The Engagements

by J. Courtney Sullivan

  It started when they walked in the door and Gabriella’s second daughter, the oddly named Rue, asked, “What’s the occasion?”

  “It’s our cousin’s wedding,” May said quickly.

  “Wow! They sure did get a gorgeous day for it. Must be meant to be!”

  “I’m the flower girl,” Ava said proudly.

  “The flower girl? Well then, we’d better do something extra special for you.”

  Kate took note of the jealousy on her niece’s face. She felt a bit bad for Olivia.

  Now Lulu said, “So how did the happy couple meet? I met my husband on Match.com. Do you know one out of every five married couples meets online these days? I tried eHarmony too, but on that one I just met a lot of strange Christian men who still lived with their mothers.”

  “Lulu!” Gabriella said. “I’m sorry. She never knows when to stop talking.”

  “Well, it’s true. Match worked better for me. I had the boys winking at me from dawn ’til dusk! That’s what they call it, winking. You basically click a button and it tells someone you’ve winked. I never responded to any of those. A monkey can press a button. A real man takes the time to write you an email if he’s interested, which my Robby did. A really sweet, funny one, but not too over the top. It’s the worst when they just jump right in and start telling you their life stories. We got married six months after we met. It’s my second marriage, which frankly I think usually turns out better than the first.” She raised a hand up. “Maybe I shouldn’t say that if you ladies are still with your O-Hs.”

  “O-Hs?” Kate said.

  “Original Husbands.”

  Kate opened her mouth to respond, but May said, “We are, but you know, in general I think you’re right. Our father, for instance, is much better off with frumpy old Jean than he ever was with Mom. No offense, Mom.”

  Mona shrugged. “None taken.”

  Was Jean frumpy? Kate had never thought so.

  “There were no kids in my first marriage, thank God,” Lulu said. “I was twenty-three and it only lasted a year. They call it a starter marriage. They’re very in these days. Really, I think the Internet is the best thing to ever happen to single girls. Of course it’s not as good for married people, what with all the porn and the Facebook affairs. I know more women than you can shake a stick at whose husbands got a friend request from an old high school girlfriend and the next thing you know, the guy’s on a business trip and then he’s asking for a divorce.” She said “business trip” in finger quotes. “If you think about it, this is probably the first time in history that the individuals in a couple each have a private world that their spouse knows nothing about. Everyone has a cell phone, an email account. It’s easier than ever to cheat.”

  Kate thought it was an interesting observation, but Gabriella looked troubled by her daughter’s ramblings.

  “So why didn’t the bride come along with you?” she asked, changing the subject. “Who’s doing her hair?”

  “No bride,” Kate said. “Two grooms.”

  “Ahh,” Gabriella said, taking this in. She seemed to be searching for words, and eventually landed on, “Where did they register?”

  “Crate & Barrel, and Sur La Table,” May said. “They have great taste. Their page on the Knot is just beyond.”

  Kate hadn’t seen it, but she remembered the night, a few years back, when her college friend Caroline had called her, breathless.

  I just stumbled across Evan’s Knot.com registry, she said.

  Evan had been Caroline’s boyfriend at UVM, six years earlier.

  This cow he’s marrying asked for Spode. What is she, a hundred years old? And oh my God, zebra-print sheets. Are they putting together a house or a brothel?

  Now May said, “I got married at twenty-six. None of my friends had any money yet. I got the worst gifts.”

  “May!” Mona said. “You sound awful, talking that way.”

  “Well, it’s true! If you only knew how much I’ve shelled out for people smart enough to wait and get married in their thirties. I just bought Liz a KitchenAid mixer, for goodness’ sake. And the bach parties now!”

  “Please don’t say bach, it activates my gag reflex,” Kate said.

  “Fine. Bachelorette parties,” May said. “Marlena’s seven bridesmaids took her to Turks and Caicos for a week! I got one night in the Poconos.”

  “If these people want to be married so bad, why do they need all that hoopla?” Kate said. “Shouldn’t we save the presents and the trips for when our friends really need them? Like, say, someone just lost her job or her dog died.”

  May stared at her in disbelief, saying nothing.

  “That’s another thing about second marriages,” Lulu said. “The weddings are just better. The first time around you have to do what everybody else wants. The second time, they’ve given up on you, so it’s all yours.”

  Rue’s cell phone vibrated on the counter in front of her station. “Do you mind if I get this?” she asked May, and then scurried outside through the screen door before she could respond.

  “I’m so sorry,” Gabriella said. “That was incredibly unprofessional.”

  “It’s no problem,” May said, but Kate could tell that she was thinking that something like that would never happen at the trendy salon she went to in New Jersey.

  Lulu pointed in the direction her sister had gone. “Now that one’s a sad case,” she whispered loudly. “She fell in love with a murderer. She saw his story on the news and felt bad for him, so she wrote him a letter and he wrote back, and a year later, they’re getting married. Only he isn’t allowed to be at the wedding, so our cousin has to stand in for him at the courthouse. She just ran out there to answer her one call of the day. It’s pathetic.”

  “Enough!” Gabriella said.

  “They’ve never touched!” Lulu said fast, as if she needed to get out this one last pearl of information or she’d burst.

  “Lulu!” Gabriella said.

  Kate wanted to hear more. How odd. How fascinating.

  May seemed to think it was only fair to give them a family secret in return. “My sister over here was supposed to bring the diamond rings to the ceremony tonight, and she’s already managed to lose one.”

  The women gasped.

  “No,” Lulu said, putting her hands to her face.

  “Thanks a lot,” Kate said to May.

  “I’m sure it will turn up,” Gabriella said.

  They went silent. Kate thumbed through a magazine, landing on an ad for diamond rings almost immediately.

  The universe is playing a cruel, cruel trick on me, she thought.

  The ad featured a leggy model in a tight black dress, beside the words

  YOUR LEFT HAND SEES RED AND

  THINKS ROSES. YOUR RIGHT HAND

  SEES RED AND THINKS WINE. YOUR

  LEFT HAND BELIEVES IN SHINING

  ARMOR. YOUR RIGHT HAND THINKS

  KNIGHTS ARE FOR FAIRY TALES.

  YOUR LEFT HAND SAYS, “I LOVE

  YOU.” YOUR RIGHT HAND SAYS,

  “I LOVE ME, TOO.” WOMEN OF THE WORLD,

  RAISE YOUR RIGHT HAND.

  THE DIAMOND RIGHT HAND RING. VIEW MORE AT

  ADIAMONDISFOREVER.COM

  “Bleh,” Kate said, closing the magazine. “Right-hand rings? So now we’re supposed to think it’s empowering to buy ourselves diamonds?”

  “Ooh, yes,” Lulu said. “That’s been trendy for a while now. Of course, we still want them from our men too, am I right?”

  She glanced at Kate’s hand, then quickly looked away.

  May said, “My sister is the last person on earth you’d want to take diamond shopping. Believe me, I speak from experience.”

  They had gone to look at engagement rings for May when she and Josh were dating. At twenty-two, Kate had been with her college boyfriend, Todd, for three years; May and Josh had been together only nine months. But May reminded her that she was four years older, and ready for marriage. She arrived at the jewel
er’s with photos in hand. Kate watched as her sister declared her wishes to the old man on the other side of the counter: “A one- to one-and-a-half-carat round diamond, ideal or at least very good cut, very few inclusions—VVS1 in a perfect world, though VS1 would be all right. And a platinum band, with maybe just a few stones running across the top. Our budget is eight thousand dollars, ten thousand max. I really don’t want him spending any more than that.”

  Kate stared at her sister as if some alien life force had taken over her body. This was May, whose most expensive piece of jewelry was a tiny gold pendant she had received as a graduation gift. May, who bought all her clothes at Banana Republic. It was unsettling to see this hidden part of her suddenly revealed. Did most women act this way? The man behind the counter didn’t seem at all fazed, in fact he seemed pleased.

  “I’ll see what we can do,” he said. “I’ll pull a few stones to show you.”

  He went into a back room, and they stood waiting in front of a long glass case in which hundreds of bands sat, perched on their stands, each with a gaping hole like the mouth of a child who is missing just one tooth—each waiting to be filled by a diamond. Kate had imagined that the rings would already be assembled. The whole thing seemed so impersonal.

  “This reminds me of that make-your-own-pizza place in the mall,” she said.

  May wasn’t paying attention. She gazed into the case as if her newborn baby lay on the other side of the glass.

  The man returned with four small envelopes. He shook out the loose stones, and lined up a few different bands on the counter. May tried them all, asking Kate each time what she thought. Her answers ranged from Mmm-hmm to Good.

  “Do you want to try one on?” May asked her.

  “Me? Oh, no thanks.”

  “She thinks she doesn’t want a diamond,” May said to the man, who looked at Kate like he had just heard that she didn’t want to go on living. Her whole life she had been awkward in stores. Her mother and sister made up for it by speaking to sales clerks about her as if she weren’t standing right there. (She thinks she looks bad in a bathing suit. She thinks there’s something wrong with patent leather …)

  May turned her attention back to herself. “I do like the etchings on this band, but the hearts seem a bit much. And would a one-carat stone be too big for the setting?”

  “Those are all made by hand by a pair of brothers in Cincinnati,” he said. “The metal is very malleable. They could easily file those hearts right off and melt the prongs into a better shape.”

  May nodded. “Oh, great.”

  After two of the longest hours Kate had ever spent, May made her final decision. The man wrote everything down on a piece of paper and filed it under her name, with the understanding that she would then tell Josh to come in here and speak to Hank when he was ready.

  “Is this really how it’s done?” Kate blurted out.

  “To tell you the truth,” he said softly, “about half the time the man comes in alone and just picks something. I much prefer the way you girls are doing it—if you come in with your mother or a friend and decide for yourself, you end up with what you want. It’s a more modern, empowered approach.”

  “A woman’s right to choose!” Kate said.

  “Exactly,” the man replied.

  Her sister shot her a look.

  In the car, May said, “Why did you even come with me if you were going to act like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I just wasn’t prepared for the intensity,” Kate said. “You’d think you were making the biggest decision of your life when all you’re really doing is buying a piece of jewelry.”

  “The ring you choose is a huge decision,” May said. “The shape alone says so much about you.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, for example, a cushion cut says you’re old-fashioned. Whereas a round stone says you’re classic, yet up on the trends.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “It’s just known. I have friends who really regret choosing the wrong ring, or letting themselves get pressured into going with a ring that wasn’t good enough. It’s very rare to find anyone who’s absolutely certain that she chose the right ring.”

  “I think if you replace the word ‘ring’ with the word ‘man’ in what you just said, then maybe we’ll be getting somewhere.”

  “It’s a big deal, okay? It symbolizes something important.”

  “Yeah, consumerism at its finest. Look, I just didn’t know you’d been secretly obsessed with diamonds for the past decade, that’s all.”

  “Knowing what you want doesn’t equal obsession,” May said. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

  “Do you even know why you want it?” Kate asked.

  “Yes. Because it’s beautiful.”

  “And that’s enough of a reason to—”

  “To what?” May said, defiant, daring her to go on.

  Kate’s mood had turned dark. Really, she thought she deserved some credit for getting this far without even mentioning the obvious. But now she let loose.

  “To be complicit in the rapes and murders of innocent Africans by brutal regimes so that you can wear a shiny, pretty thing for the rest of your life.”

  “You are such a killjoy,” May said, slapping the steering wheel for emphasis. “I should have brought Kim or Mom, or just come by myself.”

  “Well, why did you ask me to come, anyway?”

  “Mom thought if I invited you, maybe you’d get inspired and change your mind about wanting to get married.”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

  They had planned to get dinner, but instead May dropped her at the PATH train without saying goodbye.

  May and Josh’s wedding the following year included a blues band from Memphis, a champagne fountain, and (alongside the three-tiered cake) an ice cream sundae bar. The ice cream was served in tiny plastic baseball helmets: half of them were Marlins, to honor Josh’s family in Florida, and half of them were Mets. May hired a planner named Debra, whose only job seemed to be reminding her that this was the most important day of her life, every time May started worrying about the expense. Although the event cost over forty thousand dollars, May kept telling everyone that the theme was “fun and low key!” She gave her bridesmaids sparkly pink zip-up sweatshirts that said I’M WITH MRS. ROSEN on the back. At the end of the night, everyone got a can of Bud Light in a Styrofoam coozie printed with the words MAY AND JOSH, SEPTEMBER 30, 2000: TO HAVE AND TO HOLD AND TO KEEP YOUR BEER COLD!

  From then on, whenever Kate caught sight of her sister’s diamond ring, she felt uneasy. She hated that it was supposed to symbolize love and perfection, an idea that seemed so removed from the nature of marriage itself, which even at its best was messy and mundane. She resented the whole notion that a relationship was perfect just because two people got married. When May and Josh were dating, Kate and May would discuss things between them all the time. May told her about every doubt and fear, about the time she caught Josh on the phone with his ex, and the fact that she thought he was lazy, unambitious. But those issues were never spoken of again after they got engaged, the ring and the wedding a form of hush money.

  Now Kate shifted in her plastic chair. She wished they could leave the salon and go home, but she realized there was still probably an hour to go. She flipped through another magazine just for something to do.

  As she came to the last page, a text message from Jeffrey arrived: I don’t think I can do this.

  He had been so calm a couple hours earlier, but Kate wasn’t surprised. The moment of doubt seemed to be an inevitable part of the journey, as much as deciding what the cake ought to look like, or debating whether to go with a DJ or a band. And the doubter usually called her. Kate liked to think it was because she was a good listener, but she knew that most of the time it came down to the fact that she represented another path—the only one who didn’t get married, and never would. The doubting party could say anything t
o her and know she wouldn’t be in the least bit offended.

  The men were golfing at the Fairmount. She had never known Jeff or Toby to golf, but they were wedding people now, and wedding people golfed, as sure as they registered and dieted and had second thoughts.

  I’ll come get you, she wrote back.

  “I need to go,” she told May, who was having her hair twisted into a chignon by Rue, who had since returned from her phone call.

  “What?” May said. “Why?”

  “Jeffrey’s having cold feet.”

  “Ahh,” said May. She had been maid of honor five times, and knew the drill. “But what about your hair?”

  Kate had tried to explain to them weeks ago that she didn’t need her hair done. Rather than repeat herself now, she just said, “My hair’s not going to matter much if we’re down one groom.”

  “He’ll be fine,” May said. “It’s normal.”

  “I know. But still, I should go. Can you get Ava home safe?”

  “Of course.”

  “You stay with Auntie May and Grandma, all right?” Kate asked.

  “Yup,” Ava said, like she did this every day.

  Kate thought of how carefully she and Dan had worked at cultivating a certain kind of life for their daughter, and she was only three: fresh country air, organic fruits and vegetables, Montessori school next year, which she still didn’t know how they’d pay for, and gender-neutral toys that made it clear that a girl could do anything. Yet Ava had never been so abundantly happy as she was right now, with her hot pink nails and her hairspray.

  Kate shook her head and laughed as she made her way out to the car. She would worry about it another day.

  When she pulled through the main gates of the Fairmount twenty minutes later, Toby stood out in front of the doors. She drove up to him and rolled down the passenger-side window.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said.

  “Was that you who texted me?” she said. “I thought it was Jeff.”

  “It was me,” he said. “I was trying to text you fast, so no one would notice, and I accidentally grabbed the wrong iPhone.”