COMMITMENTS : Popping the Question : Sometimes, When the Timing’s All Wrong, It’s All Right

She had her chance. Two glasses of Merlot. A Duraflame in the fireplace. Sinatra on the CD player. Our two dogs snoozing in the middle of the living room. The two of us in our customary places on the sofa, where we have shared so many great conversations.

“This is It,” I thought to myself. I didn’t think it, exactly. The idea seemed to pop up on its own, an unexpected voice-over interrupting a stock domestic scene we had reprised night on night for almost two years.

When a man says, “This is It,” to himself, he is either having a heart attack or about to ask a woman to marry him.

I had a pretty good idea which one I was dealing with. We had talked about It, hinting around It, even sort of planned for It, eventually.

But before we could do It, we needed The Right Moment.

Now, we’re not a couple you’d ever find on a Harlequin cover. We don’t go in for bodice ripping. (Have you priced bodices lately?) Nor are we particularly big on knee-bending, ring-flourishing, heart-fluttering or violin-serenading.

Our postmodern sensibilities recoiled at the idea of manufacturing The Right Moment from some cheesy, B-movie script. We’re more Kafka than Capra. For us, The Right Moment would have to be subtle, sublime. It would have to insinuate itself, give a little tap on the shoulder.

*

Naturally, as the male, it was up to me to recognize--and presumably seize--The Right Moment whenever it happened along. This was implicitly understood. We’re not that postmodern.

“This is It,” the voice in my head announced. It sounded alarmingly like James Earl Jones intoning “This . . . is CNN.”

I smiled over at her, trying to look nonchalant, but she’s too sharp. She saw something in my face.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. It’s too late to turn back now, James Earl Jones said. Go for it, Sylvester Stallone added. It’s now or never, Elvis opined.

I conducted a quick atmospheric check. Fire, crackling. Dogs, cute. Wine, a little young, but not impertinent. Sinatra--

“Love and marriage. Love and marriage. They go together like the horse and carriage. . . .”

Forget it. No way. I can’t ask this woman to marry me with the theme from “Married . . . With Children” as the soundtrack! Corniness like that can get you arrested in this town.

“This I tell you, brother,” sang Frank, “you can’t have one without the other.”

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

It’s a short song. The next one was “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” which just so happens to be my all-time favorite Sinatra song. All right. We’ll just sit tight for another minute or so and then. . . .

I smiled at her again. She smiled back, but then a look of startled surprise crossed her face. Damn, she’s on to me!

She leaped from the couch and practically ran to the CD player. “Melrose Place!” she cried.

“You can’t have one . . . “ Frank sang.

“Can’t it wait one more minute?” I appealed.

“You can’t have none . . . “

“No, it’s on right now ,” she replied.

“You can’t ha-”

Click. Off went Frank. Click. On went the TV. Even the dogs got up and left.

Like I said, she had her chance.

*

I had done my best. I wasn’t going to wait for The Right Moment anymore. Thus snubbed (although, in fairness, the snubber was completely unaware of the snubbing), I vowed to wait for precisely The Wrong Moment.

I didn’t have long to wait.

The very next weekend, for reasons that make sense only on a Sunday afternoon, we ventured out to take a close-up look at the Hollywood sign. After a few wasted hours of driving and walking up and down endless, twisting streets, we somehow wound up on the CityWalk at Universal Studios.

On the list of things I hope will be destroyed in the next earthquake, Universal Studios ranks behind only strip malls and the Angelyne billboards. My girlfriend doesn’t like it nearly that much.

Fatigued and famished, we grudgingly decided to stop at Gladstone’s along the CityWalk for a bowl of chowder and a view of the fake beach. We sat outside in the cold and watched the tourists. I sat with my back to a giant, neon-rimmed King Kong. Our waiter futilely tried to light the gas torch above our table. The Rolling Stones’ “Dead Flowers” blared over the loudspeaker.

Perfect.

“Do you want to get married?”

She smiled. I can see I’m not going to get off that easy.

“Is this a proposal?”

Pause. Millisecond of prickly panic. Then:

“Yes, it is.”

Wait a minute! Whose voice was that? It sure didn’t sound like mine. Didn’t sound like James Earl Jones, either. It sounded more like my dad.

“Yes.”

I said, wait a minute! Hold on! Did we just do what I think we did? Has this actually happened? Did I really want it to? Oh, God . . . OK, get a grip. Exhale, try not to faint, and for Pete’s sake, act happy.

Hugs. Kisses. Chowder everywhere. Then, without warning, she punched me.

“I knew you were going to do this to me!” she said. “Now I’ll have to tell everybody for the rest of my life that I got engaged at Universal Studios!”

I rubbed the new bruise on my arm, and only now do I know that, somehow, some way, I managed to pick The Right Moment.

Or maybe it picked me.

You may be happy to learn, as I was, that even in this graceless age, a man may care about a woman so much that in the moment between his proposal and her reply, a hideous chasm may yet open beneath his feet. Whatever cool he thought he possessed vanishes in the moment he tells her his fondest wish, and waits for her to grant that wish or deny it.

Look at him sitting there, with sourdough bread crumbs down the front of his shirt, a neon gorilla over his shoulder and undisguised terror in his eyes, and try not to laugh.

Just like in a Harlequin romance, he’s undone by love.