Then we went to a wedding on Saturday. The reception featured lots of wine, lots of cheese, and melted chocolate gushing from both milk and white chocolate fountains. Suddenly, the Melting Pot's food was no longer a novelty, it was leftovers. I needed a new restaurant. I had 48 hours.
Jen lives (and for most all practical purposes, so do I) in Ramsey, one of the quaint New Jersey towns with a vibrant restaurant scene. Ramsey features dozens of restaurants within walking distance: Mexican, Italian, pizza (a subset of Italian), Greek, Chinese, sushi, ice cream parlors, coffee houses, an Irish pub, two chain sandwich places that limbo under Ramsey's zoning laws, and one restaurant that apparently just serves lettuce.
The fanciest of them all, though, from the point of view of people who rate restaurants for a living, is Cafe Panache. We hadn't been there yet: the menu changes every week, and the sample menu really didn't have anything vegetarian for Jen. The restaurant had just been renovated, so that it looks more like a contender for New Jersey's best food and less like a former Long John Silver's. I called, and they said they could whip something veggie-friendly for Jen.
The obvious reason we were celebrating was that Jen and I were moving in together. Our lease started that Monday, the 15th. We were officially living together as of today, although we'd take the next two weeks moving all our stuff. We had been going out for 21 months, after several previous years of knowing each other and several years previous to that being in each other's line of site. We had gone to the same college, were both varieties of English majors, and both lived in the same small dorm, but only walked by each other wordlessly about a thousand times.
A few years later we ran into each other again, finally learning each others' names, when she shared an office with my brother Jeff in Fort Lee. I worked up the street from them both, and visited her every time Jeff and I exchanged TV tapes. I got to know Jen a little through that, and Jeff got to know Jen's roommate Cindy a lot.
For the next few years Jen and I were friends. We watched TV in groups together, read books in a book club together, and stood across each other in Jeff and Cindy's wedding (Jen's first matchmaker credit). I got to really enjoy talking with Jen, and I thought she enjoyed talking to me. We both had a few relationships that fizzled, and ended up commiserating with each other about them.
Then, one fateful December night, Jen and I got together for Indian food and a concert DVD of the Eels. I bravely took about four hours to make a move. Good thing Jen liked me before that night, or else I'd be watching a Netflix movie alone tonight.
I had spent the past summer essentially living with Jen. During the school year, I stayed in Jersey City midweek where it was easy to get to school, and took every opportunity I could to stay up in Ramsey with Jen. During this summer, I had an internship in Woodcliff Lake, ten minutes from Ramsey and an hour from Jersey City. So Jen's place had a shorter commute, had cable and WiFi, had lots of restaurants within walking distance, and most importantly, had Jen. I got all the benefits of moving in with her, but without having to wrap newspaper around every dish I own. I visited Jersey City just often enough to get the mail.
Now that the summer was over, we were moving to East Rutherford. It's about equidistant from where Jen works and where I go to school. Between our two rents, we've got a lot of place. But going to East Rutherford meant leaving the little foodie town of Ramsey. We had one big gap in our Ramsey restaurant resume to fill. Hopefully it was romantic.
My job had an all-day strategizing session that day, so I had an excuse to wear a suit. Actually, I was the only person not wearing a football jersey. I missed a memo about this being a sports-themed strategizing session. In any case, a was wearing a suit, and I'd keep it on for the dinner.
I got back to Ramsey at 6:00, pulled into the parking lot next to Jen's car, and suddenly got very nervous. I had a small velvet box in my pocket, and I wanted to give it to Jen, but I had never given anyone a small velvet box before and you don't do those things without getting very nervous about the whole process. Carrying it around all day was like having a gun: lots of power, can put a hole in glass, but if you use it indiscriminately you'll end up with a life sentence and a rough cellmate. This was how I felt during bungee jumping: I knew I wanted to do it, but there was a moment of actually taking the plunge that I had never done before that this whole thing hinged on. So I stayed in the parking lot for two minutes, and watched a squirrel eat an acorn. In my cowardly defense, the squirrel was a loud enough eater that I would have been looking at him even if I wasn't looking to stall.
I bid the squirrel bon appetit, walked to Jen's door, and was greeted by a very happy Jen. The flowers I ordered arrived that afternoon, delivered to her work. I don't know about all girls, but a dependable way to make Jen happy is to send roses to her cube. I wanted her to have some clue about this dinner. She was wearing her "accidental dress": she went into a store to check for shoes and then accidentally bought it because it was too cute to pass up. I was hoping she'd wear that. Maybe she did have a clue about this.
We had an hour before the reservation, and I had no idea what I was going to bring up. I had been meaning to give her a dollar for a while now. This seemed like a crowded time, but I did it anyway. I had gotten two silver dollars some time when I was 15, and thought one would go to the first girl I really loved. I went back and forth every few years actually carrying them around versus just having them in a drawer. The past few years they had been in a drawer, mostly forgotten. I had meant to give one to Jen a while ago, but the thought never came when I was in Jersey City with the coins. They were here now, both of them, so I gave her one and told her the story. She liked them. It was the most romantic gesture that only cost me a dollar.
Cafe Panache is BYOB, so we brought the oldest bottle in the house: a 2001 Hess from our trip to Napa last year. If a special occasion isn't the time to upgrade the Two-Buck Chuck, when is?
Cafe Panache was very fancy, full of quiet ambiance, without a hint of fast-food fish. We were seated next to a party of women in bright pink plastic crowns and leis for a bachelorette party. We opened wine, made sure the chef would make something with veggies for Jen, and figured out our appetizers.
Then it was time to talk. So I drank some wine. And buttered some bread. And ate an olive. And drank some more wine. Then I began talking. I didn't have any speech, or even any lines I wanted to say, but I found a couple. I wanted to say it before the food came out, so the clock was ticking. I took her hand across the empty table.
"Jen, this is not all a coincidence. I didn't just ask you to the nicest restaurant in town, and get us all dressed up, and send you flowers at work, just because our lease starts today. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I -"
The waiter came with our appetizers. What was that, 90 seconds since we placed the order? We had to stop holding hands so he could set the plates.
"OK, thank you," I said, hoping he'd go away now.
He stood over us. "Would you like some fresh pepper?"
"Not right now." The service here was so good it was wrecking one of the most important nights of my life. Go away go away go away.
He went away. We couldn't hold hands now because there was sweet potato soup and corn ravioli between us. I looked at Jen, way over on the other side of the table. She was smiling, and a little nervous herself. She knew where I was going with this.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small velvet box. I got down on one knee, and held out the box. "Jen, will you marry me?"
She said yes.
I forgot to open the box. Accidentally having proven that Jen wasn't after me for my money, I cracked it open. She was very happy with what was inside. Hint: it was more than a dollar. I missed my shot to stick in a Ring Pop or plastic spider ring or any other jewelry sold as Halloween candy. What was I thinking, to not have that gag prepared for? Guess I'll another have some time next year or so to do with a wedding ring, but I'll probably be preoccupied then, too.
The ravioli and corn were both outstanding. I got the diver scallops for my entree, and Jen got an ornate heap of grilled vegetables in what looked like a hollow pumpkin but was a tomato the size of an ostrich egg. Cafe Panache just happened to have bread-bowl-sized tomatoes, in case a special order comes in. You don't get that from Long John Silver's.
The next two weeks would be among the busiest of our lives. We had two entire moves to execute, both of us packing and transporting couches, pots and pans, hundreds of books, hundreds of clothes, TVs, bedroom sets, not to mention wrapping newspaper around every dish we own. Plus there's work and school and figuring out new commutes and homework. And possibly eating and sleeping, every couple days. Compared to this all, proposing's the easy part.