He came back that Sunday to help Liz pack up. Her friends had told her she could stay one extra day, and she and Jane were obviously unhappy to go home. It was the end of the vacation for them, and they wouldn't be going anywhere else that year. Liz couldn't afford to take any trips, with or without Jane, and their mood was so gloomy on the way home that Bernie felt sorry for them.
“Listen, you two, why don't we go somewhere else sometime soon? Maybe Carmel …Lake Tahoe? How does that sound? I haven't been anywhere yet, and you ladies could show me around. In fact, we could do both!” Liz and Jane let out a whoop of glee and the next day he told his secretary to make reservations for them somewhere. She got a condominium in Lake Tahoe for the three of them, he had specified three bedrooms to her, and she was able to get it for the following weekend, as well as Labor Day, and when he told them that night they were thrilled. Jane blew him a kiss as Liz tucked her into bed, but Liz looked concerned as she came out to sit in her tiny living room with him. She had a one-bedroom flat, and Jane slept in the single bedroom, while Liz slept in the living room on a convertible couch. It became rapidly obvious to him that their love life would not improve here.
She looked worried as she looked up at him apologetically. “Bernie … I don't want you to misunderstand …but I don't think we should go to Lake Tahoe with you.”
He looked like a disappointed child as he stared at her unhappily. “Why not?”
“Because this is all so wonderful …and I'm sure it sounds crazy to you …but I can't do these things with Jane. And if I let you do them for us, what are we going to do afterwards?”
“After what?” But he knew what she meant. He didn't want to, but he did.
“After you go back to New York.” Her voice was as soft as silk, and she held his hand as they sat on the couch and talked. “Or after you get tired of me. We're grown-ups, and it all feels wonderful to us now …but who knows what will happen next month, or next week or next year …”
“I want you to marry me.” His voice was small and hard and she stared at him. But she wasn't nearly as surprised as he. The words had just come to his lips of their own, but now that they were there, he knew that they were right as he looked at her.
“You what? You're not serious.” She leapt to her feet and paced the small room nervously. “You don't even know me yet.”
“Yes, I do. All my life I've been going out with women whom I knew on the first date I never wanted to see again, but I figured what the hell, give it a try, you never know …and two months later, or three or six, I threw in the towel and never called them again. Now I find you, and I knew the first time I laid eyes on you that I was in love with you, and the second time I saw you I knew you were right for me and that you were the best woman I'd ever meet, and if I was very, very lucky, you'd let me shine your shoes for the rest of my life … so what am I supposed to do now? Play games for six months and pretend that I need to figure it out? I don't need to figure out anything. I love you. I want to marry you.” He was beaming at her, and he suddenly knew that the best thing possible had just happened to him. “Will you marry me, Liz?”
She was grinning at him and she looked even younger than her twenty-seven years. “You're nuts. Do you know that? You're crazy.” But she knew the same things. She was wild about him. “I can't marry you after three weeks. What are people going to say? What will your mother say?” She said the magic words and he groaned, but he still looked happier than he ever had in his life.
“Listen, as long as your name is not Rachel Nussbaum and your mother's maiden name wasn't Greenberg or Schwartz, she's going to have a nervous breakdown anyway, so what difference does it make?”
“It'll make a big difference to her if you tell her you met me three weeks ago.”
She walked back to where he stood, and he pulled her back down on the couch next to him and took her hands in his. “I'm in love with you, Elizabeth O'Reilly, and I don't care if you're related to the Pope and I met you yesterday. Life is too short to waste time playing games. I never have and I never will. Let's not waste what we've got.” And then he had an idea. “Tell you what. We'll do this properly. We'll get engaged. Today is August first, we'll get married at Christmastime, that's almost five months away. If you can tell me by then that that isn't what you want to do, we'll cancel everything. How does that sound?” He was already thinking of the ring he would buy …five carats …seven …eight…ten …anything she wanted. He put an arm around her shoulders and she was laughing with tears in her eyes.
“Do you realize you haven't even slept with me yet?”
“An oversight on my part.” He looked unimpressed, and then looked at her thoughtfully. “As a matter of fact, I meant to discuss that with you. Do you suppose you could find a babysitter one of these days? It's not that I don't love our little girl”—she was already his, too—“I do, but I have this wicked, lewd, lecherous idea that involves your coming up to my place for a few hours …”
“I'll see what I can arrange.” She was still laughing at him. It was the craziest thing that had ever happened to her. But he was such a good man, and she knew he would be wonderful to her and Jane for the rest of their lives, but much more important, she knew she was in love with him. It was just so damn difficult to explain that she had fallen in love with him and knew it was right in just three weeks. She couldn't wait to tell Tracy, her best friend at school, a substitute teacher, who was due back from a cruise. She left Liz a lonely woman and when she came back she would find Liz engaged to the general manager of Wolffs. It was absolutely nuts. “All right, all right, I'll get a baby-sitter.” He was pressing her.
“Does this mean we're engaged?” He was beaming and so was she.
“I guess it does.” She still couldn't believe what they'd done, and he was squinting now, trying to figure something out.
“How about having the wedding on December twenty-ninth? That's a Saturday.” He already knew that from plans they'd made at the store. “That way we'll have Christmas with Jane, and we can go to Hawaii or something for our honeymoon.” Liz was completely bowled over by him and as she laughed he leaned over and kissed her and suddenly it all made sense to both of them. It was a dream come true, a perfect match … a match made over a banana split with Jane watching over them, like a guardian angel.
Bernie leaned over and kissed Liz, and she could feel his heart pounding as he held her close to him. And they both knew with absolute certainty, this was forever.
Chapter 7
It took her two days to find a babysitter, and she announced it to Bernie over the phone that afternoon, and blushed when she mentioned it. She knew exactly what he had in mind, and it was embarrassing to be so unspontaneous about it. But with Jane in the only bedroom she had, there wasn't much else they could do. The woman was coming at seven o'clock and was willing to stay until one.
“It's a bit like Cinderella, but it'll do,” she said with a smile.
“That's all right. Don't worry about it.” He had a fifty-dollar bill just begging to fall into the woman's hands when Liz went to kiss Jane good night. “Wear something a little dressy tonight.”
“Like a garter belt?” She was as nervous as a bride, and he laughed at what she said.
“Sounds great. But wear a dress over it. Let's have dinner out.”
She was surprised. She had visions of going to his apartment straight from hers, and getting the “first time” over with. It seemed almost like a surgical procedure to her. First times were so awkward anyway, and the idea of going to dinner instead appealed to her enormously.