The Sleeping Beauty Proposal

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  “You’re ophidiophobic,” he says. “Afraid of snakes.”

  “That’s an understatement. Todd used to torture me all through our childhood, chasing me with snakes, putting snakes in our canoe. Once, at camp, in my bed.” That’s when it hits me. “Todd did this, didn’t he?”

  Nick is holding me very tightly. "No. No. Todd wouldn’t do that. Probably the snake was trapped under the rim of the tub. Yesterday he was in a patch of weeds in Hingham. Today he’s in some crazy woman’s bath and she’s demanding his immediate execution.”

  I have to laugh, too. It is sort of funny. Now. It wasn’t a few minutes ago when the snake was slithering around my toes.

  “Are there others?” I ask, worried.

  “Who knows? You want me to look?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will do.” He starts to move away and I grab him, one of my towels unceremoniously falling to the floor. “Don’t go. Not just yet.”

  We stand there, me for the most part naked against Nick’s own bare chest. His skin is against mine, my cold cheek against his warm, strong shoulders. I can smell him, his earthiness, the sweat, a faint trace of metallic grease. It’s a heady perfume that has me intoxicated.We are both smart enough and mature enough to know that my refusal to let him go has absolutely nothing to do with reptiles.

  “Genie,” he says softly. "What is it that you want?”

  “Do I have to say?” Hesitantly, I look up at him. I’m right. Words aren’t necessary. It’s all in his dark blue eyes. Passion. Love. Lust.Whatever. I’ll take it.

  “Is it okay . . . ,” he asks, smoothing my wet hair off my forehead, “if I . . . ?”

  Without wasting another second, I reach up and pull him to me, eager for those lips that kissed me in the coffee shop what seems like ages ago.

  His kiss starts off gentle, almost curious. Then, sensing that I have no hesitation, he brings me closer until my towel falls off my shoulders to the floor and he lets out a moan of pleasure, his thumbs grazing the sides of my exposed breasts.

  I don’t care what happens next. All I know is that I want him. I want to wrap my body around his body.Want to get those jeans of his off and see where that V goes. I want him inside me.

  But most of all—I want the doorbell to stop ringing. “Wait,” he says, reluctantly pushing me away. “We can’t do this.”

  “Why not?” At this moment I’m more of an animal than a human, incapable of intelligent speech. “They’ll go away.”

  "It’s not that, it’s . . .” He looks down at my nakedness and closes his eyes as if he can’t be tempted.

  My addled brain is not comprehending. “If it’s Hugh you’re worried about, forget him. I don’t care.”

  “You don’t, but . . .”

  “I don’t love Hugh. I thought I loved Hugh, but I was wrong. Very wrong.” Oh, God. Why won’t he just kiss me again? Why won’t those people go away?

  “GENIE!” The shrill voice is harsh, unmistakable. It is the voice that haunts me in my dreams, that can trigger all my emotions.

  It is the voice of my mother.

  “Come on.We know you’re in there.”

  “It’s my mother,” I gasp as all my sexual desire instantly vanishes. “What’s she doing here?”

  Nick is shaking his head. “I was trying to tell you this before you brought up Hugh.There’s a surprise bridal shower waiting for you on the porch. That’s why we couldn’t do what . . . you know, I think we were about to do.”

  “Oh.” Once again, I flush with embarrassment. “A shower?”

  “Your sister and mother and Patty and some other women. Patty asked me to keep you away from the porch until they were ready.”

  I have never felt so much like a fool. Snapping up the towel from the floor, I wrap it tightly around my body even though it’s too little, too late. "Well, you certainly managed a fine distraction. Ha-ha.”

  “Genie. Stop.” He grips my bare shoulder. “I completely forgot about the shower just now. It never crossed my mind.”

  “Really? Or is that a line you give all your women?”

  “Look. I understand you’ve been hurt by some man and because of that, bizarrely enough, you don’t trust me.And maybe you shouldn’t because you’re weeks away from being another man’s wife and it’s taken every ounce of my willpower to respect and honor that and there have been moments, like now, when my willpower is no match for how much I want you.” He says this in one breath so that he’s almost panting by the time he finishes.

  I’m speechless. He’s been holding himself back because he thinks I’m getting married when all along I wasn’t sure he even cared.

  "Nick,” I whisper. "I had no idea.”

  “You don’t love him, do you?”

  "No.” I shake my head slightly. "No, I don’t.”

  “Then I can wait. Like I’ve said before, I’m a very patient man. When you’re free, I’ll still be here. Until then, it’s up to you.”

  Footsteps come pounding down the hallway. An inner voice urges me to flee to my bedroom before my mother or Lucy catches me. But I don’t want to. I want to tell Nick he doesn’t have to wait, that I’m here for him now, that I’ve always been.

  "Genie, where the hell . . .” Patty runs past the bathroom door and then, catching sight of us, slowly steps back. “Holy shit! What’ve you two been up to?”

  “Hi, Patty,” Nick says, sliding past her. “Genie’s running a bit behind.”

  When he’s gone, Patty stares at me and I stare at her. All I can say is, “There was a snake.”

  "Oh, I bet there was. And let me guess—it was huge.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Patty has asked me not to tell Nick or anyone else the truth until her black-tie couple’s shower is held in a week. After that, she says, we can both come clean together as the bogusly betrothed. Otherwise, she’s afraid that if “certain people” (i.e., Todd) find out I’m not really engaged, then they will suspect she’s not really engaged, either.

  “One week. By then I’ll have done the fancy party and gotten all the gifts and proved my point.” Patty twirls in a lovely Carmen Marc Valvo embroidered white gown. “Besides, what’s the rush? Nick said he can wait.”

  He might. I’m not sure I can.

  We are in the bridal department of Neiman Marcus, where Patty is trying on wedding gowns and dresses for her engagement party. This is not mere frivolity. Several members of the extended Pugliese family have been feuding over who will get the various wedding contracts—the catering, linen, floral, et cetera. By buying her dress retail, and not through her cousin Carmen who has connections in New York’s fashion district, she is aiming to save lives.

  Meanwhile, as my wedding day approaches, Mom is near hysteria and has been leaving messages that are straight out of some 1950s book on bridal fashion.

  “You should be radiant at each step, Genie,” is the way her last message started. “At your engagement party. At your rehearsal. At your wedding, of course. At the reception and going away.You’ll need at least two formal dresses, a wedding dress, a reception dress, and a going-away suit. It’ll be a scandal otherwise.”

  A scandal otherwise. Patty and I love that expression. Or, at least, we’re pretending to love that expression. Because now that we’re getting closer to my wedding and Patty’s black-tie couple’s shower, Mom’s not the only one who’s getting hysterical.

  I’m beginning to think that maybe we’ve gone too far.

  Over a hundred ecru embossed wedding invitations have been sent hither and yon, overseas and across town, proclaiming that:

  “Patty Pugliese in a wedding dress,” I say, fluffing out her skirt. “Like a hooker in a nun’s habit. Never thought I’d see the day.”

  Patty turns for a side view, pushing in her stomach. “Me neither. On the flip side, don’t be so smug. I never thought you’d be able to pull off a fake engagement this long.”

  “You thought I’d cave, huh?”

  “I thought Hugh would c
ome to his senses, dump his mystery ho, apologize profusely, and ask you to marry him. And then everything would be in place for the wedding you’d planned all along.”

  “You thought Hugh would really marry me? What about that feminist claptrap you were spouting about springing myself from the castle without the kiss and forgoing the prince and . . .”

  “Admit it. There was a part of you that wanted that fairy-tale ending, too,” Patty says, stepping out of her dress.

  I open my mouth to object and find I can’t. It’s true.Yes, once upon a time, a teeny part of me privately hoped Hugh would return and see the error of his ways, that he would get down on bended knee and beg my forgiveness.

  “That’s not going to happen,” I say, slipping the gown onto a hanger. “It’s over between us.”

  “Let’s hope so.” Patty zips up an evening dress, a petite Eileen Fisher handkerchief linen tank in a flattering shade of blush pink. “The thing is, I have a problem, too. Roslyn, the new associate who is gunning for my job, has a brother who’s a mucky-muck in the navy and he’s been snooping around. Guess it doesn’t take much to find out who’s a captain and who’s not.”

  Uh-oh. “You mean Roslyn has discovered ...”

  “There is no Captain Moe Howard in the U.S. Navy.” Patty smacks herself in the forehead. “Why couldn’t I have chosen a name like Tom Smith or Mike Jones? Why did I have to go with Captain Moe?”

  “Maybe you’ve always had a crush on helmet heads.”

  “Maybe.” She twirls around. “How does this look?”

  “It looks great.” And it does. Pink goes well with Patty’s hair. “What are you going to do about Captain Moe?”

  “I’ve got it all figured out. I just need to find a man who will step up to the plate and then I can go to the shower and introduce him as my real fiancé. I’ll make up some story about needing to keep his true identity secret for national security purposes because he’s with navy intelligence.And I’ll tell them Captain Moe was his cover name. Something along those lines.”

  I think about this. “You spent a lot of time reading spy novels as a kid, didn’t you?”

  “I had eleven brothers and sisters and three bedrooms. What do you think?”

  “Alternatively,” I suggest, unzipping her, “you could tell everyone at your firm that you and your best friend from college pretended to be engaged so we could receive the same kudos married women get. Make ’em cry into their briefs at the unfairness of our sexist system.”

  “Yeah, right. My partners pull down seven figures a year filleting dedicated surgeons who happen to slip their scalpels a half a centimeter to the right. Somehow, I don’t think they’re going to—”

  “Do you hear that?” I ask, trying to find the source of a muffled buzz.Then I recognize it—my cell phone under the heaps of clothes.We actually have to dig it out.

  “This is Christy Abramson of the NewYorkTimes,” a droll voice informs me. “I’m trying to reach Eugenia Michaels.”

  “THE NEW YORK TIMES!” I mouth to Patty, who is standing in her bra and panties, a perfect matching set of beige lace.

  “What for?” Patty mouths back.

  Not for a subscription, I’m guessing. Please may this not have to do with Hugh and his stupid book. Lying to my family is one thing, but lying to the New York Times is really serious.You can get subpoenaed for that.

  “We’ve received your engagement announcement,” Christy continues, “and per standard procedure we need to fact-check it. Do you have a few minutes?”

  “Engagement announcement!” Covering the phone, I inform Patty they’re calling to fact-check my engagement announcement. The big question being . . .

  What engagement announcement?

  Patty slaps her cheek in horror.“They’re ruthless fact-checkers at the New York Times. They check everything.They’ll leave no stone unturned. How did they get an engagement announcement?”

  Excellent point. I run this question by Christy.

  "Well, you sent it to us, didn’t you?”

  Patty mouths, “Your mother.”

  My mother. Curse her. “Right. Mom did. Listen, you don’t have to publish—”

  “But we want to. Hugh Spencer is, well, Hugh Spencer. And while I don’t watch TV personally, I understand it was on a national show with Barbara Walters where he first proposed.”

  "Oh, that . . . that you definitely don’t have to print.An engagement announcement is so unnecessary. I really don’t want—”

  “Also, we’re considering your wedding for our Sunday feature when you do get married next month. I know. It’s very exciting.”

  It’s not exciting. It’s nauseating. Even the blasting cold air-conditioning of the Neiman Marcus dressing room is not enough to keep the blood circulating in my brain as I envision a front-page story in the NewYork Times, an exclusive investigated and reported by the paper’s notoriously ruthless Weddings & Celebrations section fact-checkers:

  LOSER BROAD SCAMS LIT HUNK “I Did It to Get Stuff,” She Claims.

  And then, as if in a dream, I hear Christy Abramson utter the implausible. "Mr. Spencer said he would be quite amenable to that.”

  Patty, too, has heard this, because she says, “Hugh?”

  “Perhaps you two haven’t had a chance to communicate since we spoke this morning. After verifying all the information, he was the one who suggested the feature. Our editor agrees that it might potentially qualify. Of course, I’m in no position to promise.”

  Could it be that Hugh is such a whore for publicity that he’d lie about an engagement announcement, just to be featured in the New York Times?

  To prove she’s really spoken to him, Christy rattles off his office number at Thoreau and his home number, his mother’s maiden name, the age of their dog, Winston, when he died and sparked Hugh’s literary career (don’t ask). Even the name of his nanny, the one who took him to the train station when he was six to attend St. Bart’s School for Neglected Boys.

  Yup.That’s Hugh all right.

  "Christy,” I ask, working hard to keep my voice level.“Do you happen to be familiar with the current circulation numbers of the Sunday New York Times?”

  “It fluctuates, but the last reported figure I heard was one point six million.”

  Swooning with light-headedness, I lean against the dressing room wall for support. How can I lie to 1.6 million people that Hugh and I are getting married? How could Hugh lie, too, even if it would again boost book sales?

  “I’ll have to call you back, Christy. Something’s come up.”

  Unfortunately for the new sundress I’m wearing, it happens to be my lunch.

  Hugh is nowhere to be found. He has simply disappeared.

  I try his apartment in Somerville, his office, Thoreau’s library, and even Harvard’s libraries (where he prefers to write on his laptop, the pretentious snot). Nothing.

  This is not what I need right now, for Hugh to suddenly be telling the world that we’re engaged when we’re not.

  I mean, it’s hardly okay if I do it and I was the dumpee, whereas he was the dumper. Alms to the rejected and all that. I’m sure Emily Post would back me up on this.

  Bogus engagement protocol aside, I can’t for the life of me comprehend what he’s up to. Then again, what am I thinking? It’s the New York Times. Only an idiot author with no marketing savvy whatsoever would turn down an opportunity to appear in an exclusive Times feature about his wedding. Especially when this author is supposed to be melting the hearts of female readers everywhere.

  I can’t imagine that such a public announcement would sit well with Hugh’s fiancée, whoever she is. I was too busy being pissed to ask him during our last confrontation, and Bill has allowed me no time to snoop during office hours.

  Bill wasn’t exaggerating when he told Hugh he was a taskmaster. My cluttered new office with its unpacked boxes of books and files are hallmarks of my current slavery. I haven’t been able to so much as slap my name plaque on my desk or hang my Thorea
u painting or even put up curtains so that every evening the campus can’t see me working long after everyone else has left.

  And tonight is no exception.

  It is after seven and I’m still at my desk checking the incoming class spreadsheet while compiling a report for the dean, when I hear a strange sound and look up to find Connie looming over me like a vulture. It’s true. She is the spitting image of a vulture.

  Thanks to her botched nose job, her one eye is slightly lower than the other and her ears aren’t quite right. She’s definitely scary.

  “I need to speak with you,” she says icily. "It’s important.”

  Okay, this could be bad. Connie has never forgiven me for snaring Kevin’s job even though I had nothing to do with the hiring decision. I’ve tried telling her that, but she won’t listen. She won’t even say hello or acknowledge me in the women’s room.

  “I’m all ears,” I say, cheerily.

  Slapping her professionally manicured hand on my desk, she declares, “You’re not marrying Hugh Spencer. You never were marrying Hugh Spencer. You have been scamming everyone— including Bill—in a conniving move to get the job I deserve. And I’m going to see to it that you’re fired.”

  Well, that was certainly succinct and to the point, I have to give her that. Tossing my pencil, I lean back in my fancy new all-leather swivel chair and call her bluff.

  “Connie, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “Of course you do.” She opens a manila file (Connie’s mad for manila files) and pulls out a sheet of paper on which is stamped the familiar Thoreau seal. “I wouldn’t have gone snooping around if you hadn’t barged into my office ranting that Hugh had dumped you, that he wasn’t sexually attracted to you.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “Don’t deny it,” she says, waving the memo about. “You did. And even if you do deny it, I have evidence that you two never were engaged.”