Page 109 of Cava with My Colleague

“How did you do that?” Diana asks, amazed.

“Bribery,” Jade says cheerfully. “It’s all about the bribery.”

Fernando laughs. “I like her method better than ours.”

Jade slings her bag over the back of a chair and sits down next to Carmen. My granddaughter is staring at the gift-wrapped ball set on the table and Jade quickly pulls out her Polaroid and snaps a picture.

We settle around the table—the four of us plus Carmen in her high chair, making a mess of her tortilla. Izan has stationed himself under Carmen’s chair, ever hopeful for dropped food.

“So,” Diana says, serving paella. “How’s wedding planning going?”

Not us—Tessa and Luc. They’re going to have a small wedding in the South of France, and Jade and I will attend, along with Emma and Santo, Sara and Chris, and Luc’s grandmother.

“Good. The pictures of the hotel are beautiful. It’s going to be so romantic. And we got my dress just in time.”

“So romantic,” Diana echoes. “Fernando, you should take notes. Now that Grandpa lives here we need a vacation.”

“You said you loved traveling with Carmen!”

“That was before Carmen learned the word ‘no.’”

Jade and I exchange a look. I press my lips together. She doesn’t bother—she lets the laugh out, warm and unguarded, and it sets Fernando off, and then Diana, and even Carmen looks up from her tortilla with an expression of deep suspicion at what the adults find so funny.

This is what Jade does. She laughs first and gives everyone else permission to follow. I noticed it on the tour—the way a room loosened when she relaxed into it. It hasn’t changed. It won’t.

“Does it inspire any feelings in you two?” Fernando asks, grinning. “Our little Carmen would be very cute carrying the arras . . .”

Jade frowns. “Arras?”

“The coins exchanged by the bride and groom at a wedding,” I explain. “Fernando is asking if we want to get married.”

“Oh, uh, we haven’t . . .”

I hide a smile. It’s not often I see Jade lost for words.

“Fernando,” Diana scolds. “Don’t pressure them.”

“I’m not pressuring! I’m asking!”

“It’s fine,” Jade says, and I can see her recalibrating in real time—the half-second of genuine flustered giving way to performance. She straightens. Folds her hands on the table. Adopts the expression of someone about to deliver a very considered response.

“And to answer your question,” she says, with great dignity, “we haven’t talked about it. Formally.”

“Have you talked about it informally?” Fernando asks.

She points at him. “You’re very annoying, you know that?”

Fernando beams. “My favorite hobby is annoying Dad. Now I get to annoy you too. Why haven’t you talked about it?”

She looks at me. I look at her. “Because we’re already committed,” I say. “A wedding doesn’t change anything.”

“It does legally,” Fernando points out.

“He has a point,” Jade says.

“Are you asking me to marry you?”

“I don’t know. Are you asking me?”