Complicated

Chapter 8

Ellen was walking back and forth, in her office, for the past ten minutes, waiting for her executive producers to arrive.

She looked at the tiny black box in her hand, flipped it open and then shut it, went to the blinds at her window, played with it's strings and then walked back to her door and back again.

A few minutes later Andy, Mary and Ed arrived.
" Ok, so here's the thing," Ellen started " you guys have been with me since the beginning of this show and that is around two years now. Over the time, we have grown really close to each other and I consider you my family, so I really need your help with this."
Mary rolled her eyes, 'god! When Ellen takes time to come to a point.'
She got up, walked upto Ellen, held her by her shoulders, looked into her eyes and said, " GET. IT. OUT." Only Mary could do that.
Ellen sighed, and said, " I am planning to propose to Portia!"

Mary blinked, twice. Andy and Ed were silent too and then all three of them started speaking together, "wow Ellen...way to go gal! Congratulations boss!!" and so on and got up to hug their boss.
Ellen grinned and blushed simultaneously. Finally when her three friends had finally settled, she started again, " But here's the problem, I don't know how to do it? I mean I want to do something special and I just can't figure a way out."

All four of them sat down thinking, suggesting ways to each other but nobody came up with anything interesting.
" You know what, take her to a game, and do it on the big screen," Andy said, finally not able to come up with anything.
" I need something different," Ellen reminded.
"Yeah, so take her to some horse riding game, like polo or race and put the message on a horse or something." Andy said, shrugging his shoulders and returning to work on his phone.

"Hey, this might help," Andy said a few minutes later, pointing to something on his phone. Ell, Mary and Ed crowded around his phone. Andy was watching Portia's old interview from a chat show in Britain, it was as a part of another play Portia had been a part of- long before she met Ellen- which was based on a proposal going wrong.

When asked her favourite romantic movies, Portia had said "'love actually', especially the part when the guy stands on the door with cards in front of Keira Knightley, I just love that part." And when asked the best Proposal in a Movie, because Portia's character was shown proposing a guy in a show there, Portia had said, "Runaway bride."

Ellen snapped her fingers and said," I know what to do, I will use cue cards and I will propose her on the show."
"Like during the show?" Ed asked.

"Yeah or maybe during the rehearsal,I will figure that out, let me work the cue cards first," Ellen said sounding all excited.

"What about the ring?" Mary asked.

"Got it already." Ellen said pointing to the black box on her table.

Ellen was nervous. She knew it was a big step and it had only been a year; of which a major part was spent on the phone, but she wanted this more than anything. She drew in a big breath as she looked at the ring again; it was beautiful, elegant yet simple just like Portia.

Getting a ring was not the problem. Ellen had always known what Portia wanted. It was a few years back when they were in London shooting for their sitcom, that Ellen had wanted to buy a bracelet for her Mother, and so she had asked Portia to help her choose. It was after they had bought the bracelet and were waiting at the reception to pay for it, that Portia's eyes fell on the rings displayed at a nearby counter. She instantly loved one which was a simple Platinum band with tiniest of diamonds all round in a fine band running around it and forming a very fine infinity symbol in the center. Ellen had wanted to buy it for her then, but Portia strictly refused. Its product code was EP2631, and it stuck with Ellen as it was their initials and their birthdates. So, in the present, all she had to do was go to the jeweler's outlet in LA and ask them to remake their earlier piece EP2631 and money was not a problem luckily.