Slightly Engaged

  I clear my throat. “I was just wondering…are you sure you’ll have time to, uh, cook everything? In time, I mean? To, um, eat?”

  “Oh—” Wilma waves a hand and Jack immediately resumes the nut binge “—I did all that yesterday. All we have to do is reheat.”

  Reheat?

  An entire Thanksgiving dinner? Turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, reheated like so many…leftovers?

  Now I’m really homesick.

  “I always do the cooking ahead of time,” Wilma informs me breezily. “It’s so much easier that way.”

  Much easier? So is takeout—what the hell, let’s just go through a drive-through for Gordita Supremes and Pintos ’n Cheese and call it a feast.

  All I can manage aloud is, “Aren’t you the clever one!”

  At least, that’s what I meant to say.

  I think it comes out sounding more like, “Huh?”

  But the oblivious mother-son duo has turned their attention to more pressing matters. Wilma mentions something to Jack about mini-marshmallows for the canned yams, and my heart sinks even lower. Marshmallows are for hot chocolate, dammit, and yams aren’t supposed to be canned. Chi chi beans are supposed to be canned. Yams are meant to be plucked from the rich dark earth, scrubbed and peeled.

  All right, plucked from the produce department at Tops supermarket, then scrubbed and peeled.

  The whole point of Thanksgiving dinner is to work your ass off in a hot kitchen. Isn’t it? Well, isn’t it?

  Apparently not. Apparently, Wilma Candell prefers to work her ass off at Curves for Women, and spend Thanksgiving Day lightly tapping the keypads on her microwave so as not to break a nail.

  This is…

  This is…

  This is a travesty. My mother would roll over in her grave if she knew…and, uh, if she were dead. But you get the idea.

  And so do I.

  I bet the gravy will be Franco-American and the stuffing will be Stove Top.

  Connie Spadolini makes homemade everything, in case I neglected to mention it. But whatever.

  I smile reassuringly at my culinarily challenged future mother-in-law, to show her that nuked canned goods are just dandy with me.

  She smiles reassuringly back at me, to show…what?

  What is she reassuring me of?

  Who knows? But that is definitely a reassuring smile, and there is definitely a knowing gleam in her eye. At least, I’m pretty sure there is.

  Hmm. Is she reassuring me that the nuked canned goods will not be the highlight of Thanksgiving Day? That Jack has an engagement surprise in store?

  God, I hope so.

  Before I can smoke a hint out of her, his two sisters, his brother-in-law and his twin nieces burst noisily in the door.

  I know Rachel pretty well because she occasionally calls, and sometimes even comes into the city with her boyfriend. But I’ve only met Kathleen and Bob St. James on a couple of occasions.

  Which was more than enough time for me to realize that they’re mired in suburbia the way my family is mired in Brookside. For pretty, brunette Kathleen and preppy, bespectacled Bob, the world revolves around their four-year-old daughters; their house, which they’re endlessly remodeling; their cars, both of which are SUVs; and their neighbors, all of whom are presumably complete strangers to the rest of us, though Kathleen and Bob talk about them as if we all know them well. And actually care.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Kathleen says, sinking her size-two hips onto the couch in sheer exhaustion. Clearly, she has spent the day hiking in the Catskills.

  Oops, I forgot. She’s Kathleen. I bet she slept in and took a rigorous bath.

  “Rodney and Sue showed up,” she explains inexplicably. “They needed to borrow a pan at the last minute.”

  Yeah, that’ll throw you off by an hour, at least.

  I merely smile and, spurred by the ensuing silence that I always feel compelled to fill, ask “Who are Rodney and Sue?”

  “They’re the ones who live in the Tudor with the three dormers,” Bob explains, assuming that, during my lone visit to their house more than a year ago, I took painstaking note of the local architecture.

  “Oh, right,” I say with a knowing nod, “the nice stucco house. I remember it.” I don’t really, but I figure this is a safe bet because aren’t all Tudors stucco?

  Apparently not. Some are brick. Rodney and Sue’s place is one of them.

  “You’re thinking of Kevin and Doreen’s place,” Kathleen informs me. “That’s the stucco one with the newish red-slate roof. And they’re the ones with the litter we were telling you about.”

  When? Back in August at the family barbecue, which is the last time I saw you people?

  And…the litter? Are we talking dropped candy bar wrappers or puppies? I don’t dare hazard a guess. Instead, I just nod knowingly again. Kevin and Doreen. The litter. Stucco house, newish red slate—not shingled, or thatched, folks—roof. Aha.

  “Oh!” Bob slaps his head as though he’s forgotten to tell me something important. Like that he brought a bottle of Grey Goose and it’s time for all of us to do shots now. “That’s right! Guess what? Chris finally got promoted.”

  “It’s about time!” I say triumphantly.

  Which begs the silent question, who is Chris and why did it take him/her so darned long to get that promotion anyway?

  And, why the heck am I the only one participating in this boring conversation?

  Looking around, I see that Rachel is fervently whispering something to her mother, Jack is scarily absorbed in the nut bowl, and the twins, Ashley and Beatrice, are busily crawling around rearranging all the shoes by the door and snickering.

  Yes, Ashley and Beatrice. Not Ashley and Mary Kate, or Terry and Kerry, or even Beatrice and Olga.

  Ashley and Beatrice.

  Guess which one’s cuter?

  No, go on, guess.

  Right. Poor scrawny Beatrice of the limp locks and overbite is doomed to live a self-fulfilling prophecy, while her cute sister with the cute name will probably be a touring pop princess with a boy-band boyfriend by the time she hits puberty.

  Ashley and Beatrice. The cruel implications are staggering. Oh, Kathleen and Bob, what on earth got into you two back on the neonatal-multiples ward?

  Jack claims, in all fairness, that each of the twins is named after a special person. Clearly, one after someone’s decrepit maiden great-great-aunt, the other after a perky blond starlet.

  Fair and square my ass.

  Unfortunately, neither of the twins is particularly lovable, though I have tried very hard to have a soft spot for Beatrice.

  That pretty much swirls down the proverbial toilet today as I watch her open the front door and fling one of my leather boots out into the rain before closing it again and looking around to make sure nobody saw.

  Nobody did, other than me.

  But before I can call her on it, Bob summons the girls to the living-room carpet to recite an original Thanksgiving poem.

  It goes: “Turkey is good, cranberries are yummy, and the Pilgrims discovered America.” Or something like that.

  It’s all I can do to muster a smattering of applause as the rest of the family claps wildly and Bob whistles between his fingers—a bit overzealous, in light of the performance.

  Hey, nobody says poetry has to rhyme, but…

  Oh, never mind.

  Bottom line, I suddenly find myself missing my runny-nosed, whiny nephews more than ever.

  “How was the parade, Tracey?” Rachel asks in the post-performance lull, and for a brief shining moment, I’m having fun again.

  I open my mouth to answer the question, but before I can speak, Bob announces, “Rodney and Sue were there. They watched it from Herald Square. That’s why they got such a late start on dinner.”

  Which you would think might be Wilma’s cue to go start warming over the turkey, but it isn’t.

  It’s her cue to say, “Girls, do you have another poem you can recite for us? Or m
aybe a Thanksgiving song?”

  I swear I want to strangle her and those little no-talent twins.

  That, or devour the remainder of the bowl of fancy mixed nuts. I’m starving to death, and nobody cares.

  Not even Jack. He’s too busy smiling and nodding while his nieces serenade us with an off-key duet of some unrecognizable song with ridiculously over-the-top lyrics.

  “That was wonderful!” crows their doting grandmother. “I’ve never heard a better rendition of ‘Amazing Grace’!”

  I wait for somebody to inform poor deluded Wilma that it wasn’t “Amazing Grace,” but apparently, it was “Amazing Grace.”

  Next thing you know, Bob will pull a pitch pipe out of his pocket for an encore: perhaps a rousing rendition of “We Gather Together” followed by several choruses of “Over the River and Through the Woods.”

  It occurs to me that if Jack ever does pop the elusive question, and I say yes—which, don’t get me wrong, I fully intend to do—I will spend many more future Thanksgivings with these people. My kids will have an uncle who will regale them with riveting stories about total strangers resodding their lawns; a grandmother whose most crucial kitchen appliance is her can opener; a mismatched set of girl cousins destined for intensive psychotherapy.

  It’s enough to make me rethink this whole relationship…but only for a split second.

  Then Jack catches my eye, raises his eyebrows slightly and grins.

  Aw. How cute.

  He might suck at mind reading, but I excel at it. Thus, I know exactly what he’s telling me: Yes, my family is a little loony, but I love them…and, more importantly, I love you for indulging them and not complaining about anything, not even your soggy boot.

  Wait.

  He doesn’t know about the soggy boot.

  If he did, he’d love me even more.

  Mental note: be sure to tell Jack about soggy boot ASAP.

  I smile back at him, a smile that says, Don’t worry, I’m just glad to be spending our first Thanksgiving together, the first of many. Next year, how about if we host it at our place?

  Jack nods slightly, and I know he gets it.

  Then he leans toward me and whispers meaningfully, “I’m going to go catch the end of the Detroit game in the other room. Want to come?”

  Okay, so maybe he doesn’t get it.

  Then again, what if he does? What if he not only gets it, but is at last ready for the long-awaited moment of truth?

  I have a fleeting moment of wondering if this is it: is he trying to whisk me away so that he can give me the ring in private?

  I look into his eyes and common sense quickly takes hold.

  No romantic happily-ever-after visions there. He really does just want me to watch football with him.

  But right now, you know what? Maybe that’s okay. Right now, maybe football and Jack are all I really need.

  Tomorrow is another day. A day when we’ll be alone together at Deux Coeurs Sur La Plage.

  A day when anything can happen. Well, anything but a command performance by the woefully inadequate Singing St. James Sisters.

  For now the Detroit game awaits.

  As I follow Jack toward the spare bedroom that serves as Wilma’s den, I make a quick detour to the front entry to retrieve my boot. A chilly blast of wind-driven rain greets me at the door.

  I set the boot back on the mat and wonder how long it’s going to take to dry. Then I vengefully eye Beatrice’s small, unattractive lime-green sneakers (Guess who got the cute pink ones?).

  For a moment, I’m tempted to drop one of Beatrice’s sneakers into the toilet tank.

  But I immediately think better of it, reminding myself that someday, I’ll be her aunt Tracey.

  Do I really believe that?

  Yup. In my heart, I really do.

  Someday.

  And I, Tracey Spadolini, Girl Detective/Kitchen Slave Apprentice/Future Aunt of Ashley and Not-Mary-Kate, do solemnly swear, here and now, with all my heart, that when Someday finally comes, there will be no flower girls at the wedding.

  So there, you little boot-stealing rug rat, I think as I head into the den where my beloved awaits.

  I stop short in the doorway.

  Jack is down on bended knee.

  Can it be…?

  Is this it…?

  Nope.

  “There it is,” he grumbles, retrieving the remote from under the couch. “My mother falls asleep watching QVC and it falls out of her hand onto the floor. She’s been doing that for years. Hey, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I lie, vowing not to get my hopes up again.

  Life would be so much easier if I didn’t know he had that diamond.

  Then again, if I didn’t know about it, would I still be here, waiting around for an engagement that might never happen?

  At least this way, I know I’m not wasting my time; that there’s an eventual engagement and wedding on the horizon.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Jack says softly, pulling me close to him as we sink onto the couch.

  “Yeah, me too.” Suddenly, I’m overwhelmed by an unexpected sweep of emotion. Of pure love.

  This is good. Really, really good. Jack and me, I mean. We belong together. He’s not going anywhere, and neither am I. I honestly don’t need a ring and a promise to realize that.

  He kisses me, then pulls back and spots the tears pooling in my eyes.

  “Hey,” he says in worried surprise, brushing a trickle that’s escaped down my cheek. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I say again, and this time, it isn’t a lie.

  Chapter 12

  What better place to get engaged than at a luxuriously romantic waterfront New England couples spa?

  I don’t know, maybe you should ask Jack, because he obviously has some other locale in mind.

  We’ve been at Deux Coeurs Sur La Plage for more than twenty-four hours, and call me a pessimist, but I don’t think Jack has any intention of proposing this weekend.

  My Thanksgiving Day epiphany was unfortunately short-lived.

  I’m right back to obsessing over when he’s going to pop the question—and wondering why he hasn’t yet. He’s certainly had plenty of opportunity.

  What the heck is he waiting for? Christmas? New Year’s Eve? Or—God forbid—springtime?

  Doesn’t he realize we have little hope of an autumn wedding if he doesn’t get his butt in gear?

  Yes, I still have my heart set on that.

  If he proposes before this weekend is out, we’d still have time to get the plans under way. But I really don’t think it’s going to happen, regardless of the romantic weekend setting.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to be here.

  It’s just…

  Well, as I sit on the bed in a pair of old sweats, watching Jack dig through his suitcase for something to wear to our reflexology session, I can’t help but wonder: is this all there is? To the spa, I mean.

  Just an antiquated, television-free room with a view of the parking lot; Spartan, albeit healthy, meals that leave me wishing I’d smuggled in Fritos; and hourly seminars with titles like, “Free Your Soul: Who Am I and Why Am I Here?”

  All I got out of that one is that I’m Tracey Spadolini and I’m here because this is my reward for quitting smoking. I have no idea what Jack got out of the seminar, but I couldn’t help noticing other couples nodding meaningfully at each other and Shalaylah, the female instructor, all clearly moved by some sort of spiritual enlightenment that evaded the two of us.

  I conclude that they must all be married—presumably to each other—and that’s why we’re just not getting it. Our souls—Jack’s and mine—are trapped in a spiritual limbo because one of us isn’t ready to commit.

  But maybe that’s not the only problem.

  I’m starting to think that maybe spa life just isn’t my thing. I guess I pictured more of a self-indulgent, or even decadent, weekend, rather than a hectic barrage of nonstop activity more suited to
limber New Age yogini types than to a reformed smoker with a growing paunch and a ravenous appetite.

  I don’t want to disappoint Jack, though. The weekend has to be costing him a small fortune—one that would have been better spent on a quick, rum-infused jaunt to the Caribbean, in my opinion. I should be enjoying every minute of it.

  Not that Jack has any idea I’m not enjoying every minute of it. I’ve become quite the actress, if I do say so myself. Last night, I feigned exhilarated bliss during a hot-stone treatment that smacked of primitive torture methods; this morning, I delivered a joyful Oscarworthy tour de force in response to an excruciating paraffin face mask that I swear removed the epidermis from my neck up.

  “Do you think jeans are okay?” Jack asks, holding up the pair he wore yesterday on the train ride up from New York.

  “I don’t know…they weren’t okay for yoga this morning,” I point out, remembering how he was forced to trot back to the room and change into sweats. As a result, he endured ten fewer minutes of gravity-defying contortions than I did.

  No wonder he’s not flinching in pain as he bends over the suitcase again and says knowingly, “Yeah, but that was yoga. This is reflexology.”

  Yeah, right. As though he has the foggiest notion what “reflexology” is.

  Not that I do. But at least if somebody instructs me to roll myself into a ball on the floor, which has happened on more than one occasion since our arrival yesterday, I’ll be suitably dressed.

  “I’d better wear shorts,” Jack concludes, and pulls out a pair of gray fleece ones. “We might need bare legs.”

  We might? Uh-oh. Maybe I should have shaved better. Or at all, I amend, recalling that my muscles were too sore in this morning’s shower to allow me to reach for the razor, let alone bend in half to access a stubbly appendage.

  “Maybe you should wear shorts, too,” Jack informs me as he pulls his on, again without a discernible wince. Showoff.

  “I didn’t bring any shorts.”

  “Why not?”

  Because I don’t have any that fit, for one thing.

  For another, “Um, I forgot.”

  Yeah, right.

  “Do you want to go buy some in the gift shop downstairs?” he offers after glancing at my sweats—which I’ve worn nonstop since we arrived, in a show of sheer defiance to the hordes of black-spandex-clad spa bunnies in residence at Deux Coeurs Sur La Plage.