoid suspicion.  Tony smiled back at me and gave me the thumbs up.  I brought myself back to the moment and turned once again to address Tish.

“Tish, I needed to bring you down here away from Wendy so we could keep a secret,” I began, but where Tony had to catch up a little, it appeared Tish was anticipating something good.  As I began to speak her hands balled up a little and her arms started moving back and forth in front of her, “Tish, your daughter is the most special person in my life.  I love her and I want to ask your permission to marry her.”

Tish threw her arms around me with a long suppressed squeal.  “Well, of course you may Steve, welcome to the family…you know…soon,” she told me with a smile.

We all smiled and hugged again, but fearing Wendy could pop downstairs at any second I sobered both Tony and Tish up with a stern voice.

“Great, now get it together and forget everything I just said until Wendy and I leave,” I said to them as gruffly as I would addressing a boat full of soldiers getting ready to storm a beach.  We went upstairs, said our good-byes and Wendy and I were out of there before Wendy could put anything together.

After the fact, it was revealed that the stealthily crafted subterfuge Tony had concocted to get Tish down to the basement without any suspicion played out like this:  Tony entered the kitchen and pointed at Wendy who was seated at the table.  “You, Wendy, stay there, don’t come with us,” he said to her and then turned to Wendy’s mother, “Tish, come with me, it’s a secret.”

Brilliant!

I say Brilliant because it was this exact behavior over years of Wendy’s life that caused Wendy to put no real meaning behind what her father was saying.  He had literally hid the secret in plain sight.

The drive home was uneventful and I had a feeling that I had cleared one of the final hurdles.  Unfortunately this was one of those instances where you clear the 110 meters of hurdles and then realize you’re running the 400.  That slap in the face was waiting for me when Wendy and I entered my apartment and I found some bad news on the caller ID.

 

To Be Concluded Part 3: The Prestige