A long stream of breath left his nostrils as his eyes veered towards a rolling silver cart in the corner of the restaurant.
“Cake? Would a piece of cake make you feel better?”
She began to let the corners of her mouth rise as her eyes rose to meet his.
“Yeah? Cake? Alright, we’ll get you some cake. Chocolate or vanilla?”
“Strawberry.”
“Excuse me sir, could you tell me how much a piece of strawberry cake is?” He flagged down a waiter.
“We don’t sell strawberry cake by the slice, sir. If you want to buy the whole cake, I can sell it to you for $43.00”.
“Thank you, we’ll talk it over”.
Both of their eyes returned to picking out the colors mixed into the speckled carpeting under their table.
He reached across the table and pulled her hand closer to his. Wrapping his index finger and thumb around her ring finger, he pulled off a sparkling golden gem and slipped it into his pocket.
“Woah.. what are you doing? That’s my mom’s ring!”
She reached across the table to grab it from him but was stopped by his hand in her face. He flattened his fingers over her nose and stretched them out between her cheek bones as she began to giggle and struggle to pry his hand away.
He smiled and let go after a moment. Leaning in and whispering to her he said,
“You’ll get it back, I promise”. And he winked.
She settled back into her chair and folded her arms in front of her.
“I’m going to use the washroom, don’t flee the country before I get back”.


In the moments before he returned from the bathroom, she’d contemplated several rational things and several irrational things. Rationally, she made the conscious choice to improve her mood. This being the only day of the week that she left her house, she began despising herself whenever she ruined it with her terrible mood swings. Only a moment ago she was laughing at Owen’s impression of the man who lived above her. She began wondering what type of person can decide that life isn’t worth living within seconds of doubling over in laughter.
Probably crazy people.
Irrationally, she began wondering what type of windows were in the bathroom of this place. Had she ever been to the bathroom? Yes. She’d been to the bathroom but the windows were the kind with glass blocks that made her face look like it’d been mashed in. Those were cemented to the wall. But maybe if she stole a blunt object from the kitchen on her way in, she could smash them in and climb out. She began blissfully imagining her escape home with sweat dripping over her eyebrows and her heart racing in her chest. She would leap over the bushes in front of her building and turn the same key in both front doors, flipping it upside-down for the second door and slam it behind her. And pressing her sweaty back against the door she would let her head fall back against it and light a cigarette. She would breath it in deep and exhale, watching her reflection in the mirror by the door become engulfed in a cloud of smoke. As the smoke cleared, she would see her lips grinning and her eyes calm and serene.

“Excuse me ladies and gentlemen!”
She could hear Owen’s voice booming from the opposite side of the smoking section as every table fell silent. While every patron shifted themselves to face this scruffy looking, long haired boy, Genie began emptying the contents of her bag onto the table as she began feeling vomit rise in her chest.
“I’d like your attention please on this most special of days. If you’ll look towards the window you will see a girl sitting alone. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the love of my life. She’s beautiful isn’t she?”
Genie’s face flushed immediately. She felt nothing but hatred.
The entire restraunt began ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’.
Owen’s grin remained as he walked slowly towards her and her eyes bore holes into his forehead.
“Ladies and gentelemen, I want you to know that you are about to witness the most important thing that I will ever say to anyone. Genie, here, this beautiful, delicate flower…”
Her eyes began to tear up out of utter distain for him.
“…is the absolute love my life. And I am quite sure, at this moment, that there is no one else in the world I would want to spend my life with. Forever and always, Genie…”
He lowered himself on one knee.
“Will you marry me. Please…be my wife, my love, forever.”
The entire restraunt fell completely silent as they stared at her.

Her mind drifted for moment. These people knew nothing about her or Owen. For all they knew, he could be an abusive heroine addict who runs over squirrels in the street. But they all sat there in anticipation, assuming, for their own romantic satisfaction, that Owen was the most wonderful boy in the world and knowing that, without a doubt, she would remain forever in their minds, a horrible, heartless bitch if she denied his pure intentioned offer. Every person in this room, no matter how they denied it to themselves, had been drilled since the start of their existence to believe in this hoaky nonsense. Any man proposing to any woman in a public place instantly becomes their “knight in shining armor” and the woman immediately becomes his “damsel in distress”, finally reaching the moment in her life where she has been rescued by his terribly romantic proposal. Furthermore, if she said yes, this would become their story for months to come. They would get all misty-eyed while telling everyone they encounter of the true act of love they had witnessed last Saturday. “We were just sitting there eating and then all of a sudden…” they would say, as if it happened to them. This was their reassurance, their hope that this sort of cinematic moment actually existed in the real world. None of them would know if they ever went through with the wedding or if they’d gotten divorced six months later, and none of them would want to. These people were only concerned with this single moment, the moment where whatever ordinary conversation they were having had been interrupted by a moment of, what they believed to be, extraordinary beauty.
However, none of this was relevant because she was sure this was Owen’s idea of a joke. His face remained sincere but his eyes were doubled over in laughter as they looked up into hers that were contemplating throwing her drink in his face.
“Please Gene, make me the happiest man in the world”.
She shifted her eyes to the door, planning the quickest maneuver out, and noticed their waiter from before standing by the host’s podium, his face illuminated under a flicker of candle light. She looked back at Owen and he winked at her.
“Yes. Yes I will. I’ll marry you.”
The entire restraunt stood up and burst into cheering and clapping as the waiter arrived at their table. Owen embraced her, lifting her off the ground and spinning her around, kissing her mouth for effect.
“We’ll have this in a box please, we’ll eat it when we get home”. He grinned at the waiter as he turned to leave.
They ran out of the restraunt holding a large paper bag with the guests inside still applauding their engagement. Without a word, they crossed over clark street and rushed across the bridge.
“Meet me down there”, he said.
But she waited outside as he ran into Corner Bakery.
Clutching two sets of plastic flatware, he followed her down the winding cement staircase that framed the Chicago River and lowered himself down to the second stair next to Genie, who had already opened the box. And there, as the sun began hiding behind buildings behind them, Genie and Owen sat silently, sliding plastic forks into strawberry engagement cake.