The Sleeping Beauty Proposal

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  That’s true, I think, indelicately blowing my nose with a honk. “It actually ended up fine with Steve. Not great. It wasn’t earth-shattering sex or anything. But at least I wasn’t a virgin under my mortarboard.”

  Nick smiles. “It takes time learning to like sex. At least, that’s what women have told me. Doesn’t appear to be anything close to a learning curve for men.”

  “Yes.” I concentrate on folding the handkerchief like it’s the American flag and not thinking of the numerous women lying next to Nick in bed, confessing that they never liked sex until him.

  “And I’m sure it’s been earth-shattering for you since then, especially with Hugh.”

  “Absolutely! And Todd’s right. It was fifteen years ago. I’m all grown up.”

  “So I’ve noticed.”

  “By the way, you were really nice to take my hand in there. It helped,” I say, handing him the folded handkerchief.

  "Anytime.” He looks at his feet, stalling. "Listen, Genie, I know we’ve just met and, really, I have no business saying this. But if Hugh said—”

  “Steve was exaggerating.” I wave him off before he can go any further.“Hugh and I have a terrific sex life.We can’t keep our hands off each other.”

  “Right. Of course.” Nick shoves his hands in his pockets and shivers as if it’s cold, even though it’s almost tropical out here. “Going back? Todd claims he’s planned a kick-ass rendition of ’Subterranean Homesick Blues.’ ”

  I roll my eyes. “Tell me he didn’t bring cue cards.”

  “Stayed up all night making them. Sixty-four in total.”

  “And he spelled success the way Dylan did?”

  "S-u-c-k-c-e-s-s.”

  “That Dylan was a lousy speller. Probably still is. No, I’ll have to pass, I’m afraid. I hate to watch my brother’s ego grow any larger than it already is.”

  Nick grins and, instantly, I feel a true blush coming on again. “See you around, then,” he says, turning back to the club. “Glad you’re okay. I’ll let Todd and Steve know.”

  “Tell ’em I’m fine,” I holler back. “Never better!”

  As he walks away, the women waiting in line stare in approval while the men bristle and try to make themselves taller, broader.

  What did Todd call it? Mediterranean magnetism.

  Mediterranean magnetism. Animal magnetism. No matter its name, there’s a definite possibility I could become positively charged.

  Chapter Nine

  It is impossible to get any work done as a bogusly betrothed person. I don’t know how real brides-to-be do it.

  Just when I’m about to delve into an essay or analyze a spreadsheet of scores, someone from my family calls with something wedding-ish.

  “And then this Pippa person said the strangest thing,” my mother is saying, relating again (it is her third call today) the jarring experience of calling Hugh’s parents and finding them on holiday. “She said Hugh had told her he’d broken up with you, not asked you to marry him. Now why do you suppose she’d say something like that?”

  This is one of my mother’s classic rhetorical questions. I don’t even consider answering it. Instead, I look up Lateka Swambi’s math scores. Impressive. Those Bergen County schools can prep kids like no place else.

  “I’ll tell you why. Drugs. Don’t you think Trevor and Susanna should know what their house sitter is up to? Shooting heroin and blowing cocaine, so doped up this Pippa person can’t even be civil to the soon-to-be in-laws of their own son.”

  I lie that British house sitters are often drug addicts, part of the United Kingdom’s efforts to cut rehab costs by farming out addicts to foster families. I am getting sooo good at lying, because she actually says, “Interesting,” and hangs up.

  One hour later. Ring! “Guess who’s throwing you and Hugh an engagement party? Tula Abernathy!”

  “What is a Tula Abernathy?”

  Mom is appalled I have to ask. “You know Tula. She was married to Bucky Abernathy for years until he drowned in his swimming pool while strapped to his wheelchair and then, after that silly, stupid police investigation, she moved to Palm Beach for the winters.”

  I say, “Police investigation?”

  “It was only a technicality. No proof at all, aside from the missing brakes on Bucky’s chair, though, really, Tula couldn’t be blamed for that, not with her arthritis. Can’t so much as twist a screwdriver, poor thing. Anyway, Tula’s a huge fan of Hopeful, Kansas. She can’t wait to meet Hugh.”

  Oh, God. I put down Denise Swindell’s essay, “How Needle-point Helped Me Understand Calculus,” and rub my brow.

  “She swears the party will be an all-out, black-tie extravaganza. Caviar. Champagne. Salmon flown in from Norway and lobsters from Maine. A band at the club. Aren’t you thrilled?”

  “Maybe the pool boy could have twisted the screwdriver.”

  "Please, Genie. Stay on track. I’d have expected you to be squealing!”

  “Oh, I’m squealing all right.” In my head. Can’t she hear?

  Aaaaggghhhh!

  An engagement party! For me and Hugh? Now how am I going to pull this off? I mean, people will expect him to show. It’s not often that couples are thrown engagement parties and only the bride turns up. Unless ... Hugh were in the military.Yes! That ...

  No. No one would ever buy Hugh as a soldier. He’s too old. Too pasty white.

  Then my mother says, “Of course, you’re going to need to register soon because once word gets out about your wedding, people are going to start sending you gifts.”

  Gifts! Shoot. Lately, I’ve been worried about the legal issues that might arise in this gift-getting activity. Isn’t accepting Cuisinarts and Williams-Sonoma knives under false pretenses some sort of criminal offense? Theft of quality kitchenware by unlawful betrothal, or something? I’d be just like those people who shake down customers at the grocery store by claiming their dear aunt Helga is dying of restless leg syndrome when really they’re pooling spare change for a bottle of Mad Dog.

  "Mom, I can’t have an engagement party ...”

  There is an ominous pause.

  “No one turns down Tula Abernathy. Honestly, Genie, I’m disappointed. You’re supposed to be excited about planning this wedding. Instead, I feel like I’m weeding dandelions, tugging each stubborn detail from you until I’m exhausted. Good-bye!”

  Her silence is short-lived and, as if I have just passed through the eye of a storm, my phone blares a brief twenty minutes later. “Now what about a date, sweetie,” Mom asks, all syrupy as if we haven’t so much as raised our voices. “We can’t plan anything without a date. Have you and Hugh picked a date?”

  “A date?”

  "Yes, a date.”

  “Oh. A date.” This is a very clever tactic on my part, I think, stalling by repeating everything she says.

  “As in August blank ...” she reiterates.

  Crap. She really is going balls-out with this wedding planning business, isn’t she? Demanding dates and all that. I flip through my desk calendar and notice that I have conveniently scheduled the week of August 20 for vacation with Patty down at the Cape. “How about August twentieth?”

  “Are you sure? Is that okay with Hugh? Won’t classes be starting around then?” She spits out her questions faster than a Thompson machine gun. “Because once you pick the date, you can’t change—not at this late date, you can’t change a date.”

  “The date’s fine.” I underline a sentence on Andy Pringle’s essay about the “Value of Euthanasia”: I don’t know why it’s wrong to let the sick just die. Isn’t the world overcrowded as it is? and jot a memo to his high school counselor: Psychiatric evaluation?

  “But you haven’t talked to Hugh about the twentieth, have you? Now, listen to me, Genie. Men can get verrry prickly if you don’t ask them or, rather, go through the pretense of asking them. The sooner you learn how to give Hugh the impression he’s making all the decisions, the sooner you’ll have the upper hand in your marriag
e.”

  Ah, yes.Welcome to the Nancy Michaels course on Marriage by Manipulation.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I say, folding up Andy’s application to send it back to Spartan High School FedEx Overnight. “I’ll pretend to have asked him and we can pretend he said yes.”

  “Perfect.” The scratch is audible from my end. Another item off her to do list.

  She hangs up and I have barely a chance to stretch and pour myself another cup of tea when my line buzzes again. Only this time it’s not Mom—it is her evil henchwoman, Lucy.

  “Are you sitting down?” She doesn’t wait for my answer.“Because I have terrific news. Guess who’s throwing you your bridal shower?”

  “Tula Abernathy?”

  “No ... me!”

  This has got to stop. Engagement parties. Showers. “You can’t throw me a shower.You’re my sister.” I’m no Martha Stewart, but even I know it’s a breach of etiquette for a family member to host a shower.

  “So what? These days sisters can throw showers. Really. Check out Emily Post. Page one-seventy-seven of Wedding Etiquette. She says it depends on individual circumstances, and you’ve got one doozy of an individual circumstance.”

  “What doozy is that?”

  “Patty Pugliese. She’s the most logical choice to be a hostess and Mom wants me to preempt her. Something about not wanting to be exposed to male strippers and battery-operated dildos.”

  “Patty wouldn’t do that.”

  “Really? Think long.Think hard.”

  I think hard and long and have to agree that battery-operated dildos are not out of the realm of possibility in a Patty Pugliese- hosted bridal shower.

  "Okay. How about I tell Patty I don’t want a shower?” I suggest. “How about no one throws me a shower and I just get married under the willow tree in Mom and Dad’s backyard? No engagement party. No church. No fancy reception. No gift registering. No guests.We just keep it simple. Five minutes and we’re done.”

  Lucy lets out a long, pained sigh. “Lookit. From here on out you don’t get to make any decisions. I’m taking over because you’re suffering from some sort of pre-wedding stress disorder.”

  PWSD.

  “Just do what I say,” Lucy instructs, “and it’ll all turn out fine.

  Now, first step. Register.You can do it online at Neiman Marcus or Bloomingdale’s or Saks or Harrods, even. For the British friends of Hugh.”

  “Who?”

  “Hugh. Remember? The dude you’re marrying?”

  Oh, right. That Hugh. "Well, maybe Hugh and I don’t want gifts,” I say, appealing to Lucy’s do-gooder side. “Maybe we have enough stuff already. Wouldn’t it be better for people to send the money to charity instead?”

  “Like it’s a funeral? Boy.You are a lot of fun, Genie. I can’t wait to shop for bridesmaids’ dresses with you. What are you gonna dress us in, hair shirts?”

  Bridesmaids! Bridesmaids’ dresses? I haven’t thought of those, either. I feel something wet and note with dismay that sweat from my palms has smudged Benjamin Cadburry’s ink signature on his pledge to maintain his grades through senior year if accepted.

  “At least register so people know what to buy you. It’s more work for them otherwise, trying to figure out what you want and need, if you’ve already got a fish poacher or not. That way after the wedding, if you’re still playing the family role as Sister Eugenia, you can return the gifts for cash and write a big fat check to Save the Children.”

  That’s a possibility, though I’m almost positive brides these days register with charities alone. I read it in Cosmo. Not that I read Cosmo religiously.Well, aside from the sex parts.

  “Just make sure there’s a lot of kitchen stuff in your registry because I’m throwing you a kitchen shower next month. Personally, I recommend asking for a garlic press. I don’t know how you live without one, all that cutting with no press.”

  She’s right. How have I survived?

  “By the way, have you given thought to what you’re going to do about your triceps?”

  When she says this, I’m confused. I’m thinking dinosaurs like T. rex, raptors, and triceps. I can’t for the life of me figure out what dinosaurs would have to do with wedding planning. “Pardon?”

  “Your upper arm muscles? You know, that little piece of flab that hangs down.”

  “I have a little piece of flab that hangs down?”

  “Check.”

  I tap the bottom of my left arm, where supposedly my lazy triceps have been loitering about. My goodness, she’s right. It does hang down there.

  “I didn’t want to bring it up,” she says, bringing it up.“I’m sure you’re self-conscious about it. Don’t worry.We all are.”

  We are?

  “And because of that, Jason and I have purchased your first shower gift.”

  Oh, no. It’ll be some sort of upper-arm caliper.

  “A three-month membership to Joe’s Gym right around the corner from your apartment. I made a Saturday morning appointment for you to meet with a trainer who’s a specialist in upper body and abs. He’ll do the best he can to get you buff by August twentieth. And maybe, if you work hard, your triceps will be tolerable for a strapless wedding gown.”

  “Why, Lucy!” It’s so like her to zero in on my physical flaws. “How thoughtful of you to think of my arm fat.”

  “Yes, well, somebody has to.”

  Chapter Ten

  "I can’t believe Lucy called first dibs on hosting your shower. I should be the host. I’m your best friend, right?”

  “Of course.” No point bringing up the battery-operated dildos now that the shower’s a done deal. “But have you forgotten I’m not really getting married?”

  Patty stops stirring her Starbucks caramel macchiato, which is so sweet the sheer smell of it threatens to send me into diabetic shock. “You have got to drop that attitude, Genie.You are getting married even if you’re not.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “It does. Come here.” Patty draws me away from the Starbucks fixings bar and drops her voice so low I can barely hear her above the soporific drawling of Norah Jones, who, I swear, plays in every Starbucks I’ve ever been in.“Look.You’ve almost got Hugh where you want him. Any day now, people are going to track him down in England and demand to know what’s going on. His name is going to be mud.”

  “I’ve been thinking of that,” I say, taking a careful sip of my triple venti latte that I ordered for the pure caffeine. I did not get any work done today, which means I’ll be up all night reading essays at home.“Where does that leave me when everyone finds out the truth?”

  “The object of pity, admiration, and empathy. The ultimate trifecta.You’ll be a hero to every woman who’s ever been screwed over by a long-term boyfriend, plus you’ll have a newly outfitted kitchen.”

  I’m nipping this in the bud. “No. I am not registering for Lucy’s kitchen shower.”

  “Are you shitting me?” Patty, as always, says this too loudly so that a mother in one of the leather chairs actually slaps her hands over her daughter’s ears. “I hate to break it to you, but your kitchen is the pits.The only pots you have are missing huge chunks of Teflon, a proven cancer hazard, and your measuring cups are all cracked. Don’t even talk to me about that coffeemaker you bought at Rite Aid. I’ve had airplane coffee that’s better.”

  “So you’ve told me.” Over and over and over.

  Patty delicately wipes whipped cream from her immaculately polished lips. “Remember, Genie, this is not only to shame Hugh into submission, but mainly to kick-start your adult life. Give me one good reason why a twentysomething woman should have a kitchen shower simply because she’s getting married whereas a woman in her mid-thirties who happens to cook doesn’t qualify.”

  I open my mouth to answer something about tradition, but Patty beats me to the punch. “Exactly. You can’t. This is why when my nieces graduate from college and start heading out on their own, I’m going to throw them Welcome-to-Rea
l-Life showers so they can get decent towels and tool sets and matching cutlery. Life begins when you get your own job and apartment, not when some bozo signs a contract claiming exclusive rights to your vagina.”

  This declaration of vagina rights is too much for the mother who’s been unsuccessfully trying to shield her child from Patty’s vulgarity. As if she can’t take one minute more, the beleaguered woman busily gathers her cups and napkins, tosses them in the trash, and with a look of utter disgust, escorts her daughter outside.

  Patty, naturally, is clueless, so immersed is she in the audacity of wedding showers for women who have the audacity to get married in the audacity of their twenties. “I’ll admit it, I’m envious. Ever since you told me about Lucy’s kitchen shower, I’ve been thinking how I can get someone to throw me one of those.”

  “Why don’t you get engaged?”

  She blinks. “That’s a brilliant idea. A fucking brilliant idea.”

  Oh, no. What have I done? I really have to make an effort to think before I speak.

  “I should get engaged, like you. I mean, look at your upcoming haul. Parties. Showers. A gym membership and a trainer. Every woman should get this kind of royal treatment.You’re even getting a free house.”

  “My parents bought Lucy a house. They haven’t bought me one.”

  “Not yet. But you know they will. They have to. Unspoken parental law dictates that they have to treat each daughter equally. That is, if they ever want to see the grandkids.”

  Grandkids?

  And with that, Patty takes off, exiting Starbucks and marching a mile a minute, her little legs carrying her little body across Copley Square. I have to run to catch up. “Where are you going?”

  “Bickman’s Jewelers to get a ring. I saw one there the other day that was perfect.”

  “I thought you were joining a client for drinks?”

  “I’ll call him and ask him to meet me here instead,” she says, reaching for her cell phone, not slowing her pace one bit.