Why couldn’t he just hurry up and pop the question, for Chris’sake? Did he have to study his lines and finish every last dried-out piece of grapefruit? I was desperate for the Tums but going to the car meant getting dressed and I would no longer be in the sexy white silk robe I had purposely donned for the proposal. Brett slurped his last shred of grapefruit and started scraping away at the inside of his eggshell. He turned to another page in his script and began making notes.

I could set the mood. Put on music. The TV had one of those built-in radios; I would find something romantic. “Be right back.”

“Uh-huh.”

I went inside and fiddled around on the dial but found mostly static or news. Why, in an area with more rich people per capita than anyplace else in the world, could they not manage to come up with decent reception? Only the talk radio station came in clearly. The Dr. Dave Show was on.

“…way I could find out was by checking his emails.”

“Well, how honest have you been with him about your actions and…”

I switched off the radio. In the bathroom, I splashed water on my face, re-brushed my teeth, re-applied my lip gloss, and went back onto the deck, picked up my coffee, and opened the complimentary copy of the Times. If I did normal things, I would begin to feel normal. I read the same paragraph over and over as I tried to regulate my heart rate.

Brett stretched his legs.

“Gotta use the little boys’ room.” He rose, pushed aside the service cart, and disappeared through the curtains. A flock of seagulls in symmetric formation swooped past the balcony like dive-bombers. I covered the basket of rolls to protect it. They were awful scavengers. Once a seagull had plucked a hot dog right from my hand.

Ten minutes passed and Brett had not emerged. What could be taking him so long?

Suddenly it occurred to me; I had been mistaken. Brett had no intention of proposing. This had all been my imagination. Wishful thinking. Here I was trying to keep my composure while Brett was sitting on the toilet reading a magazine cover to cover, performing his morning evacuation. What an idiot I had been! The realization that he would not ask me to marry him came as such a relief that I laughed out loud.

“What’s so funny?”

I looked up.

Brett stood over me, dressed in a white tuxedo, freshly shaved, and hair slicked back. His blue eyes—bluer than the perfect sky above—were moist and shining. He pulled me to my feet, took out a black velvet box from the pocket of his jacket, and placed it in my hands.

Then he knelt in front of me.

It was happening.

“Oh my God,” I said.