Slightly Settled

by Wendy Markham

  “I did break up with my girlfriend six months before I met Sonja….”

  “Oh.”

  “In which case, Sonja isn’t my Transition Girl.”

  “Right.”

  But I want her to be his Transition Girl. I don’t want her to be his Ms. Right.

  Because I might want Buckley for myself. When I’m ready.

  But, wait. Don’t I also want Jack for myself?

  Yup. I want both of them.

  And according to Kate, I can’t have either one of them. Yet.

  “I don’t know what I want,” Buckley says with a heavy sigh. “I just know what I don’t want.”

  “A live-in girlfriend.”

  “Right.”

  “Or a June wedding.”

  “Sure as hell not next June.” He plunks his bottle down. “Want another beer?”

  I do, but I can tell that he doesn’t.

  So we leave.

  Buckley takes the subway back uptown, and I walk home through the rain. I need the exercise. Now that the weather’s so crummy, I haven’t been walking back and forth to work anymore.

  I don’t think I’ll ever get past the deep-seated dread of regaining all that weight.

  Look, I’m not as self-involved as Will is. I know that there are worse things that can happen in the grand scheme of things. Far worse things. War, plagues, terrorism.

  I have more than my share of anxiety when it comes to potential global disaster, even with my happy pills.

  But on a personal level, aside from getting lung cancer or being shoved in front of a number seven train by a street psycho, one of my greatest fears is being fat again. Because when you come right down to it, being overweight is pretty damned horrible.

  If I were still overweight, a guy like Jack never would have asked me out.

  Will pops into my head. Will, who was my boyfriend when I was fat.

  That I even had a boyfriend when I was fat is sometimes hard to fathom. But, of course, Will never really cared about me. For him, the big—the only—attraction was that I was as obsessed with him as he was.

  And anyway, I didn’t really have him when I had him. He cheated on me the whole time we were together, with skinny girls. He left me for a skinny girl.

  And even though I know I’m better off without him, there’s a hurt, wistful part of me that can’t help but wonder how Will would feel about me if he could see me now, as a skinny girl.

  We’ve talked, but only on the phone. The last time I saw him—and he saw me—was the night he broke up with me. In the three months since, I’ve lost almost twenty more pounds.

  Standing on the corner of Broadway, waiting to cross, I catch sight of myself in the window of Tower Records. I look like a drowned rat. But a svelte drowned rat.

  Am I skinny enough, now, for Will?

  It doesn’t matter, I remind myself sternly. Will is a narcissistic jerk, and even if he wanted you back, you wouldn’t want him.

  After all, I didn’t just change on the outside; I changed on the inside, too. I’m different now than I was when I was with Will. Stronger. Happier. More self-confident.

  Yeah, right. If you’re so self-confident, why are you checking to see if your reflection is as slender as Esme Spencer’s?

  The light changes.

  I splash into the street.

  Why does the old, insecure, not-good-enough Tracey keep rearing her sorry head, questioning everything?

  Everything from whether I’ll really get a shot at being a copywriter to whether I’ll ever be a bride to whether, if I splurge on a knish, I’ll gain back fifty pounds, and then some.

  By the time I reach my apartment, I’m cold and wet and sick of myself. All I want is a hot shower and flannel pajamas and a cup of tea and the new Jane Smiley novel I bought last week and haven’t had a chance to start.

  I’m so focused on those things that I never even think to check the answering machine.

  It isn’t until I’m shuffling past it in my slippers, carrying my tea and the TV Guide, that I see the red light blinking.

  Hmm. A message. Even then, it doesn’t occur to me that it might be Jack.

  I press the button and flip the TV Guide open to Sunday, sipping my tea as the tape rewinds.

  “Hi, Tracey, it’s me, Jack.”

  Startled, I swallow a gulp of scalding tea, scorching my esophagus.

  “I just wanted to say hi and tell you that I had a great time yesterday. We should go out again. Give me a call if you want—the number’s 718-555-7455—or I’ll try to stop by your desk tomorrow at work. Bye.”

  I stand there, throat burning, staring at the answering machine.

  He said he’d call.

  He called.

  And I’m tasting wedding cake and champagne again, dammit.

  9

  Monday morning, I get to work early enough to leave my first Secret Snowflake in Myron’s cubby in the mail room. Jack told me Myron’s a huge Jets fan, so I got him a gummy sucker shaped like a football player wearing a Jets uniform. Very cute; very affordable: It was only a buck fifty.

  It’s so early that I have to turn on all the lights and make the coffee in the kitchenette on my floor. I stand there while it’s brewing, trying to warm my icy hands in the pockets of my brown blazer, and thinking about Jack.

  I decided not to call him back last night.

  For one thing, it can’t hurt to play hard to get.

  After all, I did the opposite with Will, and look what happened.

  For another thing, I was afraid that Mike would answer the phone if I called. I know it’s stupid, but I just can’t seem to get over the weirdness of Jack being Mike’s roommate.

  For yet another thing, I was supposed to have one date with Jack and move on. I wasn’t supposed to sleep with him, and I sure as hell wasn’t supposed to start fantasizing about a relationship with him.

  The final reason I didn’t call Jack back is that Buckley called me. He kept me on the phone for over an hour, dissecting his relationship with Sonja. I could hardly make an excuse and hang up. Not after I had done exactly the same thing to him—repeatedly—when Will and I broke up.

  The more I talked to Buckley, the more I wondered if fate wants us to be together. Me and Buckley, that is.

  I mean, I’ve been attracted to him from the moment I met him. And he was attracted to me, too.

  Now that we’re both unattached, are we meant to fall madly in love?

  I try to picture myself walking down the aisle toward Buckley. To be honest, it isn’t hard to do.

  I try to picture myself walking down the aisle toward Jack. That isn’t hard, either.

  But then, at this time last year, I had every detail of my wedding to Will planned, unwilling to believe that the closest he intended to get to a wedding cake was serving it as a waiter for Eat Drink Or Be Married.

  How could I have fooled myself for so long?

  You know, my Monday-morning brain hurts from all this complicated thinking. Too bad my next shrink appointment is still two days away.

  I pour myself a cup of coffee and head to my cubicle. Maybe I’ll have an e-mail from Jack. It’ll be easier to respond in writing than in a telephone conversation, because I can edit myself. When I’m nervous about something, I tend to blurt embarrassing things.

  When I get to my desk, I see a package sitting on top of my keyboard. It’s a gold foil-wrapped box with a red velvet bow, and I instantly recognize the distinctive shape.

  Godiva.

  A one-pound box, at that.

  Yowza.

  Who do you think it’s from?

  I lift the box and turn it over, looking for a note. There isn’t one.

  “Whatcha got there, Chief?”

  I look up to see Mike poking his head into my cubicle.

  “Chocolates.”

  “Wow. Nice.”

  “Yeah.”

  Is it my imagination, or are his eyes ultra-twinkly?

  Jack. The chocolates are from Jack. Yu
p, they’re from Jack, and Mike knows about them. That’s why he’s all ultra-twinkly.

  “Guess your Secret Snowflake really likes you, huh?” Mike says.

  Ah, I see. A ruse. He wants me to think they’re from my Secret Snowflake to throw me off Jack’s trail. How cunning.

  “They can’t be from my Snowflake,” I point out. “This candy costs more than twice as much as we’re supposed to spend on our Snowflake for the whole week.”

  He dismisses that with a wave of his hand. “Maybe your Snowflake got them on sale.”

  Now I’m convinced he’s covering for Jack.

  Although, come to think of it…why wouldn’t Jack want to take credit for a pound of Godivas? I look again for a note, wondering if I somehow missed it.

  “Ooh, chocolate for breakfast!” Brenda squeals from over Mike’s left shoulder. “What’s the occasion? Are you sharing, Trace?”

  “Of course I’m sharing.” In fact, I’m not touching these things. After the onion rings on Saturday and the movie popcorn yesterday, I might as well apply premium Belgian truffles right to my hips.

  I carefully remove the bow, which is tied with a Christ-masy doodad. Then I open the box and set it on top of a file cabinet.

  “Help yourselves,” I tell Mike and Brenda.

  They do.

  Then they leave me alone with the chocolates, the ribbon-entwined doodad and an inquiring mind.

  Later that morning, I’m still wondering whether they’re from Jack when the man in question shows up by my desk.

  “Hi,” he says cheerfully. He’s wearing dark suit pants, a pressed white dress shirt, and a strangely familiar black-and-white patterned tie.

  “Hi, Jack!” I respond, just as cheerfully.

  “Chocolate,” he says, looking at the still-open box of Godivas, which is half gone. Thanks to willpower of steel, I’ve only eaten one.

  “Yeah, chocolate.” I try to read his expression. “You want some?”

  “No, thanks. I don’t like chocolate.”

  “You don’t like chocolate?”

  Not only have I never met a human being who doesn’t like chocolate, but…

  Why would you send somebody something you don’t like?

  So maybe I was wrong. Maybe he didn’t send them.

  But if he didn’t, who did?

  “Nope. I don’t like chocolate,” he repeats. “Not candy, anyway. It gives me a headache.”

  “All chocolate?”

  “Not chocolate cake. I do like chocolate cake. I don’t suppose you’ll be serving any of that later?”

  I laugh.

  So does he.

  We fall silent.

  You’d expect silence to be awkward, but it isn’t.

  Still, I’m compelled to fill it, because…well, because I trained myself to do that with Will.

  “Nice tie,” I comment. “It’s Mike’s, huh?”

  “Nah, it’s mine. But Mike borrows it sometimes.”

  “He does?” It’s funny to picture him and Mike raiding each other’s closets. I thought only women did that.

  “Yeah, Dianne hates it when he wears my ties. She usually picks out all his clothes. She has expensive taste. Really expensive, and really boring. Which isn’t surprising, considering that she’s really boring.”

  “Is there anything you like about Dianne?” I ask, lowering my voice. Mike’s supposedly out at a client meeting, but you never know.

  “Absolutely nothing,” he says. “She’s a one-woman axis of evil.”

  “Then why is Mike with her?”

  “Because he has no spine. And because he’s infatuated with her, and God only knows why. I don’t like her. None of his friends like her. But he won’t listen to us. He has blinders on when it comes to Dianne.”

  It sounds uncomfortably close to a Tracey-Will relationship. So close that I must change the subject immediately.

  “How was your weekend?” I ask. “The rest of it, I mean.”

  He shrugs. “I had to go to my cousin’s birthday dinner Saturday night up in Scarsdale.”

  Elated, I ask, “How was that?”

  “The caterer was great. My cousins are stuffy. What’d you do?”

  Sat around and worried, needlessly, that you were out with another woman.

  “Not much. Your family lives in Scarsdale?”

  “Just that branch—my father’s brother, his wife and their kids. My parents are up in Bedford.”

  I may not know much about the northern suburbs, but I know that Scarsdale and Bedford are where all the rich people live. Okay, maybe not all of them. Most of them.

  Jack doesn’t seem rich.

  Then again, if he’s sending Godiva chocolates on a media planner’s salary, he might just have a trust fund or something.

  Feeling like a brazen contestant on Joe Millionaire, I size up his suit and take a peek at his shoes. Not that I know anything about men’s shoes. His are polished and black.

  He looks down. “Did you drop something?”

  “No! I, uh, I thought I just saw something scurry across the floor. Like maybe a mouse, or, uh, a cockroach.”

  Good going, Tracey. How romantic.

  Reminder to self: In future, avoid mention of rodents and/or roaches during flirtation.

  Jack has jumped back a few feet, gaping at the floor and then at me.

  I can’t help laughing at his squeamish expression.

  He laughs, too. “Sorry,” he says. “When it comes to roaches…”

  “I know.” I shudder. Then, in case he’s thinking of fleeing my vermin-infested office, I conclude brightly, “Maybe it was just an ant.”

  An ant. Uh-huh. An oversized ant, in a Manhattan office building, in the dead of December.

  “You might want to cover your chocolate, just in case,” Jack suggests, glancing at the box.

  Then he asks, casually—too casually, I think—“Who’s it from?”

  “I’m not sure. I found it on my desk this morning. There wasn’t a card.”

  “Must be your Secret Snowflake.”

  “It can’t be. There’s a fifteen-dollar limit for the week.”

  “This is over the limit?” he asks, the picture of innocence, as he puts the gold foil cover on the Godivas.

  “Um, ye-ah,” I say in my best teen girl duh tone.

  “Oh. Well then, maybe you have a secret admirer.”

  “Maybe,” I say coyly, leaning forward on my desk and resting my chin in my hand, inviting him to fess up.

  “Well, I’ve got to get this up to Creative.” He holds up the manila folder in his hand.

  “Okay.” I deduce he’s not going to fess up now.

  Or that maybe he didn’t give me the chocolates.

  But then, who did? Santa Claus?

  “Want to go out again?” he asks, lingering in the doorway of my cube.

  I pounce on that like Raphael on a new issue of International Male. “Sure! When?”

  Do you think I sound too eager? I can’t help it. I can’t wait to be alone with him again. I don’t know how I’ll get through until—

  “Tomorrow night?”

  “Tomorrow night?” It’s all I can do not to jump on him and wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist.

  Please remain calm blares the public address system in my brain.

  “I think I’m free,” I say sedately. “Let me check.”

  I snatch the big black bag from under my desk, grab my day planner and wildly flip through the pages.

  Under Tuesday, it says only CONFESSION in huge black letters, underlined.

  “Um, yeah, I’m free tomorrow night,” I tell Jack, holding the day planner so that he can’t see CONFESSION. Like I want to explain that.

  I look at him.

  His dimples deepen.

  I’m melt-innnngggg…

  “Tuesday sounds great,” I say.

  The minute he leaves, I cross out CONFESSION and beneath it write JACK. I underline it twice.

  I mean, why
confess my sins if I’m just going to run right back out and sin again?

  So much for chastity and soul cleansing. I might as well wait until after the date and kill two birds with one stone. The two birds being sleeping with Jack twice.

  On the other hand…

  Okay, here’s a novel idea: I could not sleep with him.

  Or I could just not go out with him at all.

  What kind of idiot idea is that?

  Nobody said you can only go out once with a Transition Boy. I mean, what kind of transition is that?

  I need to get used to dating again.

  And I have a foolproof way to make sure I won’t sleep with him this time.

  “You want me to sleep over tomorrow night, Tracey?” Raphael narrows his permed eyelashes at me across the pile of dirty clothes I’m sorting.

  Since we both live in buildings without laundry facilities, our tradition is to meet at a Laundromat once a week for suds and suds—we always bring a six-pack with us.

  Tonight, however, the six-pack is for me.

  Raphael brought a thermos full of something with brandy, rum and curaçao in it. It’s called a Between the Sheets. Naturally, Raphael thought it was apropos for our laundry date. I don’t feel like getting plastered on a week-night, so I’m sticking with Rolling Rock.

  “Yup, I want you to sleep over tomorrow night, Raphael,” I confirm. “Will you?”

  “But why?”

  “Please, Raphael, just do it.”

  “Tracey! I can’t just agree to something like that without knowing why.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “I need to know.”

  “Raphael, you sleep all over Manhattan with God knows who. Why can’t you spend one night at my place?”

  “I already spent one night at your place this week.”

  “So spend another night.”

  “On the floor? No, thank you.”

  “You can have the bed this time,” I promise, tossing a pair of jeans onto the darks pile with my left hand and raising my bottle of Rolling Rock to my mouth with the right. I take a swig, then ask, “You’re over your cold, right?”

  “Almost. Aside from the phlegm.”

  He makes a spasm gesture and coughs, like he’s trying to raise a fur ball.

  I wince.

  “Come on, Raphael, I need you.”