Hi. Marry Me

by Kimberley Taylor

  Diana sat up straight. She'd forgotten that that was to be today’s activity. Until—

  “I have my friends’ bachelorette tonight,” she said slowly. Tony nodded.

  “I know,” he said, simply. “When do you have to be there?”

  Diana cast around in her brain for almost-forgotten details. “Around six-ish, I think.”

  “I can send you with a driver. You won’t want to be driving,” Tony said briskly.

  “That’d be great, thanks,” said Diana. And, she thought, it wouldn’t be weird at all. At least it would represent a good way to transition into the conversation that she was already married. Probably best to get it over with quickly.

  “Do we have enough time before then to do house stuff?”

  “Yeah,” said Tony. “We got up early, so we’ve got time.”

  As if to prove his point, he laid back down and put a muscular arm over his head. He winked at Diana.

  Diana settled back into the cushions as well. She felt oddly at ease.

  “So,” she said. “How do you think last night went?”

  “I think it went very well, on the whole,” Tony said, closing his eyes. “People seemed to think we were actually married—”

  “Which we are,” said Diana.

  “Hey, that’s my line,” said Tony. “But—like, we did a good job of acting like we’re excited to be with each other, without being over-the-top. At least, that’s what the journalists are saying.”

  “There are already news pieces up about us?”

  “People were live-tweeting the event, Diana.”

  Diana pulled up her phone and scrolled, blushing, through the tweets and mentions. “People seem to be very fond of us.”

  “Well, of course they are,” said Tony. “We represent the dream, you know? If we can make it, then other people can get married off an app, which is a very millennial, marketable concept these days. Happily, I mean, not in a mail-order-bride situation.”

  “Great,” said Diana. “So, are more people signing up for the updated app?”

  “Our marketing team suggested that we push out the launch for one month so we can do more promotion for it, really milk this out as much as we can. Which means we’re going to have to do more sponsored content and appearances.”

  “If they’re serving champagne, I’m in.”

  “I think one of the first videos they want us to film is a house tour,” said Tony. “Which means we need to get a move on.”

  “Okay, fine,” said Diana. “I’ll get up.”

  “Take your time,” said Tony. “But yeah, the car will be here in fifteen minutes.”

  *****

  Soon they were zipping their way down a suburban lane of brick-built homes festooned with ancient, craggy trees, intensive landscaping, and screaming children running around playing with their peers.

  Diana swallowed, looking out the window. “Can we just get something out of the way?”

  Tony turned to her. “What’s up?”

  “So—we’re buying a house for us to live in—great. This isn’t, like, a kids conversation, though, is it?” Diana’s voice was getting unnecessarily high-pitched.

  Tony laughed, and it was like he was being strangled. “Uh—no. Of course not. We haven’t even—”

  “Okay,” said Diana, breathing deeply. Her panic was oddly being dispersed as his was ramping up. She breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth.

  “Why do you even bring that up?” Tony looked horrified.

  “Well, now I have follow-up questions, after seeing you react like that,” Diana said. “There are kids playing outside, Tony, open your eyes. And buying a larger home is a typical step or reaction taken when a family’s about to grow, it’s not crazy that I brought it up.”

  “No, I guess not,” said Tony.

  “I don’t want kids now,” said Diana. “Or—well, I guess we should talk about that.”

  A very awkward silence ensued.

  “We don’t need to talk about it now, do we?” Tony was blushing.

  “I really don’t think so, no,” said Diana, wishing vaguely that she herself had never been born.

  “Good,” said Tony fervently. “Anyway, if we buy whatever house we like best today and then find out—on a much later date—that we’ll need to size up for whatever reason, we can do that. Then. Later. Much later.”

  “Point taken, Tony,” Diana said. She was now very eager to move on from this conversation. “So—um. Where are we?”

  They were driving through a part of New York she wasn't familiar with. This was the New York that she saw in sitcoms about wealthy families, however. With a start, she realized that she was now part of a wealthy family. Were they going to live in—oh—a storied brownstone, or something similarly mansion-esque?

  “So,” said Tony, “I don’t know how much you know about real estate—or whether you have any significant preferences as to which section of town we live in. I don’t, really. I can work from home, and I usually like growing wherever I happen to be planted. I know we need to be a convenient hop away from your school, though—so I just fed that information to a real estate agent and she came back with a few properties we might like.”

  “That sounds perfect to me. Thanks for making sure we’re close to school, though.”

  “Of course.” After the awkwardness of the kids conversation, they were back to the odd formality, and Diana didn't like it. “So, we’re on our way to the first, then?”

  “Actually, we’re here.” The limo stopped in the middle of a gorgeous street, just in front of a grey-bricked townhome.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Diana. She still had no concept of how they could afford it. Decades of penny pinching would’t be erased in a week.

  “I think so, too,” said Tony, quite decisively. “Let’s go in and check it out, yes?”

  He bounded out of the car and around the back bumper to hold the door open for Diana. She stepped out and onto what could be their future street. The street was full of cobbles, and equidistant along the sidewalk were magnificent old oak trees with old benches encircling them.

  The two of them walked up to the front door of the grey-stone home, and the door opened before them. Diana coughed.

  “Bless you,” the real estate agent said. Diana knew it was the real estate agent because of the clipboard and the matching skirt suit set; and, also, because her name tag and face matched the head shot upon the gigantic FOR SALE sign in the front yard.

  “Ester, hello,” said Tony. They shook hands. It was then Diana’s turn. She accidentally reached out with her left hand and then rolled her eyes, and then cringed.

  “Wonderful,” said Ester, after a moment. “Shall we?”

  They went in and toured the multi-story home. There was a grand piano, which Ester assured the newlyweds was to be sold along with the home. The master suite encompassed an entire floor. The previous owners were thinking about springing for a subterranean pool, and would break ground on it if the new owners indicated that it would help sell the property.

  “If this isn’t suiting, I do have one other place that I think you should look at before you make a decision either way,” said Ester.

  Diana quite liked this place, but she was curious what else the ultra-rich might had access to. She nodded at Tony, who indicated that they should all pile back in his limo. They sprinted downtown and were dropped at the foot of a skyscraper whose top was enshrouded in clouds. Diana gulped. She wasn’t afraid of heights, but she wasn’t overly easy with them, either.

  “Let’s head up, then,” said Ester.

  “Ah, Ester,” said Diana in a quavery voice. “How far up are we heading?”

  “Penthouse,” beamed Ester. “Just became available last week. It’s not even technically on the market yet. I just wanted to show it to you and Tony because Tony’s such a preferred customer.”

  Diana wondered how much Tony was paying for that distinction.

/>   They rode the sleek stainless and glass elevator from the ground floor, shooting up to cloud level within seconds. Diana’s stomach dropped to somewhere near her ankles. The soft light blared twice to let them know that they had reached their destination.

  Diana’s first thought when she walked into the vast room just off the elevator was how much like a desert it seemed. The previous inhabitants had seemed to like gentle, sloping lines as opposed to the more prototypical ninety-degree corners, with the result that Diana felt like she was actually in a cloud. She wasn’t entirely sure that she wished it to be her home. “Living with my head in the clouds, and all that” she said. “I could think of better things.”

  “What was that?”

  Tony was looking similarly skeptical. Diana laughed. “Let’s see the whole thing before we make any decisions.” Even as she said the words she was already thinking of the beautiful grey-brick townhome, and hoping that no one would swoop in to claim it.

  They toured the bedroom and the bathroom and the den and the second kitchen. The whole time, Diana was thinking that it seemed too clean, and she would feel like she was living in someone else’s home the entire time.

  When the real estate agent circled them back to the elevator, she looked at them expectantly. “So, what do you think?” she asked. “I can’t believe the old owners are actually letting this one go, it’s obviously so perfect. And I could just see you two loving it here.”

  Such enthusiasm, Diana thought. She wondered how much more expensive this home was than the other.

  “Have we reached a decision, then?” asked the real estate agent with a large smile on her face.

  “Yes, we have,” said Tony, glancing at Diana. Diana nodded. “We’ll take the other one.”

  The real estate agent’s face fell for a micro-second, and then she grinned again.

  “Lovely. If we’re sure—”

  “Yes,” said Tony and Diana in unison.

  “Well, then,” she said, seeming a bit blustered. “I’ll go draw up the paperwork.”

  She left the room. Tony smiled at Diana. “The other place just felt more real. This seems like where a TV show gets filmed.”

  “It does, doesn’t it,” said Diana. “How quickly do you think we can move into the other place?”

  “I mean, it’ll take a bit for the paperwork to get sorted, but it was empty—no one has to move out or anything. I’m sure if I offer a generous reason, they can get us a key today.”

  “That’d just be—so great,” said Diana.

  “What do you have against my apartment?”

  “It’s small, that’s all. You’ve taken great care of it.”

  “Thanks. And your apartment?”

  Diana hesitated. She hadn’t been back to her place in a few days. After the first few nights of sleeping at Tony’s place, she’d moved over most of the stuff she needed.

  “I suppose I’ll get rid of it,” she said, off-handedly. “The lease was up for renewal soon, anyway.”

  “Are you sure?” Tony asked. “That’s a big step. We’d be actually living together.”

  “Which is a big part of being actually married,” said Diana demurely. “I’ll call my landlord up today.”

  “Awesome,” said Tony. “Well—I’ll go see if Ester needs any help, and what-all we need to sign, and all of that fun stuff.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Diana, blithely. “I think I’ll head downstairs, actually.”

  “Not a big fan of heights?”

  “Not particularly. And there was a coffeeshop on the first floor, and that smelled too good to pass up. Would you like anything?”

  “Yeah, coffee, thanks.”

  Diana smiled at him and summoned the elevator to the top floor, and then shuddered. She didn’t think that she could ever get used to the idea of living on the same level as the literal clouds.

  When she got to the first floor, she located the small coffee shop. She followed her nose. The shop was built into a tiny alcove—one which, she reflected, would have just held something more prosaic like water fountains. She sighed a little bit. It would have been positively fantastical to live just above a coffeeshop. Of course, that generally brought to mind quaint mental pictures of a loft over a dive. This was a little different, she supposed.

  She walked to the counter. “Two black coffees,” she said. “One decaf.”

  The barista gave her two cups and took her money. She went over to the self-serve station and scrawled Tony’s name on one of the cups. She put caffeinated coffee in that one and filled hers with something less likely to make her feel anxious and give her a heart attack. By the time she was finished with this, Ester and Tony were making a beeline at her from the other side of the large glass atrium.

  “We just need your signature in a few places,” said Ester, brusquely. Diana raised an eyebrow. Tony nodded. Diana took the pen and scribbled out something which sort of resembled her name, and then Ester smiled tightly and left.

  “Poor girl,” Tony said. “I think she was expecting a much larger commission from this place. Of course, I left her a large signing bonus anyway…imagine she’ll cheer up when she sees that…”

  “Did you figure out a way to get the keys?”

  Tony threw a sharp piece of metal at Diana. Ordinarily this would not have excited her.

  “Ooh, fantastic,” she said, snapping it out of the air. “Can we—let’s go over there now, shall we? I know we were just there—but I’ll look at it differently now that I know it’s ours.”

  “Of course. Are you hungry?”

  “Getting there.”

  “I’ll have lunch delivered there, then. Thanks for the coffee, by the way.”

  “Thank you for the house. And lunch.”

  “No need for thanks, it’s our money, our place,” said Tony.

  This was a very strange concept for Diana to get used to. She settled for half-smiling and half-shrugging at the same time.

  “Right,” said Tony. “Whatever that was. Let’s get out of here.” He brought his cell phone to his ear, and a moment later, the limo popped around the block.

  “Is that what money buys you,” said Diana, marveling. “Instantaneous service—and keys when you want them—and food where you want it?”

  Tony thought about it for a second. “You know, I think that’s about right,” he said.

  Diana beamed. It was a fantastic Saturday, and it was only midmorning.

  A half hour later they walked through the front doors of the townhome that was now theirs. The doors were heavy. There were intricate moldings on the walls. Diana knew that this was typical of the more historic homes in that region of New York, but she couldn’t help but imagine that she was in Paris. It felt open and airy and light.

  Now that she was here for the second time she couldn’t imagine why she'd left it. This was clearly their home.

  The floors were hardwood and bare. The piano was the only piece of furniture in the entire space. Diana swept into the kitchen and ran a hand over its cool marble counters. “Man, I can get so much cooking done in here,” she said.

  “You like cooking?” Tony had come up behind her.

  “When it’s in a place as beautiful as this—who wouldn’t?”

  They smiled at each other, and then they toured the rest of the place. Of course, they'd done so that morning, but they'd kept themselves at a safe distance from the place, cautiously refusing to get caught up in the beauty of the architecture, not allowing themselves to imagine actually living there. Doing so made the house come alive.

  Diana couldn't stop smiling.

  “Okay, this bathroom is about as big as my entire apartment,” Diana said, laughing. There was a clawfoot tub and a separate cubicle containing a waterfall shower. The entire home exuded old-world charm—but in a way which was thoughtfully and selectively renovated so that it had all of the modern amenities as well. Diana was fascinated to discover that the toilet i
n the master suite had a bidet attachment. She’d never actually seen one before.

  “So, I suppose this will be the master bedroom,” said Tony. Diana looked at the warm expanse of honey-toned floor and nodded. She could imagine waking up there. And there was a little sitting area just off to the side of it! The amount of room they would have was astonishing.

  “Did they decide to go for the subterranean pool?” Diana asked, innocently.

  “Nope,” said Tony. “They were planning on starting that next week, so, now, we just have a little movie theater downstairs.”

  They went downstairs to check it out. There were three rows of very plush reclining chairs and a projector which illuminated the entire side of one room. There was even a small popcorn machine in one corner.

  “This is crazy,” said Diana. “I think I like it even better than a pool.”

  “Right, then, we’ll keep it,” Tony said.

  Diana turned to hug him impulsively. She pulled back. “This is incredible, Tony.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” he said.

  Chapter 8

  Diana and Tony were so excited to be homeowners that they spent the rest of the afternoon carting things back and forth from both of their places to their new home. They ate hastily put together ham sandwiches in the back of the limo, and plotted out where the furniture would go best. Very quickly they realized that they would have to buy quite a bit of new furniture. When the movers (very quickly hired) arrived and then put first Tony’s full-size bed and then Diana’s twin-sized futon in their master bedroom, they knew that they’d have to go buy a queen; there was simply no other option. And because Diana had lived in a tiny studio and Tony in a modest one bedroom apartment and they were moving into a five-story home, even the nice furniture they could boast between them couldn't cover the entire floor.

  “Well, then,” said Tony. “It’s lucky I’m loaded. We’re loaded,” he said. “What are you up to tonight? IKEA run?”

  “Or we could just order stuff offline,” yawned Diana. She’d had quite a lot of decision-making to do that day and she didn’t feel like waltzing around yet another box store. She suddenly sat up straight, almost bumping her head on the roof of the limo. “Ah, I nearly forgot, in all of the excitement,” she said. She peered at her watch. “Bachelorette for Joy’s in half an hour.”