“I can’t talk to you right now,” I said, tossing my napkin down on the table, standing up in front of the movie playing against the wall, hearing people shout at me to sit down.
I walked through the restaurant and out the thirty-foot-long corridor lined on each side with a waist-high niche of votive candles, pulled my cell phone out of my pocket, and called for a taxi before I got to the street.
I waited out there on Mission, smack in the middle of Dodge City, feeling outraged, then stupid, then really, really mad at myself.
I’d behaved like the dumb-blonde stereotype that I’d always despised.
Chapter 10
I SAID TO MYSELF, You frickin’ bimbo. I leaned down, gave the cabbie a five, and waved him off.
Then I made that romantic, candlelit march all by myself down the thirty-foot corridor, through the restaurant, and out to the back garden.
I got there as the waiter was taking the plates away.
“Down in front!” the person who’d yelled before yelled again. “You. Yes, you.”
I sat down across from Joe, said, “That was stupid of me and I’m sorry.”
Joe’s expression told me that he was really wounded. He said, “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have sprung that on you, but I didn’t imagine you’d react like that.”
“No, don’t apologize. You were right and I was a complete idiot, Joe. Will you please forgive me?”
“I’ve already forgiven you. But Lindsay, every time we fight, the elephant in our relationship does what it does.”
“Trumpets?” I asked, trying to be helpful.
Joe smiled, but it was a sad smile.
“You’re going on forty.”
“I know that. Thank you.”
“I’ll be forty-seven, as you pointed out, tomorrow. Last year I asked you to marry me. The ring I gave you is still in a box in a drawer, not on your finger. What I want for my birthday? I want you to decide, Lindsay.”