The visibility on the 86th floor observation deck of the Empire State Building was only 10 miles on Thursday, August 16th. I know this because I was there. So was my girlfriend, Jessica Chan. When Jessica and I first started going out three and a half years ago, we had planned to go to the top of the Empire State Building as part of our first date. This confirmation that I knew nothing about dating in New York City back then (or even now, but don’t tell her that) can easily be mistaken for romanticism. As a native New Yorker, she’d never been to the top of the ESB; I’d only been there a few years ago as part of an itinerary for some out-of-towners I once hosted with great reluctance. Thankfully, my touristy intentions were interrupted when a freak blizzard swept into the city in the middle of March. We instead sat glumly in a snowed out South Street Seaport (evidence piece #2) and had some fruit dessert in Chinatown. On Thursday, the thunderstorm front the meteorologists were forecasting (but failed to forecast 10 days ago when I planned the schedule) missed us by a few hours, but in its stead, we were enjoying a hazy view of Manhattan. We weaved through throngs of tourists and dialects before finding a relatively empty spot overlooking southern Manhattan – including the Lower East Side, where she and I both grew up as children. We looked towards the financial core of the island, our eyes failing to focus through all the smog. Finally, she looked like she was ready to leave. I stammered, “I have some things to tell you!” “Yes?” she said. And, “It’s hot up here,” her voice sounding threateningly girly. I told her about how, for the first time since our relationship started, I had been hiding things from her, and that when our mutual friend, Laura, and I were supposedly “hanging out” several weeks ago, we weren’t “hanging out” at all, but actually “shopping around.” I told her that I had this vague outline of a speech in my head that sounded much better locked in my head, but now that I was spouting it, it felt more like exposition. I told her that I learned that keeping secrets from her, even for a good cause, doesn’t pay; I was breaking out, my gut was a wreck, and my chest had been tightening for the last two days. The thing is, I said, I have come to depend so much on you, on talking to you, on having your emotional support. If anything, these last few weeks have taught me how I never want to keep secrets from you again. Just like before. Like the way our relationship has always been before I started “shopping around.” By now, she had started searching my person, patting my pockets and rummaging through my camera bag for the item I had been outlining but not mentioning: the ring box. She couldn’t find it. “Where are you hiding it?” she asked, full of hopeful concern. I said that I heard that back in the Vietnam War, POWs would hide things like watches in the only place they had left. In their butts, I said. We looked at each other. I started, “I have a question to ask you--.” “No.” She hugged me then, and for several minutes, we just enjoyed the view, staring down towards the tip of the island where we spent our most youthful days. It was as if we were holding onto the last moments of our boyfriend-girlfriend stage, and I loved it. I looked around for a spot to kneel. She said that I shouldn’t, and that if I did she’d have to say no. And then in the secret language of ABCs (American-born Chinese), which is Mandarin, she said, “There are too many people.” That was too bad because I had already started looking forward to being in a bunch of random tourists’ vacation photos. She and I being both relatively shy people, I said, “All right,” and then, “I have to fetch something from my butt.” I pulled out the suede black box from my camera bag’s secret compartment. (Yes. I am being serious.) I said, “Are you ready for your question?” She shook her head no. I opened the box with the Tiffany’s ring that I felt was a perfect complement for her 4.25-sized finger, and I said, “Honey. Jessica Chan: will you marry me?” “Yes.” Nicholas wins. Game over. I slipped on the ring and we kissed. The German tourists next to us with the binoculars failed to notice anything. As the rest of the evening unfolded, I carried her along the perfectly romantic trajectory I had planned: yuppie Indian food at Tabla, followed by a night at the Hotel Elysee, which some claim is the most romantic hotel in the city. I don’t know about that, but it sure looked very Parisian and Paris was our very first conversation topic on the night we first met and actually fell in love. -fin- | 
