Casa de Amore

The usual evening dinner chatter filled the restaurant. Waiters moved about the room; taking orders from recently-seated parties of two or more, reciting the wine list from memory, recommending the guinea filet with wild mushroom sauce alongside a selection of cluttered fresh asparagus wrapped in prosciutto with a hint of crème fraiche.

A pair of waiters were cleaning off a couple tables after a party of six had finished dining. The waiters talked amongst themselves, both young, twenty-something males still doe-eyed amongst the world – their only knowledge of the outside world coming from the half-nights with college co-eds in smokey piano jazz bars and steamy hashish lounges until drink and smoke coalesce with their teenybopper senses.

The sounds from the kitchen only further ennobled the men and women in there – head chef calling out dish names, busboys dodging verbal lashings from worked up sous chefs. Each dish plated with repetitive accuracy – lamb shanks a la bourgeoisie, steamed mussels with long cut seasoned potato skins, fennel salad with grilled chicken marinated in ginger root, orange zest, and hoisin sauce.

A bartender flips a vodka bottle through the air twice, catching it and pouring three fingers worth in a shaker already containing some grenadine, a little lemon juice, some lime and orange zest, and a cherry. Shaking the drink for a few seconds to allow the contents to hurl themselves together creating alcoholic glory within a gleaming metal bullet, the bartender pours the fresh drink into a martini glass, handing it off to a clean-pressed-waisted waitress who delivers it to it's rightful drinker.

The hostess seats yet another couple for the night, this time sitting them next to the window overlooking the rainy water-colored streets lit up by fading flickering yellow street lamps in the old city. Menus are handed over to the couple as mentions of a waitress being right with them are given. The hostess finds herself at her command station, looking over her map of the restaurant as a commander overlooking her troops and formations – finding open territory for each new brigade upon arrival to the feast of war and food.

The arrival of the waitress in front of me heralded the end of my leisurely visual stroll through the restaurant. After taking my drink order, she disappeared towards the bar, flirting with the bartender while simultaneously ordering my glass of  red wine. I closed my eyes and massaged the worn bridge between the eyes who had seen love born, stoked, grown, rekindled in the cold of winter, only for love to roar again. The eyes have seen love, yes, but they had also seen death young and sporadically as they aged. Opening my eyes, the sight of the wine was welcoming indeed. Taking but a small drink, I held the small jeweler's box in my hand, opening it slowly, smiling as the ring echoed the freedom call as hope escaped into my world with each catch of the restaurant lighting. Warmth from the wine slowly coursed through my body, massaging every tension and fear out of me. Another sip wouldn't be out of place. Placing the box back into my pocket, I set the glass down. The wine was definitely warming my body, teeth to toes, as final apprehensions wore away. Sultry silky smooth peace ebbed and flowed over and through my body, the alcohol relaxing me further as the sounds of the kitchen lulled me into another stroll through the restaurant.

As my eyes meandered around the restaurant again, passing and admiring dish and patron alike, the sound of the hostess called the eyes back home. Looking over in her general direction, every fiber, every muscle gained a slight tension of nervousness from desertion.

She walked in the room. The forest green-eyed woman with short brunette hair in a silky cream dining gown walked in the room and smiled as her eyes found and met the welcoming if not yearning sight of mine. With each step, the heartbeats began to rise, not out of fear or nervousness now, but from excitement and love and holding a secret in my pocket. She gets to my table and I rise, holding her seat out for her and letting her in. She smiles as she sits. Her eyes embrace mine, reading every pool within the iris for emotional tea leaves, emotional tells for what lay hiding near my breast. Her eyes widen with shock as I get to one knee, procuring the box from its hiding place.

I look down at the box and up into her eyes. Shock, fear, apprehension, nervousness, excitement, love, joy, fear some more – all of it mixing and hiding in the forests of green within her eyes. As I let the hope escape from within the box and run rampant into her world; I grin, the words spoken normally but feeling as if they tumbled, stumbled on the restaurant carpet, and only just before falling flat on their faces did they adjust themselves and become a single coherent thought that knelt before her with box in hand and ring within the box;

“Will you marry me?”