“I don’t quite know how to tell you this but...” Laurie looked at Paul, who shrugged his shoulders as if to say he didn’t know either.

Out with it before I barf, Jack said silently.

“First of all, I owe you both an apology,” Laurie said. She looked alternately at Jack and Lou. “I’m sorry I had to call you so early in the morning. At least early for your time.”

Jack blinked. Laurie had lost him. Why was their time different from her time?

“The explanation is that I was calling from Paris, France,” Laurie said. “Paul and I had gone there for the weekend, and we were waiting to board the Concorde to come back to New York.”

Paul nodded, confirming this startling story.

“Paul had business in Paris,” Laurie continued. “He was nice enough to invite me to go along. It was quite a weekend.” She looked over at Paul and extended her right hand. He took it lovingly.

Jack smiled over gritted teeth. He suddenly saw Paul as a snake in the grass who’d managed to win Laurie with this grand, gallant gesture: a weekend in Paris.

“One of the things that happened was quite unexpected,” Laurie continued. “At least for me.”

Laurie took her left hand out from under the table, where she’d kept it discreetly for the entire dinner. It was balled in a fist as she extended it out over the tablecloth. When her arm was fully extended she dramatically opened her hand and spread her fingers.

Both Jack and Lou blinked. They found themselves looking down at a diamond that seemed to be the size of a golf ball on Laurie’s ring finger. It caught all the light from the room and threw it back with blinding intensity.

“You guys are getting married,” Lou said as if he were describing an upcoming cataclysm.

The couple interpreted his tone as one of awe, not dread.

“It seems that way,” Laurie said with a smile. “I haven’t unconditionally agreed yet, but as you can see Paul has convinced me to take the ring. We haven’t even told our parents. You two are the first to know.”

“We’re flattered,” Jack managed to say while his mind churned for an explanation for this unexpected turn of events. He’d thought of Laurie as being much too mature for what he considered adolescent behavior.

“It’s been a whirlwind,” Laurie said. She looked at Paul for confirmation.

“I’d describe it more as a tempest,” Paul said with a lascivious wink.

Laurie and Paul then launched into an animated description of all the romantic things they’d been able to squeeze into the previous month. Jack and Lou found themselves reduced to nodding at appropriate moments while maintaining forced smiles.