Slightly Married

by Wendy Markham

But it must not have come out that way, because Jack leans over and kisses me tenderly on the cheek. “I love you.”

  I look up in surprise. “What was that for?”

  “I honestly thought you were going to make a big stink about not having a place yet…”

  He honestly thought right.

  “But you’re being very mature about this.”

  He sounds pleasantly surprised.

  Like I’m not very mature about most things?

  Turning away, I reach up for the cupboard to put away the box of tea bags. Naturally, the wooden knob comes off in my hand.

  I curse.

  Jack reaches around and takes the knob from me. “Here. Let me fix it.”

  “I did fix it.”

  “You need to use a wooden match. A toothpick is too thin to give it enough traction.” He opens a drawer, rifles through it. Pulls out a limp, nearly empty book of matches from some restaurant we haven’t been to in years. “Is this all we have? Where are the box matches?”

  I shrug. “We probably don’t have any.”

  He jerks open another drawer—the one where we keep the silverware. I take a cautious sip of my tea and let him conduct a fruitless search for box matches among the spoons and forks. He slams the drawer shut and grumbles, “How can we not have any?”

  We might have some if you hadn’t made me give up smoking, I want to point out crankily. But I refrain, because I never lit my cigarettes with box matches anyway.

  And because, to be entirely fair, he didn’t really make me quit—that was my decision.

  And because ninety-nine percent of the time, I’m glad I gave up smoking.

  The other one percent of the time, I’m ridiculously stressed and would positively kill for a cigarette.

  Like right now.

  Since that’s out of the question, I leave Jack to fix the knob and retire to the living room with my mug of tea, the television tuned to 60 Minutes.

  Ah. That’s better.

  Sometimes, you just have to take your pleasure wherever you can find it.

  One would assume that pleasure, for an engaged woman, wouldn’t prove to be quite so elusive.

  You know that Weddings in America feature I was so psyched to watch? Turns out it’s one of those hidden-camera exposés on wedding planners. Apparently, the industry is filled with predators out to rip off engaged couples and their parents.

  Who knew?

  I’m glad Jack is still puttering around in the kitchen. He doesn’t need to hear any wedding horror stories right now.

  In the midst of an interview with a pair of sobbing newly broke newlyweds, the phone rings.

  I grab the remote and freeze the screen, courtesy of TiVo, on the groom’s stricken, tear-soaked face.

  “Tracey, is that you? Guess who’s back in town?”

  Well, if it isn’t the happy honeymooner himself. Things are looking up at last.

  “Raphael!” I set down my mug and sit up on the couch, heartsick newlyweds and wedding planner con men immediately forgotten. “How was your safari?”

  “Hot and wild,” he replies. “And, Tracey, don’t think I’m talking about the jungle.”

  Oh, I wouldn’t.

  I’ve known Raphael long enough to realize that nothing is sacred.

  Why am I surprised, then, when he spends fifteen minutes regaling me with intimate newlywed escapades?

  In the midst of it all, Jack appears in the doorway wearing a jacket, and mouths, “I’m going down to the hardware store.”

  I nod and wave.

  Raphael goes on to tell me about the bush lodge in Botswana and the luxurious bed in the bush lodge in Botswana and exactly what he and Donatello did in the luxurious bed in the bush lodge in Botswana.

  I cut him off abruptly. “That sounds romantic, Raphael…”

  Well, no, actually, it doesn’t. It sounds perverse. But who am I to judge?

  “And speaking of romantic,” I scurry on, “I’ve got some news for you!”

  Nice segue, huh?

  “Tracey! Romantic news? Don’t tell me…you met someone!”

  “What?”

  “Did you meet someone?” he asks excitedly.

  “Um, no.” Nonplussed, I say, “I’ve got Jack, remember?”

  “Right. I thought maybe…”

  “Maybe…?” When he doesn’t elaborate, I have to ask point-blank, “You thought maybe what?”

  “I thought maybe you two had gone your separate ways and you’d met someone.”

  Where to begin?

  Frequently faced with that dilemma in the midst of a bizarre Raphael conversation, I choose the obvious question, and manage to pose it evenly: “Why would Jack and I go our separate ways?”

  “Because, Tracey, he doesn’t want to commit,” Raphael says with exaggerated patience. “And I don’t blame you one bit for moving on. Nobody deserves to find happiness more than you do. Well, I did, but I’ve found it, so it’s your turn.”

  “I’ve found happiness, Raphael.”

  “I knew it!” he gloats. “So…what’s his name?”

  Rolling my eyes, I say patiently, “It’s Jack.”

  “His name is Jack, too? What are the odds of that?”

  Grrrrrrrr.

  No joy in mudville today, I swear.

  I glare at the teary-eyed, victimized sap still frozen on my television screen.

  “Raphael, there is only one J—”

  “Hang on a second.” Raphael covers up the mouthpiece and says, loudly and clearly, “No, Donna, I meant the other one. With the G-string. Right…that’s the one.”

  I cringe.

  “Who’s Donna?” I ask when he gets back on the line.

  “Tracey! My husband! How would you like it if I asked who Jack is?”

  “You pretty much just did,” I grumble, and wonder when Donatello allowed his name to be shortened. I thought he was a real stickler about nicknames.

  Of course, that was probably because Kate’s husband, Billy, insisted on introducing him and Raphael as “Don” and “Ralph” one night when we were all out and ran into a bunch of his colleagues.

  We all had a hearty laugh about that later…minus Billy and Kate.

  “Raphael,” I repeat succinctly now, “I have news for you.”

  “You quit your job?”

  Again, I stumble. “Why would I quit my job?”

  “Because it just seems like it’s going to be overwhelming, Tracey.”

  That might be true, but…

  “I did not quit my job and it wouldn’t be good news if I did because I’m broke,” I tell him. “I do have good news, though—and don’t guess what it is. I’ll just tell you. Okay?”

  Silence.

  “Raphael?”

  More silence.

  “Hello?”

  Then I hear him in the background, talking to Donatello. “Right. I know. No, I don’t think the gold lamé one makes your skin tone look sallow. It makes you look tawny, like a glorious lion.”

  Oh, for God’s sake.

  I hang up the phone moodily.

  It rings a few seconds later.

  Caller ID: Raphael.

  “Are you ready to listen?” I bark into the receiver.

  “Sorry, Tracey,” he says breezily. “We were just going through our souvenirs from the trip. So what’s your good news?”

  “I’m getting married!”

  “To Jack?” he asks in disbelief…but not disappointed disbelief. He sounds genuinely happy for me when he says, “Oh, Tracey, that’s great news!”

  “I know!” Naturally, I’ve bounced right back.

  “Do you love the ring?”

  “I love it!”

  “When did he propose?”

  “On the way home from your wedding!”

  “How inspiring! I’ll admit I thought it was a bad omen when you didn’t catch the bouquet, Tracey…”

  “Which is only because one of your annoying friends shoved me out of the way to grab it. I swear he h
ad wings, the way he flew through the air.”

  “Oh, that was Edward. I don’t blame you for being upset. He can be a pushy little bugger. Donatello and I can’t stand him.”

  “You don’t like him? Then why did you invite him?”

  “Tracey! We invited everyone,” Raphael tells me, as if that explains it.

  Facing a growing guest list of my own, I’ve already concluded we might have to cut people we adore. Definitely no room on the list for people we can’t stand.

  “So when’s the big event?” Raphael asks.

  “The wedding? We’re working on it. We’re thinking October.”

  “I meant the bachelorette party, Tracey. I’ll help you plan it! I have a great idea for a risqué party game!”

  I’ll just bet he does.

  He puts the phone down to relay the glad tidings to Donatello.

  Back on the line, he says, “We’re both so thrilled for you, Tracey. I just knew Jack had it in him.”

  “You did not know that, Raphael.”

  “All right, I did not know that. I thought he was going to break your little heart.”

  Privately, I might have thought the same thing at times…but those days are well behind us at last.

  “Where’s the groom?” Raphael asks. “Put him on. I want to say congratulations.”

  “He’s not here. He went to the hardware store.”

  “Are you sure, Tracey?”

  “Ye-es…why?”

  “No reason,” Raphael says quickly. Too quickly.

  I wait.

  “Carl—” a former boyfriend of Raphael’s “—once said he was going to the hardware store, but he was really down at Oh Boy, picking up some drag queen.”

  “I really don’t think Jack is at Oh Boy picking up some drag queen, Raphael.”

  “I’m just saying…”

  “Thanks for the concern, but he’s at the hardware store. Trust me. Listen—” I decide to change the subject to distract him “—I want you to be in the wedding.”

  “You do? Oh, Tracey! I would love to be your man of honor!”

  “Actually, I was thinking bridesmaid.”

  “But Tracey, bridesmaids are female.” Typical Raphael logic.

  “You know I love you, Raphael, but my mother would kill me if I didn’t have my sister as maid of honor.”

  “Oh.” He seems to ponder this for a moment. Then he exclaims, “Oh! Oh, I know! I’ll throw you an engagement party.”

  “How sweet, but—”

  “We can do a chocolate fountain, and mojitos, and—oh! I wonder if we can get crocodile sirloin or warthog in New York, because I got the most amazing recipe in Afri—”

  “Raphael, Jack’s mom is actually throwing us an engagement party in Bedford, in June.”

  And I would hazard a guess that warthog will not be served.

  “Ooh, that’s even better! Then we can just relax and mingle.”

  I murmur a halfhearted agreement, suddenly struck by a vision of Raphael and Donatello circulating among Wilma’s tony Bedford friends wearing gold lamé G-strings.

  You know, this wedding stuff really is more complicated than anyone ever lets on.

  For a brief moment, I wonder whether Jack and I should just call off the whole extravaganza and go down to city hall. Or Vegas. Just the two of us.

  Then Raphael says warmly, “You know, Trace, you’re going to be a beautiful bride. I’ve got tears in my eyes just picturing you.”

  And suddenly, I’ve got tears in my eyes, as well.

  Of course Jack and I don’t want city hall or Vegas for two. At least, I don’t.

  I want to have full-blown wedding festivities to share with the people we love…and that’s exactly what we’re going to have.

  7

  I swear, every single time I fly home to Buffalo, there seems to be a problem of some sort. Weather, mechanical problems, delays or cancellations….

  This blustery Saturday morning in March is no exception.

  The flight seems to be oversold. Yes, oversold. Buffalo at 7:00 a.m. in March. Hot destination?

  It must be, because the gate attendants are trying to find a pair of passengers willing to be bumped in return for a later flight and a free round-trip ticket anywhere the airline flies in the continental U.S.—and get this: there are no takers.

  You would think people would be knocking each other over to storm the counter and trade their seat for, say, a noon arrival in Buffalo and a future weekend in sunny southern California or West Palm Beach.

  Nope.

  These grim-faced travelers—who appear to be part of some tour group, probably bound for Niagara Falls—are hell-bent on getting to Buffalo this morning, dammit.

  Then again, so are we.

  “What do you think?” I ask Jack, who skipped breakfast to save room for the famous Connie Spadolini lasagna and is now hungrily eyeing a stranger’s half-finished Egg McMuffin as it sails into a trash can. “Should we bump?”

  He looks at the overcast sky behind the plate-glass window. “It’s supposed to start snowing hard by noon.”

  “The next flight is at 11:43. That would give us a whole seventeen minutes to get off the ground before the blizzard blows in.”

  “It would not. Even if they board it on time, by the time they push back from—”

  “I know. I’m just trying to keep our options open here. We could get a great honeymoon out of it,” I add, thinking Palm Beach might not be all that exotic, but it beats the cabin in the Catskills.

  Jack raises an eyebrow at me.

  “I’m just saying…”

  “No, I know. You’ve got a point. But what about getting up there today? You’ve been looking forward to telling your parents for weeks.”

  This is true.

  But I’m strangely relaxed about it.

  Strangely?

  Okay, my relaxed state is directly related to the Xanax I took in the cab on the way to La Guardia in anticipation of the flight. The prescription is left over from my post-Will days of panic attacks, therapy and prescription drugs.

  I’ve been off the daily medication—which I used to call my pink happy pills—for a while now. But I keep Xanax around just in case I have another panic attack—or have to fly, which invariably leads to a panic attack.

  It takes the edge off, that’s for sure.

  At this point, I don’t have a care in the world.

  “It’s no big deal if we have to wait a few more hours to tell my parents we’re engaged,” I tell Jack with a glib shrug. “Especially if we get two free round-trip tickets to anywhere in the United States.”

  “Yeah, but the airlines run sales on domestic flights all the time,” Jack points out. “Is it really worth giving up our seats just to save a couple hundred bucks at the most? We might not get out today at all with the storm coming.”

  I shrug, the newly crowned queen of laid-back. “Whatever. You decide.”

  “Good. Let’s keep our seats.”

  But when the gate attendant ups the ante—two free round-trip tickets to anywhere the airline flies, period—it’s an obvious no-brainer.

  “Let’s do it,” I tell Jack, picturing him lounging in a Tahitian water hut.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes! I’ve waited this long to tell my parents. What’s another couple of hours?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. We can go get something to eat, hang out and catch the next flight.”

  “I don’t want to eat anything. I’m saving room for lasagna, remember?”

  We grin at each other, then jump up to claim our prize.

  “Do you fly to the South Pacific?” I ask the attendant as she hands us vouchers.

  “Yes, I believe we do.”

  Yes! She believes they do! Exotic honeymoon, here we come!

  Eight hours, half a dozen false imminent preboarding announcements, and not a crumb of food later…

  “To those of you in the gate area who have been waiting to board flight 398
with nonstop service to Buffalo, New York, I’m sorry to inform you that your flight has been canceled due to the inclement weather.”

  Inclement weather? It’s a raging March blizzard out there.

  What a waste of Xanax.

  Jack, crankier by the minute from low blood sugar, meets my gaze from behind the Us magazine he’s holding, with its cover photo gallery of reportedly anorexic starlets.

  No, Jack usually isn’t big on celebrity gossip—that would be my department. But he’s read everything he brought—and subsequently bought—before moving on to my stack of carry-on magazines.

  “I knew this was going to happen,” he says. “We shouldn’t have gotten bumped. We’d be at your parents’ house in Brookside eating your mother’s lasagna right now if we had stayed on that flight this morning.”

  “Yeah, and we’d be planning a honeymoon at my parents’ house in Brookside, too,” I point out, “because we wouldn’t be able to afford anything else. With these airline vouchers we can go to Tahiti or—”

  “Or your parents’ house in Brookside, because we can’t afford hotels in Tahiti anyway.”

  Hotel? Who wants to stay in a hotel when huts-on-stilts are an option?

  I can see that I have my work cut out for me where the honeymoon is concerned, but the vouchers are a start. For now, there’s nothing to do but rebook our flight for next weekend and go home.

  One week, five hectic workdays, countless Client crises, a massive spring thaw and another dose of Xanax later, Jack and I find ourselves driving along the slushy streets of Brookside in a midsize airport rental car. No problems with the weather today, just a one-hour delay at the gate waiting for a connecting flight to come in.

  I told you flights to Buffalo are never without some kind of problem. But at least we made it.

  Huddled in the passenger’s seat in my boots, jeans and too-bright-for-Manhattan Gore-Tex Mountain Guide Gold parka Jack gave me for Christmas, I’m swept by a familiar sense of nostalgia as we drive past familiar landmarks.

  Lookee there, it’s the gray stone library where I was a Saturday-morning regular! Ooh, and I see my old redbrick elementary school with its newly added one-story annex! Ah, it’s Most Precious Mother church where Jack and I will exchange our vows, and the adjacent church hall where our reception will not be held.