“Yeah, that’s what Ian said.” She was pointing at him now, but still not looking. “It’s not true?” Now she was looking like I was her old aunt who’d just been pushed in front of a bus. Her black and purple fascinator suddenly became a funeral mourning hat. She shot me a complimentary sad face.
Ian rolled his eyes to suggest that I simply agree with Scarlet.
“Oh . . . beau? Beau? You mean a boyfriend?” I asked.
“Yes, a boyfriend!” Scarlet’s smile returned.
“Yes, I do have a boyfriend. See, I don’t speak French,” I said with a bit of hidden sarcasm I was sure would make Ian laugh, but he didn’t.
He rolled up his little book some more. Wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead.
Scarlet frowned and then smiled tightly like maybe I’d just been disinvited from visiting the Institute on account of my not knowing what “beau” meant.
“Ian, you sure you’re all right?” I asked again. The color was slipping from his face.
Scarlet finally turned to him.
“Actually, you know what, Rachel, can I talk to you in the other room?” Ian asked.
“But we’re about to cut the cake,” Scarlet said. “I mean . . . aren’t you all about to cut the cake for me?”
“In a minute, babe,” Ian said. “I just need to talk to Rachel.”
“But what about my big birthday surprise?” Scarlet smirked coyly like a seven-year-old. I’d seen Ian fall to his knees for this display from her before.
“In a second, hon,” he said in a way that clearly shocked both Scarlet and me. “Rach—” He grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the room before Scarlet could find another reason to disagree.
On the other side of the suite was a king-sized bedroom Ian had decorated with rose petals all over the floor and bed, and white taper candles on the nightstand. It was clichéd, but much more than I’d ever expect from Ian.
“What’s up with you?” I asked, standing alone in the room with Ian after he’d closed the door behind us. “And why in the world did you lie and tell Scarlet I had a boyfriend?”
“I can’t do this, Rach! I can’t!” He threw the book onto the bed.
“Can’t what?” I knew what I was thinking he was saying, but I needed to confirm that he was saying what I was thinking.
“I can’t!”
“Can’t what?”
“You know
I didn’t even tell my parents? Who gets engaged without telling their parents? I can’t. They’re gonna hate this. They’re gonna hate her. My mother hasn’t even met Scarlet. Oh shit!”
“Can’t what?”
“And you know why I haven’t told them about her? I didn’t because I was afraid—I was afraid they’d try to talk me out of it.”
“Out of what?”
“Asking Scarlet to marry me, Rach,” Ian said, falling onto the bed. “I can’t ask her to marry me.”
“You can’t?” (Hiding my excitement here was quite difficult. But considering the distraught look on Ian’s face, with him laid out on the bed like a man about to undergo open heart surgery, I couldn’t break out the streamers and balloons just yet.)
“It’s just not right. There’s something that’s not right!”
I stood in front of Ian on the bed with my arms crossed.
“What’s not right? This morning you called me all excited about the ring from Namibia. What happened?”