by Giselle Fox
She shook her head.
Since Brayden wasn’t ready to drive back into town, he put the guy in the back of his police car in the shade and left him there until an officer that was on duty was able to drive out to the house. In the meantime, someone gave him a bottle of water and a ham sandwich to keep him company before we all went back to the beach to have fun.
The DJ started up the tunes again and before long, the party was back on track. Then, Sherri made the announcement that it was time to toss the bouquet.
She took her position up on the balcony while the rest of us girls stood down on the beach. She turned her back and the DJ gave her the countdown. Denise slipped to the front of the pack and pointed her finger at me. “Get ready.”
Sherri tossed it over her shoulder and it sailed high into the air. A dozen women screamed all at once, but then Denise’s impossibly long arm eclipsed the sun. In what felt like slow motion, I watched her rise above everyone in front of me and tip it back in my direction. We had all gone up at the same time, but my fingers touched it first. When I landed, the bouquet was in my hand. Sherri spun around and shrieked with delight when she saw me holding it in the air. “Claire! I can’t believe it!!!”
The guys at the back started wolf-whistling and chanting Camille’s name. She ran over to me, beaming with delight. “Nice catch, baby!”
Denise wiggled herself between us and draped her lanky arms across our shoulders. “It’s just a matter of time, ladies. Just a matter of time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Things got wilder from there. The music got louder, the drinks got stronger. Everything turned up to eleven, and everyone, even Sherri’s eighty-nine-year-old grandmother, was dancing. Most of the men, including my dad, thought it was a hilarious idea to wear their ties on their heads. My mom finally looked like she was having a good time.
We lit the torches as soon as the sun began to set. Under the warm glow of firelight, we all danced and sang even when we didn’t know the words. Camille was in her glory, looking more content than I’d seen her in months. We danced close for the fast songs and closer for the slow ones and not a single person there looked at us strangely for it.
“You hang on to that bouquet,” Sherri’s grandmother told me, giving me a wink before she sashayed back to the bar. I felt incredible; drunk, in love, and completely enamored with my community. The ocean rolled steadily beside us, the air was cool and clean. My heart felt swollen with happiness, and I saw the same feelings every time I looked into Camille’s eyes.
Finally, it was time for some of the guests to leave, but not before Marjorie and my mother had enlisted them all to return the next day for the clean-up. Their names were put down on a long list and I knew that with Marjorie and my mom to answer to, no one would dare go back on their promise.
I kissed my parents goodbye and watched them drive off. Brayden stood out back and made sure that everyone planning to drive was within the legal limit. But even after the first wave of guests departed, the party on the beach was still going strong.
We walked back through the house. “I want to grab a sweater,” Camille said and pulled me upstairs. The night had cooled off a little and the breeze off the ocean was crisp and clean.
We went up to her room and both found something to put on. Camille pulled open the drapes on the glass doors and stepped out onto the balcony. I followed after her and we both took a seat on the long padded bench that overlooked the water. Music played below us, but most of the remaining guests were sitting around the bonfire on the beach. Sherri, Jarret, and a few others were shuttling cups of coffee down to the group.
“I think the caterers are packing up,” I said.
Camille closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath of air. We had both drank our fair share but we’d also spent most of the day eating, dancing, and re-hydrating to feel overwhelmed by it. Camille reached for my hand.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” I replied.
“Come here.”
“If I come any closer, I’ll be sitting on top of you,” I said.
“Mmm, that sounds nice.” She gripped my hand tighter and looked into my eyes; hers took a fraction of a second longer than usual to focus, but when they did, they were as blue and full of love as ever. She smiled at me. “I like your mind.”
I thought it was funny. “I like yours too,” I giggled.
“It’s aligned with your heart beautifully,” she said, gently stroking my chest with her finger. “That’s a rare gift.”
“Thank you,” I said.
She looked down at our interlocked fingers, and then brought them to her lips and kissed them softly. “This has been a good trip.”
“I know. It has,” I agreed.
She looked up at me. “It’s clarified some things for me.”
“Like what?”
She looked out over the water. “Every time I come back here, it feels like I get reacquainted with a part of myself. Singapore is the working me, Oregon is the playful me.”
I nodded. “Yep. Pretty much.”
“And I like them both, it’s just that I seem to forget the other when I’m away too long.”
“What should we do about that?” I asked.
“Marry me,” she said, turning to me.
I laughed.
“I’m serious.” She took hold of my hands and smiled back at me. “Am I making you nervous?”
“No,” I said, even though she may have been. Somehow she was looking less drunk and more clear with every passing second.
She rose and stood in front of me. “The champagne has given me a little courage, but that’s okay. I still know what I’m doing.”
“What… are you doing?”
Camille clasped my hands again. “I’ve imagined this moment so many times. I have a list of places where I thought it might happen. I had it narrowed down to two dates based on my schedule for the next six months.” She paused and looked around us, then focused back on me. “But this is perfect, isn’t it? This house, you and me; we started here. Though, it’s better that it’s not raining.” She took a step back and got down on one knee. “That’s better.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
She smiled up at me. Her eyes were clear and present, her smile was gentle and shy. She reached for my hand and held it softly in hers. “Claire, my beautiful, precious light; my gift, my blessing, my strength, my guide, my best friend, my lover, and my life, will you please, please marry me?”
I opened my mouth to reply, but no sound came out. My eyes flooded with tears. I wiped them away with the back of my hand and saw Camille’s beautiful smile shining up at me. “Yes,” I whispered.
Camille rose to her feet and pulled me into her arms. She pressed her lips to my cheek and kissed me. We both began to laugh and cry at the same time. I was completely overwhelmed and I knew that she was too. She’d been too excited to wait any longer, and I loved her for it. “You’re not going to forget about this in the morning, right?” I laughed.
She laughed with me and then lifted me off the ground. She spun me once in a circle and put me back down again. Then, she stepped to the edge of the balcony and grabbed hold of the railing. “She said yes!” she yelled triumphantly into the night. Her voice echoed off the water. She held her hands high in the air. The few friends that were sitting on the balcony below that understood what had happened, threw up their glasses in a cheer. Camille pulled me to the railing and then into her arms again. And then she kissed me, with everyone there as a witness.
“What happened?” I heard Sherri’s voice yell from below us. Then she popped her head out through the glass doors. “What did I miss?”
I looked down at her, beaming from ear to ear. “Camille asked me to marry her… and I said yes.”
Sherri did a little jump in the air. “Jarret! Camille popped the question!”
“Righteous! Righteous!” I heard him bellow. He emerged, carefully balancing a tray of coffee with a bottle of Iris
h cream tucked under his arm. “Would the brides-to-be like a celebratory caffeine boost?”
“Maybe in a little while,” I said down to him. “I think we’re going to just… enjoy the moment right now.”
“Soak it in, ladies. It’s the best feeling in the world,” he replied.
I looked into Camille’s eyes and saw everything that I was feeling mirrored back at me: excitement, elation, hope. I imagined our pasts flowing into a slowly converging stream, joining forces in the present, building a future. Our hands were interlocked at our chests. Camille smiled back at me, then bent her head and kissed the tops of my fingers one by one. “This one is missing something,” she whispered, kissing the ring finger of my left hand. Her eyes lifted and looked into mine again.
“I’m not missing anything right now,” I said. “I have you.”
“You have me for life.” She took my hand and pulled me into the bedroom. “Come.”
I followed beside her until she led me to the foot of the bed and sat me down. Then she kissed my forehead and crossed the room.
“Where are you going?”
“Right here,” she replied. She pulled open her closet door and pushed the clothes hanging on the rack to one side. She flicked on the light, revealing a square white panel that blended with the wall. She gave it a push and it sprung open.
“Is that a safe?” I asked, more intrigued by the fact that I’d never noticed it there before than curious as to why she might be opening it.
She punched a string of numbers into the key panel and then pulled open the metal door. Her hand emerged clutching something. “Close your eyes,” she said, smiling over her shoulder at me.
The nerves in my belly began to jump and trip over themselves. “What is it?” I whispered.
I felt her kneel down on the floor in front of me. “You’re kneeling again,” I laughed, but I was shaking.
“Hold out your hand,” she said softly, and so I did. I felt the cold weight of something angular and smooth in my palm. I touched it with my fingertips, tracing the outline of its shape. It was a ring.
“You can open your eyes now,” Camille said.
I looked down at my hand and my heart surged. “Oh my gosh, it’s beautiful.” I was staring down at a square white diamond set atop a band of white gold. Surrounding the setting were smaller round stones, all glowing with pale blue light. “They’re like your eyes,” I whispered. The tears began to spill again, blurring my vision. Sparkles from the ring’s facets splintered off around me.
Camille took the ring from my palm and slid it onto my finger. “It belonged to my grandmother, Camille. My father gave it to me to give to you.”
I looked up into her shining eyes. “John knows about this?”
Camille nodded. “When you were away, I told him that I was going to ask you to marry me. He was so happy that he gave me this.” She smiled down at the ring. “I’m sure he’ll have something to say about me deviating from the plan and proposing here, though.” She stroked her finger over the face of the big white diamond. “I remember holding her hand and being mesmerized by this stone. I used to play with it on her finger. It’s been locked in a safe since my grandfather died.” She looked up at me again. “Do you like it?”
“I love it. The stones are the same blue as your eyes.”
“They’re like hers too, that’s why my grandfather chose them when he had the ring made. The center diamond has a story. I’ve never been sure whether it’s true or not and my father doesn’t know either. Though he said it wouldn’t have been like my grandfather to make something like that up.”
“Tell me,” I asked.
“He had been working for a shipbuilder in India. One day, he was stopped by a man at a train station who said he had been robbed and had lost everything. No one else in my grandfather’s group believed his story, but my grandfather believed him and gave him the money he needed to get back to the town where he lived. Weeks later, a letter arrived for my grandfather at the shipyard where he was working, asking him to attend a wedding. It was signed by the man. My grandfather went, never expecting him to be wealthy nor that he would treat him like royalty. And after the wedding ceremony, the man gave him this stone as repayment for his debt at the train station. My grandfather tried to refuse, saying that he had only done what any gentleman would have, but the man insisted, saying that if he hadn’t got home the day he did, he would have missed his chance to ask the woman he loved to marry him and that no amount of riches could have helped him endure a life without her. He told my grandfather that he was certain that his simple act of human kindness would allow him to one day meet his true love and that when he did, he should give the stone to her as a gift. A few months later, my grandfather met Camille.”
I thought I might start to cry all over again. “That’s so beautiful.”
“I know. They were so in love. Even when I was little I could see it. My grandmother always told me that one day I would find the love of my dreams. She never said man, not even once. I always wondered if she knew about me, even before I did.”
I imagined grandmother Camille wearing that ring on her finger and my Camille as a little girl gazing down at it, just as she was doing at that very moment. I imagined John opening up the safe and letting the ring sparkle in the light after so many years in darkness. A timeless symbol of his parent’s true love, gone but not forgotten.
How John must have felt when he gave it to Camille, knowing she planned to give it to me. The depth of his acceptance felt so comforting. I’d been given a place in their family story and felt so incredibly honored to bear that gift. To continue the fairytale of true love, to be given the chance to continue that line and perhaps, one day, to pass the ring on to our own son or daughter filled me with pride. “I’ll wear it always,” I said, cradling it in my hand. “I feel like a princess.”
“You are,” Camille said.
“Like… for real?” I asked after a few seconds.
Camille grinned.
“What happens when a vaguely French princess by descent marries an American commoner?” I asked, mostly joking but nevertheless a teensy bit curious.
“I’m not sure but I can look into it. Maybe we’ll get a goat or something useful,” she said, laughing. She stood up and sat on the bed beside me. She curled the fingers of her right hand through my left and then turned our hands over again. She gazed proudly at the ring. “I love seeing it on you.”
“Are you sure you trust me with something this precious?”
“That depends; how well does it fit?” she asked, laughing.
“Pretty snug,” I said, giving it a wiggle. “I don’t think it’s going anywhere.”
“My grandmother wore it every day. I even remember her digging in the garden with it on. She said she was more likely to lose it if she took it off and left it somewhere for safe keeping.”
“Then I’m sure I’ll get used to it,” I said. “But I have a question.”
“What?”
“If you had planned on proposing someplace else, why did you have the ring with you?”
Camille grinned. “I’ve been carrying it with me since I got it back from the jeweler. They checked the setting and sized it for your finger.”
“And how did you know what size my finger was?”
“I measured it while you were sleeping one morning several weeks ago. You were practically catatonic, but then you woke up and I was sure I’d been caught. Then you started sleep-talking about having to catch a ferry. It was priceless.”
“Oh my gosh, I totally remember that morning!”
“When I got it back from the jeweler, I meant to put it in the safe at home, but I couldn’t let go of it. I’ve been carrying it with me for weeks. Probably shouldn’t have done that.”
“I’m glad you did,” I said. “Thank you for the wonderful surprise.”
“Thank you for saying yes,” she whispered. She pressed her forehead to mine and then sighed. “I never want to take you away from t
his place. Your family, your friends - these are your people, they’re part of you, they helped make you who you are.”
“Thank you. I need this place,” I whispered.
“When I’m here with you, I don’t feel like a visitor. A part of me belongs here too. That’s why I love coming back so much.” She gave me a serious look. “This is a very small town, though. We should tell your parents soon before they find out from someone else.”
I sat bolt upright. “Oh my gosh, you’re right! What time is it?”
“They didn’t leave that long ago. They might still be awake.”
I searched the surfaces around me. “Where do you suppose I left my phone?”
“I haven’t seen you with it since this afternoon. Use the landline,” Camille suggested.
Suddenly, I was scrambling to find a handset that hadn’t been left off of its charger. The one in the bedroom was completely dead. I ran downstairs, searching for another.
“Everything okay?” Jarrett asked when he saw me.
“Do you have a phone I could borrow?”
“Not on me. Ask Sherri.”
I went out onto the deck. “Sherri, can I use your phone?”
“I didn’t bring it,” she said.
“You can use mine,” Denise said and pulled it from her pocket. “Never mind, it’s dead. Sorry.”
It was like the universe was playing a joke on me.
“What’s the panic?” Sherri asked.
“I want to tell my parents Camille proposed before they find out from someone else.”
Sherri stood at the edge of the balcony. “Hey, who has a phone? Claire has to make a call.”
A few hands went up around the bonfire. I ran down there and took the first one in line. I dialed my parent’s number and waited. By that time, Camille had followed me down to the beach and was standing beside me. “It’s ringing,” I said. It rang a bunch of times with no answer. “They must be home by now,” I said.
I let it ring five more times and was about to hang up when my dad’s husky voice answered. “Um… hello?” He sounded out of breath.
“Dad?”