Challenge No.87 - A Proposal.
Write a scene or story that includes a proposal. What is the proposal for? Is it accepted or rejected? How does the proposer present their question?
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Leroy was getting married, that was a fact, what was in dispute was, to who?
Leroy met Sheila at the roller-skating rink where she was on a Friday after work lime. The attraction was mutual and immediate. She'd found an excuse to come over to his area. The concession stand was not the place to get to know people so he'd asked her out and she'd accepted.
They'd gone to JJs for crab night. Over the meal, he'd found out that she had two other sisters and she was a teacher. Over the weeks and months, Leroy and Sheila got close. The relationship progressed from strangers to friends to lovers.
He'd pick her up from school or home, she'd get him to go on tours with the National Trust, and he'd take her to soccer games.
One day he proposed to her.
She accepted but stated that he needed to inform her family. Not to seek permission - that was too old school. But come over to let folks know the news.
He agreed.
In all this time he'd yet to meet her sisters.
That Sunday in his best outfit, Leroy visited the family of his now fiancée. The closer he got to the house with its surrounding balcony, the more his head hurt. There... seated, chatting and laughing were three Shelias.
"Hello." He joined them.
"Hi, Leroy." They chorused.
He just stood there looking from one woman to the next.
"You know my sisters, Shirley and Stella," Sheila said.
"I do?"
"Of course! We saw the latest Weekes movie." Stella said.
"And we were at the soccer game last weekend," Shirley said.
The situation was beginning to register on his slow brain. "How come you didn't say you were a triplet." He spoke to Sheila, at least he thought it was her.
"I told you that I had two sisters."
A thought now entered his mind, with such force that he stepped back. The sisters read his mind.
"All of us." They chorused.
He'd been sleeping with all of them. "How?" He swallowed hard. "I didn't know!"
"How could you? You're just a man." Stella replied.
"Come. Sit. We have a proposal for you." Shirley offered him a seat.
"Proposal?" He squeaked as he sank into a chair.
"Marry all three of us." Sheila dropped the bombshell.
"WHAT!" He jumped out of the chair.
"She didn't stutter and you're not deaf," Stella said.
Leroy could not believe what he was hearing. "It's illegal to be married to more than one person at the same time."
"This is why you will marry Sheila and have contracts with us," Stella explained.
"We can have a blessing after," Shirley added.
"No church will bless us. Not in Saint Lucia."
The triplets shrugged as one. "No worries," Shirley said.
"Leroy. You marry all or you marry none." Sheila warned.
"Well?" Their father now joined them "What'd he say?"
Leroy was getting married, that was a fact, what was never in dispute was, to who.
© 26 May 2022
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AUTHOR'S NOTE
Fact is stranger than fiction.
This story was inspired by an item in the New York Post dated March 2022 entitled Man marries triplets on same day after they propose to him
https://nypost.com/2022/03/02/man-marries-triplets-on-same-day-after-they-propose-to-him/
The link was valid at the time of post.
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