The very professional, very dignified doctors formed a half circle behind him.
All my hairs were standing on end. Whatever was going on, it was going to be good.
Dan stuck his arm out and pointed a finger at Marcus: “Hit it.”
Grinning like the loopiest of loons, Marcus pushed a button on the MP3 player. Lead-in music—horns, drums, and even a fiddle—began to blare out through the speakers. And as we all watched with mouths that had fallen open in amazement, the doctors began to sway in time to the music, some twirling their stethoscopes around like a burlesque diva’s feather boa, others snapping their fingers in time to the music in a raucous parody of the climactic chapel scene in
Mamma Mia!
Dan clasped his hand to his chest and sang:
“Steff, I love you dearly, It’s been a year, or at least nearly
...”
The doctors stopped in place and sang their parts:
“Say I do! I do, I do, I do, I do love you . . .”
And then it was Dan’s turn again. He got down on one knee and took her hand:
“Marry me, baby! You love me, and I don’t mean maybe . . .”
Steff’s mouth had fallen open. Before the docs could launch into their group entreaties, Steff squealed, “Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes . . .” and did a little launching of her own—straight into Dan’s waiting arms. So hard, in fact, that they both fell backward into the grass, doing a fair amount of damage to Dan’s pristine white lab coat.
Honestly? I don’t think he minded.
The rest of us threw up huzzahs and cheers all around. But I had to laugh when Jenna tsked, a frown drawing her brows together, and shook her head. “They’re getting all dirty. Bet their moms are gonna be
real
mad.”
And when Steff, in between the thousands of kisses she was pressing all over his face, pulled away just for a moment and exclaimed, “I didn’t even know you liked
Mamma Mia!”
Dan laughed and kissed her. Properly.
Caught up in the excitement and delight of the moment, I grinned over at Marcus, and he grinned back. “You knew all about this,” I accused.
“Yup.”
“And you didn’t say a word!”
He bent over and kissed me on the nose. “I know how the two of you are.”
When Dan came up for air at last, he stood holding a blissful, if dazed, Steff in his arms and told me, “Sorry for interrupting your birthday party, Maggie, but I had to know where Steff was going to be in advance in order to pull this off, and this was the best way I could think of. I just really wanted to make it special for her.”
Mission accomplished, methinks.
“When you overheard me and Dr. Crandall hashing out our plans at the hospital—and I still don’t know how you managed to do that—and then spilled the beans to Steff that someone was planning
something
. . . well, I guess I just panicked. I probably came off a little harsh, but I didn’t want Steff or you digging into anything at the hospital, just in case someone accidentally let something slip.”
Now it was my turn for my mouth to fall open. “So it was you I overheard? Not a Machiavellian plot at all?”
Dan laughed. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far. We did have to do a fair bit of scheming and conniving.”
I glanced at Steff and giggled. She was staring at her left hand, oblivious to all, perhaps blinded by the rock on her ring finger. “Well, I think
she
at least forgives you.”
And so the wheel turned. Another notch forward on the gears of the history of this small town. Stony Mill doings may be provincial to some, insignificant to others... but I think we’ve all proven one thing at least:
Deadly, Stony Mill might be; but lifeless we are not.