Page 56 of The Last Date

Giving Sasha a moment to look around at the massive TV room, where the door opened to a small tiny laundry room, I went to a side door.

She sniffed the air. “Is this room new? It still smells like wood and paint.”

“Brand new,” I said, swinging the door open and turning on the light.

Her mouth fell open as she cautiously stepped inside. One entire wall was taken up with a long work table. The shorter wall was all storage shelves, filled with paints, thinners, brushes – far more than she had selected on the website.

Stacks of pre-stretched canvases in various sizes leaned against the wall. Two wooden easels waited at the end of the room, but the one in the center had a canvas already in place, covered with a black cloth.

“You made me an art studio?” she barely breathed.

“I started it for you,” I said. “Everything is movable. And the lights can be changed however you want them.” I pointed to a panel on the wall, flipping switches to make the lights warmer and cooler, brighter and dimmer.

“This is crazy.”

“No, it’s crazy that you stopped painting because of your father. I don’t care if it’s a hobby, and you only end up making paintings that hang in our bathrooms. I don’t care if you become a world famous artist, and we have to fly to Paris, Italy, and who knows where else every year. I just want you to be happy, Sasha.”

Stepping back, I braced myself as the impact of her hug smacked me right in the chest.

“I love it!” She squealed. “I love you so much! This is incredible.”

Holding her tightly, I murmured against her ear, “There’s an invisible sound system built into the walls, already set to that satellite radio with the music that sounds like elves and fairies in the meadow.”

“If you did this in order to keep me, I’d already decided to stay with you forever,” she laughed. “But this is certainly the raspberry blueberry sauce on top of the fudge brownie.”

“You know how it’s bad luck to give an empty wallet as a gift?” I asked.

Sasha stepped back, nodding. “Yes. You always have to give a wallet with money already in it, even if it’s just five dollars .”

“Well, I wasn’t sure if that applied to art studios as well,” I shrugged. “So I made a painting so that the space didn’t feel empty.”

Her eyes seemed more blue in this unusually even light as she grinned up at me. “Can I see what you did?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

She pulled off the cloth, revealing a bare canvas with “Will you marry me on June 19?” scrawled in purple paint. At the bottom was a very childish depiction of a diamond ring, with blue for the metal, and bright yellow for the stone.

Sasha stuttered, as if she couldn’t decide between laughing and crying. She spun to me, then looked down to where I was on one knee, holding out a little jewelry box. I opened it slowly, revealing a large emerald cut diamond ring with small round diamonds creating an eternity band.

“The diamond is actually clear, but I don’t know how to paint that on a white background,” I shrugged. “You’ll have to teach me.”

“Okay,” she whispered. “It’s all about the shadows.”

My poor sweet baby was so stunned that she didn’t realize she hadn’t answered my question.

“Sasha, will you marry me, so that we can

be an unstoppable team forever?”

“Yes!” She squealed, barreling into me again so hard that she knocked me flat on my ass. She was hugging me so hard it was tricky to get the ring on her finger.

“It’s gorgeous,” she said, finally becoming still enough to stare at it. “Thank you so much.”

“Thank you for being my wife,” I chuckled.

“Why June nineteenth?” she asked. Her eyes were still glazed, fingers twitching.

“We need a date far in advance, so that I can make sure whichever one of my restaurants you choose for the dinner will be completely booked off. And it’s the closest Saturday to the summer solstice, so it’s the longest day of the year.”

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