The woman in front of me turns and glares, and I make a shamed face at Jackson, but he just grins and squeezes my hand, which makes me even more in love with him than ever.
Feeling full of the joys, I lean my head on his shoulder and smile goofily to myself, drifting away from what’s happening on stage and into the world of my imagination. I’m moving in with lovely Jackson tomorrow! The woman sitting in front is probably just jealous because she doesn’t have a gorgeous, handsome, funny, intelligent man to make her life sparkle! And Flo is right. I need to have more confidence in myself. I should tell Jackson exactly how I feel about him …
‘Ah, do we have a pair of lovebirds here?’
The man who had been on the stage talking to the audience has suddenly appeared in the aisle next to us. He’s leaning over me, thrusting a microphone at Jackson.
‘So how long have you two been together?’ he asks.
Jackson, cool and laid-back as ever, smiles and says, ‘Not long enough for my liking.’ I smile and snuggle closer, and there’s a big ‘aaah!’ from the people around us.
Jackson kisses the top of my head, and in my cocktail haze, I feel quite weepy. I really am the luckiest girl in the world!
The TV host is looking at me now. ‘Are you enjoying yourself tonight?’ he asks.
The microphone veers towards me and my hazy brain takes in the fact that millions of people are probably watching the show at home and every one of them is waiting for me to answer. So I throw a big smile to the camera and announce, ‘I’m having a fabulous time, thank you very much. I’m the luckiest girl in the world!’
‘That’s wonderful.’ The TV host’s eyebrows rise. ‘And why’s that?’
I attempt to get my tongue around the words, Because I’m here with Jackson. But it emerges as, ‘Because I’m jeer with Hackson.’
The host nods. ‘And is there anything you want to say to – erm, your man – on this date night to beat all date nights?’
My head spins woozily as Jackson smiles down at me, and the microphone hovers expectantly in front of my nose. ‘There is, acshully.’
For some reason, an image of Flo drifts into my head.
Flo thinks I can’t be spontaneous. She thinks it’s just not who I am. But maybe, with Jackson, I can become a braver person – the person I’ve always wanted to be!
I turn to Jackson, trying my hardest to focus. And there are two of him!
Lovely Jackson. He’s been so patient with me and I really want to show him how much he means to me. And this lovely audience and the TV host are looking at me, waiting for me to speak, expecting something amazing.
I swallow hard. And then the words just tumble out of my mouth.
‘Hackson Jooper, I love you. Will you marry me?’
There’s a second’s silence then the whole studio gasps with delight.
You could hear a pin drop as Jackson clears his throat. And I wait, misty-eyed, to hear the words we’ll tell our grandchildren in years to come …
He’s staring at me, with a frozen look on his face, as if he’s never seen me before and I find myself drawn to his Adam’s apple, which keeps bobbing up and down.
Finally, he leans towards the microphone and murmurs:
‘Er, no?’
It’s amazing how quickly you sober up after your proposal of marriage is flatly turned down.
It’s also amazing how fast you can locate an exit and flee the studio – even with double vision and two left feet.
Blundering down the front steps of the building, I’m praying for some form of transport to arrive and get me out of here. The last thing I want is to hang around here, waiting for a bus or a taxi, and risk Jackson catching up with me.
If he followed me out, that is.
Did he follow me out?
I glance back, not sure if I desperately want to see him or desperately don’t.
I might get over the shame of it all – in about twenty years – if Jackson hotfooted it after me and told me he froze when I asked him to marry me and said the first thing that came into his head. And that really, now he’d had a chance to think about it, the marriage thing wasn’t such a bad idea.
But there’s no sign at all of Jackson, which hurts almost as much as the original rejection.
A bus lurches to a stop in front of me, so I jump on and sink into the nearest seat – before realising it’s going in entirely the wrong direction. Stumbling off at the next stop, I vaguely recognise an important landmark – our local kebab shop – at which point I realise I’d been on the right bus after all. The bus that is now disappearing into the distance.
I wrench off my heels and start to scurry along the pavement, dodging groups of people in their Christmas finery coming towards me. All I want to do is get home and pour out the whole ridiculous story to Flo – and ask her not to rent my room out to someone else because I’m not moving in with Jackson after all!
But of course when I finally arrive home and burst through the door, she and Fergus are snuggled together on the sofa. By the looks of things, Fergus is manfully sitting through Flo’s favourite rom-com for about the two hundred and twenty-fifth time. (Fergus is lovely like that.)
Flo looks up questioningly to see me back so early.
‘Bit of a hiccup. Don’t ask!’ I paste on a grin, implying a ladder in my tights or something equally harmless. Then I escape up the stairs to my room.
Sitting upright on my bed, hugging my knees, I stare at my feet and the tights that are blackened and full of holes from my desperate dash home. I dropped one of my gorgeous new shoes on the way but ran on like someone possessed, not caring. I wish I’d stopped now. There’s a small smear of blood mixed with the dirt from where my foot pounded onto something sharp.
I reach down to touch the wound, and the sting intensifies a hundredfold.
Tears well up as the full horror of what I’ve done hits me with the force of a sledgehammer. I’ve just made the biggest tit of myself in the history of TV bloopers. I’ll probably be on every episode of When Proposals Go Wrong for the next ten years, and that’s only if I get lucky.
The nightmare scenario of the most cringe-making, toe-curlingly gruesome hour of my life seems to be playing on repeat in my head – presumably in case I might somehow, without the constant helpful reminders, forget it happened.
Like I’m ever going to forget tonight!
I flump face down on the bed. What on earth possessed me? You do not propose to someone unless you are one hundred per cent certain of the answer. Especially if you’re doing it on live TV!
Flo knocks softly on the door.
‘I’m asleep,’ I call.
There’s a pause. Then, ‘Okay, but come and get me when you want to talk about it.’
‘Okay,’ I mumble into the pillow, feeling quite nauseous. The alcohol is making my head spin round and round.
Those bloody champagne cocktails! They should come with a warning: Danger. Drink at your peril. You might be forced to emigrate to escape the shameful consequences of your actions.
I scramble under the covers fully clothed, just wanting to disappear from earth,