Hi. Marry Me

by Kimberley Taylor

  “My pleasure,” said Diana. “I’m good at this sort of thing.”

  “Too right you are,” said Tony admiringly. “Well. What else do we have to figure out?”

  “Let’s get home and then think about it,” said Diana.

  The limo dropped them off at their front door and then circled around to park in the garage down the street. Tony and Diana walked inside.

  “Well, I think we can do hors d’oeuvres in the backyard, first of all,” said Diana. “We’ve already got some cocktail tables and picnic tables we can use, if we bright them outside.”

  “Okay, yeah, I could see that,” said Tony.

  “And then we could have a casual dinner in the main house,” said Diana. “There’s the dining room, obviously, but if we bill it as a cozy, informal, casual event, then we could have people sitting on the floor and on the couch and stuff like that.”

  “No, I like that idea,” said Tony. “It would make us feel—accessible,” he said. “Like, not celebrities, we were just two people who happened to meet via a dating app.”

  “Which, of course, is precisely what we are,” Diana reminded Tony.

  “Of course,” said Tony, smiling. “Thanks for keeping me grounded.”

  “Literally what I’m here for,” said Diana.

  “Well, sort of,” said Tony.

  “I’d like to think so,” said Diana. “And, circling back to the party idea—keeping it informal and casual will also be a lot less work to plan, as well as being less expensive. Which I know isn’t an issue, but still. It’s nice.”

  “True, true. Well, you call Joy and see if she and her husband are available, and I’ll call Danny and get him to round up the troops and we’ll go from there,” Tony said.

  “Hey, do you know if Danny would know any good last-minute caterers?”

  Tony put up his hands. “Let me and Danny take care of that. You just take care of making our home the way you want it to be. Invite your friend, and relax.”

  “Thanks,” said Diana gratefully. Tony smiled, then went back into his study to begin making a barrage of phone calls.

  Diana spent a few minutes moving things around in the main living areas of their home, bringing out chairs and arranging tables with interesting books on them and fluffing pillows so that they were perfectly puffy, before going into the kitchen and making herself a quick snack of a sweet potato with ground beef chili—leftovers from a recent meal they’d had. Walking barefoot through the rooms, munching quietly on her food, she then went upstairs. She thought a quick nap seemed in order. Before she laid her head down, she remembered to send Joy a quick text. “We’re having an impromptu party at our house tonight—for LoveMatches, so there’ll be some of that going on, but free food and drinks! And we’d love to see you both.”

  She then went to sleep.

  She woke a few hours later to Tony getting dressed on the other side of the bed.

  “Is it time already?” she asked. Diana frowned. It seemed like it had just been a few minutes.

  “Yeah,” said Tony. “Danny’s going to be here to debrief and help set up in about twenty minutes. How was your nap?”

  “I don’t remember it,” said Diana truthfully.

  “That means that it was likely fantastic,” said Tony.

  Diana smiled. “I do feel a lot better,” she said.

  “Great,” said Tony. “Hey—do you know if Joy and Simon are coming tonight?”

  “Oh, wow, I hope I remembered to text them,” Diana murmured. She checked her phone and quickly read the barrage of texts that she had been sent. She smiled. “Yeah, she’s coming.” Diana put her phone to her ear.

  “Is she calling?”

  “Nah, she just asked a million questions about what to wear, so I thought I’d call,” said Diana.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Joy,” said Diana.

  “Hey, Diana,” said Joy. “So. Tonight?”

  “Yep,” said Diana. “Impromptu party at our place. It sounds like you and Simon are up for it?”

  “Yeah, we’re totally down,” Joy said. “So—what should I wear, what should I bring?”

  “Wear whatever you want,” said Diana. “We’re keeping things extremely casual and informal. If it helps, I’m wearing jeans.”

  “That does help, thanks,” said Joy.

  “And no need to bring anything, we’re having it catered,” said Diana.

  “Wow,” said Joy.

  “Don’t be like that, this is just going to be normal,” said Diana.

  “Yeah,” said Joy. “The new normal.”

  Diana said goodbye to her friend and hung up. She then went over to her closet and began to get dressed. She selected a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt that had made it over from her previous life—or, well, from a few months ago, she thought. She didn’t want to think of it as her previous life!

  By the time she was finished doing something with her hair and making sure that her makeup looked decent, Danny had arrived.

  “Hey, Diana,” he said when she entered the room.

  “Hi, Danny,” she said. “Thanks for having the idea for this party. It’s going to be a great night.”

  “I really do think so,” Danny said with a twinkle in his eye. Diana smiled at him. “So, what kind of caterers did we get?” asked Diana, with a voice that meant to be extremely calm, as if she hired caterers for her personal parties all of the time.

  “Since we’re going for casual, we got a local Mexican restaurant to come by and serve us nachos, guacamole, and burrito bowls,” said Danny.

  “Awesome.” Precisely on cue, Diana’s stomach began to growl.

  “Fantastic, I’m hungry, too,” said Danny.

  “So. Who’s going to be dining with us, then,” said Diana to Danny.

  “Several members of the board, a few other LoveMatches couples, and—didn’t you say that you were inviting a few friends?”

  “Yeah,” said Diana. “Joy and Simon, they just got married a few weeks ago.”

  “Aha! Did they meet each other on LoveMatches?”

  “No,” said Diana and she watched as Danny visibly lost interest.

  “Well, then,” said Danny. “I can’t wait to meet them.”

  Bemused, Diana agreed that it would be a most portentous moment.

  Tony chose this moment to come into the room. “And how are you two doing,” he said drily.

  “Quite well, quite well,” said Danny. “The caterers should be here any moment,” he said, “and the first scheduled guests are slated to arrive here in fifteen.”

  Fifteen minutes later, when the smell of ridiculously delicious nachos was fully permeating the whole house, Diana put her hostess face on and answered the door when the doorbell rang. “Hello,” she said, very graciously, about fifteen times. “Tony and I are delighted to have you come visit us! Please make yourselves feel at home.”

  Several people whom she'd never met but she felt must have been senior board members smiled at her and then went into the home to marvel at their good fortune.

  Diana was very glad when Joy and Simon arrived.

  “Thank goodness it’s you two,” Diana murmured. “I’ve got to be ridiculously happy and formal with half these people because Tony’s business basically depends on it.”

  “But for us you don’t have to be happy at all,” smiled Simon.

  “That’s not what I meant,” said Diana, and she laughed.

  “Anyway,” she continued. “There’s Mexican food through there, and, um, it’s casual, remember, so please just feel free to sit anywhere.”

  She was about to leave them when she turned round.

  “Oh, yeah, and as I think I mentioned, this is a LoveMatches thing, so we’re going to be showing the clip that Tony and I filmed on TV earlier today and talking about that, but please, don’t feel like you have to…”

  “Hey, I’ll go anywhere there’s free margaritas,” said Joy,
smiling and raising a glass.

  A few minutes later Danny brought everyone into the TV room.

  “Everyone’s got a drink? Good, good. So, I just want to raise a glass to our dear friends Diana and Tony, who recently got hitched…and are living a ridiculously happy marriage…all because of the fantastic algorithm and wonderful success of the algorithm Tony wrote when we were undergrads. Tony, it feels so long ago that we were in your dorm, trying to make the math work—when you did, I knew our lives would never be the same.

  “When you asked me to be your business partner, I knew my life would never be the same. It’s been a wild ride as we’ve travelled the world together promoting LoveMatches. And we’ve changed the lives of so many other people! LoveMatches is the most successful dating platform worldwide. And now that we’ve rolled out this second iteration, we’re going to be unstoppable. I don’t think it’s too much to say that we’re one of the top forces of good promoting good in the world today.”

  The room laughed at this.

  “Fine, fine, I’m overstating things,” said Danny. “I just really, really like our product. I mean, look at this. We’re in the lovely home of our fantastic hosts, the Mirans, who just came home from their ridiculously photogenic honeymoon in Morocco! And, hey, they were on TV this morning promoting LoveMatches. Let’s tune in and give them our support, shall we?”

  Diana looked away as the clip was played. She wasn’t particularly keen on seeing herself on television, glammed up as she knew she was anyway. Her voice sounded so different, it was almost easy to pretend that someone else was speaking. However, she’d said the things she’d been supposed to say, and she’d made them sound as if she’d meant them. Tony hugged her to his side proudly and Diana raised her head at the end, owning the moment. This was her life. This was her marriage. They’d done that spot well. They were proving a point. She shouldn’t feel weird or be embarrassed about their story. What Danny had said was true—they were part of a system that was changing the lives of so many people, and Diana was so happy that she had luckily, randomly, some would say algorithmically, been chosen for it.

  The room erupted in applause after the televised Tony and Diana made their way off the stage and the TV went black again. “Guys, we’re so proud of you. You really took a leap of faith, and it’s super worked out—both for you, and, less importantly but equally really, our company. So—because of this—I’d like everyone to raise a glass—”

  Danny looked around the room expectantly. “Oh, weird, Diana, you don’t have a drink,” he said. “No big deal—hey, could you bring her a glass of wine,” he said to a passing waiter.

  “No, no, actually, it’s fine,” said Diana quickly.

  Danny looked at her oddly. “But—the toast—”

  “I’m not drinking right now,” Diana found herself saying. The room stood still. Tony was blushing. Everyone had heard what she'd said. She'd turned bright red and everyone was looking at her.

  “Is it so weird that I’m not drinking?” She demanded the question—and she knew that her voice squeaked and her face was red and everyone knew.

  Her hands went to her belly.

  “Um, so, we have news, everyone…” said Diana. She held hands with Tony and they faced the room—just as they would face their life—together.

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