The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride

Chapter Twenty One

I swear to God, I did not see it coming. When he turned up with his hair all brushed, his chin all shaved and a clean shirt I thought nothing of it. When he told me he’d booked a table at a restaurant I didn’t smell a rat, even though he’d never done anything like that in all the time I’d known him. I didn’t think anything when he fished the box out of his pocket and when he got off his chair and went down on one knee I just assumed he was doing up his shoelace, because he was wearing his desert boots as usual.

     ‘What the f***?’ was my eloquent response to the question because I truly hadn’t got a single part of me prepared. It was worse than winning a Bafta without having a speech ready. My mind went a complete blank. All I could think was that all the women at the surrounding tables had soppy looks on their faces, while all the men seemed to be averting their eyes from the embarrassing spectacle of one of their own making a prick of himself.

     ‘Will you marry me?’ Gerry asked again, opening the box and revealing a pretty ring.

      ‘Jesus Christ, Gerry!’

     Not the most romantic of responses, I know, but he totally knocked the breath out of me.

     ‘Well, will you?’

     I could see that someone a few tables away was surreptitiously filming the scene on their phone, so it would probably be all over the internet by the time we got home.

     ‘I dunno, maybe. Too soon to tell. Jesus, Gerry, will you get back on the f***ing chair,’ I hissed.

     ‘That’s not exactly the reaction I was expecting.’ He grumbled, sitting back down to his food.

     ‘You’ve taken me by surprise a bit, mate.’

     ‘Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen with marriage proposals?’

     ‘My God, I don’t know, I’ve never had one before. I don’t think I can eat now. Why would you do it in a public place like that? It’ll be all over the f***ing papers tomorrow.’

     ‘You’d better say yes then.’

    ‘No, Gerry!’ Now I was shouting, which was really embarrassing, but I felt completely panic-stricken. I was having enough trouble holding onto my sanity as it was, I couldn’t be thinking about marriage. Gerry was my best friend, I didn’t want to lose that, but I didn’t know if I wanted to marry him. I mean, nice guy and all that; good looking, kind, generous, patient. Oh God!

    ‘I’ve got to go home,’ I said, standing up and hurrying to the door.

    ‘Okay.’ He looked all crestfallen, worried he’d done something wrong, which obviously he hadn’t. He tossed a load of money onto the table as we fled from the restaurant to find our waiting driver and I swear a couple of flashes went off but I didn’t bother to turn round.        

     He was taking my reaction so well I felt like a real bitch. He held my hand tightly while I tried to pull my head together and started apologising over and over again. My head had been spinning ever since my lunch with Luke’s Grandpa. I had come away from the club walking on air, but as the days had passed I’d realised that nothing had actually changed. Just because Grandpa thought Luke and I were well suited didn’t mean it was going to happen. It certainly wasn’t enough of a reason for me to contact him, especially if he was going out with someone else. That would have been a really bitchy thing to do, keeping him dangling and risking upsetting his new relationship. But what if he was thinking the same thing, not contacting me because he had read about me and Gerry looking at houses in the sodding country?