The Sleeping Beauty Proposal

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  “Here.” Hugh escorts me toward the windows and out to the balcony, begging off more signatures like he really is Mick Jagger.

  Outside, a salty wind is whipping off the harbor. Moored boats are bobbing over the black waves and it’s spitting nasty. Hugh takes off his tuxedo jacket and hangs it on my shoulders. “Quite romantic, isn’t it?” he says, slipping my hand in his pocket to keep it warm. “I do so like inclement weather. Summons the muses, you know.”

  "Hugh?” I say. "Would you mind telling me what you’re up to? There’s no press out here. Not even adoring fans.You can be yourself.You don’t have to put on a show.”

  “But I am being myself, love.” He cocks my chin up for another kiss. “Love. It so fits you.”

  “You’re freaking me out. One minute I’m the clinging girlfriend with no sexuality. Now, I’m your love. I need an explanation, Hugh.”

  He sighs and nods. “Yes, you do. A long-overdue one, I’m afraid.”

  "Are you . . . mocking me?”

  He shakes his head, all romantic pretense gone.“If there’s anyone to be mocked here, it’s me. I’ve been the idiot.”

  “That’s a first.” Hugh hardly ever admits he’s wrong.

  “Genie, I love you. I have always loved you and will always love you. I didn’t realize that until I returned from England and walked into your office expecting to find the same old mousy girl, and instead discovered a strong, beautiful, and sharp woman on the verge of marrying another man.”

  Kissing me on the forehead, he says,“At first I felt relieved.You were off my back. We were through. I was finally free. After four long years, I was able to live my life without concern for anyone else.”

  Now that sounds more like Hugh.

  “But I kept going back to you and Bill. It wasn’t right that such a beautiful young woman should be stuck with such an old geezer. A philandering geezer, if the rumors are true.”

  Probably true.

  “I was haunted by images of you and him making”—he pauses, as if shy—“babies.”

  "The hazards of sex,” I say, pulling his coat tight.

  “Right.” He does his Hugh Grant bashful blinking and adds, “If there was anyone you should be doing that with, it’s me.”

  I am silent, waiting for the rest.

  “I decided I had to do something to stop you from marrying him. So when the New York Times called, looking for a quote, I just went with it. Really, it had nothing to do with the tremendous publicity potential, although that’s not to say my publicist wasn’t thrilled. She was beside herself.”

  "Oh, I bet.”

  “As I was telling them, the New York Times, about you, I had a premonition of you as my wife, standing by me, supporting me throughout my career, its ups and downs.”

  “Is that what you thought? That I’d be some sort of helpmate?”

  “It was! I mean, what I’m trying to say, Genie, is now that you’ve gotten yourself so together with your new physique and independence and so on and so forth, it occurs to me what a fabulous team we’d make.”

  Team. Unreal.“Are you asking me to join your squash league?” I say. "Or something more?”

  “I suppose what I’m asking is if you can find it in your heart to forgive me so that we can reunite.”

  “In other words, you want to get back together.”

  He closes his eyes, as if this is the most momentous decision of his life. “Yes. That’s what I’m saying. I think we should start over.”

  Start over? Another four years? He couldn’t be serious.“What about your lack of sexual attraction and all that?”

  “A lie. A full-blown lie.You’d put me on the spot to come up with one good reason why I shouldn’t marry you and, well, there were no good reasons.”

  “There were no good reasons?” I knew it. I just knew it!

  “No. Not really. Unless you count my own fear of commitment, which is no excuse considering the tons of therapy I’ve had and the fact that I’m almost forty.”

  "Okay. Assuming that you are sexually attracted to me—”

  “Oh, I am,” he says, nuzzling my neck. “You don’t know how much.”

  “Then what about the other woman?”

  “Never.”

  I push him off my neck. “What do you mean, ‘never’?”

  Grinning like a dope, as if I will find him to be a naughty but precocious little boy, he says, “I made her up. I mean, what else could I do? Here I had a perfect opportunity to play to my audience of female readers by proposing to my girlfriend on live national television.Yet I wasn’t ready to get married. I had no choice but to fake it.”

  This can’t be. Here I’d been worried about what Hugh would do if he discovered that I’d been telling people we were getting married when all along he’d been doing the same thing. Only his fiancée was completely invented.

  “You mean you haven’t been sleeping around.” I have to be clear on this.

  “I swear.”

  “Not Connie or Isabel or any of the cute grad students.”

  “On my honor,” he says, holding up his hand,“there was never anyone else. I was just pretending.”

  I find this absolutely incredible. “But that’s what I was doing.”

  “See? This just proves how perfect we are for one another. This is why we need to spend our lives together.” With that, he gets down on one knee.

  Something cold and smooth slides over the fourth finger of my left hand and bumps against my pretend engagement ring, dwarfing it in both size and quality. Even under the dark skies, it glitters boldly.The two blue sapphires on either side standing like royal guards, securing its brilliance.

  The Spencer diamond ring, given by King Edward to Hugh’s great-grandmother more than a century ago. On my hand, abutting my $24.95 cubic zirconia from Bickman’s Jewelers. It is quite a contrast.

  “Genie. I am kneeling before you, offering all that I am and all that I have, body and soul.Tell me you’ll agree to be my wife at this moment or, surely, I will die.”

  It was not the Sleeping Beauty Proposal. It was a real proposal. Better than I ever dreamed.

  Unfortunately, it was from the wrong man.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  It is still raining when the limo reaches the end of Peabody Road. It’s a heavy drenching rain that soaks through the skin and chills my bones and can lead to the need for all sorts of cold medicine. Despite that, I step out of my slender sandals and head to the top of the golf course for more of its punishment.

  I have no idea what I’m doing or why I have this urge to bare myself to the elements. Maybe I want to re-create the happiness I felt the day I moved here. Or maybe I want to be really, truly alone on a hill in a fierce storm.

  Because that’s my big fear, ending up alone.

  I’m beginning to learn that anything worth having in life begins by taking a risk—love, marriage, childbirth, even loving one’s neighbor as thyself. Risk is the universe’s way of pushing us to become more than what we are. Risk is faith at the edge. Risk is the pulsating essence of life.

  Without risk, we are automatons going through our days with no purpose or meaning. We are safer, perhaps, but we are also, ironically, closer to death.

  “Genie!”

  The one person I want more than anyone in the world is trudging up the golf course and my heart begins to hope. Nick is in a tux, his bow tie undone, his shirt open, and he is positively soaked. Water is dripping off every inch of his body, off his head, off his nose. He must have been out in the rain all night.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you. First I went to the party, but you were nowhere to be found. Patty didn’t know where you’d gone, either.”

  “You came to find me?” This must be good news—unless we have a basement flooding problem again.

  “The doorman at the hotel said you’d left, but you weren’t home. So I looked up Hugh’s address and went over there.” He reaches me, almost out of breath. “I’m so glad I found you. I thou
ght I’d lost you forever.”

  And then I understand. “Hugh told you my secret this afternoon, even before I had a chance to explain.You already knew my engagement was bogus.”

  Nick is silent. Finally, he takes off his jacket, nicely dry inside, and hangs it around my shoulders. A vicious wind whips across the course, blowing me into his arms, but he doesn’t reject me. He holds me tight, his warm body like medicine for my broken heart.

  “Hugh didn’t have to tell me you weren’t engaged. I knew from the beginning, from the first day you came to look at the house and I overheard you and Patty talking.”

  “Then why didn’t you say something?”

  “Why were you lying? That’s what I couldn’t figure out. There were many moments when I came close to asking you, but I decided it would be better to let you tell me the truth when you felt ready.You were never ready, Genie, until I told you I was leaving. Why didn’t you trust me?”

  “I am such an idiot,” I murmur, burrowing my face into his damp shirt. “I’ve blown everything. Now you’re going.”

  “I’m going only because Hugh proposed to you tonight for real.”

  Looking up,I search his eyes for clues, his mouth for his trademark knowing grin, but it’s too rainy and dark to see.“He told you?”

  “He showed me the ring this afternoon. I saw that and thought there was no way you’d turn him down. Todd said all you’d ever wanted in life was to marry Hugh, and it looked to me like your wish was coming true tonight.”

  I have to laugh at the absurdity of it all. “For someone who’s completely clueless,Todd seems to think he knows a lot about me. If he knows so much, then why did he think I was engaged to Hugh all along?”

  “Are you?” Nick asks, more serious than I’ve ever heard him.

  I hold up my left hand to show him the answer and am instantly confused. Not only am I not wearing the gazillion-dollar Spencer diamond, but I’m also not wearing my $24.95 Bickman’s special.

  “It’s gone!” I exclaim, shocked and somewhat relieved. “I lost it.”

  “Hugh’s ring?”

  “No. I never took Hugh’s ring. I’m talking about the other one.The fake.”

  There are no coincidences. Patty was right.

  "It’s a sign,” I say. "Proof that I’ve found the man I love.”

  Before I can make any further pronouncements, Nick bends down and kisses me. I’m not quite sure if it’s really happening or if I’m hallucinating, but I feel as if we are in the midst of a swirling tempest.The rain is falling harder and harder, the wind is howling. There’s a very good chance we’ll be struck down by lightning and that would be fine by me because I couldn’t imagine a better way to die than while being kissed by Nick.

  When he tears himself away, he says, “So you turned Hugh down.”

  "Of course.” I am giddy. "Could you kiss me again? I love it when you kiss me.”

  “I was sure,” he murmurs, his lips caressing my neck. “I was sure you would say yes. I didn’t think I stood a chance. I thought I might have to fight him to the death.”

  Was he kidding? I never felt this way with Hugh. Never. “You know what this means, don’t you?” His strong hand slides up my waist, under his jacket, his thumb flirting where my dress is about to have a serious wardrobe malfunction. “You’re free.”

  “I’ve always been free.” Though that’s not entirely true. What I’ve been is trapped, confined by cages of my own making.

  "I’ve wanted to for . . .” He stops and concentrates. “I’ve longed. No, that’s not right.”

  Then, opening those soulful dark-lashed eyes of his he says, “Genie.”

  "Shhh,” I say, placing my finger on his lips. “I think it’s time for us to get out of the rain, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” he says, grinning at last. “It’s time.”

  That night, Nick and I get very little sleep. We are too hungry for each other’s bodies, too ecstatic over our joy of finally being able to be together that we are unable to do anything but make love and catnap and kiss and hug and whisper until the gray, rainy dawn.

  “Okay, so let me get this straight,” I say, running my finger down his chest. “You fell in love with me that Sunday morning Patty and I came over to look at the house.”

  “Love at first sight.” Nick’s hand traces the curve of my naked waist. “I always thought it was made up, something in movies, this phenomenon. And then I walked into the living room, saw you, and knew it was real.”

  “When you were nailing in molding?”

  “Right.”

  “Before we even argued about Hugh?”

  Nick lifts his mouth from where it has been lingering on my shoulder.“By then I was madly in lust.You were so passionate, the way you defended Hugh. So smart and sassy and your eyes flashed. They do that when you’re angry, did you know?”

  “No.You’re making that up.”

  “I’m not. You’re very sexy when you’re agitated, Genie. Like that night at the Dylan contest when you got mad at Todd for spilling the secret about your virginity.You nearly drove me wild.”

  "Listen. I told you to forget that.”

  “I’ll never forget it.That’s why I followed you outside.”

  “Because I was twenty-one years old when I lost my virginity?”

  He laughs. “No, though I found that endearing. That’s the other reason I love you. There’s a sweet side of you, Genie, and after I got past my lust for your body, I found that, in many ways, I love your sweet side more.”

  "But you definitely have lust for my body,” I say, making sure.

  “After last night you have doubts?”

  “I hope never to have doubts like that ever again.”Then, pausing, I ask cautiously, “Do you think less of me for lying?”

  Nick sighs and rolls on his back, hands behind his head. “I’m no fan of lies, but I’ve done stupid things, too.Things I could justify while I was in the moment and that later I regretted.”

  “So, in your opinion, it was a mistake.”

  “My opinion doesn’t matter. I’m not judging you, Genie. You’ve had enough of that.”

  Indeed. Resting my head on his chest, I thank whatever fate or stroke of luck brought Nick into my life. “Patty says there’s no such thing as coincidence.”

  “She’s right.There is no such thing as coincidence. Everything happens for a reason.” Nick kisses the top of my head, a gesture that I take as a blessing, an absolution, that my ruse has been forgiven.

  We have been lingering forever in his bed. It is still raining, which is good because that means the course outside Nick’s bedroom window is free of golfers who might otherwise be able to peek in and see a naked couple engaging in yet another round of inexhaustible lovemaking.

  I have totally lost count. All I know is that it’s way past noon and we haven’t left since last night.

  Running my foot up his strong leg with its dark hairs, I ask, “What I want to know is, how come you were so rude to me?”

  He leans on one elbow. "Me rude to you? I think you’ve got that backward.”

  “Hardly.You dropped hints that my ring was a fake and then you teased me about Hugh, about his six hundred acres and his pure-method house building.”

  “And you treated me as if I was incapable of knowing anything beyond my own T square, even asking me what I was doing in a bookstore. Now, what are you up to?”

  Through no fault of my own, my hand has slipped under the sheets and is now exploring what is fast becoming familiar territory. I should be spent, exhausted, but I’m not. It’s as if I’ve been craving this for so long that it’s impossible for me to be satisfied. I fear it may take hours, days, months, even years for me to get my fill.

  Fortunately, Nick appears to be up to the task.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  "But Tula Abernathy’s engagement party’s next week! What are we going to do?”

  My mother is in hysterics and for good reason. We are standing in her kitchen—the un
iversal domestic confessional—where I have just informed her that Hugh and I have broken off our engagement, which is, technically, true.

  Does it matter that we were engaged for all of two minutes? Two minutes in which I dumbly gawked at the bona fide Spencer diamond glittering on my finger, awed by its iridescent rays. No longer will I believe the advertisements. You can tell the difference between real and synthetic. I mean, I considered a lot of imitations and none made my heart stop like this diamond complemented by two of the most perfect dark blue sapphires.

  Yes. It was hard to say no to that hunk of carbon. But it was harder to envision a life with Hugh—even after he confessed his undying love and admitted how scared he was of marriage, having been raised in, well, a rather cold family.

  At first, he was incredulous when I gently refused his offer. My guess is he assumed I was still bitter because he said,“I’ve told you I’m sorry, Genie, I don’t know how many times. Let’s put it behind us and move on.”

  I tried to explain that I had changed. I told him how faking my engagement had liberated me from the pressure to be a bride. Maybe I’d get married someday. Maybe not. It didn’t matter anymore. I had friends. Work. Family. A home. And now, thanks to my surprise bridal shower, I had a Williams-Sonoma cutting board and a chef’s knife.What more could I want?

  Well, Nick. But I didn’t say that. I didn’t bring up Nick at all because he had nothing to do with Hugh or my previous desire to get married. Nick was something new, something honest. Nick didn’t weigh the pros and cons of commitment.

  He respected true love more than that.

  At least, that’s what I hoped. When I said no to Hugh, I was certain I had already lost Nick.

  Hugh pleaded and argued and wouldn’t take no for an answer until I said, “Sometimes if you wait too long, it’s too late. Sorry.” Then I gave him the ring and walked away.

  Now here I am, breaking the news to my mother, who is visibly apoplectic.

  “How about a drink?” my father says, his hand reflexively reaching for the vodka.