Hi. Marry Me

by Kimberley Taylor

  She found a few really good finds. A vintage pair of boyfriend Levi’s made from 100% denim so they would make her entire half look sculpted and gorgeous—check. A Vuitton silk blouse, in drapey black, with a cream bowtie sewn in—definitely—and for only three dollars!—check. A few tanks for layering, an embroidered jacket from India, a new pair of boots—which Diana could only discern had been donated because the previous owner had simply decided that they weren’t needed, as they were in perfect condition. She browsed happily for hours, finding several diamonds in the rough, as well as, potentially, some actual diamonds.

  Diana brought her finds up to the counter and almost cried with incredulity when the shop-girl rang her purchases up as a total fifty dollars. Why everyone—even billionaires and their wives—didn’t make a habit of shopping at thrift stores, Diana would never know. However, she supposed that she was completely fine keeping the secret to herself. That way, she got first access to all of the good things. And she rather liked it that way.

  She piled up her treasures in the limo and headed back home.

  When she got there, she lovingly unpacked her new purchases. The new items just felt right, as if they belonged in her wardrobe, and on her. And she loved that despite the fact that she had a billionaire’s budget, she'd chosen to give life to older clothes instead. It felt right—the circle of life, or something like that.

  And, Diana thought as she surveyed the items, she wouldn’t have known where or how to buy some of these items if she’d tried to hunt them down in the store.

  She thought of the date night her husband had suggested. She checked her watch. She had one hour until he showed up for their date. She thought about him for a moment and realized that he would likely be hungry. And she, herself, was ravenous.

  Diana picked out a set of soft, casual clothes for her to wear that evening, and then headed down to the kitchen.

  She thought of the fully stocked fridge and grinned. She was in the mood for pizza. She’d make it happen. She rolled up her sleeves, preheated the oven, and set to baking.

  Chapter 10

  When Tony came home, Diana called out. She heard the door click shut and yelled, “Hello?”

  “It’s me,” the familiar voice said. Tony threw his things on the couch (Diana heard the soft sound they made as they hit the pillows) and came into the kitchen.

  “Just wanted to be sure,” said Diana.

  “I’m the only one besides you who has a key to this place,” Tony pointed out. “Who were you expecting?”

  “You can never be too careful,” said Diana. “Attractive woman, cooking alone…”

  “And cooking you were,” said Tony. “Are. It smells magnificent in here.”

  “Why, thanks. It should, I know what I’m doing,” said Diana. She poured Tony a glass of red wine and offered it to him.

  “Thanks. You know what you’re doing, but I have no idea. What are we having? Is there any way I can help?”

  “Yeah, actually. We’re making pizza. Put on an apron, unless you want to get all floury,” Diana said, gesturing to the wall where she’d hung the aprons. Tony put one on.

  “Now what,” he said.

  “Well, now you get to pick what you’re putting on your pizza,” said Diana. “I like the half-healthy kind of pie, where there are enough vegetables and green things on there to make me feel like what I’m having is sort of salad-adjacent.”

  “Ah, but do you leave them on or pick them off,” said Tony blandly.

  Diana blushed as she remembered their previous pizza night, when she’d ordered a green pizza and picked off everything but the cheese and meat. “With health, it’s the thought that counts,” she said.

  “Ah, well, that makes sense,” said Tony.

  Diana rolled her eyes. “What kind of pizza are you making?”

  “A much better one. Every kind of cheese we have, all of the meats.”

  Diana opened the fridge. “We have ground beef. Are you going to put meatballs on your pizza?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “That’s cross-cuisines.”

  “But it isn’t, really. Spaghetti and meatballs and pizza both are Italian-American constructs. So it’s really quite fitting.”

  Diana shrugged. “Fine by me. As long as you make your own.”

  Tony picked up the plate of ground beef. “No other way to do it.”

  They chummily talked and drank wine and dressed their pizzas for the next fifteen minutes or so until it was time to put them in the oven. Then Diana took the pizza peel and threw them on the pizza stone in the preheated oven and set a timer.

  “They smell even better as they start to bake,” said Tony happily. He closed his eyes and smelled the warm, spicy air.

  “I agree,” said Diana. “So, do we watch our movies while we eat the pizza? Or are dinner and the movie two separate events?”

  “It depends,” said Tony. “On the weather, that is. I so enjoyed eating breakfast outside with you this morning that I think I’d like to repeat the experience. With dinner, that is. And there’s the most beautiful sunset going on outside, right now.”

  They walked out onto their porch. Diana smiled appreciatively.

  “It is gorgeous,” said Diana, looking at the layers of purple and blue and pink. “And fantastic that we have such a good view of it over our backyard. And the fact that we live in New York and have a backyard to begin with.”

  “What is money if you can’t use it to buy such fantastic things?”

  Diana looked at her husband. “I like you because you’re rich—”

  Tony laughed. “That’s a promising start.”

  “Shut up. I didn’t finish. I like you because you’re rich—but you weren’t always. You still make decisions that make sense to me. You feel real. You still look for good and beautiful things, instead of always searching for the next investment.”

  “Not all wealthy men are like that.”

  “The ones in my experience have been. Anyway, you’re refreshingly different, and I think—I think—I think I’m glad that it was you, on the whole.”

  “That it was me?” Tony took a sip of water and then looked at her inquisitively.

  “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?” Diana laughed. “I mean—with an arranged marriage you could end up with anyone, you know? I could have agreed to marry someone abusive or boring or unattractive or selfish. But I ended up with you.”

  “I think there’s a compliment in there, somewhere.”

  “There is, but you’ll have to dig for it,” said Diana primly.

  “Fair enough,” said Tony. “Shall we go see if the pizzas ready?”

  Diana followed him inside. “Do you have anything you’d like to say?”

  “Pizzas sure gonna be good,” noted Tony. He turned around and smirked at Diana.

  “No,” said Diana. “Anything about me? Are you glad it was me? Are you disappointed it was me?”

  “Too early to say,” said Tony. He yawned.

  “Hey,” said Diana defensively.

  “I rest my case,” said Tony, equally defensively. “We’ve only known each other for a week.”

  “But I haven’t been horrible in that week.”

  “You haven’t been horrible,” Tony acknowledged.

  “Wow, if that’s the best I’m going to get, and I’m going to have to fight it out of you every time…”

  Diana shook her head at Tony, but then smiled. She found that she often couldn’t resist smiling when she was around Tony. The man just made her so very happy in so many surprising and wonderful ways.

  “I think the pizza’s ready,” said Tony.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “The edges of mine are getting a little burnt,” he said.

  Diana threw on a pair of cooking mitts and rescued their dinner from the oven, turning it off quickly.

  “Excellent,” she said. “These look and smell am
azing. Let’s dig right in, shall we?”

  Each of them cut generous slices from their pies and piled them high on white plates pulled from the pantry. Diana sank back down into the Adirondack chair on the porch. Tony sat cross-legged on the floor next to her.

  “Would you like a seat?” she asked. There was another chair on her other side.

  “Nah, I’ve always been more comfortable on the floor,” he said. He winked at Diana.

  Diana shrugged and lifted her pizza in the air. She folded it in half and the crust crackled.

  “Perfection,” said Tony, who was watching. He’d already scarfed down both of his slices. Diana frowned. “Go get yourself seconds, don’t go waiting on me.”

  While he was back in the kitchen, she took a bite. Heavenly. Basil and mozzarella and marinara had to be the most perfect of culinary combinations.

  When Tony returned, she smiled at him. “This was a great idea.”

  “I think it was yours,” he said.

  “It was, wasn’t it,” said Diana. “I’ll have to keep having ideas. They seem to generally turn out well.”

  “That they do,” said Tony.

  “So, what movie are we watching?”

  “Well, we’re watching two,” Tony pointed out. “And one of them is your choice. So you have just as much to be telling me as I have to be telling you.”

  “Okay, sure,” said Diana. “But I’m asking and it’s your turn to talk. What’s one of the movies we’re watching tonight?”

  “The Fugitive.”

  “No way,” said Diana. “That’s a legitimately fantastic movie.”

  “Of course it is,” said Tony.

  “I was just expecting, I don’t know, something awful,” said Diana.

  “Thank you for being nice to my fragile feelings,” said Tony. Diana stuck her tongue out at him.

  “That’s one of my favorites, too,” she said.

  “Good to know,” said Tony. “What’s the other movie we’re watching?”

  Diana giggled.

  “Oh, no, it’s going to be something awful, isn’t it,” said Tony.

  “Very possibly,” said Diana. “It’s not a good film. But it’s one of my favorite things in the world to watch—”

  “Oh no,” said Tony. “I’m going to need more pizza to deal with this,” he said. “Would you like some more,” he said, gesturing to her empty plate.

  “Nope, I’m good,” she said. “Go ahead and dig into my pizza, in fact.”

  “Was it not very good?”

  “No, it was fantastic, I just ate a lot of the ingredients as I was putting them together,” she said, grinning.

  “That’s the only way to cook,” said Tony, and he disappeared into the kitchen.

  “So, what are we watching?” he asked when he returned.

  Diana took a deep breath.

  “Iron Man 3,” she said.

  Tony looked at her as if he'd just swallowed something revolting.

  “Not even the best of the Iron Man movies,” Tony said. “Why on earth would you subject us to this?”

  “Because it’s hysterical. The MCU was just beginning to find its voice, and the tech isn’t as laughable as it was in the first two movies. And because I have a thing for Downey, Jr.”

  “You and everyone else.”

  “Because he’s the best man,” said Diana.

  Tony waited. When he realized that Diana was not going to continue the thought, he looked at her quizzically.

  “The best man of….?”

  “No one. I’m not talking about a wedding party or anything like that. He’s just the best man.”

  “Oh. Alive?”

  “Ever.”

  “Ah.” Tony waited a beat. “Where do I fall on that scale?”

  Diana paused and turned her head up to the sky. “I don’t know that it’s a scale,” she said, after a moment. Her voice was thoughtful. “I think you’re either the best—or you’re not.”

  “So the fact that ‘best’ itself is the superlative form of a word, which itself implies a scale—”

  Diana shook her head. “This is more interesting than grammar.”

  “I mean, fine,” said Tony. “So. Iron Man 3.”

  “Which do you want to see first?”

  “I’ll let you decide,” said Tony, as he picked up their dishes.

  “Yours is the much better movie—objectively speaking,” said Diana. “Mine’s the best in all other ways, obviously. But yours—we’ll appreciate yours more if we give it our full, un-tired attention. So we’ll watch that one first. And then when we’re more tired and loopy, we’ll watch mine. It’ll be better that way, too.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Tony. “Want to head downstairs?”

  “Yeah, let’s do it. Well, in a second,” Diana said. “Let’s clear up the dinner things.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Tony. The pair of them spent a moment putting dishes in the dishwasher and wiping the cheese off the butcher block. Diana poured them both fresh rounds of drinks, and they headed to their subterranean movie theater.

  Diana shivered. The place was cold and dark.

  Tony flipped a light switch on. The three rows of seats blazed into view.

  “So, where’s the best seat in the house?” Diana moved between the rows and sat experimentally in a chair. It was a leather recliner; the seat moved back with her. The cushion was so plush that it threatened to envelop her completely.

  “They’re all the best seats in the house,” said Tony. “Apparently it was built without the rest of them, that was the idea.”

  “How do you know that?” Diana sat straight up.

  “Realtor told me. I don’t know if that’s a fact or if that was just her adding color to the listing, but I like it as a descriptor, so I think I’ll pull it out whenever we have people over here.”

  “Aha,” said Diana. “Well. Where are you sitting?”

  “Next to you.”

  “It is a date, this would make sense,” smiled Diana. “I’m always a middle row, center believer. Something about the sound reaching you where it’s supposed to, or something like that.”

  “Well, with that ironclad argument,” said Tony. “Would you like some popcorn?”

  “I always like popcorn with my arguments. That thing really works?” Diana hopped up and made her way to the popcorn machine.

  “Yep. Vintage for looks, but there’s a real popcorn turner in there.”

  “Awesome. Three times more butter sauce than you think is necessary, please.”

  “So, you’d like some popcorn with your butter.”

  “Ideally.”

  Tony set the popcorn to making and then came to sit next to Diana. She smiled at him. “So, while I’m intimately familiar with watching TV and movies at home, I’m not quite sure how this home theater system works,” she said, frankly.

  “Oh, you know, a push of the button here, a CD slipped in there, pull down the projector screen and you’re good to go,” said Tony artlessly.

  “Really?”

  “Nah, it’s controlled by our phones,” said Tony. “Here, pull yours up—or, well, I’ve got the app downloaded on mine, use mine. Search for our first movie.”

  Diana typed the words The Fugitive into the small search box. Harrison Ford’s face soon showed up as the first result. She clicked on it with her thumb, and the movie began to buffer.

  “Okay,” said Tony, “Great. Now, I’m going to turn on the home theater system by pressing this button on the arm of the chairs we’re reclining in.”

  “So there are buttons involved.”

  “One. There is one button involved in this charade.”

  Tony pressed the button. Diana looked up as low lights began to indicate where the screen at the front would be. White text popped up on the black wall, projected by a small machine attached to the ceiling. Hello, it said. Welcome to your personalized home theater experience.
r />   “This feels a little too personalized,” Diana said.

  “It’s nice,” said Tony. “I like it, anyway.”

  “Enough to read through the entire user manual, apparently.”

  “Hey, it’s coming in handy, isn’t it?” Tony glanced at her briefly and then moved on. “So, as I was saying—you’ve got the movie pulled up on the phone, right?”

  Diana nodded.

  “And now the theater system’s on. So you should just be able to swipe the movie off your phone and onto the large screen.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Hold the phone up in front of you and swipe up towards the wall in front of you.”

  Diana looked at Tony dubiously. Tony nodded. Diana swiped the movie off her phone, and was astounded to see the movie instantly projected on the wall.

  “Cool, isn’t it,” said Tony happily.

  “Almost too cool, if you think about it,” said Diana. “But there you go.”

  “Indeed,” said Tony, sagely. “So—that’s that. You have now passed the official training course for the home theater system.”

  “This is a really hot date.”

  “You know it,” said Tony, smirking. “So—is it time for our feature presentation?”

  “Yeah, let me get us some popcorn,” said Diana. She ran over to the popcorn machine and shook them out a bowl, then returned to her seat. “Let’s go,” she said.

  They talked and laughed but were for the most part respectfully silent as they watched Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford work their way through the suspenseful movie. Tony sat ramrod-straight in his chair. Diana thought this strange. Wasn't the point of having a recliner to recline? She, herself, made sure that her chair was so far reclined that it was almost flat, and then curled up into a ball in the middle part.

  During the movie, Tony noticed what she was doing.

  “You know, if you’re using the recliner right, you’re using the entire thing,” he said. “You know—the leg part? You should put your legs on it. And the head part? That’s where your head goes. The recliner is wasted on you if you’re going all fetal position in the chair bit of it—”

  “It’s not wasted on me,” said Diana sweetly. “It’s wasted on you, you’re not even reclining, your chair’s almost leaning forward, if anything.”