A Wonderful Announcement

Phyllis and Blake are engaged! They’re in Rome right now. She called me yesterday afternoon when I was on my way out of Dunster heading for the Ag, saying she needed the number for the hotel where Mom and Dad were staying in England. I ran back up to my room and got it for her and went on my way. About halfway to the theater, she called again. It hadn’t worked, so she needed me to check again. But I really needed to get to the theater, so I tried to say that I’d call her in about half an hour with the number. “No!” she said, “I need it now.”

“But, Phyllis, I’m already running late and rehearsal will be over by the time I get there.” We argued for a little bit about it; I was insisting that I really needed to get to rehearsal, she was insisting that it was urgent that she get the number. Finally, she let it out.

“Margaret, Blake’s just proposed to me and I need to tell them.”

“Oh!” I was stunned. “Oh my!” She hadn’t been planning to tell me (she really wanted Mom and Dad to know first), but since I was being so stubborn about it she had to tell me just to get me to find the number. While I was approaching the Ag, she told me how it happened. They were in St. Peter’s Square, and Blake suggested that they go to the obelisk that’s in the center of the square. Now, there’s really no reason to go TO the Obelisk– if you want a good photo of it, you need to be far away, and there isn’t anything really fascinating about the bottom of it. But Phyllis didn’t think about that. She was too busy getting out her guidebook. She started telling Blake all about the obelisk, probably about how it used to have a globe on top with the ashes of Julius Caesar among other interesting things, but he said, “Phyllis, you can put away the guidebook.” She noticed that his hand was shaking, and she thought that that was a little odd, but she still didn’t realize what was going on. Then, because he was so nervous, ALL of him started shaking, and he got down on one knee and started sputtering “I know we can’t get married for a couple years, but..” and he asked her to marry him. She accepted, of course. At this point, according to Phyllis, all pretenses of gracefulness flew out the window because the ring was slightly small for her finger so Blake had to work kind of hard to put it on her finger.

By this time, I was already walking down Brattle Street with a ridiculous grin on my face, and then she asked me if I’d be her maid of honor, which made me even giddier with delight. I went into the Ag and straight down to the shop so I wouldn’t have to explain to anyone why I was grinning like an idiot. I cross checked the number, and it was the same one. So I had to go through all of yesterday and all of today not telling anyone (NOT EASY!) until just now when Mom and Dad called to let me know that they had been told.