::TWENTY FIVE::
“Vetter…..” Alvarez’s boot kicks me under the desk, bringing me back to the present. I guess I was daydreaming again. I just can’t get Jeanette out of my head. This day is going too slow, I can almost hear every second dragging by.
“How long have you been kicking me this time, Alvarez?” He’s leaning back in his chair grinning at me again. The pile of work he started out with is gone. I must have been out for a while.
“About five minutes. This time.” He had to shove me out of the way earlier when I went for coffee. I had stopped to look out the window, looking across at the mountains made me think of her again. The coffee was ice cold by the time I moved but I drank it anyway, I doubt I even tasted it, there could have been anything in there. I’m a mess today, and I probably should have just stayed home. “Here, give me that.” He reaches out to take the cluttered stack of papers I was working on. I spilled coffee on one of them at some point, the stain already dry. I didn’t even notice. Alvarez straightens it out into some sort of order before jamming it into a folder and leaving it on his side of the desk. “We’re going for lunch. Maybe get you some fresh air.” He’s laughing out loud at me, pointing at my jacket hanging over the back of the chair. It’s warm outside and I was going to leave it. “You’re already clocked out, Vetter, come on.”
I’m in a fog, looking up at the time. It’s only one o’clock and I still have three hours before I can see her. At least at work I could pretend I wasn’t thinking about her, even if I wasn’t doing a particularly good job of it. What am I going to do for three hours at home without her?
Alvarez is taking a turn at the lobby, heading for the exits, instead of the deli cart. “Where are we going…?” He turns back to look at me, just shaking his head and continuing out to the car.
He stops at the edge of the parking lot once we clear security and turns to look at me. “Have you thought about buying her a ring yet, Vetter?” Have I thought about a …I’m gaping like a fish again, swallowing hard, no sound coming out. I can feel myself getting pale and my ears fill with that high pitched buzzing sound that makes it hard to hear the rest of what he’s saying. He had asked me earlier if I was going to ask her when we got back. Ask her to marry me. I couldn’t answer then either.
“Fuck, Alvarez, maybe this would be easier after all if I just got really drunk this time too.” My voice sounds funny, like it belongs to someone else. I run my hand over my face again, my skin feeling cold and clammy. Alvarez said we were going for lunch but I know that if I eat anything I’m going to throw up.
“Breathe, Vetter. Don’t you dare pass out on me.” He reaches across the car and punches me in the arm. I hardly felt it. Laughing, he turns into a small parking lot beside a strip of stores along one of El Paso’s nicer shopping streets. “I know you’re nervous. Hell, scared to death would seem to fit, but you’ve at least thought about it. Are you prepared to buy her a ring?”
“Prepared..” The word sounds funny, dragged out and slow, like I’ve had too much to drink already. “Yeah, Alvarez. I’ve put money away for a ring for her, I….”
“Yea, I know, you’re scared shitless, and, left to you, you might ask her sometime in the next century. So, come on.” He’s out of the car and around to my side before I’ve even stood up. “Breathe, Vetter, it’s going to be okay, once you get started it’ll be easier.”
He has a hold of my arm, watching me for a moment before slamming the car door, the sound not even really registering with me. Patting my back, before we stop at the jewellery store, and wait to be buzzed in. “Thanks, Alvarez.” It’s all I can manage. It’s not nearly enough.
It’s darker inside, making everything harder to see for a minute until my eyes adjust to the low lighting. Quiet music playing from speakers hidden artfully behind the display cases. Small pot lights over cases of jewellery arranged against blue or burgundy velvet, blue for the silver stuff, and gold on the other. A well dressed woman in her fifties, her hair and makeup perfect, stands when we enter, her smile wide and friendly.
I still feel too pale. Maybe it would have been easier to just have Jeanette choose her own ring. Maybe this was a bad idea. That’s the idea that finally does it for me. None of this is a bad idea, I won’t accept that, I won’t. Her face is so clear before me, her beautiful dark eyes watching mine. Wanting her so badly to say yes, to spend the rest of my life with her. “Jeanette….” Her name is a whisper as I exhale, my eyes closed, picturing her so clearly I can feel her. Just the sound of her name calming me, or at least making it so that I won’t turn and leave. I need to do this, I need Jeanette in my life.
“How may I help you gentlemen today?” Even her voice is cultured, with barely a trace of a Texas drawl, her eyes clear and intelligent as she looks at Alvarez, back to me.
“You okay, Vetter?” His hand is on my arm again, his eyes watching me carefully, worried that I might faint I guess.
I nod at him, feeling a little steadier. “I am now. Thanks, Alvarez.” One way or another I’m going to have to find a way to thank him.
The lady behind the counter has stayed still, looking politely at us both while I pulled myself together. I step forward, at the same time reaching for my wallet with it’s tiny length of string, the two black dots at either end, where I wrapped it around her finger in her sleep. My hand shakes as I pass it to her, feeling emptier somehow, having given it away to someone else, even for a moment.
I can feel myself fidgeting, biting my lip, swallowing hard. I was nowhere near this nervous when Stacy picked out her ring. Of course, she had already gone with some girlfriends, and picked it out ahead of time. I didn’t have to choose it, she wanted it, loved it, and nothing made me happier than paying for it that day, and seeing her wear it. I want to remember everything this time and to be a part of everything. My thumb plays over the metal edge of the display case as the woman wraps the string around a metal rod, adjusting it a couple of times, before saying the number six. I have no idea what she means.
“A size six. I went a little bit bigger, in case she needs to have it resized.”
“Could..” I swallow past my the lump forming in my throat. “Could I have that, please?” I don’t know if she would have thrown the piece of string out, but for some reason I wanted that little piece of Jeanette back. I don’t look up again until it’s tucked into a corner of my wallet where it won’t get lost.
“Perhaps this would be easier if you gentlemen had a seat, and we could look at your selections there?” There’s a small seating arrangement beside one of the displays. Two chairs facing each other across a low black table, that same subtle lighting overhead. I don’t know if that’s how it’s done, or if maybe she’s worried about me fainting too, but it’s a small comfort to be sitting. It stops the room from spinning.
Alvarez leans his hip against the arm of the chair, his arms crossed, looking completely comfortable and at ease. The saleslady looks at me, before looking up at Alvarez, ready to ask him.
“I’d…” I swallow hard again, thinking of Jeanette. The woman looks back at me again, smiling gently, maybe so I won’t run screaming from the store. “I’d like to see a selection of engagement rings, please.” Every word felt funny, like walking through deep water, every step a struggle not to be swept under but somehow I got the words out. She takes one discreet look down at my wedding ring, saying nothing, before smiling sweetly again as she gets up, moving behind the counter to unlock display cases. Setting up a stack of boxes on the counter top before coming back.
“The payback for this is going to be worse than kazoos, isn’t it, Vetter?” Alvarez looks down at me, a smirk pulling up the corners of his mouth. Payback wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. I’ve had a lot of friends in my life, people I trusted with my life. Alvarez is definitely at the top of that list right now.
“Maybe Jeanette and I can find a nice big drum kit while we’re away.” It feels good to joke around with him and it helps me get my feet back on the ground. She comes back, arranging the small trays of rings, on burgundy velvet, on the table in front of me. Her voice fades into the background, a quiet murmur, talking about cut and clarity and, lastly, cost. At some point she politely looks up, realizing I’m not really listening but not taking it personally. Without skipping a beat she smoothly continues the conversation with Alvarez, as I look over the rings she’s brought out.
Maybe this would be easier, if Jeanette picked her own ring, as I had Stacy pick out hers. Easier, but not better. I have looked at the ring Jeanette wore, at John’s ring, and wanted her to wear mine. One I chose for her. I reach out to touch one ring, after looking up quickly at the woman, who diverts all of her attention to me again, smiling at me as I picked it up, to look at it closer. It’s beautiful and simple, and something I know in my heart that she would love, that she would want. That she would wear.
She’s watching me intently as she goes into a detailed description of the ring and it’s attributes. Stopping after a moment in mid sentence to just look at me and smile sweetly again. “I’ll just have that one boxed for you and we can arrange payments then?” All I can manage is a nod, my fingers running over the edge of the ring before I hand it back.
“That wasn’t so bad after all, Vetter. Here I was thinking they’d have to bring in the paramedics to get you kick started again.” My hand runs over my face again as I lean back, laughing a little.
“If I had come in here myself I probably would have.”
“You’d do fine. Maybe you would have looked really nervous to her though, ” He’s pointing up at the saleslady as she locks all of the rings back into the display cases. “Maybe she would have thought you were going to jack the place and shot your ass full of lead or something. That would be pretty hard to explain to Jeanette I think.”
Biting my lip against a wave of near hysteria, I look up as the saleslady brings back the ring, now in a small black velvet box, and some paperwork. Alvarez looks at me and laughs, his hand on my shoulder, “They always get you with the paperwork, Vetter.”, before he gets up and walks over to the window, letting me deal with the finances myself.
When I bought Stacy’s ring I paid for it in full. I had saved for over a year, saving everything I had over that summer, to do it and I never forgot that feeling when i slipped the ring on her hand, knowing that it was mine, and then that it was hers. I pay for Jeanette’s in full, waiting in the small chair, leaning back and pressing my hands over my eyes, waiting for her to come back after the bank clears it.
The small box seems to take up so much more space, so much weight, when she hands it to me. Holding a key for Jeanette all day had made me a nervous wreck. How will walking around with an engagement ring be easier? The saleslady takes a moment to congratulate me for my impending engagement, wishing me well. Her eyes flicker again discreetly to my wedding ring, a movement she hid rather well, as she got up.
“My girlfriend and I are both widowed. We both still wear the rings.” For now. I’m guessing that’s going to change, when I ask her. She’ll have to take hers off, and I can’t wear mine forever either. I know I don’t have to explain, but it feels good to say it anyway. Her smile brightens considerably, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she pats my arm lightly, before standing again. Her congratulations sound less practiced, and more sincere, her accent thickening as her mask drops.
I hold onto the back of the chair as I stand, but it isn’t necessary. I feel like I’m floating, like I’m weightless. Alvarez is beside me, I guess he might be worried about me too, but I’m fine. Grinning like a fool again, but fine. The outline of the velvet ring box in my pocket is a strange warm weight against my thigh and I have to make a conscious effort not to take it out and look at it again.
“Come on, Vetter, lets go find something to eat.” Alvarez stays a step behind me as we walk out to the car. Far enough away that he doesn’t look like he’s holding me up, but close enough to catch me if I flake out. I still haven’t entirely ruled that out yet. Fortunately I’m sitting down when I think of asking her to marry me.
We take a seat outside the diner at a picnic table close to the car. I didn’t think I was hungry when we left but my nerves got the best of me, and I wolfed everything down, feeling a little less light headed for it. I’ll be fine. I guess the worst of it is over. Alvarez is standing but hasn’t made a move to the car yet and appears to be taking his time digging out his keys, even dropping them once. I’ve never seen Alvarez drop anything in the entire time I’ve known him. I get about halfway back to the car when everything comes up, and I’m puking my guts out next to a scrabble of bush. He’s holding me up while I lose the rest of my lunch. “Fuck…..”
“Better?” He helps me back to the car, my legs shaking the entire way, rolling the window down for me. “Don’t you dare puke in my car, Vetter. Sandro threw up in the back seat last year and I had to have the damn thing detailed half a dozen times to get the smell to stay out.” Squatting down beside the window he’s watching me, a smirk on his face but not in his eyes. My hand rests on the window, still shaking from throwing up, as our knuckles hit, neither of us saying anything for a minute. He gets up and walks back into the diner, coming back out with two coffees.
“I probably should have just stuck with the coffee in the first place.” It feels damn good going down, settling my once again empty stomach instantly.
“Wouldn’t have been nearly as funny to watch though. Shit, Vetter, you really can throw for distance.”
He’s pulling into my driveway before we both stop laughing. “Are you going to be okay to drive to pick her up later, or do you want me to come back for you?”
“I should be all right by then.” I get my hand over my mouth before I start laughing again. “As long as I don’t eat anything that is.”
“No going out for dinner with Jeanette….” He was about to say something else but can’t finish, breaking into a laugh of his own.
“Thanks, Alvarez. I would have probably kept putting that off.”
He leans against the side of the car in the driveway. “I didn’t really get much of a look at it, Vetter.” I take the box out of my pocket again, leaning against the car next to him. The august sun sends prisms of light off the solitaire, the warm glint of gold underneath.
“Do you think she’ll like it?” He hands the box back to me, closing it with a snap. I hold it in my hands for a moment before putting it back in my pocket.
“I think she’d say yes to you even if you didn’t have a ring, Vetter.” He pulls me into a quick hug before letting me go and getting back into his car, waving as he pulls out of the driveway. Yelling when he gets to the street. “I’ll be here at eight tomorrow to pick you two up.” Waffles. He’s going to make us waffles before we go.
I make a half hearted effort to pack in the couple of hours I have left until I go pick up Jeanette, before giving up and doing what I know I really need to do. Standing at the doorway with my cup of coffee I hesitate, leaning against the doorjamb until my nerves are steady again. I need to pull myself together, if I’m ever going to be able to ask her at all. I love her, and I don’t want to stumble and stutter and say something stupid to her. I want to remember every word. I want to be here, fully, for all of it. Not get really drunk and say who knows what because I love her so deeply she makes it hard to think straight.
I put my coffee down before sitting on the top stair, looking out across my yard. Taking the ring out of it’s box, letting the light play across it again, before saying the words, running them over in my head first, so that I’ll be able to say them when the time comes to ask her.
“Jeanette, will you marry me?”
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