? ? ? ? ?
“I need Izzy,” Mrs. SB says distractedly as she powers towards me across the lobby with several ring binders tucked awkwardly under one arm.
It’s Thursday morning. My essay is almost done, and Charlie’s proposal is as arranged as I could make it without coming into the hotel or coordinating with Izzy outside of working hours. I watch as Mrs. SB dodges a couple departing from the restaurant and gives them a wide It’s all under control smile before dropping a file onto the tiles and saying, “Oh, bugger.”
“Izzy is—”
“Right here!” Izzy sings, sailing into the lobby from the restaurant.
She looks disarmingly pretty in waiting uniform, two strands of silky hair falling out of her ponytail. I try and fail not to think about the pink bra.
“Ah, good,” Mrs. SB says before glancing towards the corridor that leads to Sweet Violet. She lowers her voice. “Mr. Townsend is very upset about the builders.”
As one, we look at the builders, who are currently debating something at the top of a scaffolding tower by the staircase. They are incredibly intrusive. I have asked them to be quiet on multiple occasions, but the only effect has been that they have stopped greeting me when I arrive in the mornings.
Mr. Townsend is a particularly special guest here. He’s been coming for decades, I believe, at first with his wife and then, when she passed away, he would stay on his own for the winter. I don’t usually have personal conversations with guests, but even I feel fond of the man. Every fortnight or so, I give him a lift to the shops, and we have started having a coffee together afterwards. He reminds me of my v?, with his spindly reading glasses and slow, thoughtful smile. He has Parkinson’s, and every year he struggles a little more with his symptoms, but he is very stoic about it.
“Hmm,” Izzy says, tapping her bottom lip. “OK. Leave it with me.”
Mrs. SB smiles, already on her way again. “My favourite sentence. Thank you, dear!”
I watch Izzy as she settles Mr. Townsend on the sofa by the window, sitting on her haunches in front of him as they talk. How carefully she listens, how gently she explains the situation, how warmly he regards her. They end up discussing the Ring Thing—it seems to be all anyone talks about around here, much to my irritation. I know why this project matters to you so much, Izzy, he says, which makes me move a little closer to hear better. But he goes on to talk about his own wife. I think it’s lovely. My Maisie treasured her ring until the day she was taken from me, he says, settling back into his seat as the rain comes down against the glass behind them. When we were first stepping out together . . .
I look away. I understand why Mrs. SB wanted Izzy for this job. People love her without her even having to try. They don’t see the Izzy I see all day—they don’t know how cutting and uncompromising she can be.
To everyone but me, it seems, Izzy is absolutely perfect.
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
Charlie’s plans for his proposal escalate as the day goes on. By the evening, our one remaining gardener is setting up fireworks at the end of the lawns, Arjun is searching the county for a very specific type of champagne, and several members of the Matterson and Tanaka families are gathering in the bar for a surprise celebration after Charlie and Hiro’s private dinner out here under the pergola.
I am grateful to be outside for a few moments. I wouldn’t say it’s peaceful—Izzy is with me. But this afternoon’s rain glimmers on the trees around us, and the air is soft and fresh as nightfall presses in.
When I moved here, I never expected to love the forest so much. I thought it would be picturesque, perhaps, but I didn’t realise how something so old and so beautiful would make me feel. It is easy to find calm in a place that outdates you by about a millennium.
“I feel like it’s not saying proposal. We need to dial up the sparkliness,” says Izzy, stepping back to survey the pergola with a critical tilt of her head.
I breathe out through my nose. Izzy offsets all calming properties of the New Forest. My blood pressure is already climbing.
“Why does a proposal require sparkle, exactly?”
The pergola looks classy—there are candles, tasteful floral decorations, and a light sprinkling of fairy lights hanging in loops between the eight oak pillars.
“It’s a huge moment! It needs to feel epic,” Izzy says, and then, catching my eye-roll, she says, “Oh, let me guess, you hate proposals? And joy? And love?”
“I do not hate joy and love. Or proposals. Put those fairy lights down,” I say, exasperated. “You’ll ruin it. We already have lights.”
What is it with this woman and those things? If she had her way, we’d all wander around the hotel draped in them.
“Not enough lights,” Izzy says, already mounting the ladder to hang the next set. “And I don’t believe you. I literally cannot imagine you proposing. You’d be like . . .” She trails off. “OK, I’m not going to attempt a Brazilian accent. But you’d say something really factual. Like, Why don’t we get married, here are all the reasons I think this is a good idea.”
“Do it in the accent,” I say, moving to stand under her ladder. No doubt, if she fell and broke a bone, it would be my fault somehow. “Then I might tell you how I would propose.”
That catches her by surprise—her hands falter on the fairy lights and she looks down at me. I meet her gaze after a day of avoiding eye contact by every possible means. She has surprising eyes. From her colouring you’d expect hazel or brown, but they’re the green of palmeira leaves, and almond shaped, with decadent long lashes. Izzy is “cute,” that’s what men would say—she’s petite, with round cheeks and a button nose. Cute, not sexy. Until you meet her eyes, and then you change your mind.
“I’m not doing the accent,” she says after a moment, returning her attention to the string of lights.
“OK.”
“I’m not doing it—it’ll be offensively bad.”
“Fine.”
She waits. I wait.
“Oh, for God’s sake, fine: Why don’t we get married,” she tries; and then, when I start laughing, “That was good! I thought it was good!”
“It started Spanish,” I say, straightening up and sniffing as I compose myself again. “And then became Australian.”
Even in the half-light I can see that she’s red with embarrassment, and I grin, mood greatly improved.
“Shut up, Lucas. Go on, then—how would you propose?” she asks as she climbs down the ladder and shifts it to the next pillar.
“Not like this,” I say.
With all the outdoor heaters set up and the table beautifully dressed, this is technically an ideal spot for a proposal. But there is something tense about it.
“This is too . . .”
“Spontaneous? Romantic?” she says, climbing up the rungs again as the colour subsides in her cheeks.
“I was going to say showy. What if Hiro says no? Half of his family is waiting in the bar.”
“Do you just enjoy sucking the fun out of everything? We’re helping to create something magical here, and you’re standing there talking about Hiro breaking Charlie’s heart.”
I ignore this, taking comfort—as I will many times—from remembering Izzy trying to sound Brazilian. She is wilfully na?ve about this sort of thing. I am just being realistic.
“Anyway, asking someone to marry you is a question,” she says over her shoulder, standing on one foot to loop the lights a little further along the beam. “So there’s always the possibility the other person will say no.”
“If there’s the possibility she will say no, then I wouldn’t be asking,” I say. This strikes me as a given, but Izzy pauses as she comes down the ladder, staring at me.
“You would already know she’d say yes? Where’s the excitement in that?”
“A proposal is an agreement,” I say. “It’s a lifelong commitment. You don’t do it on a whim.”