CHAPTER 13: Jessi

On Friday morning, I packed up to return to New York. When I got in a good spot on the highway, I called Manette on my cell phone and asked him to meet me at McDonald's.

You see, there's a McDonald's in the theater district where they seat you like they do at a fancy restaurant, but you can order McDonald's food, which is served on china plates. It was once featured on an episode of World's Best on the Travel Channel, on which they talked about unusual fast-food places. (I think that's what it was called.)

As I crossed the state line from Connecticut to New York, I wondered how everything had been while I was away.

When I pulled into the parking lot at McDonald's, I saw Manette's purple truck parked right next to where I was pulling in, and him standing on the sidewalk. "Hi!" I exclaimed as I got out of my car.

"Hi, Jessi," he said, picking me up and twirling me around. When he set me down, he gave me a kiss on the lips. I love it when he does that, because I can feel his beard brushing against my face. Surprisingly, it's not the least bit scratchy or uncomfortable. In fact, I love him so much, I don't care what it feels like.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said.

The two of us went inside and soon got to a table. After the waitress took our order—a fish sandwich and Diet Coke for me, a Quarter Pounder and Sprite for him, and a basket of fries for both of us—Manette looked at me, and grinned.

"You know, I've been doing a lot of thinking about you, and our relationship, while you were gone," he said.

"You have?" I asked.

He nodded. "Well, let me explain it to you this way," he said. Then he started singing, very softly at first, "I, I was the lonely one, wonderin' what went wrong, why love had gone and left me lonely..."

Then he started singing a little louder: "I, I was so confused, feelin' like I'd just been used, then you came to me and my feelings left me. I used to think I was tied to a heartache that was the heartbreak, but now that I've found you..."

The next thing I knew, the whole restaurant was singing along with him: "E-ven the nights are be-et-ter, now that we're here to-ge-eth-er; e-ven the nights are be-et-ter since I found yo-o-ou! Oh, ooh-whoa-ooh-whoa, e-ven the days are bri-igh-ter when some-one you love's be-si-ide ya! E-ven the nights are be-et-ter since I fou-ound yo-o-ou!"

Man, you should've seen the look on my face! The whole time, I had such a huge, dorky grin, I thought my cheeks were going to pop like a couple of cherry tomatoes. On the upside, no one was whistling or saying, "This is Bob", and nobody's voice cracked on "brighter". I was so touched, I didn't even care that a pretty large percentage of these customers couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. (Come to think of it, neither can I.) In that moment, I knew how Kelly McGillis felt in that one scene from Top Gun when those guys sang to her. And no, none of them can sing, either.

The next thing he did was pull a ring out from the underside of the table and get down on one knee in front of me. "Jessica Davis Ramsey, will you marry me?" he asked, slipping the ring onto my finger. It was white-gold with a large square diamond in the middle, which was surrounded by little tiny diamonds. And you should've seen the way it sparkled in every color of the rainbow under the light at just the right angle.

"Yes," I somehow managed to whisper, then burst into tears. I threw my arms around Manette, and we kissed, long and passionately. All the while, everybody in that entire restaurant was cheering, whistling, and whooping it up like they were at a Super Bowl party.

Today was the happiest day of my life.