Shopping for a Billionaire's Fiancee

by Julia Kent

  He opens her throat and peers in with a flashlight. “Oh, wow.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s in there tight, isn’t it?” I say.

  “That’s what she said,” Marie mutters under her breath. Andrew looks murderous. Amy kicks her in the ankle. Beat me to it.

  Something old, something new, something borrowed, something stuffed down your future mother-in-law’s throat to shut her up...those are the rituals, right?

  “Marie,” I grunt. She doesn’t look at me, but she bites her lips as Jason drags her out of the room, muttering about that coffee.

  “Oh.” The doctor takes another look. “Yes, it is. I was reacting to the size of that rock.” He sizes me up. “Good for you. Makes the ring I proposed with look like a salt crystal.”

  Shannon starts to say something but the doctor touches her hand and shakes his head. “You can’t talk at all. Right now, you’re breathing through the ring itself, but any vibration or sudden movement could dislodge it in the worst way possible. You need to stay calm and focused. We’re getting equipment right now that will help us to extract the ring.”

  Equipment? Extract? Panic blooms in Shannon’s eyes. My own throat spasms in sympathy. He spends the next minute peering into her throat with the flashlight, hands steady.

  “What have we here?” says a clipped women’s voice, her British accent as condescending as it was eighteen months ago.

  You have got to be kidding me.

  Evaluative eyes take in the scene, with Amanda, Amy, me and Shannon all a familiar set of characters to her. “Dr. Porter.” She frowns at Shannon, then looks at me. “You two? I remember you.” She points to Shannon. “Bee sting.” Then to me. “EpiPen to the groin.” She pauses, the incredulity rising in her voice like a tidal wave. “Again? Did she actually touch your penis this time, or was it a false alarm?”

  Andrew gives me one of those looks that means I’ll never hear the end of this. Ever.

  Marie and Jason walk back in as the doctor asks us, “What is it with you two? Do you have some sort of dating fetish that involves coming to the ER?” The words feel harsher in that British accent of hers, and women with grey hair and glasses always have the upper hand when it comes to judgmental comments. If my mother were still alive, I wonder what she would think of this mess.

  If Mom were alive, her ring wouldn’t be caught in Shannon’s throat right now.

  “Is that a real thing? An ER fetish?” Marie asks, breathless with possibility. “I’m kind of an expert on fetishes.”

  Dr. Porter gives her a withering look and turns to Shannon. “Your mother, right?”

  Shannon nods.

  “The fetish thing makes more sense.” Dr. Porter’s eyebrows are doing a judgmental dance but she stops talking to us and reads the chart.

  “Seriously? I’d love to know. I work in the sex industry.” Marie announces this with a series of nods designed, I think, to convey her professional status as...a what?

  Jason begins sputtering. “You do not work in the sex industry, Marie! Why on earth would you say such a thing?”

  “I mystery shop sex toy stores!” Marie declares. “I’m a professional!”

  “So not the same thing, Mom,” Amy says with a sigh. “We’ve been trying to explain this to her,” she says to the room in a resigned voice. “She doesn’t get it. She’s been telling everyone around town, at church, at the library, you name it, that she works in the sex industry.”

  “Now everyone in town thinks my wife is a hooker!” Jason declares, looking angrier than I’ve ever seen him. Even angrier than the time he confronted me after I dumped Shannon. While I like Jason and we bond over good beer in his little shack in the backyard, he’s a beta. The kind of guy, like Greg, who lets women drag them around by the nose.

  Shannon will never do that to me. There are other body parts I’ll let her drag me around by, but—

  “Only when we role play, Jason,” Marie says with a sigh.

  “How did the ring get in there?” Dr. Porter asks the question with a suggestive tone that I don’t like.

  Marie, Jason, Amy, Andrew and Amanda all turn to me with looks of expectation on their face. “Good question,” Andrew says slowly. “You haven’t told us that part yet.”

  Shannon starts to make gagging noises and points to her throat.

  Marie’s eyes fly wide open. “Oh. Oh, honey,” she says, patting Shannon’s hand. “You know they make special sex toys just for that. You don’t have to put that kind of ring around a man and then put your mouth, you know...”

  The meaning of her words hits me like a two-by-four. Both doctors are looking at us like this is a plausible explanation for how Shannon came to have the ring stuck in her throat. From the look on Shannon’s face, she’s as horrified as I am.

  For a completely different reason.

  “Let me set the record straight!” I say with an angry hiss. “We did not put my mother’s engagement ring over my...” I gesture toward my groin, “and then have her...” I gesture toward Shannon’s mouth.

  Andrew turns beet red. “Hold on! That’s Mom’s ring?”

  Shit. Caught.

  “It’s okay, Declan,” Marie says softly. “People experiment.”

  “The ring would never fit,” I snap.

  Dr. Porter cocks a skeptical eyebrow. Dr. Derjian, good man that he is, stays silent and his face is as neutral as a football ref’s. “Flaccid, yes,” Dr. Porter explains. “The ring could slide down and—”

  “You would need a bracelet,” I explain, standing as tall as possible, “not a piddly little engagement ring.”

  Marie looks at Shannon. “You lucky girl.”

  “You lucky bastard,” Jason mutters.

  “Who said you could have Mom’s ring?” Andrew bellows.

  “Anyhow, that’s not how Shannon ate the ring,” I continue, completely ignoring him. “She took a bite of tiramisu and swallowed it.”

  “Who puts a three carat diamond ring in tiramisu?” Andrew asks.

  “Yeah?” Marie demands. “Why ruin good tiramisu like that?”

  I really don’t get the female obsession with this dessert.

  Marie’s face pauses as she starts to speak again. She shakes her head slightly, as if in shock. “Three carats? Three carats?”

  I just smile.

  “Lucky bastard,” Jason says again.

  Dr. Derjian and Dr. Porter have these long devices that look like tweezers on steroids. I can see Shannon’s heart throbbing in terror against her ribcage. The room starts to spin, and I can inhale as much air as I need. She can’t.

  Marie sidles her way over to Shannon and takes her hand. “He proposed?”

  Shannon shakes her head.

  Marie’s eyes flash like Godzilla laser eyes on me. “You made her eat a three carat engagement ring and never even bothered to ask her to marry you? Is that some ethnic ritual from your people?”

  My people?

  “My people are Scottish, Marie. My people don’t eat engagement rings. It’s a complicated story.”

  “It better be a complicated story if it involves having a rock like that caught in her throat!”

  Everyone looks at me. They all seem to be waiting for an explanation.

  Time to give them one.

  “I’ll say this once: I hired Greg to pretend to beg Shannon to do a mystery shop at Le Portmanteau.”

  Shannon’s eyes turn Godzilla-like, too.

  “I arranged with the staff to have my mom’s engagement ring put in a glass of Champagne.”

  Dr. Porter and Dr. Derjian share raised eyebrows. “Classic,” he says to her.

  Marie starts to say something and I hold up a finger. “The staff screwed up and put the ring in the tiramisu instead of the Champagne.”

  “Who ruins tiramisu like that?” Dr. Porter muses.

  All the women in the room nod.

  “Shannon took a bite and here we are.”

  No one says a word. Everyone just blinks.

  “Tha
t’s it?” Marie finally pipes up, indignant. “Oh, please.” She pulls back from Shannon, leans her forward a bit, and hauls off and whacks her so hard it sounds like a loud clap.

  “NO!” the doctors shout in unison.

  A weird gagging noise comes out of Shannon, then a great big whoop of breath.

  “MOM!”

  “MARIE!”

  “HOLY SHIT!”

  “I swallowed it,” Shannon says in a tinny voice. A round of coughing makes her bark like a seal, then sigh.

  Andrew and Amanda come running back in.

  “I can breathe,” Shannon explains. “But I feel like there’s a basketball caught in my chest.”

  “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?” Dr. Porter’s voice is murderous steel, her finger in Marie’s face. “What on earth were you thinking?” Dr. Derjian opens Shannon’s mouth again and looks in, examining.

  Marie gives her a condescending look. “I am the mother of three girls and the grandmother to two boys. A good whack on the back is all anyone with something lodged in their throat needs.” She looks at Shannon with an exaggerated expression of patience and holds out her hand. “Spit it out.”

  “I said I swallowed it, Mom.”

  “No one swallows a -- what?” Marie gasps.

  “Your arrogance will kill someone,” Dr. Porter shoots back, making Marie go white. Her confidence is gone.

  “Mild lacerations and significant swelling,” Dr. Derjian says evenly, examining Shannon’s throat again. He’s clearly pissed at Marie, too. “What’s the metal?”

  “Platinum,” I say.

  “Good,” he adds, nodding. “No worries about allergies.”

  “She’s allergic to bees,” Marie says in a small voice.

  “I mean metal allergies,” he clarifies.

  “What now?” Shannon croaks out.

  “Water. Cool water,” Dr. Derjian says, turning to pour her some. “Sip slowly, through the straw. We’ll have to order X-rays now.” Dr. Porter glares at Marie but nods.

  “As long as the ring doesn’t get stuck, the only way out is through,” he says with a mild smile.

  “Through?” Jason asks.

  Derjian cocks an eyebrow. “Through.”

  Andrew chooses this moment to speak. “When you say ‘through’, you mean...”

  “It has to be pooped out,” Marie whispers.

  The two doctors nod.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Dr. Porter says. “We need to get visual confirmation that it’s in the esophagus, that it’s not perforating, and to make certain it continues to move through the digestive tract properly.”

  “I have to poop my own engagement ring out,” Shannon says, then clutches her throat, pounding on her chest. She looks remarkably like a mama gorilla.

  “Can’t you just crack her chest open and do surgery?” Marie asks, mortified.

  Shannon nods vigorously. “Please,” she whispers. “That would be so much better.”

  “Don’t talk,” Dr. Porter orders. She opens Shannon’s mouth and peers in. “The swelling may get worse before it gets better. Drink the cool water and don’t speak for a few hours.”

  “Maybe I should have you swallow a ring if it meant a doctor ordered you not to speak for a few hours,” Jason says to Marie.

  “I’m sorry!” Marie says to Shannon.

  “S’okay.”

  “Don’t speak!” I remind her.

  Shannon nods, motioning for my phone. I give it to her, but she’s shaking, tears pouring out of her eyes.

  “She has to poop the ring out,” Andrew says again. He’s not just Captain Obvious, he’s the CEO of Obvious, Inc.

  “Yes,” the doctors say. “Most likely,” Dr. Porter clarifies.

  Andrew looks at me. “You can totally have that ring, bro.”

  “No shit,” I say.

  “Um, actually, yes shit,” Amanda notes.

  We all groan. Except for Shannon, who just weeps quietly and pokes at my phone. She finally holds it up and I read:

  I’m sorry I swallowed your mother’s ring.

  It’s like a gut punch.

  I type back: I’m sorry I ruined your tiramisu.

  She reads it and gives me a choking laugh, plus a look with eyes filled with love and the future. It’s the first genuine moment we’ve had all day, the only moment not fraught with irritation or disaster, and all I want to do is clear the room and take her in my arms.

  “Congratulations,” Andrew says, shaking my hand.

  “She hasn’t said yes,” I point out.

  “You haven’t even proposed yet!” Shannon growls.

  “Shhhh!” Marie and Jason say to her.

  “She can’t say yes,” he replies. “Literally.”

  I try to hide my smile. “You’ll be my best man?”

  “Sure.”

  “Farmington Country Club?” Amanda asks, looking at Shannon, who just shrugs.

  Marie bursts out with, “Yes! An outdoor wedding!”

  “I take it back,” Andrew mutters. “Terry will be a good choice.”

  Amanda whacks him in the shoulder. “You are such a jerk! Get over your stupid phobia about being outdoors! You seriously would refuse to...”

  He holds his palms up in surrender and leaves. Amanda follows him, berating him. Their arguing voices fade as they get farther away. I’ll deal with my stupid jerk phobic brother later. Right now I have a ring-filled, not-quite fiancée who has to give birth to her own engagement ring. Through her butthole.

  A medical assistant walks in with an assortment of supplies, but the most noteworthy item in her hands is a giant stack of empty French fry trays. The red-and-white patterned kind.

  “What are those?” I ask.

  She looks at me and smiles, so chipper she could be a punk cheerleader. Long blue hair in pigtails. Bright blue eyes. She has a bandage over a tattoo and a hole in her lip where a piercing obviously normally goes. Braces. She looks young enough for Dad to date.

  “Oh, that’s to catch the ring!”

  “The—”

  “You’ll use those when you eliminate, Shannon,” Dr. Porter says to her. “Felicia here will give you a list of foods that will help speed up the process.” She pauses. “And tiramisu is not one of them.”

  “Then you assume this is the best course of treatment,” I ask. Marie, Jason and Amy have fallen silent, jaws slightly open, minds blown like mine.

  Dr. Porter looks at Shannon’s chart, hooks it to the end of the bed, and pats her foot, speaking directly to Shannon. “Let’s get you into X-ray and go from there, but most of the time just eliminating the foreign object and letting the digestive tract do its job is the least invasive course.”

  “You are going to shit diamonds,” Amy says to Shannon. She starts to clap.

  “A gold brick,” Marie adds with a knowing grin.

  “Platinum.” My correction goes unnoticed. I’m imagining Andrew right now, texting Dad, and the laugh they’re about to have about this.

  It’s not like dropping a phone in the toilet.

  “This will be the most expensive poop in history,” Jason adds.

  “Diamonds are forever,” Amy jokes. “Until you eat the prunes.”

  The medical assistant, Felicia, picks up the French fry trays and an instruction sheet. “So, Shannon,” she starts.

  Marie interrupts her. “Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘You want fries with that?’”

  I look at Marie, who starts to giggle. Jason joins in, followed by Amy. While it’s funny—it really is, on the face of it—the look of pure, unadulterated horror on Shannon’s face makes me realize my place in this world.

  Time to be the asshole.

  “Get out,” I demand, the words booming in the room, as if my voice is the only sound that matters.

  And it is.

  “You can’t make us just—”

  I cut Marie off. “Yes. I can.” Amy, Marie and Jason stand their ground.

  “Shan
non’s a grown woman who can—”

  “Shannon is a weeping pile of gorgeousness who is traumatized by swallowing the ring and now doubly traumatized by having a Keystone Kops family humiliating her, so you all need to leave!”

  My lovely future wife gives me a grateful look.

  Marie shoots Jason a look that might as well say Show your balls.

  He opens his mouth and says, “Declan, I know this is upsetting, and you feel guilty for being so reckless with your mother’s ring, but—”

  “OUT!”

  He flinches. Marie just gets angrier.

  The medical assistant now checking Shannon’s oxygen stats hands gives me a thumbs up.

  “Look here,” Marie blusters. “I know you think you’re this dominant—”

  That’s it. I move swiftly, my blood on fire. Shannon’s crying, Dr. Derjian is rubbing her shoulder, and the jokes are out of control. Amy gets to the threshold and hovers.

  All that’s left are Marie and Jason.

  “I am Shannon’s husband,” I declare.

  “Not yet,” Marie hisses. “And I’m her mother, and I need to make sure she’s okay.”

  “You are all that’s left that is making her not okay.”

  She looks like I slapped her.

  “Once we’re married, I’m her legal next of kin,” I stress. There is no way they’re winning this one. Tough shit, lady. I love you and your crazy family and your wonderful daughter, but I have had it up to here.

  And here, ironically, is where the ring got stuck in Shannon.

  “You’re not married yet.”

  “We can fix that easily within twenty-four hours.”

  Marie is horrified. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Try me.”

  Jason cocks one eyebrow.

  Shannon looks at him, then her mother, and just nods, pointing to the door.

  “You wouldn’t really just go to the courthouse and get married, would you? Without me there? Without the flowers and the dress and the cake and the helicopter and the President and—”

  At some point Shannon gets her hands on a notepad and a pen. She scribbles furiously and holds it up.

  It says:

  VEGAS

  “Noooooooooooo!” Marie moans.

  “Todd and Carol may have been onto something,” I say.

  Jason’s silent, just watching us all, eyebrows turned in with concern as he settles on Shannon. I look at her and she reaches for my hand.