I turned around and choked on the fizzing bubbles in my champagne. The bar was small, but one whole corner was taken over by a raised dais. The small stage was set apart by Tiki torches and a palm leaves backdrop. Penn played around with a few more switches and managed to turn on the waterfall that poured down from the ceiling into a pool at the foot of the stage.
"How about a song? It was the most romantic part of how we met," Penn said.
"Yes. Oh, by the way, good job with that. I've never heard one evening get stretched into a year so easily." I couldn't help but approach the stage. Penn waved me on, and I stepped up. "Who am I supposed to sing to?"
"Mickey," Penn said with a playful smile. He grabbed a shaker and pretended to make a drink. "He's a down-on-his-luck bartender in love with a beautiful torch singer. Until one night he gets a big enough tip he can finally ask her to elope."
"Oh, so now we're eloping?" I asked, ignoring the butterflies in my stomach.
"Come on," Penn pleaded. "There has to be a song along those lines."
I started singing and was delighted when Penn froze. He stood with the empty shaker suspended in the air until I laughed through the chorus. Then he went about his pantomime of Mickey the bartender.
For my part, I grabbed the mic and brought my song through the round tables. I pretended to flirt with patrons, sing while I caressed the faces of other men. Then, I brought the wistful end of the song right up to the bar and jumped up to sit on it and sing just for him.
The embers in Pen
n's eyes died out with the last note. "That was fun, but what if I'm tired of pretending?"
I didn't know what to say, but we were interrupted. A man stepped apologetically from the doorway and cleared his throat. "I don't mean to intrude, but I have to know if you are available," the man said.
"Available? No, she's not," Penn said. He rolled up his sleeve and suddenly looked every inch the protective bartender boyfriend to my sultry singer.
"Are you her manager? Because I have to say, you would be wonderful here on a Friday, Saturday night." The man held out his business card and I took it. "Just think about it. You want to sing and this stage is yours."
"Well, what do you know," I chuckled when the bar owner disappeared. "Mickey and his singer might make it, after all. The perfect happy ending to their love story, don't you think?"
Penn shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I'm a cynical bachelor, remember?"
I rolled my eyes. "How could I forget? Oh, yeah, you proposed to me."
"To make my mother happy," Penn said. "Which is really the height of irony seeing as my parents were never married. They fought too much, wanted all different things, and never agreed on anything. That was my example of love, and, I gotta say, I'm not impressed."
I crossed my arms and leaned on the bar. "So, you really are faking the whole thing?"
"Yeah," Penn scoffed. "It's just a harmless diversion."
Harmless, I thought as my heart tumbled over and over.
I shook my head. "No. I don't think anyone's that good an actor. I bet you're really a romantic, you're just too stubborn to admit it."
Penn tossed down a bar rag and walked around the end to join me. "Sounds like a challenge to me. The only problem is, I think you're the one that's not up for it. Are you telling me that Ms. Practical, Ms. Life Plan, could actually be so spontaneous as to fall in love? Doesn't work. You're ruled by your head, just like me."
I stuck out my hand, rankled that he thought me so cold and sharply leveled. "I accept your challenge. I bet by the time our little fake engagement has run its course, I will find a way to show you what real love looks like."
"How Shakespearian," Penn chuckled. "Then again, I've always been partial to the farces."
We shook on it, and I schemed over it all the way back to his house. There, it didn't seem fair to point out the obvious love between Alice and Xavier.
Penn's father held both of Alice’s hands while they stood by his town car and said goodbye. Alice was leaving for her encampment and would be back to start her treatments in earnest. Xavier brushed her hair back and skimmed her cheek with his fingers as they talked.
Penn saw, too, but didn't say anything. The tense clench of his jaw told me he didn't trust it. He was waiting for his father to push her away or his mother to run off. He must have seen them like this a dozen times only to have it erased by other, harder memories. Love was never just one thing and it wasn't always pretty.
I tried to think of a way to tell him that. I wanted to tell him the most beautiful love I had seen was my mother comforting my father even as she lay dying. It had been an ugly, sobbing scene, but deep in my heart, I knew it was love. The memory made me flinch, and I tucked it away again where it wouldn't hurt.
Then, Xavier spotted us. The cool, considering look he gave me made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I had, overnight, become exactly what Penn's father had accused me of. I was holding a position that I did not deserve and scheming over ways to make it real.
"Back from enjoying the luxuries of the spa?" Xavier asked.