Reverse Happy Hour

Applebee’s was certainly not Lupe’s first choice for dinner tonight; she was going for more of an Outback Steakhouse or a Texas Roadhouse vibe for the proposal. Something with ‘house’ in the name seemed fitting for starting a life with Maria. But, Maria wanted Applebee’s on Valentines day, so Applebee’s it would be. So that is how, on a chilly Tuesday night Lupe and Maria found themselves trekking through the pockmarked parking lot outside of the casual dining chain for reverse happy hour. Maria knew that the appetizers were half off from 9pm to close but she did not know that Lupe was preparing to propose to her sometime between the queso dip and the Triple Chocolate Meltdown. 

As they seated themselves at a high top table in the desolate bar area, Lupe felt for the small box in the pocket of her jacket to make sure it was still there, all the while hoping that Maria wasn’t picking up on her nerves. She pretended to study the menu with Maria as they waited for the server, but the loaded waffle fries and the mozzarella sticks blurred together with the celery sticks and buffalo wings as she plotted exactly when she would pop the big question. After dessert? Or, was it better to get the proposal out of the way in the beginning so that they could enjoy their meal and talk about their upcoming nuptials? The thick rubber soles of Lupe’s boots squeaked on the polished metal rim of the barstool footrest, making her flush with panic as she realized what an absolute buffoon she would look like bending down on one knee next to a high top table. She’d have to muster some sort of half squat, half kneeling stance and hope her legs wouldn’t give out. She suddenly wished she had taken the time to watch some YouTube videos on wedding proposal tips before dinner. Her mother’s nasally voice boomed into her head just then, chastising her for always rushing into things in a half-assed way instead of doing things the ‘right way’ like her hermanita perfecta, Isabele. But as she tried to push her mother’s voice into the periphery, Lupe felt a hot clutch rumble down her internal chambers and had no choice but to lift one buttock slightly higher than the other and let the flatulence pass, praying to God that it wasn’t a silent stinker, as Maria liked to call it. She looked around subtly, relieved to see they were the only ones in the bar area that night. Damn nerves. They were always messing things up for her. Luckily, Maria was completely absorbed in the appetizer selection and didn’t seem to notice Lupe’s stomach troubles.

Lupe was aggressively inhaling the air to inspect the pollutant levels as the server walked up to the table. He was an older man with a sour look on his face but she couldn’t tell if that was his normal demeanor or if he had smelled the fruit of her toot. She smiled at the server without making eye contact and nodded at Maria; her lovely bride-to-be always ordered first. Maria ordered enough food to feed every member of Lupe’s nephews’ tee-ball team twice over (go Mini Mavericks), so Lupe concluded the order with two diet cokes. After the menus were collected and the beverages delivered, Lupe reached across the table and took Maria’s hands into hers. God, Maria was beautiful. Round in all the right places, thick curly hair that playfully bounced off her shoulders, and smooth poreless skin that, even on her worst days, never required makeup. Sometimes Lupe wondered what Maria saw in her with her rough hands and her bloated waistline that, unlike Maria, expanded exponentially after every meal. Maria could mukbang every meal of the week and stay the same weight, but if Lupe even lingered in the same room as day-old cooking grease she seemed to gain a pound. But as Lupe held Maria’s hands under the dim yellow light of the hanging fixture above them, she reminded herself, for the thousandth time, that Maria was not her mother. Maria didn’t care about any of that. Maria loved her for who she was and never criticized her flaws, which was precisely why Lupe was going to propose to the beautiful woman in front of her tonight, on their first Valentine’s Day together. 

Just as Lupe opened her mouth to begin the prelude to her proposal, the first hot plate was thrown on the center of the table. “NachOOO’s,” the server shouted unnecessarily after he had made the delivery. Dish after dish after dish piled up on the small table so quickly that Lupe wondered if the cooks were fucking with them by trying to hurry them out so they could close down early and get back to the old hags waiting up for them at home. But Maria had no trouble keeping up and cleaned the plates as fast as they came out, only looking up occasionally to lick her fingers and say, “so good.” Lupe’s stomach, on the other hand, started to protest after the second round of queso dip. Sharp shooting pains and wet waves coursed through her pipes and left her with no choice but to wipe her sweaty brows with the napkin and lean back on the barstool for a breather. While she tried to regain her composure, she admired her girlfriend’s ravenous appetite while she silently recited the speech she had prepared in her head. Normally, seeing Maria endlessly pile-drive food into her mouth would have been a big turn on for Lupe; there was nothing sexier or more satisfying to her than seeing a beautiful woman eat to orgasmic satisfaction. But at this particular moment, perhaps due to her trepidation over the pending proposal or her aggressive intake of dairy that was curdling in her stomach and threatening to spill over the levee of her bowels, Lupe felt like her digestive system might expel any and all Applebee’s content if she witnessed Maria shovel one more thing in her mouth. She had to get away from the table, and fast. Her stomach felt like a boiling witch's cauldron that might slosh up or down at any moment, so Lupe did the only reasonable thing she could think of at that moment; she excused herself from the table to use the restroom.

Lupe rounded the corner out of the bar area and hastened her step as she made her way to the back of the restaurant towards the restroom. She kept her eyes focused on the floor and was appalled by all the crap (a dirty nickel under a booth, a translucent straw under a table, one half of one blue crayon nestled in the dirty grout of the tile) she saw as she passed by the server who had his back to her and was chatting with the kitchen crew through the rectangle opening in the wall. But when she got to the back corner, only an arms-length distance away from sweet relief, she was stopped in her tracks by a bright yellow safety sign warning ‘CAUTION- WET FLOOR’. The women’s door was open and she saw a short bald man mopping the tile floors, his back to her as he shimmied deeper into the labyrinth of stalls. Panicked and bombarded with pulsing sensations throughout the entirety of her lower region, Lupe’s survival instincts kicked into full gear and she quickly noted that the collapsible yellow sign was only in front of the women’s bathroom; the men’s side was unobstructed. Any port in a storm, Lupe thought to herself as she tackled the door to the men’s room, ran into the first stall and closed the door.

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed in the cold draft of the stall. Lupe stared down at the malaise-inducing brown floors beneath her, frustrated that she had no way of getting in touch with her fiance-to-be since she had forgotten her phone at the table. She imagined Maria asking the server if he had seen her girlfriend, perhaps walking the floor herself to inspect, maybe even peeking out the front door to make sure the old Jetta was still parked outside. Lupe hung her head in shame thinking about the server giving Maria a sympathetic shrug of his shoulders every time he walked by their table. And now her mother’s nagging voice crept in again, “Way to go Lupe, can’t say I’m surprised to see that you screwed it up once again. Maria will definitely leave your fat ass now. Why would she put up with your crap when she could find someone who is ten times richer and hotter? Pathetic, just pathetic.” She felt the hot weight of tears flood her eyeballs but she couldn’t let her mother win again, not here on the dirty toilet in the men’s room of a mediocre dining chain. But when, out of the corner of her watery eyes, she spotted Maria’s precious ring lying discarded outside of its box floating in a puddle of piss on the other side of the stall, Lupe could not suppress her rage any longer. In the rush of trying to get herself situated on the bowl, she had thrown her coat over the door and the little black box must have fallen to the floor. She pummeled the stall divider with her fists over and over again while shouting, at the top of her lungs, so many expletives that if this scene were being depicted in a cartoon strip the word bubble coming out of her mouth would have shown the following text: ‘%$@&*$&#$&^%!’ The ring that she had spent her life savings on and should be on the finger of the woman she loved most in this world was now defiled, along with her proposal.

Lupe railed on and on until her ragged voice cracked on each word but somewhere between her hoarse screams of mother and fucker, Lupe thought she heard the men’s door swing open. She paused for a moment and was suddenly aware of her animal-like panting and the putrid smell her sickness had produced in the confined, ill-ventilated space. She gave the toilet a courtesy flush for the poor bastard that had to share the bathroom with her, hoping he would just pee and leave her alone to rot the night away. But instead of hearing a stream of piss hitting the urinal, she heard the sweetest sound in the world.

“Lupe?” Maria asked with a huge question mark hanging on the ‘eh’ sound at the end of her name.

“Maria!” Lupe shouted, panicked but relieved to finally reconnect with her girlfriend.

“Something hit me, I got sick,” she stammered.

“What is this?” Maria asked.

“I don’t know what happened, I’m so sorry. I didn’t have my phone so I couldn’t text you and the women’s bathroom was closed so I had to use the men’s and my stomach is just so messed up. I’m so sorry for the smell honey, you really should leave and I can meet you at the table. Or, even better, why don’t you take the car home and I’ll get an Uber and meet you back at-”

“No, Lupe,” Maria interjected above Lupe’s yammering, “what is this ring on the floor?”

Lupe’s head snapped back in embarrassment. This was not how Maria was supposed to learn about her foiled proposal.

“Oh Maria,” Lupe groaned.

“Is this for me?” Maria said with a little squeal of excitement in her voice. 

Lupe pictured Maria’s beautiful but confused face on the other side of the stall and in that moment she wanted nothing more than to set fire to every Applebee’s in North America as payback. 

“Yes baby, it was supposed to be for you. I was planning on proposing to you tonight, but then I got sick and-”

“Supposed to be for me?” Lupe saw that Maria had bent down and picked up the rose-gold ring. “Are you not proposing to me anymore?”

“No…God no, I mean yes, yes I am still proposing to you, absolutely. But I want it to be right, not like this; this is awful.”

“This is perfect,” Maria said and squatted down while she extended her arm under the stall for Lupe to admire the ring she had slid on her finger. “Lupe,” Maria asked, “will you marry me?”

Lupe let out a guffaw but was then stunned into silence when she realized Maria was not joking. Was this beautiful woman really proposing to her?

“I love you Lupe, more than I’ve ever loved anyone. I love your sense of humor, I love that you are so generous, I love that little freckle that looks like an upside down rooster on your left thigh. I can’t imagine being so comfortable with anyone else. In sickness and in health, right?”

Tears fell down Lupe’s face as she shouted a resounding, “Yes!”