One Hundred Proposals

by Holly Martin

  I realised Harry was watching me and not looking at the scenery at all.

  I scooted closer to him and he put his arm round my shoulders.

  ‘This is incredible, thank you.’

  He smiled and pulled me into him. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing it myself.’

  ‘Have you not been here before, when you last travelled around America?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Then why aren’t you looking out there, absorbing every inch instead of looking at me?’

  ‘Because watching you get so excited is incredibly endearing.’

  My heart leapt a little, especially at the way he was looking at me so fondly. I opened my mouth to speak but Thomas opened the door with a handful of paper.

  ‘These are your tickets, the green ones are for lunch, these are for the coach up to Eagle Point and then onto where you’ll eat for lunch and these are for…’ He smiled and nodded towards the edge of canyon.

  I turned and followed his gaze to a sleek burgundy helicopter. My eyes widened.

  ‘Noooooo!’

  Harry grinned and as he got out the car, he offered me his hand and I greedily took it.

  ‘We’re going in the helicopter?’

  Harry nodded, pulling me along the path towards it as my legs suddenly seemed unable to work on their own. It wasn’t possible to be more excited than I was right then.

  We quickly climbed on board and the pilot, Eric, introduced himself to us and told us how to fasten our harnesses.

  I fumbled round in my bag, desperate to get my camera out and record the whole thing, and when I looked around we were already about ten metres off the ground. It had been so smooth that I hadn’t even noticed that we’d taken off.

  I quickly grinned at Harry, grabbing his hand and then the ground beneath us fell away and a mile below us I could see the green of the Colorado River.

  I let out an involuntary scream, mainly of joy and excitement, but a tiny part fear at being over such a huge drop.

  The helicopter dropped into the canyon, the steep reddish brown rocks towering over us as we soared over the river. We were so close to the canyon walls, I felt like I could just reach out and run my fingers along the sides. The rocks had a reddish gold colouring but on closer inspection were a multitude of different colours and different rock types, revealing millions of years of history in its rich veneer. Layers of red, brown, grey, white, yellow, pink and black zoomed past us as the helicopter hugged the undulations of the canyon cliffs.

  I was still screaming at every twist and turn of the helicopter and I heard Harry laughing next to me. We swooped down, nearing the river, the sun glinting off the ripples in the green water, hinting at the promise of gold on the river bed.

  My face was aching from smiling so much as we hovered over a spot where we were clearly going to land. I could see a boat waiting for us, ready to take us on the next part of our journey on the Colorado River.

  With the tiniest bump we landed and after thanking Eric profusely, we made our way over the rocks to the boat, where we were introduced to a very excitable Chinese man called Sam.

  He was super excited about taking us down the river but he seemed very excited about something else.

  The helicopter roared into life again and Sam waved inanely at the pilot, encouraging us to do the same. The helicopter took off and hovered over us for a second and I laughed as on its underbelly in big letters were the now familiar words, ‘Suzie, Marry Me.’

  Harry slung his arm round me and I wrapped my arm round his waist as I watched the helicopter get smaller and smaller as it disappeared over the edge of the canyon.

  It took every muscle, every fibre of my being to physically stop myself from screaming yes at the top of my lungs.

  *

  I peered out of the airplane window at the dark sky and the twinkling lights of New York below us. I tried to pick out landmarks but it was too dark and we were coming in to land too quickly. I felt like I was having some kind of split personality moment with half of my body thrumming with excitement at seeing everything that New York had to offer and the other half wishing that the plane could keep flying to Quebec and we never had to land in New York at all. Chloe’s name had come up in conversation a grand total of seventy-eight times since we had taken off from Las Vegas. I’d actually counted them. And with each mention of her name we were getting ever closer to the troll that was going to steal my man away from me. Harry could barely contain his excitement at seeing her again.

  He leaned over me now to peer out the window and I felt a little piece of me die at the huge grin on his face.

  ‘You look tired,’ he said.

  I forced a smile on my face. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Me and Chloe are going to head out for drinks when we get in.’

  Seventy-nine times. I wondered if he was going to go for the full hundred.

  ‘You’re welcome to come along, though it might be an idea to get some sleep so you’re ready to explore tomorrow, there’s loads to see. There’ll be a lot of walking.’

  I glanced out the window again at the lights that were rushing up to meet us. That was code for ‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t come out with us’ if ever I’d heard it.

  The tannoy pinged to get our attention. ‘This is your captain speaking…’

  I willed him to say we couldn’t land in New York because of leaves on the runway and we had to divert to Quebec or even better the North Pole. I felt the thud of the plane’s wheels as we touched down and sighed with disappointment. The captain was still talking. ‘Welcome to La Guardia airport, the local time is twenty-three ten – ten minutes past eleven. There’s quite a bit of rain out there folks, so wrap up warm. We hope you enjoy your stay.’

  I was deliberately slow in getting my things ready to leave the plane – ensuring we were one of the last to disembark. I dragged my feet through baggage collection, stopping to go to the toilet and to do up my shoe laces but inevitably we were soon in arrivals.

  ‘Harry!’ screamed a girly voice nearby. ‘Harry James Forbes, look at you.’

  A little blonde tornado threw herself into Harry’s arms, leaping up and wrapping her legs round him as she hugged him tightly. He laughed and hugged her back. James? His middle name was James? Why didn’t I know this? It was a small gesture of familiarity but it was another thing that added to the pain in my chest.

  Her hair was short at the back and fell in a long fringe across her face. As I stood awkwardly waiting for our introduction, I could see that Harry’s description of ‘cute as hell’ was vastly understated. She was beautiful – any idiot could see that. And that same idiot could clearly see how completely and utterly besotted Harry was with her.

  *

  The annoying thing was that Chloe was lovely – she’d hugged me almost as eagerly as she had hugged Harry, and she’d linked arms with me as we’d walked out the airport. She was as enthusiastic as a puppy, and where I tried to find her exuberance really irritating I couldn’t manage it. She was very endearing, simple as that.

  We caught a taxi into Manhattan, crossing over the spectacular Queensboro Bridge, and checked into a hotel on Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park.

  Chloe, to my dismay, was staying in the hotel with us – as she apparently lived outside of Manhattan and had booked the hotel so she could spend some time with us, or mainly Harry. To make matters worse, her hotel room was next to ours.

  Harry must have spent a grand total of thirty seconds in our room, as he changed into a clean shirt.

  ‘You sure you don’t want to come?’ Harry asked as he inched towards the door, clearly hoping I wouldn’t.

  I had spent the last hour with Chloe fawning all over Harry, which was enough for a lifetime. My only saving grace in all of this was that Harry would most likely spend the next few days with her away from me and I wouldn’t have to see it – and on Tuesday, just three days from now, we would be flying to Quebec together, hundreds of miles away from New York and Ch
loe.

  ‘I’m fine, I’m going to go straight to bed, get some rest.’

  Harry nodded and was gone a moment later.

  I plonked myself down on the bed and heard their laughter recede down the corridor. Just three little days. I could do that. And if I was to suffer for past life crimes, New York was a spectacular place to do it.

  I fired up the laptop to reply to a few emails and do a bit of research into the wilds of Alaska, the location of a mountain climbing and hiking proposal one of our clients wanted to do. Research would keep me distracted from a while. Only this time it didn’t. Harry and Chloe were stuck in my head.

  If Harry and Chloe were really just friends, and nothing was ever going to happen between them, then she was no threat at all. And if Chloe was The One, the one that Harry could trust and spend his life with, then that was only a good thing. He had been hurt somehow in the past and this was stopping him from moving on. I wanted him to move on with me, but if he couldn’t do that I had to be happy that he could move on at all, find love, live a happy ever after.

  Harry had been my rock, been there through good times and bad, I wanted happiness for him so much. I suddenly wanted to do something for him, something wonderful just like he had done for me with the proposals.

  I looked up from my laptop with a sudden idea. He was as excited about coming to New York as he was about seeing Chloe, he loved the place. I thought back to that conversation that I’d had with Jules about his dream job, the one that he’d turned down probably because of Jack. What if I could get him a job here? An idea started to form in my brain. What if we moved out here together? This would be a good thing for me too, moving away from all the Jack memories, starting out somewhere new and fresh. I could run the.PerfectProposal.com anywhere in the world. Yes, there would be work permits and visas to sort out but the look on Harry’s face when he found out he had a job here would be worth all the hassle.

  I had a friend who lived in New York, well he was a good friend of Jack’s but we had stayed in touch a bit since Jack died. I probably couldn’t get Harry a job, but I could most likely get him an interview. Harry was hugely talented with computers and websites, he would be very easy to sell.

  I quickly fired off an email. It was late at night but my friend would at least get the email first thing the next day.

  I switched the laptop off and lay down, closing my eyes, smiling to myself. I had made the first step to help both of us move on.

  *

  I was woken in what must have been the early hours of the morning by the bedroom door slamming shut in the next room. I could hear Harry and Chloe laughing and talking, though it was impossible to make out what they were saying. I listened to them for a while. She made him laugh. A lot. But it was getting late now and in a minute he would come back to me, to spend the night with me as he had done from the beginning of this trip. I mean all his stuff was in here, of course he was going to sleep here. The talking tapered off and then it went very quiet. As much as I strained my ears, I could hear nothing. What were they doing? A sinking, sickening feeling prickled in my stomach. No, no, no, no. Harry had assured me that nothing would happen between them. They were friends, nothing more than that. Yes there was a history between them but that was in the past.

  I grabbed a glass off the bedside table, finished the water in it and put it to the wall, pressing my ear to the bottom. Nothing. Wait. They were on the bed, I could hear it creaking. Ok. Maybe they were just sitting down on it, having a chat. There was silence and I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I waited to see if there were any further noises but there was nothing. So that was it. He was either in there making love to her or cuddling up to her whilst they slept. Either option was not great.

  I lay back down. I had no claim over him, he wasn’t mine. Nothing had ever happened between us and nor would it, so I had no right to be upset by this latest development. I would be happy for him. He was my best friend and I would be happy that he was happy.

  But the pain in my chest with the fear of losing him refused to go away.

  *

  I walked through Central Park, eating a pretzel bigger than my head as I steadfastly ignored my phone ringing in my bag.

  I had slipped out very early this morning, desperate not to see them clinging to each other over breakfast. It hurt, a lot more than it should. I’d had Harry to myself for so long that I now felt bereft that he was with someone else. As ridiculous as it was, I actually missed him.

  But New York was in my top five places in the world I wanted to visit, so I wasn’t going to let it get me down.

  The phone rang off and immediately rang again. I fished it out of my bag and stared at Harry’s name flashing on the screen. I guessed I should answer it. He would be worried and at the very least I should arrange to meet him for the proposal. Besides, I had to retain an air of indifference.

  I quickly answered it and tried to sound cheery.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Out. Enjoying the sights.’ There, that sounded bright and breezy.

  ‘Why didn’t you wait? I wanted to take you round myself’

  ‘Well I figured you’d want to catch up with Chloe, I didn’t think you’d want to babysit me around all the places you’ve been to before. It would be boring for you. I’m sure you two can find something to do with your time.’ I couldn’t help the sarcasm from entering my voice with that last comment.

  There was a silence as he digested my sarcasm.

  ‘You’re pissed off with me.’

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘Did you hear us when we came in last night, did we wake you?’

  ‘No. I slept like a log. Look, I’m about to go in a museum so have fun with Chloe, I’ll be fine on my own. Just text me to let me know when and where I need to be for the proposal.’

  ‘Right.’ He sounded disappointed.

  I sighed. ‘Don’t be mad, I just feel like I’m in the way.’

  ‘But you’re not, of course you’re not.’

  ‘I’ll see you later.’

  I rang off before he could argue.

  *

  New York was everything I expected it to be and more. The place hummed with constant activity, so that it buzzed through my skin. My eyes swivelled in every direction trying to take it all in. Yellow cabs whizzed past, horns blared and people didn’t stop moving as they walked briskly down the sidewalks with their steaming cups of macchiato, mobile phones and iPods. Gleaming skyscrapers towered over every road coupled with huge department stores and great eating places. I had already pigged out on two different pieces of pie and a cheesecake from Lindy’s. The beautiful, gothic St Patrick’s cathedral with its huge steeples looked out of place in the shadows of so many skyscrapers, but somehow it was fitting to have it there. I had taken so many photos my camera was starting to protest with the lack of memory. I’d even taken photos of the steam billowing out of the grates in the pavement. Photos of Times Square, the Flatiron building, the Empire State building from the top and the bottom. I had spent a good hour playing with all the toys in FAO Schwarz and another hour in dazed rapture in Tiffany’s.

  I’d had the most wonderful day. There was so many different ways here that Harry could propose to me and I was dying to see what he would do. New York had also given me so much inspiration for creating my own unique proposals here. It was the perfect place in so many ways. I had been out all day, my feet were aching though my brain was still buzzing with excitement. Day had long since turned to night and New York was taking on a new atmosphere. Street lights and neon signs indicated that the city wasn’t going to sleep for a long time yet. I checked my phone again but it stared blankly back at me. I hadn’t heard from Harry all day, probably too busy with Chloe to give me any thought.

  I wanted to see Times Square lit up at night, so – clutching my now battered map – I made my way through the streets, enjoying the vibrant bustle of people rushing past.

  I wa
s halfway there when my phone beeped with a text. I dived in my bag, eager for any contact from Harry.

  It didn’t say a lot. ‘Central Park, on the corner of 5th Avenue and West 59th Street. Nine o’clock.’

  I stared at it. No ‘I hope you’ve had a good day,’ or ‘I missed you,’ or ‘How are you?’ Just a curt instruction. Was he mad? He had no right to be, not when I was the one that had been ditched. To my annoyance, I now had to double back to get to Central Park. I would have to leave Times Square for tomorrow night.

  The night had turned chilly now and little foggy clouds of breath preceded me as I hurried along the streets. The sun had been shining when I’d left the hotel this morning and as I was in such a rush to leave I hadn’t thought to bring my coat, something I regretted now. I wondered if I had time to run back to the hotel to grab it before I met him but a quick squint at my watch told me I didn’t.

  I saw the vast expanse of green stretching out in front of me as I moved up Fifth Avenue but though Harry towered head and shoulders over everyone else, as I scanned the crowds there was no sign of him.

  I approached the corner and found myself bitterly disappointed to see Chloe hurrying towards me.

  She looked radiant in the cold, her blonde hair gleaming in the streetlights, her cheeks glowing rosy pink, whereas I was pretty sure the only thing I had which was pink was my nose.

  She enveloped me in a tight hug and I couldn’t help but hug her back, her enthusiasm was infectious. She was small and delicate and smelt of vanilla.

  ‘Have you had a good day?’ She linked arms with me and we started walking into the park.

  ‘Yes, it’s been lovely. New York is such an amazing place, I can see why you moved here.’

  ‘I’ve been here three years now, and I never get tired of it. I think Harry would love to live here too.’

  I smiled to myself at my little smug secret.

  We were silent for a moment as we walked along. I wondered if she was waiting for me to ask about her day. I really didn’t want to hear what she’d been up to with Harry in case it involved some passionate embrace. I was better off not knowing. I quickly cast around for something to say.