05.20.2002
Danielle sat slouching on the torn orange plaid couch that was the centerpiece of my living room, sucking on a cigarette as I did the same across from her in the equally ugly recliner I had inherited from my grandfather. When the filtered smoke wasn't in her mouth, her thumbnail was and she tore at it nervously.
"I can't marry you," she said finally. "There's too much between us that wouldn't work out."
"Like what," I asked. I noticed that one of my sneakers was untied and began to fumble with the laces. I tied a sloppy knot that was the best my shaking fingers could manage.
"Toilet paper," she said.
"Danielle, we can work out the toilet paper issue," I pleaded. I hoped we could anyway. A weekend with her at my apartment usually meant a Sunday night run down to the corner drug store for a new package of four ultra-soft rolls. It was something that I didn't understand as I could make the same amount last for about a week per roll but I wasn't going to let that stop me.
"I don't know," she mumbled again. She reached for one of the ashtrays that littered the tabletops in my living room and dashed out the butt. Once satisfied that it was no longer smoking, she grabbed her soft pack and produced another, lighting it with a pink plastic Bic in one deft movement. After a deep inhale and exhale, her thumb was back in her mouth. "I don't like modern architecture," she said.
"Neither do I," I said happily.
"That's not true," she accused.
"Well, I don't like bad modernism," I corrected.
"But I don't like modern furniture either," she said conclusively.
"That's why we'll get a larger place," I said, not wanting it to be the final word. "I can have my one room the way I want it and you can do whatever you want with the rest of the apartment."
Another drag, another exhale and her thumbnail was again the victim of a vicious bite attack. I tried to look into her eyes as a means of showing how sincere I was but it proved difficult because the only things she looked at were her shoes and her gnawed on digits. I silently prayed that this wouldn't go on for long or she wouldn't have any hands left.
"What about our parents," she asked.
"I think they can take it," I said. "They lived through Kennedy after all. I think they can handle a wedding announcement."
"But I'm a catholic and you’re a protestant," Danielle pointed out.
"Yes," I agreed. "But we're both non-practicing and so are our parents."
I took by her silence that she agreed with me that it wouldn't be a problem. I glanced back at my own shoes and realized that the knot I tied had come undone from the ferocious shaking of my leg. I toyed briefly with the idea of trying again but gave up on the idea. I could tie my shoe later but I wanted to get engaged right now.
Seeing Danielle chain smoke through her nervousness almost made me regret that I had asked her tonight. We had been together for over a year and a half and, though I was sure that she was the one from our first date, I had held off for etiquette reasons until now. Tonight was supposed to be just another night in which she came over, we ordered in food and fell asleep together in front of the television while watching another sappy John Cusack romantic comedy but I had decided to alter the plan a little. Instead of sorting my pile of menus into places I'd most like to order from to least and picking up the night's video entertainment, I prepared a dinner for the two of us and purchased a Mingus import album the two of us had been jonesing for as the soundtrack. She knew something was up the minute she walked through the door, she just didn't know what it was yet.
After I asked the question, she seemed to fall into a trance in which she stared out into space and was unresponsive to outside stimuli for a few minutes, eventually emerging and repeating, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know," over and over.
"I love you," she said. "But I just don't know."
"Tell me why," I asked, and she began to. None of them seemed to be big enough for me to retract my proposal.
"What about my CD collection," she asked.
"What about it," I asked back.
"We'd have so many duplicates," she said.
"Well," I said, trying to think of a solution. "Your brother has no taste in music, we could always send them to him."
For once, she began to smile and I began to believe that it might actually happen tonight. "And we could do the same thing with our videos, I guess?" she asked.
"Sure I don't see why not," I grinned back.
"I don't know," Danielle said looking at the smoke the trailed from the end of her cigarette up into the air. "I smoke too much. What would you do if I died before you?"
"We both smoke to much," I said. "We'll die together."