Cheers

“I’m gonna put in drink orders,” Mark said to the waiter. “But I want you to ignore those. Instead, bring out a bottle of champagne. Something French—like a Canard-Duchêne, or I don’t know…something I can’t pronounce. Something fancy, I guess?” 

The waiter raised an eyebrow the same width and color as his stencil-thin mustache. “Special occasion?” The waiter said in a flat, Midwestern intonation. The way every Midwesterner feels the need to ask a polite though prying question whenever given any sort of instruction. 

No accent; that was a shame, Mark thought. Some sort of accent would’ve added to the night's romance. Foster a little intrigue and show Celia that Mark was cultured and important. But whatever, no accent was fine. So what if the waiter was just another wannabe actor from Indianapolis or Evanston pouring their drinks and serving their food? She’d still be impressed, right?  

Mark was twenty minutes early—he had actually been forty-five minutes early—but he took two–no, three–laps around the block to calm his nerves. He did that when he was nervous; he paced, or walked, or trotted, or ambled. It kept his body moving and slowed his thoughts still. 

At least, that’s what Celia reasoned. Celia reasoned through all of his idiosyncrasies. She reasoned that he didn’t like chicken because that was the only thing his Mom would cook for him growing up. She reasoned that he hated crowded bars because they made him feel lonely. She reasoned that he loved baseball because of fond childhood memories he must associate with it. Outwardly, he agreed with all of her deductions; she reasoned this was because she was brilliant and understood him perfectly. He knew it was because he had never learned how to tell a pretty woman that she was wrong.

“And, okay, one second.” Mark stuck his hand into his jacket pocket, then his left pant pocket, followed by the right, feeling a one-inch by one-inch box and knowing that wasn’t what he was looking for, reaching around it, and under it, and, finally landing on the item in question. A note card folded to the size of a quarter. “Sorry, sorry. Okay, here’s what we’ll be having tonight…” Mark proceeded to list off two appetizers, three entrees, and two desserts, butchering the pronunciation of every single one. For foie gras, he said, “foh-ee grass.” Steak au poivre? No, Mark said, “steak uh poo-ver.”. 

The interaction left the mustachioed waiter even more flummoxed, considering Mark’s request for a champagne that he couldn’t pronounce. The waiter figured that, at this point, he could present Mark with a bottle of Michelob to satisfy his initial instructions. “Okay, sir. Maybe just hand me your list, and I’ll pass it off to the chef.” Mark gulped at the table, adjusting his posture, ruminating on the waiters suggestion. Mark looked him up and down: scuffed shoes, tie slightly askew, shirt barely tucked in. Could he trust this guy with his list? What if he misplaced it? Or worse, what if he misread Mark’s handwriting and brought out some sort of chicken dish? 

While Mark sat wondering whether fancy French restaurants even served chicken the waiter said, “Sir?” Trying his best to hide his impatience.

“Okay, yes. Take it. But please, make sure that you don’t lose it.”

The waiter, displaying monklike restraint, resisted the urge to roll his eyes, “Of course, sir.” he turned in his scuffed shoes and shuffled away from the table, ready to be done with the rude prick. 

“Wait, one last thing,” Mark said. 

“Yes?” 

“Is there any way–and I don’t mean for you to take this the wrong way–but could you talk in an accent once she gets here?” Mark pulled out a crisp twenty-dollar bill from the same pocket where he had kept the list, no searching this time. The waiter grabbed the bill with a nod and a shrug; definitely a wannabe actor, Mark thought. 

Mark spent the next twenty–no, thirty, no, it might’ve even been thirty-five minutes–alternating between feeling self-conscious sitting at the table alone, going on his phone, then feeling self-conscious that fellow diners would judge him for feeling self-conscious and feeling the need to go on his phone while he waited for Celia to arrive. In the downtime, he prepared another list, this time of excuses she might offer up to explain her lack of punctuality: he had planned the dinner last minute (this wasn’t true; he had been planning for this exact occasion since they started dating fourteen months ago), the restaurant was hard to find (this was true but intentional; he didn’t want to go somewhere any shlub off the street could wander into), she had gotten caught up at work (this may have been true, but, in Mark’s mind, Celia’s job was a joke and didn’t qualify as an adequate reason for messing with his plans). Before Mark could think of a fourth reason–and switch his phone on and off for the fifth time–Celia arrived. 

Valentino bag in hand (he bought that for her), regaled in all gold jewelry (he bought that for her, too), she shuffled into the seat across from him. Mark noticed the bag (luxurious) and the jewelry (divine), but he didn’t notice how she backed into her seat. One leg hanging out from under the table, feet pointed towards the door like at any minute the sprinklers in the restaurant would go off and the entire night would be damp and ruined. 

“Sorry, got caught up at work. I have this big deadline coming up and Steve–you know Steve–my boss?” Celia looked at Mark expectantly; he blinked in response. “Anyways, he’s such a stickler for things. You know how it is–likes his Ts dotted and his Is crossed or whatever. But sorry, my bad, I’m running a little behind.”

Mark resisted the urge to check his phone and see how late she was, instead saying, “You’re fine. I figured something came up.”

She smiled weakly at him like she would smile tomorrow when Steve asked her what kind of progress she’d made on her big project, but Mark didn’t notice that either. His mind was elsewhere: on how well her bag went with her heels, on how much money he’d spent on her jewelry, on whether or not the waiter had lost his carefully prepared list, on when the best time would be to produce the one inch by one inch box in his right pocket. 

“So, drinks? A martini sounds great.” She said, knowing that was the only way she’d make it through the rest of the date. 

“Great idea,” Mark stood up from his chair, waiving down their slovenly waiter slouched behind the bar. Celia inhaled deeply, knowing that Mark was unaware that he looked like a jackass–because if he were, he would convulse on the floor in shame–but still feeling a deep sense of embarrassment over her partner’s lack of social graces when it came to service workers. She doused her contempt with thoughts of how satisfying her first martini would be.

“Yes, monsieur?” The waiter said, sounding more like Pepe Le Pew than Voltaire or Descartes. Mark ground his teeth, and Celia stifled a laugh. 

“Uh, yeah,” Mark said, “She’ll have a glass of Merlot, and I’ll have a Makers neat.” 

“As you wish, monsieur.” The waiter departed with a bow. Celia was so amused by the waiter’s hapless attempt at an accent and Mark’s evident frustration that she couldn’t even be mad at him for messing up her drink order, even though she hated reds.

Mark watched his heart rate jump on his Apple watch. He debated saying he had to go to the bathroom and asking for his twenty back from the waiter. No wonder the guy was working here, Mark thought; the useless jerkoff wouldn’t get cast in a McDonald’s commercial. Although that wasn’t entirely true, their well-groomed but shabbily-dressed waiter had actually just been cast as Inspector Javert in an off-Broadway production of Les Mis; the casting director had noted his French accent was impeccable. It was his big break, but in the meantime, he took great satisfaction in embarrassing pompous pricks in front of their beautiful girlfriends at his side job as a waiter.

Mark, while scrolling Instagram waiting for Celia to arrive, had read the quote: Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. Mark–himself more often being incompetent than malicious–took it to heart and now couldn’t believe their slovenly and no-doubt-foolish waiter had pulled one over on him. This, along with Celia’s first indication of genuine joy, was lost on Mark. 

Celia smiled lightly at him, asking, “So, how was your day?” Mark told her when they first got together, he hated small talk. Questions like, “Did you catch the game last night?” or “How’s the weather outside today?” made him want to claw his eyes out.

To some extent, that was true, but Celia had come to learn it wasn’t really small talk that Mark hated–it was small talk that wasn’t about him. As the simple How was your day? (a question he would never in a million years dream of asking another sentient being) elicited a ten-minute-long diatribe about the filth on his walk to work, the ineptitude of his assistant, the unbearable stress of his job, and the classic condescending reminder that it must be nice to work a simple job like her. 

Celia didn’t hate Mark, though her therapist told her that phrasing it like this wasn’t exactly an encouraging sign. She said she loved him. She told him, her family, and their friends that she loved him. But it was moments like this, moments where she saw through the fancy gifts and expensive dinners, that she resented him. Moments like this where she maybe even resented him because of the fancy gifts and expensive dinners. Because that’s all he was: fancy gifts and expensive dinners. 

Mark knew he loved Celia. In the same way, a stoned friend might tell you at a party they know quantum mechanics until you ask them to explain how exactly an electron is both a particle and a wave simultaneously. In the same way, an off-Broadway actor knows their lines until they have to belt them in front of a sold-out theater with a critic from the Times sitting in the front row jotting pithy indictments of the actor’s performance. In the same way, children know how to ride a bike until they have to make a left turn at the end of their driveway. Mark knew he loved her because he’d never thought that deeply about it. Hopefully, one day, he could. But for now, Mark was more concerned with the one-inch by one-inch box in his pocket, and where the waiter was with the champagne that Mark couldn’t pronounce, and whether or not the waiter had lost Mark’s list, and when the perfect time to pull out the aforementioned one-inch by one-inch box in his pocket would be. Once they had the champagne, he decided. 

Celia could see a look of consternation on Mark’s face–never a good sign. His wheel’s spinning always led to car wrecks and motocross accidents. She also noticed their waiter, handsome in a sort of disheveled-bohemian way, approaching with a bottle of champagne. Not what she or Mark had ordered, but she would drink it all the same. It definitely beat Merlot. 

“As you ordered, monsieur.” The waiter said, delicately popping the cork and pouring out two glasses.

“Thanks. You can go now.” Mark said. The waiter smiled and left the bottle on the table.

“Well, that’s not what we ordered,” Celia said between sips, smiling at him. “But it’ll do.” She watched Mark fidget in his chair like an ant having its legs pulled off. “What?” She said, “Did you order this?” Her expression quickly shifted from joy to surprise to horror. 

Mark could feel it now, the sweat on his palms, the lint in his pocket, the one-inch by one-inch box in his hand. The last thoughts that brushed through his head were of their future together: a white picket fence, 1.94 children (the average in the United States), a beagle, a blowout wedding, and how perfect their engagement photos would look on Instagram.

He dropped to one knee and popped the box open.

“Oh,” was all she said, then, “Mark?”

“Yes! Of course, I want you to be my wife!” 

Celia knew immediately he hadn’t heard her. He may have heard the words, but he didn’t understand them. 

“No, Mark. I–no–I don’t think so.” He was still on one knee, staring up at her, the one-inch by one-inch box glaring at her from his sweaty palms.

“What?” Mark said, the beginnings of a confused laugh leading to a hitch in his voice.

She wanted to say more, to explain to him why the issue was not him wanting her to be his wife but her not wanting to be his wife. Or to explain that she resented him for his love of money and things but did not hate him. Or to explain how much it bothered her that he never asked about her day and only ever complained about his. But she didn’t bother; she knew he wouldn’t listen. Instead, she pulled her other leg out from under the table and ran out the door, offering a meek “I’m sorry” as she strode past him still perched with his one-inch by one-inch box open on the floor. 

Mark’s senses were overloaded, barely able to process the sea of faces in the restaurant, gawking at him in horrified delight, let alone the earth-shattering rejection he’d just experienced. He wouldn’t process it for some time. He did the only thing he knew how to do when his mind was working on overdrive. Mark walked right out the door, hearing the waiter call after him, “But, monsieur, you never got to try the foh-ee grass!"