Slightly Married

by Wendy Markham

Not really…but that’s what I want. Actually, it’s what I should want. I should want all of us to go on being a happy little foursome. Maybe we can all move to the same suburb and have babies and, I don’t know, play bridge or whatever it is that old married suburban foursomes do together.

  At the very least, Buckley should stand up in our wedding. Which I plan to mention to Jack the first chance I get.

  I spent the rest of the walk to the restaurant dwelling on that strange lunch Buckley and I had shared. He definitely seemed unusually quiet as we finished our sashimi, and I was relieved when it was time for me to hurry back to the office.

  I haven’t heard from him since, not that it’s surprising. It’s not like Buckley and I connect every single day. I rarely give it much advance thought, but now I’ve been wondering when and where I’m going to see him again, and what he’s going to say about Sonja.

  I push them both firmly out of my mind now, because tonight is the night I’ve been looking forward to all week.

  The West Side is teeming with a pretheater crowd, and so is Gallagher’s.

  I pause a few feet from the door to balance on one foot at a time while wedging my feet into the excruciating-but-to-die-for heels again.

  Jack’s sister Emily is really into shoes. I know she’ll notice and approve. I also know she’ll notice—and disapprove of—Aerosoles.

  I shouldn’t care what Jack’s sister thinks of me, and maybe I won’t, once I’m officially part of the family. But for now, I still want to put my best foot forward, and I don’t want it to be wearing an Aerosole.

  Wilma is waiting right inside the entrance. She’s looking very Hepburnesque as usual this evening. (Audrey, not Katharine.) She’s wearing an adorable nubby wool coat and hat over a chic black dress with coordinating velvet pumps and pearls.

  With Jack’s mom are three of his four sisters: Emily, Rachel and Jeannie.

  Emily, who works for a fashion showroom and is built like a model, has on jeans, boots and a leather jacket. So does Rachel, but Emily’s jeans are more fashionably cut, her boots have high, thin heels, and her leather is black, not brown.

  “Ooh, Tracey, great shoes,” Emily says, first thing. What did I tell you?

  “Thanks,” I say. “How’s everything going?”

  “Great,” Emily replies, and adds somewhat cheerfully, “Although I broke up with Giancarlo.”

  “Oh, no.” I could have sworn her boyfriend’s name was Dale. I guess he was the one before Giancarlo. Emily changes boyfriends as often as she changes sweaters. But I ask sympathetically, “What happened?”

  “No one specific thing. He’s just a pompous ass.”

  “I’d say that’s pretty specific,” is Jeannie’s typically dry comment.

  Plainer than her sisters and a little on the chunky side, she probably came straight from her court-reporter job. She’s wearing a plain crepe navy dress and low-heeled pumps, a long charcoal winter dress coat slung over her arm.

  Of course, Jack’s father, who wasn’t invited, is conspicuously absent. The decision not to include him was Jack’s call. The Candells are fairly recently, and not so amicably, divorced. I guess Jack figured his father’s presence might put a damper on any optimistic, marriage-related toasts.

  I immediately notice that Jack’s sister Kathleen, who was invited, is also conspicuously absent.

  I ask Wilma if Kathleen is running late.

  “Oh, she’s not coming. Poor thing was just too exhausted to think about getting on a train at this time of day.”

  I should point out that Poor Thing, who is married and lives in Westchester not far from her mother, perpetually claims debilitating exhaustion at any time of day. I recently suggested to her that she get a blood test to check for mono, Epstein-Barr, Lyme or some other disease that might cause a pampered stay-at-home mom to sleep in until eleven every morning of the week. (She also requires daily naps, nightly bubble baths, frequent hot-stone massages and regular spa stays.)

  Jack kicked me under the table when I suggested the blood test because Kathleen is also a notorious hypochondriac. In fact, she’s kind of an all-around drag.

  Still, I tell Wilma, “I’m sorry she couldn’t make it,” which is the truth because I know Jack really wanted all the women on Team Candell to be here tonight.

  “Well, you know how hard it is for her, with the twins,” Wilma says.

  Yes, but it’s not as though she just last week birthed a pair of colicky babies and is nursing them both around the clock. Ashley and Beatrice turned five in December, go to full-time preschool and have a full-time live-in nanny.

  “Come on, Mom, everything is always hard for Kathleen and we all know it has nothing to do with the twins,” Rachel pipes up. Did I mention that she’s Jack’s favorite sister? And mine?

  She’s eighteen months older than Jack, and shares not just his lanky wholesome, brown-haired good looks and tailored, classic clothing style, but also his sense of humor and his pragmatic, no-bullshit outlook on their family situation. Come to think of it, she, too, is Hepburnesque-only it’s confident Katharine, not dainty Audrey.

  I really want to ask Rachel to be a bridesmaid, but I can’t do that in front of her sisters. Too bad I can’t have both her and Jeannie, whom I really adore, as well. But I’m sure that would make Emily feel left out.

  Well, what if I had Emily, too? I mean, is there any rule regarding how many bridesmaids are too many? It’s my wedding, right? Who says I can’t have…

  Eight, nine…ten?

  Ten.

  That’s kind of a lot.

  And anyway, I can’t have three of Jack’s sisters without the fourth, even if Kathleen really is a tremendous pain in the butt to everyone but her mother.

  “Rachel, your sister is overwhelmed,” Wilma chides. “You know Kathleen’s got a lot on her plate.”

  Yeah. Kathleen’s got about as much on her plate—figuratively speaking—as I literally had on mine the summer I lost fifty pounds.

  “She doesn’t have any more on her plate than the rest of us have,” sandy-haired Jeannie mutters, rolling her brown eyes. She’s married and lives in the suburbs, too. No kids yet, but she’s working two jobs to put her husband, Greg, through law school. Plus, they’re remodeling their new house, a falling-apart fixer-upper, doing all the work themselves because they can’t afford to hire help.

  Yet here she is, in typical Jeannie fashion, willing to go the extra mile—rather, thirty-some extra miles—when summoned.

  Yeah, I really wish I could have her in the wedding party.

  “Is Jack on his way, Tracey?” Wilma asks, pointedly changing the subject.

  “Yeah, but the subway isn’t running. He should be here in a few minutes. He said we should go ahead and grab our table.”

  “Oh, that wouldn’t be polite. Let’s just wait for him.”

  Honey-haired Emily, the baby of the family—in every way—protests, “I’m starved. Why do we have to wait for Jack? Can’t we just sit down and order something?”

  Maybe it isn’t a whine, exactly. But somehow, a lot of things she says come out kind of…well, whiny.

  Maybe it’s just the naturally high-pitched tone of her voice.

  “We should wait for your brother,” Wilma says again.

  “But I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast! If I don’t get something into my stomach right away I’m going to drop right here and cause a big scene.”

  Funny how Emily and Kathleen are so different from the three middle siblings. Jack, Rachel and Jeannie are all so easygoing, more like Wilma. The others are more like their dad. Jack’s father is about as easygoing as Donald Trump, and almost as rich.

  Okay, maybe not that rich.

  But rich. He made a fortune as an advertising executive back in the boom years of the eighties. The Candells are a whole lot wealthier than anyone back in Brookside.

  For the first time, I allow myself to consider a definite downside to having the wedding in my hometown: the snob factor. Not just Ja
ck’s father, but Billy, and maybe even Kate.

  The thing is, anyone who’s accustomed to glitzy society-type weddings is probably going to be taken aback by a non-glitzy, Spadolini-type wedding. I shouldn’t care what anyone thinks, but I can’t stomach the thought of my future father-in-law being pulled into a tarantella line by my shrillest cousin, Allegra.

  Then again, my wedding is already going to be a notch more fancy than all the others in our family simply because it won’t be held in the church hall at Most Precious Mother, where my parents and siblings all got married. Nothing against the church hall, but…I just don’t want crepe-paper-festooned basketball hoops and paper tablecloths. And really, who can blame me?

  I still haven’t had a chance to discuss Shorewood with Jack, but I’ll need to before someone steals that October date out from under us. The banquet manager said he did indeed just have a cancellation for the third Saturday, but he expects it to be snatched up by someone else right away. Charles also reminded me that he can’t hold it without a hefty deposit—another thing Jack and I will need to discuss, pronto.

  I’m thinking that if we can somehow scrape together the deposit using whatever my parents can afford to give us plus cash advances on our credit cards that aren’t maxed out, we can go on an austerity budget between now and October and come up with the rest.

  Hopefully tonight’s official revelation and celebration will get the ball rolling. I bet Jack will be psyched about planning the wedding once his mother and sisters are involved.

  By the time Jack comes breezing in, Emily and Wilma have resumed bickering about whether or not we should be seated, and I could really use a drink and a hug.

  He promptly offers the latter, and I feel better already.

  “You look wiped out,” he says, brushing a clump of hair back from my cheek. “Rough day?”

  “Very.” I pull the clump of hair forward again. I was using it to camouflage yet another burgeoning blemish from the peaches-and-cream Candell females.

  Watching my fiancé give his mom a big hug and kiss, I am reminded of the old saying that you can tell what kind of husband a man is going to be based on how he treats his mother. I hope that’s true, because Jack adores Wilma. He’s crazy about his sisters, too—even Kathleen.

  The only family member I’ve never heard him mention with affection—let alone warmly interact with—is his dad. Having met Jack’s father, I have to say he’s not the greatest guy in the world.

  I’m not prone to understatements, but that definitely is one.

  I guess I’d be more rattled if I thought there was the slightest possibility Jack might turn out to be the same kind of husband and father Jack Senior was: a controlling, arrogant workaholic.

  Not a chance of that, though, thank God. There are some things you just know about a person’s character. Jack simply doesn’t have it in him to change that drastically.

  Now that he’s here, we’re quickly seated at a red-checkered-cloth-covered table in one of the vast dining rooms.

  “What a wonderful place,” Wilma says, looking around appreciatively, though I suspect she would probably be more at home breakfasting at Tiffany’s.

  But Jack and I love Gallagher’s, with its high ceilings, wooden floors and walls lined with framed photos of celebrities who’ve dined here. I’m glad I was too busy today at work to eat lunch because I’m famished, and a thick steak will really hit the spot.

  Jack waits until we’ve ordered our food, including a bunch of side dishes to share and a bottle of red wine.

  Then he lifts his filled glass. “I want to make a toast,” he announces, cutting into his mother and sisters’ chatty conversation.

  Naturally, everyone lifts her glass and waits expectantly, wondering what’s going on.

  Or not.

  I can’t help but notice that everyone seems to anticipate what’s coming, because I catch all four of them, Jack’s mother and sisters, trying to catch a glimpse of my left hand. Which I’m sitting on.

  Bummer—they obviously know we’re engaged. Or at least, they suspect it.

  Then again, why wouldn’t they? Wilma gave Jack the diamond last summer. She even confided to me that she ran it by Emily and Rachel first, to make sure they didn’t want her to save it for one of them when the time came.

  She probably asked Jeannie and Kathleen to green-light it, too, even though they were both already married by the time Wilma’s ring—which was from her failed marriage—became available.

  So presumably, the four other women in Jack’s life have spent the last six months the same way I have: wondering when he was going to propose.

  You might imagine, then, that it would be a tad anticlimactic when Jack announces, “Here’s to Tracey, my future wife.”

  But somehow, it’s not anticlimactic at all.

  Wilma, sitting next to me, gives me a big hug and says, “Welcome to the family!” To Jack, she says, “It’s about time!” and he shrugs sheepishly.

  “Of course I’ll want to help you with the wedding,” Wilma says mostly to me.

  “That would be great!” I smile, feeling relieved, and wondering what she means by “help.” Does she mean help pay for it? Or help plan it? Or both?

  Jack’s sisters congratulate us and want to see the ring.

  Everyone agrees that it’s gorgeous, and we toast to mine and Jack’s future.

  The middle-aged couple at the next table, who have overheard, add their congratulations and inform us that they’re here celebrating their thirty-fifth anniversary.

  “That’s wonderful!” Wilma says a little wistfully. “What’s your secret?”

  “The first words out of our mouths every morning and every night are ‘I love you,’” the wife says.

  “Afternoons, too. And we mean it,” adds the husband, reaching out to brush a crumb of bread from her cheek.

  Aw, how sweet.

  This is turning out to be a good night. A really, really good night. At last, I feel like a giddy bride-to-be as I sip my wine contentedly.

  “Ouch!” the woman at the next table blurts.

  “What?” her husband asks. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “My eye! You poked me in the eye!”

  “Well, can you still see?”

  Pause. “Yes…thank God.”

  Thank God, I think. A little selfishly, I’ll admit: paramedics would ruin the ambience.

  Jack catches my eye as the waiter arrives with our salads. His smile is like hot cocoa on a cold night; sweet and welcome. Warmed by it, I reach for his hand under the table and give it a squeeze.

  You know what? Sometimes, you just don’t need words. I have to remember that the next time I’m wishing Jack would be more vocal about his feelings.

  You know what else? I was wrong yesterday when I thought that getting engaged had opened the door on a whole new set of problems. Maybe that’s the case with my promotion at work, but not with this.

  Jack and I belong together. I must have been crazy to think I could possibly regret never again kissing anyone else in this world—Buckley included.

  “You two will have to come up to Westchester this weekend,” Wilma muses as the waiter grinds pepper over her salad, “so that we can get busy.”

  “Busy with what?” Jack asks.

  His mother sends me a good-natured eye-roll. Men! “Busy with wedding plans,” she tells Jack. “What else?”

  “Why do we have to come up to Westchester for that?” Jack wants to know…which is exactly the question that’s on my mind, but I don’t dare voice it because I suspect I know the answer.

  “So that we can start looking at places for your reception,” Wilma informs us.

  Ah. I was right.

  Jack’s sisters are nodding. But of course. The reception. In Westchester.

  “Actually,” I say when Jack doesn’t jump in immediately—or thereafter, “we’re not sure where we want to get married yet.”

  That’s not a lie because officially, we aren’t sure.r />
  Privately, however, I’m sure.

  “So you were thinking of the city?” Emily asks, brightening. “Because we did an awesome shoot last summer at this gorgeous loft space downtown. I think it would be perfect for your wedding.”

  “Really? Because I thought you said it would be perfect for your wedding,” Rachel says dryly.

  “Yeah, well, it looks like I’m not having one anytime soon, so…” Emily shrugs and grandly informs me and Jack, “The loft is all yours.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  Missing Jack’s sarcasm, Emily adds, “I have to warn you, though—you’ll pay a fortune to have it there.”

  “I bet Westchester is a lot cheaper,” Jeannie comments.

  “Not necessarily,” Rachel points out.

  “Well, Greg and I had our reception over in Yorktown Heights, and it wasn’t as bad as Bedford, or the city.”

  I wait for Jack to speak up and mention that upstate in Brookside, everything is much more affordable than Yorktown Heights or anywhere around here. But he says nothing at all. He’s just chomping away frantically at his mixed greens like a furtive rabbit determined to get back under the fence before the farmer shows up.

  “If Jack and Tracey want a wedding in Bedford or the city, they should have it,” Wilma declares, and still, Jack is maddeningly silent. “They should have their wedding wherever they want. After all, you only get married once.”

  Coming from her, those last five words seem to land in our midst like a bucket of rocks. Thud. Silence.

  We all know how Wilma’s one shot at marriage turned out. And that Wilma makes no secret of the fact that she wouldn’t be opposed to finding someone new, should the opportunity arise.

  Starting to feel more bummed than bridal, I look at Jack.

  He’s still intent on his salad.

  I look harder at him—glaring, if you will. I’m just trying to send him a signal. But I get the distinct impression that he’s deliberately ignoring me.

  You know, now is really not the best time for Wilma’s ironic statement to remind me that sometimes weddings don’t lead to happily ever after.

  Yes, I’m crazy about Jack. Yes, I’m optimistic about our future.

  But you know what? Sometimes, you do need words. I can’t help but wonder why my soon-to-be husband is less involved in this conversation than everyone else, including the formerly giddy couple seated at the next table—who, I notice, seem to have run out of things to say to each other and are now eavesdropping while toying with their crab cake and shrimp cocktail.