Chapter 23: Day 365

On Friday I wore dark green, and Etienne drove me to the conservatory without telling me why.

"We have a rehearsal slot on the stage?" I asked.

"No."

"A meeting with the dean?"

"No."

"Then why are we at the stage door?"

"Because I left something here a year ago," he said.

He parked in front of the steps where he had once stood in a rumpled suit holding a torn contract.

A dozen photographers were already waiting on the pavement.

I stared at them.

"You told the press."

"I told one reporter," Etienne said. "She told the rest."

"You promised no more big things without warning."

"This is the warning."

He got out and came around to open my door.

I stepped onto the pavement, and the cameras began to flash.

He took my hand and walked me up the steps.

On the third step from the top, there was something taped to the stone, behind a small pane of glass.

Two long strips of cream paper, held together with clear tape, with five lines of handwriting in black ink.

He had kept it.

He had mended it.

"I couldn't throw it out," he said. "It was the worst plan I ever made and the best one."

"Etienne."

"Let me do this properly."

He took a small box from his coat.

He dropped to one knee on the conservatory steps, in front of every camera in the city.

The photographers went silent.

"I don't want to offer you terms this time," he said.

"I don't want a year, or a clause, or a rule about who touches whom."

He held the box steady.

"I asked you to marry me once because I had a deadline. I am asking you now because I have none."

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