dinner—I’m on a raw food diet now,” Belinda announced.
When everyone had finally settled into their seats and begun attacking the dishes with gusto, Uncle Walt beamed across the table at Rachel. “I’m still not used to seeing you at this time of the year! You usually only come back for Thanksgiving.”
“It worked out because Nick and I had to deal with some last-minute wedding stuff,” Rachel explained.
Auntie Belinda suddenly exclaimed imperiously, “Rachel Chu! I can’t believe I’ve been here ten minutes and you STILL HAVEN’T SHOWN ME YOUR ENGAGEMENT RING! Get over here right now!” Rachel got up from her seat and walked toward her aunt dutifully, stretching out her hand for inspection.
“My, it’s so…pretty!” Auntie Belinda remarked in a shrill voice, barely concealing her surprise. Wasn’t this Nick fellow supposed to come from money? How did poor Rachel get saddled with this little pebble? It couldn’t have been more than a carat and a half!
“It’s just a simple ring—exactly what I wanted,” Rachel said modestly, eyeing the huge marquis-cut rock on her aunt’s finger.
“Yes, it’s very simple, but it suits you perfectly,” Auntie Belinda pronounced. “Wherever did you find a ring like this, Nick? Is it from Singapore?”
“My cousin Astrid helped me. It’s from her friend Joel in Paris,”*2 Nick answered politely.
“Hmm. Imagine going all the way to Paris for this,” Auntie Belinda murmured.
“Hey, didn’t you get engaged in Paris?” Rachel’s older cousin Vivian, who lived in Malibu, excitedly cut in. “I think my mom told me something about a troupe of mimes performing at your proposal.”
“Mimes?” Nick gave Vivian a look of horror. “I assure you, no mimes were ever involved!”
“Hiyah, then tell us the whole story!” Auntie Jin cajoled.
Nick glanced over at Rachel. “Why don’t you take this one? You tell it much better.”
Rachel took a deep breath as everyone around the table looked at her expectantly. “Okay, here goes. On the last night of our Paris trip, Nick arranged a surprise dinner. He wouldn’t tell me where we were going, so I had a feeling something was up. We ended up at this beautiful historic residence on an island in the middle of the Seine—”
“The Hôtel Lambert, right at the tip of the Île Saint-Louis,” Nick offered.
“Yes, and there was a candlelit table for two set up on the roof. The moonlight was reflecting off the river, a cellist sat in the corner playing Debussy, everything was just perfect. Nick had hired this French Vietnamese chef from one of Paris’s top restaurants to prepare the most exquisite meal, but I was so nervous I completely lost my appetite.”
“In retrospect, a six-course tasting menu was probably not the best idea,” Nick mused.
Rachel nodded. “Every time the waiter lifted the silver dome from a dish, I thought I’d find a ring underneath. But nothing happened. By the time the dinner was over and the cellist began packing up her stuff, I thought, I guess tonight’s not the night. But then, as we were about to leave, we heard these horns coming from the river. It was one of those Bateaux Mouches tourist barges, and all these people were assembled on the top deck. As the barge passed below the building, music started blaring out of the loudspeakers and the people started leaping on the benches like gazelles. Turns out they were from the Paris Opera Ballet, and Nick had commissioned them to perform a special dance just for me.”
“How lovely!” Auntie Belinda gasped, finally impressed. “And after that did Nick propose?”
“Noooo! The performance ended and we began to descend the staircase. I was still on a high from seeing this amazingly choreographed performance, but a bit disappointed that it didn’t end in a proposal. So when we got downstairs, the street was deserted except for a guy standing under a tree overlooking the river. Then the guy started playing his guitar, and I recognized it was the Talking Heads’ ‘This Must Be the Place’—the song that we had heard a street musician performing in Washington Square Park on the first night we met. The guy began to sing, and I suddenly realized it was the very same guy from the park!”
“Shut up!” Samantha clasped both hands to her mouth, as everyone in the room continued to listen in rapt attention.
“Nick had somehow tracked the singer down all the way in Austin and had flown him to Paris. He no longer had blond dreads, but I could never forget that voice. Then before I knew what was happening, Nick