The Sleeping Beauty Proposal

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  Yes, it was very generous of my parents and of course I was happy for Lucy and Jason, who happens to be one of those squeaky-clean born-again Christians and the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet. When they heard the good news, Lucy screamed for joy and Jason fell to his knees and started praying, thanking God for the nine splits of the Microsoft stock Dad had the foresight to buy at $28 a share back in the mid-1980s. We were all thrilled for them, even me.

  Still, somewhere in the darkest part of my soul, the little green troll of envy poked at my heart. I couldn’t help but feel slightly miffed. Here I was, the dutiful older sister, the one who, unlike Lucy, had worked every day since turning sixteen, still living with half a kitchen and a walk-in closet for a bedroom because no man had deemed me eligible for a lifetime commitment.Whereas Lucy—who had never held a job for more than six months—got her dream home handed to her simply because she happened to meet the right guy at the right time.

  It wasn’t fair. I know that makes me sound like a petulant kindergartener stamping her foot, but it’s true. It wasn’t fair. And the only way I’ve been able to move on is by mentally downplaying it and remembering that my relationship with my sister will always trump cash. Always.

  Anyway, I’ve never been sure how much money Mom and Dad gave them, really.

  “Oh, their gift wasn’t that much,” I say, casting my line into dangerous waters. “Twenty thousand at the most, right?”

  Todd snickers. “Try two hundred.”

  Two hundred thousand? The words stick in my throat, though not in Patty’s. She shouts,“Two hundred thousand! Holy shit, that’s a lot of dough.”

  “You got that right, babycakes,”Todd says.

  “The only real estate my parents ever bought me was part of the Pugliese plot in Mount Hope.Which, let me tell you, does not exactly fill me with peace of mind.We Puglieses have never been known to coexist without incident for one night, let alone all of eternity. Not for nothing was Grandpa buried with his Glock.”

  “Yeah, well, Mom and Dad didn’t want Lucy and Jason to be burdened by high monthly mortgage payments,” Todd explains. “Not, you know, with them starting out and all.”

  I have to sit on the couch and absorb this.Two hundred thousand dollars. My parents gave Lucy two hundred thousand because she was “starting out.” Yet, in their mind, I could make do with a hot, cramped tower until my prince came along to rescue me because I wasn’t starting.

  I was stagnating.

  "Well,” says Todd, “did that change your mind?”

  Did it ever.“Give me an hour. Patty and I will meet you there.”

  Chapter Four

  Hugh and I almost did buy a house about a year ago. An experience that nearly killed our relationship faster than Grandpa Pugliese’s Glock.

  The house was a bright blue Victorian in the Spring Hill section of Somerville with bay windows and inlaid pine floors and a cheerful yellow kitchen plus an airy room on the second story that would have been a perfect place for Hugh to write. I pegged that as the selling point, the office.Though, privately, I thought it made a much better nursery.

  The problem was money. There was no way I could buy it alone, not on my salary as an admissions counselor. And since Hugh had yet to break out to the bestseller list with Hopeful, Kansas, he wasn’t able to, either. But with Hugh’s savings and mine there was a chance we could pull it off together. We could merge the assets, as my father likes to say.

  The tour of the house was the clincher. Just one hour of meandering around and I could picture Hugh reading in the golden living room on a cold winter night, a pine garland wrapped around the carved wooden banister, a twinkling Christmas tree in the corner. We’d throw cozy dinner parties for our friends in the fall, plant our raised gardens in the spring, and spend lazy summer evenings on the porch, getting to know our neighbors. And someday, someday we might even hear the pitter-patter of little feet running down the stairs on their way to school.

  I was so immersed in this fantasy that I could actually smell my roasting chicken in the oven, the one I was making while upstairs Hugh was banging out his latest novel on the computer. I could hear the rain on the roof, feel the garden dirt on my fingers.

  That’s when I had an epiphany: This house had to be mine, oh yes.

  Hugh was at his laptop when I burst through his door, excited and pink-cheeked and brimming with hope after the showing. I can distinctly remember what he was wearing (a Cool Runnings T-shirt) and what he was drinking (chamomile iced tea in a pink glass, using that morning’s Boston Globe as a coaster).

  “So you like it, do you?” he said as I gushed about the yard, the living room, the office—can’t forget the office—the garden, and the kitchen where on snowy days I would bake cinnamon cookies and drink hot cocoa with our children, Meg, Beth, and Amy. Slowly, gradually, Hugh’s smile slipped into a frown.

  “Genie,” he said, using his professor voice to cut me off. “Stop.”

  "Why?” I didn’t understand how he could not be as thrilled as I was.What was not to love? The house was adorable!

  “I’m not there yet.”

  “What do you mean you’re not there yet?” Though I knew exactly what he meant.

  He pushed back his chair and tented his fingers as if I were one of his students and he was soberly discussing my failing grade. “To make that kind of commitment is impossible for me. I can’t think of anything right now except this book. I’m up to my eyes in revisions.”

  “Then after revisions?”

  His lips twitched. Looking back, it definitely was one of those body language things I should have paid attention to. "Possibly. But don’t hold me to that.”

  The revisions were due in two weeks.All I had to do was hold on until then. Surely, Hugh would see the light after the book was off his back. Each night I prayed that the house would stay on the market, that it would wait for us. If only he’d get those damned revisions done, then I could give him the tour and he would fall in love with it as I had.

  Hugh finished the revisions, turned in the manuscript, and promptly made a concerted effort to sleep, relax, read, exercise, go out with friends, catch an independent film in Harvard Square, learn how to brew true Turkish coffee—anything but check out the house.

  “It’s just as well,” he said when, brokenhearted and verging on tears, I angrily informed him that thanks to his foot-dragging, the house had been sold. “Don’t take it too hard. It wasn’t in our cards.”

  After that, we never discussed houses again.Though that didn’t stop me from looking—constantly—and praying that Hugh would change his mind.

  The familiar feelings of domestic longing come rushing back when I drive up to 25 Peabody Road.Though I’ve passed by this house and picked up Todd here a few times after work, I’ve never really stopped to appreciate the place.Twice as large as the adorable blue Spring Hill house in Somerville, it has a wraparound front porch, shutters, real stained-glass windows, and unbelievable privacy.

  Todd’s right. It is a rare find.

  Even Hugh would go for it, I think, immediately kicking myself for falling into the old habit of automatically asking myself what Hugh would do. I must get over him for my own sanity. I have to steam forward, forge the next stream, climb every mountain. Just because he won’t be upstairs writing doesn’t mean I can’t bake cookies in the kitchen.Though it won’t be half as much fun without our children, Meg, Beth, and Amy, the darlings.

  “Hurry up.You’re creeping along like a couple of old ladies.” Todd is waiting for me on the front porch, showered and shaved, as eager as a kid on Christmas morning. “Until now, you’ve only seen the kitchen torn up, Genie.Wait ’til you see what we’ve done to the rest of the house. It’ll blow your mind.”

  “Not too shabby,” Patty says, slowly climbing the wide front steps. “I can’t believe it’s only half a mil.There must be mold.”

  “No mold, baby.” Todd graciously opens the front door for us. “No kitchen. But that’s okay since Genie’s
no cook.”

  "Ha, ha.” I stick out my tongue at him as we enter the recently renovated living room, where, much to my delight, a fireplace with a gorgeous new marble mantel awaits.

  “Can’t you see Hugh here?” Todd positions himself by the mantel, pretending to puff on a pipe. “Yes, yes. But you’re arguing from a strictly Hobbesian perspective. Consider if you will, old man, the Swiftian viewpoint. Blah, blah, blah. More hot air.”

  “Is that supposed to be British intellectual?” Patty asks. “Or Alistair Cooke with sleep apnea?”

  “Like there’s a difference.”

  One of Todd’s workers, a tall tan man with dark curling hair, walks by with a long strip of white painted molding balanced on his shoulder. Nick the carpenter. Crap. The last man on Earth I should have to deal with this morning.

  Not that I have anything against Nick personally. I’m sure he’s nice enough; at least every other woman on the planet seems to think so.Todd told me that ever since he hired Nick to build some bookshelves and the kitchen cabinets and to install the trim, this house has taken on a magnetic quality, drawing to it love-smitten females of all shapes and ages, including the ninety-year-old next-door neighbor, Mrs. Ipilito, who trots over every afternoon with a pot of espresso and a basket of biscotti, just for an opportunity to stare into Nick’s Mediterranean blue eyes and sigh over his Apollonian shoulders.

  Nor does Nick do anything to dissuade them, apparently. According to Todd, he chats up all his female admirers, never failing to notice if the single mother down the street has had her nails done or changed the color of her hair. I’ve even witnessed this firsthand.

  Two weeks ago, when I stopped by to take Todd out to dinner, I caught Nick flashing me his mesmerizing smile even though I had done absolutely nothing to encourage him.

  "What?” I finally had to ask.

  “Nothing.” He kept stupidly grinning, almost laughing to himself before yanking a hammer out of the canvas tool belt that hung low on his hips. His very trim hips. Which was when, for no reason I’ve been able to fathom, my whole body kind of burst into flame. No, really. My face flushed and a wave of heat ran right up my neck. I’d say it was a hot flash except that I’m too young. (At least, I hope I’m too young.) And the worst part of it is, I think Nick knew I burst into flame, too.

  After this thoroughly mortifying experience, I resolved that should he ever try to cast his spell on me again I would simply walk away. Today, however, I’m in a rare mood.With Hugh having just dumped me, I’m itching to take on any egotistical man who assumes he’s God’s gift to women. Just let him try his seductive powers. Let him try. The way I see it, men like Hugh, and, quite possibly, Nick, need to be stopped in their tracks so they don’t bulldoze through life, razing the hearts of vulnerable women—like I used to be.

  “You guys know Nick?” Todd asks us. “Nick is the best carpenter this side of the Charles River.”

  “That’s not saying much, man.” Nick laughs and climbs the ladder to nail in the molding. Despite my simmering irritation, I’m disappointed he didn’t attempt to charm me with his special grin. Not that I wanted him to charm me with his grin, just that I was ready for it.

  “You’re making people work on Sunday?” Patty asks Todd, though her gaze is assuredly fixed on Nick’s tight jeans. Patty’s the type who wouldn’t mind being under Nick’s spell. She claims this is a perk of being a woman, that we get to sleep—or dream about sleeping—with men like Nick.

  “We have to work on Sunday. Gotta get this house on the market,” Todd tells her. “When I say Cecily’s motivated, I mean motivated. Come on. We’ll start with the kitchen, since it’s the worst part of the house and you’ve already been in it.”

  We move from the dining room with its bay windows and built-in glassed bookshelf (spectacular!) to the kitchen, which is definitely too small and, aside from a sink, a dented Sub-Zero refrigerator, cabinets with no doors, and a standard gas stove, is largely unfinished.

  Todd pounds the rough-in for the counter.“This is why you’re getting a price break. I’m telling you, if this kitchen were done, the ticket would go up another hundred grand.”

  Fine by me, since if I had my druthers, I’d knock out the butler’s pantry and design the kitchen from scratch. The cabinets would have to be white with maybe Italian tile on the backsplash. I’d put in rock maple counters for easy cutting, perhaps some granite or soapstone. A slab of marble for rolling out pastry dough. Though, what am I saying? To do all that would be hugely expensive.

  Todd leads us around to the master bedroom and downstairs bath (no tub, only a modified shower) and second bedroom, all of which face the golf course for rare quiet—except for the occasional buzz of golf carts and whacking balls. In the rear is also a sun room, which is,Todd notes, a perfect office.

  “Or baby room,” Patty suggests.

  “Don’t make me think about my sister having sex. Please,” Todd says, circling us back to the kitchen.

  He’s about to show us the upstairs apartment when his cell rings and he goes outside to take a call. Cecily Blake, probably. The woman can’t seem to leave my brother alone.

  “Well?” says Patty. “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s fabulous and way out of my price range.”

  “Your price range could buy you a closet in Roxbury. This is awesome.You definitely should get your parents to chip in.”

  Lowering my voice so Todd won’t hear, I point out that, unless she’s forgotten, I’m not really getting married.

  “Yeah. But that’s the whole point of pretending to be engaged. Fake it to make it, baby.”

  “Even if that means lying to my parents?”

  “Especially if that means lying to your parents. In case you hadn’t noticed, Genie, they’ve been operating on a two-tiered system with you definitely in the bottom tier. I mean, if you’re not going to help your kids buy a house, that’s one thing. But if you are, then don’t discriminate based on whether they’re married or not.”

  Patty, who cannot keep her voice to a whisper no matter how hard she tries, is working herself to the point where the next-door neighbors surely can hear. And by that I don’t mean Mrs. Ipilito. I mean Connecticut.

  “Plus, the quality of craftsmanship is stunning,” she yells. “Twelve-foot ceilings. Crown molding. Custom-made cabinets. Your father’s going to realize the investment potential long after he finds out your engagement is a crock of shit.”

  There is a crash in the other room followed by Greek-sounding swearing. I have to remind Patty to keep it down. We’re not the only ones here.

  “Oh, he doesn’t care,” she says, waving off Nick.“But you have to admit I’m right.”

  “I don’t know.” I must search for reasons to disagree, otherwise when this house gets sold I’m going to sink into the same funk I sank into when I lost the Spring Hill place. “It’s not so great. I mean, take the molding.”

  Patty looks up at the molding. “What about it?”

  “It’s clearly mass manufactured, probably bought at Home Depot. Quality molding would be hand carved, like those old homes in Back Bay. And the cabinets . . .” I tap the cabinet. “Glued. Quality cabinets have no glue. They’re dovetailed together, like the Shakers built. This is just modern carpentry. As Hugh would say, totally without art.”

  “I’m not so sure it’s totally without art.” Nick is standing in the doorway, scowling at me. “I happen to put a lot of sweat and creativity in what I do.”

  Super. He’s the carpenter and he’s just heard me trash his work. Well, there’s not much I can do about that now, can I? It’s either stand my ground or apologize so he’ll go away. But I can’t apologize, because I’m right. Hugh taught me how to distinguish fine craftsmanship from its slapdash imitation. And believe me, Hugh knows quality—as he’d be the first to tell anyone.

  “I don’t think we’ve really met.” Patty opens her purse and pulls out a business card. “I’m Patty. Call me if you need anything. I’m also
a terrific lawyer.”

  Nick momentarily glances at the card and says, "Thanks. But I don’t need a lawyer right now.”

  “The services I have in mind aren’t necessarily legal in nature,” she observes.

  "Look. I’m sorry if you were offended by what I said,” I begin, diplomatically. "I was only pointing out that in the old days they took more care. They didn’t have modern conveniences like glue or machines that would turn out molding. As a result, the end product was more lasting.”

  “Really? You might be interested to know that carpenters have used glue for centuries, with or without dovetailing, and I’ll tell you something else about your fancy Back Bay molding. It also was cut by machines, albeit crude machines. The rich folks on Beacon Hill might like to think their molding was hand-carved, but that’s because they’re paying six million dollars a unit. Whoever told you otherwise doesn’t know his ass from first base.”

  Instinctively, I bristle. This is exactly what I suspected, that Nick is a know-it-all like Hugh, another handsome man eager to put me in my place. Well, not today. Not after what I’ve been through.

  “I’ll tell you who told me,” I say crisply.“Hugh Spencer.That’s who.”

  Nick squints. “Hugh who?”

  “Spencer. He’s one of the foremost authorities on pure-method house building.” I have no idea what the heck pure-method house building is.

  Nick scratches his head. “I’ve never heard of this Hugh Spencer or even pure-method house building. But if he’s the one who said molding used to be hand-carved, then I can guarantee he never sawed a two-by-four in his life.”

  Patty says, “You got that right. The man has hands like an infant. All soft and pink. Creepy.”

  I am tempted to give Patty a tiny kick to shut her up. She is not helping my cause. “For your information,” I say, rising to my full height, “Hugh Spencer has built a post-and-beam house using only wooden nails. That’s the essence of pure-method house building.”

  Nick chuckles in that annoying way men do when they think other people are being idiots. "Oh, man. I love guys like him, self-proclaimed experts who’ve never put together so much as a picnic table.Where was this mythical post-and-beam house? Or, should I say, where did he make it up?”