“What’s wrong?”
He orders a Sidecar—whatever that is—and I fill him in on the latest Secret Snowflake gift.
“Ooh, is it the rocking horse ornament? I’m dying to buy that one. If you don’t want to keep it, I’ll be happy to take it off your hands, Tracey.”
Whoa, hands off my overpriced bauble, you chotchke-hoarding freak.
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to keep it, Raphael.”
“Oh. Then what’s the problem?”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit odd that somebody would anonymously give me all these expensive gifts? Why would they do that?”
“I think it’s a bit odd that you care. Why even stop to wonder why? Just enjoy, Tracey.” He plucks the long-stemmed cherry from his Sidecar—which turns out to be a fancy drink in a sugar-crusted glass—and nibbles it delicately.
“I can’t just enjoy, Raphael. I feel funny about it. And I feel like a cheapskate, too,” I add, thinking of poor Myron and his gummy sucker.
“I’m sure you weren’t the only one who stuck to the spending limit, Tracey.”
“I didn’t stick to the limit!” I say defensively.
“You went over? Then why are you—”
“Because I went over by five bucks, that’s why. But my Secret—”
“I know, I know,” he cuts in, clearly bored with As the Secret Snowflake Turns. “Ooooh, I forgot to tell you—guess what Carl said?”
“Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum?”
He titters. “Tracey, you’re bad! No, he said that his friend Jorge is bouncing at that new club Juicebox, and he can get us in if we want to go tonight.”
“Why would I want to go to a lesbian club?” I ask. Come to think of it, “Why would you want to go to a lesbian club?”
“Because it’s new, and everyone wants to go,” Raphael says, as if bewildered by my lack of interest. “Not just lesbians. Tracey, are you prejudiced?”
“No, Raphael, I’ve just got stuff to do. Like line up a stripper for the bachelorette party, which you promised you’d—”
He slaps his head. “That’s the great news! Tracey, I forgot to tell you.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I found you a stripper.”
“You did?” That is great news.
Raphael nods jubilantly. “Barkley says he’ll do it.”
“Barkley?”
“Yes, Barkley. You know—Barkley with the sexy mole?” he says in his usual duh tone. The tone he uses when I’m totally clueless about one of the many members of his flamboyant posse whom he swears I’ve met a gazillion times.
Barkley with the sexy mole, Barkley with the sexy mole…
“Oh! Terence’s ex-boyfriend!” I say triumphantly.
Raphael looks horrified. “That’s Bentley! And they’re back together. And that isn’t a mole on his face, and it sure as hell isn’t sexy.”
Well, gee, honest mistake, but you’d never know it by Raphael’s expression.
“Sorry,” I say, “I thought it was Barkley and a mole.”
“No! It’s some kind of disgusting growth.” He shudders. “Terence says he’ll break up with him again if he doesn’t have it lasered off by New Year’s Day. And you know what, Tracey?”
“No, what, Raphael?” I drain the rest of my drink and look around for the waiter.
“I just don’t think Bentley’s going to do it. It’s a real shame, because he’s a sweetheart when you get to know him, but who’s going to bother to get past that glaring, oozing—”
“Raphael!” Time to get him back on topic. “Who’s Barkley?”
Not that it matters. As long as he’s affordable, willing to strip down to a G-string or nothing at all and doesn’t have an oozing growth on his face, he’s hired.
Raphael tells me about Barkley: young, buff, African-American Barkley, who goes by the stage name Bodacious B.
“Bodacious B?” I wrinkle my nose. “That’s so corny.”
“All male strippers have stage names,” declares Raphael, connoisseur of nude men.
He begins sharing the stage names of the strippers he’s known—probably in the biblical sense—but luckily, the waiter shows up.
We both order the mandarin shrimp, which is my all-time favorite thing to eat at Chin Chin. I haven’t had it in at least a month, and it’s probably incredibly fattening, but I dig in anyway, famished after a morning of Snowflake intrigue.
As we eat, Raphael enlightens me as to why Carl is the man he’s been looking for all of his life.
I only half listen, knowing Carl will be history in a matter of weeks if not days, along with all of the other men Raphael has been looking for all of his life.
My thoughts stray to Jack, who might just be the man I’ve been looking for all of my life, but who, if he is, has lousy timing. If only he’d come along, say, next year at this time….
Well, maybe by then I’ll be emotionally healthy enough to have a lasting relationship.
By the end of our lunch, I resolve to stop thinking about why it can’t last and just enjoy it while it does.
I know Jack and I weren’t supposed to go out until Saturday night.
But on Friday at five-thirty, just as I’m putting on my coat, my extension rings and it’s him.
My first thought is that he’s calling to cancel tomorrow night’s date.
“Hey, I’m really looking forward to tomorrow,” he says. “How about you?”
“I am, too,” I say, relieved. “What are we going to do?”
“Nice try, but it’s a surprise, remember? Hey, what are you doing now?”
I hesitate.
Should I say I’m busy working? If I do, he might think he’s interrupting and hang up right away.
Should I say I’m leaving? But maybe he was thinking he’d stop by my desk and say hi, and then maybe he wouldn’t want to if he knew I was on my way out, and—
“Tracey?”
“I’m, um, just finishing up some stuff,” I say, cursing the overanalytical and insecure Inner Tracey.
“I meant, do you have plans tonight?”
I hesitate again.
Good thing I’m not going to Juicebox with Raphael. I wouldn’t want to try to explain that to a normal guy like Jack.
My only plan is to stop at the Key Food down the street from my apartment and get some groceries, then go home and read.
If I tell him that, will he think I’m a loser?
If I tell him I don’t have any plans, will he think I’m an even bigger loser?
Oh, for Pete’s sake. Will you stop that, Tracey? Stop worrying about what he’ll think of you. Just answer the question.
What was the question?
Oh, yeah. Do I have any plans tonight?
“Not really,” is how I answer it, and then I cautiously add one of my own. “Why?”
“Because I thought I had to work late to finish this plan, but it turns out they can wait until Tuesday. So I was just getting ready to leave, and I thought that if you wanted to—”
“Sure!” I say eagerly, not caring what it is that he’s asking.
I’m sick of trying to figure out what I’m supposed to say and do. I’m sick of never being spontaneous.
Whatever it is that Jack is asking, I want to. Definitely. Right now. With all of my heart.
And somehow, I know I won’t regret it.
Okay.
So I regret it.
I made a little mistake.
All right, a huge mofo of a mistake.
Maybe, if I weren’t so caught up in the exhilaration of an impromptu date with Jack last night, I’d have remembered…
But I didn’t remember. I forgot.
How could I have forgotten?
Things were perfect. We went out for sushi, saw the new Adam Sandler movie, which was hilarious and, afterward, had a couple of glasses of pinot noir at a wine bar off Second Avenue.
From there, it was a straight shot downtown in a cab to my apartment. My idea, not his. I think after what happened with M
ike the other morning, he knew better than to ask me back to his place.
But I didn’t hesitate to invite him back here. I was still in my carefree, spontaneous mood.
When we got to my apartment, I never even made it over to the lamp to turn it on before Jack grabbed me and kissed me. We fell into my bed, made passionate love and slept in each other’s arms.
No problem there.
Woke up, made love again.
No problem there, either.
We talked a little afterward, lying there with his arms around me and my head on his chest.
I told him about the Secret Snowflake gifts, and he agreed that it was bizarre. He also hinted that he wanted to go with me to Radio City next Friday night—at least, I thought he was hinting—so I worked up the courage to ask him.
“I’d love to,” he said. “But I might have to go to Atlanta on business on Thursday overnight, and I don’t know what time I’m flying back Friday. If I’m around, I’d love to go. Can I let you know?”
I told him of course he could.
Then, feeling even bolder, I asked him why he came over to me in the first place at the Christmas party that night.
“You want to know the real reason?”
Uh-oh.
Maybe I didn’t.
But I told him that I did, and added that I hoped he wasn’t going to tell me that he did it on a dare or something.
“A dare?” he asked, looking confused.
Yes, a dare.
You know, like when the class cutup dares the football quarterback to ask the ugly fat girl to the prom. And she’s all thrilled and says yes, and her parents buy her a dress and on prom night she sits there and sits there and he never shows because he’s at the prom with his real date, the head cheerleader.
And then—not in real life but if it’s one of those movies I wasn’t allowed to see until college because my parents took NC 17 very seriously—the ugly fat girl grows up and becomes thin and beautiful and she goes on a bloody rampage and kills the head cheerleader, the football quarterback and the class cutup, even though he’s a nice guy now and is in love with her but doesn’t know her real identity….
You never saw those movies?
Well, in case Jack didn’t either, I didn’t tell him any of that.
Besides, he didn’t know about my past life as an overweight, insecure high-school girl, and I wasn’t about to enlighten him.
So I just waited, praying it hadn’t been a dare.
“It wasn’t a dare,” Jack told me, and I exhaled the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
“Okay, then why did you come up to me?” I asked him.
“Promise you won’t be insulted?”
Gee, this gets better every second.
“Promise,” I lied, and resumed holding my breath.
“Right before we met, I was standing there at the party talking to my assistant, Maggie, who doesn’t know how to mind her own business and always has to analyze me and my personal life, and she told me that my problem with women is that I always go for the wrong type.”
Hmm, interesting. I’d have rubbed my goatee if I had one. I didn’t realize Jack had a problem with women.
“And I asked her what type she meant,” Jack went on, “and she looked around for a minute and then she pointed at you. There you were, wearing that short, low-cut dress, and when I saw you, I made a beeline over there, partly because I wanted to spite Maggie for being such a pain in the ass. But once we started talking, I realized you weren’t the way I thought you’d be.”
“What way?”
“You know…kind of…easy.”
Still not insulted.
Not really.
“Maggie’s so surprised that you turned out to be this nice, wholesome person instead of a slut.”
Okay, now I’m insulted.
Mental Note: Burn red Christmas party dress.
“Didn’t you think it was slutty of me to sleep with you on the second date?” I asked Jack.
“Nah. And, anyway, I like sluts, remember?” he said, and we laughed.
That was when it happened.
I was facing him and the kitchenette over his shoulder.
He was facing me and the window over my shoulder, and I was admiring the way the winter sun brought out golden highlights in his wavy brown hair.
In fact, I was so focused on his hair that I didn’t even notice the look on his face until he said, “Is that us?”
It didn’t make sense. Is that us? Is that us? What the hell was he talking about? He could have been speaking in a foreign language for all that meant to me….
Then…
Flicker of realization.
Oh, God.
Oh, no.
No, please…
It was like a slow-motion movie scene from there on in.
I saw Jack’s expression go from puzzled to stunned to horrified.
I turned my head to follow his gaze.
I saw what he was looking at….
And kerplunk.
The bottom abruptly dropped out of our perfect morning-after.
Because there, on the windowsill…
Oh my God, it’s so horrible I can’t even say it….
Was—is—a picture of us.
Me and him.
In a frame.
Is that us?
Now it makes sense.
Yes.
Yes, it is.
That is us.
And so here I am, speechless, still staring at the picture because I can’t bear to look at him.
Why the hell did I have to go out with him last night?
Why wasn’t I content to have a Saturday-night date and leave well enough alone?
And why, if I did feel compelled to go out with him on the spur of the moment, did I have to invite him back here?
So much for carefree, spontaneous Tracey.
At the moment, I’d much prefer to be uptight, insecure Tracey, alone in my apartment with newly bought groceries in the cupboards and the snapshot back in the drawer where it belongs, blissfully looking forward to tonight’s surprise date with Jack.
Now I think it’s safe to assume that there will be no more dates with Jack, surprise or otherwise.
No guy in his right mind would continue to see someone who gets him to pose with her looking like a couple five minutes after they meet, and then frames the picture. I mean, I might as well have worn a wedding gown to Tequila Murray’s on our first date.
Fighting the overwhelming urge to flee—and only because I don’t want him to get a glimpse of my naked ass on my way out—I sneak a peek at Jack.
The good news: He doesn’t see me.
The bad news: He doesn’t see me because he’s too busy looking around the apartment like he’s wondering what else I’ve got stashed here.
A mock-up engagement announcement for the New York Times?
Stationery printed with the name Tracey Spadolini Candell?
Wouldn’t it be great if this weren’t really happening?
Maybe it isn’t.
Maybe I’m not even awake yet and it’s just a blood-chilling nightmare.
It’s certainly the kind of thing I’d dream.
Once, when I was dating Will, I dreamed that I was costar-ring with him in an all-nude version of Hello, Dolly! on Broadway, only, when I got onstage Will was there in his Horace Vandergelder three-piece suit, and the rest of the cast was also fully costumed, and I was standing there in nothing but a sweeping turn-of-the-century hat with a feather in it.
When I woke up, my face was burning hot, just like it is now.
Okay, so this has to be a dream, too.
I squeeze my eyes shut and count to three….
Then to five…
I make it ten for good measure, and open my eyes.
Jack’s still here, and he’s still wearing that dazed expression, only now he’s looking at me.
He doesn’t say anything, so of course I have to.
�
�I’m sorry,” I blurt.
It’s the first thing that comes to mind.
Well, after, You must think I’m some desperate stalker chick.
On the off chance that he doesn’t, I don’t say it.
But he must.
Think that I’m a desperate stalker chick, that is.
It’s written all over his face.
He doesn’t respond to my apology, just lies there looking blank, so I take a deep breath and try again.
“A friend of mine was over the other night and she was, uh, she stuck that picture in the frame as a joke.”
Oh, please. I couldn’t have come up with anything better than that?
No. I couldn’t. I mean, go ahead. You try to come up with a good reason why someone you barely know would be smiling in a frame in your apartment.
The mythical prank-playing friend is my story, and I’m sticking to it. Ad nauseum.
“She’s a big practical joker,” I rattle on.
No reaction from Jack.
“April Fools’ Day is her favorite holiday.”
Somebody stop me!
“Last April Fools’ Day, she filled my sugar bowl with salt. But I don’t use sugar much, so I didn’t find out till July.” Nervous laugh.
Jack laughs, too. But barely.
I can tell by his expression that he doesn’t believe any of this.
I want so badly to shut up.
I want so badly to tell him the truth….
But the truth is so goddamned embarrassing, I think I’d rather play Dolly Levi in the nude.
Instead, conscious of the cold sweat breaking out under my bangs, I settle for another, “I’m sorry. I know you must think it’s pretty odd, but my friend…”
“It’s okay,” he says at last, casting another dubious glance at the framed photo. “It’s a good picture.”
“You think?” I force a smile.
I can feel a panic attack coming on. Oh, Lord.
“Yeah.” He smiles back.
It’s not his usual wholehearted, dimple-baring grin, but it’s not an I’m not laughing with you, I’m laughing at you smirk, either.
The panic attack subsides before it can become full-blown. At least, for now. Which is good, because I hardly look my best while hyperventilating into a paper bag.
Still looking and sounding awkward, Jack asks if I feel like going out to breakfast.
Naturally, I tell him I can’t. I say I have to go to a spinning class. Which is a joke because I have no idea what spinning even is. I just know that Kate does it early on Saturday mornings, and that it has nothing to do with wool, which is what I first thought.
Slightly Settled Page 15
