Slightly Engaged

She insists on naming them all, of course. To prove she’s good at religion.

  In lieu of applause, I say, deadpan, “Well, I wouldn’t want to come up short on my sacraments. I guess if this marriage thing doesn’t pan out with Jack, I’ll have to go for the Holy Orders one.”

  “Tracey! Don’t joke around about the sacraments.”

  “I wasn’t joking, Ma. Who’s to say I might not get the calling someday? We haven’t had a nun in the family since Sister Mary Ann.”

  She was my grandmother’s first cousin, and not exactly a fun-loving gal, from what I hear. According to family legend, even the laughing gas she was once given for a root canal failed to make her crack a smile.

  Speaking of not cracking a smile, my mother is sternly shaking her head at me and saying, “You don’t want to be a nun, Tracey.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No. You want to get married and have babies.”

  She’s right, but I can’t help saying, “Actually, Ma, anyone can get married and have babies. I want to become a copywriter and win Addy awards.”

  Which isn’t a lie, because I really do want to do that. I just want to get married and have babies—someday—too.

  Who should walk in on my poster-child-for-women’s-lib moment but Jack?

  He grins broadly, and I can’t tell whether it’s because he assumes he’s off the hook with the whole marriage thing, or because he’s no longer toiling away with a shovel in sub-zero temperatures.

  In any case, he accepts my mother’s offer of hot chocolate, and she bustles down to her basement pantry cupboard for some bittersweet cocoa squares to melt.

  What, you thought she makes instant?

  “So how’s it going?” Jack asks, kissing me on the cheek.

  I rip the intestines from another shrimp with my bare hands. “Terrific,” I say through clenched teeth.

  “Is your mother getting on your nerves?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  He shakes his head. “Holidays are stressful. Try to just take it in stride. And you shouldn’t talk about business with her.”

  “Business?”

  “You were saying you wanted to win an Addy. She probably doesn’t even know what that is.”

  “I’m sure she can figure it out. And anyway…that’s not what we were talking about.”

  “It’s not?”

  I shrug. “Not really.”

  My mother is back with the cocoa squares, so I don’t have a chance to tell him that we were discussing my future with Jack.

  Not that it matters now. He’s either going to give me a ring in the next twenty-four hours, or he’s not. It’s beyond my control.

  Jack sits at the table sipping hot chocolate and chatting with my mom as she fries the fish, and I can’t help but lighten up a little. He’s such a good sport. Especially when he offers to hand deliver several tins of cookies to the neighbors, wearing a Santa hat, no less, so that my mother won’t have to do it herself in the snow.

  “He’s crazy about you,” she comments, watching him trudge down the driveway, tins in hand, Santa hat on head.

  “I don’t know…I was just thinking he’s crazy about you,” I tell her, and I can’t help but smile.

  Must be the Christmas spirit, because the rest of the day passes in a merry blur of cooking, baking, wrapping and cleaning.

  The next thing I know, I’m sipping a well-deserved cup of rum-spiked eggnog—homemade, of course, and served in my mother’s cut-glass punch bowl—and the relatives are starting to arrive. Not just my brothers and sister and their families, but dozens of aunts, uncles and cousins.

  “Tracey, are you going to eat my sausage this year?” asks my Crock-Pot-toting Uncle Cosmo, invoking Fennel Seed memories of Christmas Past. He pronounces it zau-zage, another odd little local colloquialism.

  “As soon as I finish this eggnog,” I say, and introduce him to Jack.

  “You like zau-zage?” Uncle Cosmo wants to know.

  “I love sausage,” Jack says.

  “That’s what you think. You’ve never had zau-zage,” Uncle Cosmo informs Jack, who raises an eyebrow in my direction as if to say save me.

  But it’s too late; he’s been spirited off to the kitchen with my uncle, leaving me to get reacquainted with my teenage cousins Aldo and Bud, whose real name is Lorenzo.

  “How’s school going, guys?” I ask, taking in their baggy pants, backward baseball caps and gold chains.

  “Yo, it’s sick” is Aldo’s response, and that clinches it. Hip-hop has come to Brookside at last.

  “You’re sick?” I inquire, just to get on his nerves.

  The brothers—who seem to think they’re brothers—merely stare at me.

  “Huh?” one of them says.

  “I asked how school was, and I thought you said—”

  “Whatever,” the other one says.

  Awkward silence.

  “So, Bud,” I say, determined to show them that I’m cool—if that’s what you call it these days. “I really like those jeans. Dude, they’re so phat.”

  My compliment is met with a blank stare.

  “Not fat,” I say quickly, because apparently he’s not up on my hip slang. “You know…phat.”

  “Word,” Bud says, turning to his brother. “Let’s go look for some peeps.”

  With that, they drift off in aimless search of God knows what, but I’d be willing to bet it isn’t colored sugar-coated marshmallow chicks.

  “How’s it going?” Jack asks, reappearing to waft garlicky fennel breath into my face.

  I shrug. “I was talking to my cousins. Trying to, anyway. Next thing you know, these newfangled kids will be doing the lindy.”

  He laughs.

  “God, I feel old, Jack.” Old and fat.

  Not phat.

  “Yeah? Go hang out with your uncle Cosmo. He just told me in detail about his colon issues.”

  “I didn’t know he had colon issues. Is he okay?”

  “Yes, when he isn’t shitting his brains out.”

  “Good God.” I wrinkle my nose. “Did he really say that?”

  “In so many words.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It isn’t your fault.”

  “It’s my family, though.”

  “So? Look at mine.”

  I think of Bob, and of Ashley and Not-Mary-Kate.

  “Yeah,” I say, “but we only see yours in small doses. With my family, we have to move in for a week and see every last living soul who has the slightest drop of Spadolini blood in their veins.”

  Jack points out, “Well, I don’t even have an extended family, really. Now that all my grandparents are gone, we’ve lost touch with the rest of them.”

  That’s something I can’t imagine. It’s actually kind of sad, in a way.

  Then again, I won’t think it’s so sad when we’re planning our wedding guest list next week. Or whenever.

  The fewer relatives on the Candell side, the less chance that the hundred-plus Spadolini relatives I’ll be obligated to invite might bump some of our dear friends and co-workers from the guest list.

  “Hi, Tracey!” That’s my cousin Joanie, whose first communion I missed a few years back, nearly resulting in my being shunned for life.

  “Hi, Joanie. Do you remember my boyfriend, Jack?”

  “Sure.” She smiles widely, revealing shiny braces with an unappetizing hunk of white glop stuck front and center. “Hi again, Jack.”

  “Nice to see you again, Joanie. Does anybody want some eggnog? I’m going to get some.”

  “I’ll have some,” Joanie pipes up.

  Jack looks at me. “Doesn’t it have rum in it?”

  “Sure does.”

  “But you asked,” Joanie pouts.

  “How about if I get you some soda?”

  She gives him a blank look until I say helpfully, “He means pop.”

  “Oh! All right. I’ll take a Diet Pepsi, Jack,” Joanie tells him, and I watch her watch Jack, wearing the s
ame wistful expression I must have worn while watching my older cousins’ boyfriends back when I was a chubby preteen with gunky braces.

  “He’s so cute,” she says, turning to me.

  “Thanks.”

  Thanks? Why am I taking credit for Jack’s cuteness?

  Because when somebody compliments your boyfriend, they are vicariously complimenting you, that’s why. It’s the same thing as saying, “Congratulations! You landed a real looker!”

  Isn’t it?

  Okay, maybe not. The point is, Joanie thinks Jack is cute, and so do I, and we’re both dreamily watching him ladle eggnog out of the punch bowl across the room.

  “Are you guys getting married?” Joanie wants to know.

  “Eventually,” I say, and decide that’s the perfect answer. Vague, yet positive, and entirely truthful. I think I’ll use it from now on when people ask if we’re getting married.

  Hopefully, from now on will encompass a mere few hours, at which point I’ll have a ring on my finger and a date on the calendar, and pesky questions like that one can go away. But between now and then, Eventually will suffice.

  “Can I be the junior bridesmaid?” Joanie asks promptly.

  “Oh…I don’t know. I haven’t even thought about my bridal attendants yet.”

  All right, I’ll admit that not only have I thought about my bridal attendants, but I’ve nailed the list of potentials down to a lucky eight—Mary Beth as matron of honor, plus my sister-in-law Sara, Jack’s sister Rachel, Raphael, Kate, Brenda, Latisha and Yvonne—and outfitted them in figure-flattering navy velvet sheaths, with a complimentary tux for Raphael.

  Just in my head, of course.

  But the second Jack hands over that twinkling bauble, my meticulous plans will come to immediate fruition.

  “When you think about it, think of me,” Joanie says sweetly, and I am struck by a sudden pang.

  Maybe a ninth bridesmaid is in order.

  But no flower girls. No way.

  “I can’t wait until I get married.”

  That’s Joanie, of course.

  Though it’s a statement that easily could have come from either one of us.

  “I know exactly what I’m going to wear. Did you see the pictures of Britney’s gown?”

  “Britney?”

  “Spears.”

  “Oh. Um, I don’t think so. Didn’t she elope?”

  “No, I mean when she married Kevin. They had a surprise wedding, remember?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Hey! You and Jack should have a surprise wedding!” she says suddenly. “Wouldn’t that be the coolest?”

  “A surprise wedding?”

  “Yeah, you know…where you invite a bunch of people over for a regular party, and then when they get there, it’s like, surprise! We’re getting married! The celebrities do it that way all the time.”

  “Sounds great,” I say, “only I’m not a celebrity.”

  “But you don’t have to be. You can have a surprise wedding even if you’re a regular person.”

  Hmm. I wonder if you can have a surprise wedding even if you’re not officially engaged. And I wonder if you can surprise not just the guests, but the groom as well.

  I think of the New Year’s Eve party Jack and I are hosting next week. Maybe I should—

  “One eggnog and one Pepsi,” Jack announces, sidling back over to us, unaware that behind my benign smile I’m daydreaming about a forced marriage.

  “Thank you, Jack.” Joanie sips, then asks, “Are you sure this is Diet?”

  “Did you say Diet?”

  “Duh,” she says with the look of utter contempt only a twelve-year-old girl can deliver quite so effectively.

  “I don’t think you should be drinking diet pop, Joanie,” I say, though I’ll admit she’s becoming quite the little chubbette. “It’s full of chemicals.”

  “So? Regular Pepsi is full of carbs.” With that, she flounces away.

  “So much for my winning over Cousin Joanie,” Jack says wryly.

  “Oh, she thinks you’re cute.”

  “She does?” He grins.

  “Yeah, but she also thinks Britney Spears is the epitome of style, so…”

  “Hey, look,” Jack says, “here comes your grandmother.”

  I turn around and spot her famous boobage before I even glimpse her face.

  “Dolce mia!” she exclaims, and I’m enveloped in said boobage, as Grandma squeezes the heck out of me the way only an Italian grandmother can. Then she pulls me back at arm’s length and announces, “You look bellissima.”

  “Thank you, Grandma. So do you.”

  She pats her dyed auburn swirl of sprayed hair, which she also has “done” at Shear Magique, but twice a week as opposed to my mother’s once. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

  Oh, cut it out, Grandma, I want to say. We both know you’re stunning. Not to mention voluptuous. If she were twenty years younger, people would be whispering about implants.

  But those babies are one hundred percent real—and hereditary. I happen to know that without the really good bra she’s undoubtedly wearing under her tight red sweater, Grandma’s nipples would be in danger of getting snagged in her waistband.

  Tugging Jack closer, I say, “You remember my boyfriend, Jack, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do.”

  That’s because Jack was sure to compliment her on her hairstyle and outfit the last time he was in town.

  Beauty is to my grandmother as culinary skills are to my mother. Take proper note of either, and you’ve got a friend for life.

  Grandma tells us about her recent shopping trip—to The Wal-Mart, of course—and how, in addition to new muffin tins, a sale on baking flour and her prescription blood pressure medicine, she picked up a new shade of lipstick called Christmas Red.

  “I’m wearing it now,” she says, puckering up to show us. “Do you like it?”

  Jack and I assure her that we do.

  Then she points overhead at the clump of plastic greens hanging from the archway and says, “Look who’s under the mistletoe!”

  For a second, I think she wants to plant a Christmas Red smacker on my boyfriend. Which gives me the creeps. Is Grandma, who’s been lonely ever since Grandpa died, moving in on my man?

  Then she winks at me, and I realize she’s being a true romantic.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” she says with a smile, and we find ourselves alone as we can be in a fifteen-hundred-square-foot house filled with fifty people.

  Jack pulls me close.

  “What are you doing?” I ask him, careful not to spill the last rummy swallow of my eggnog.

  “Kissing you. We’re under the mistletoe.”

  “Oh, right.”

  I’m expecting a mere peck, but he plants a soul-stirring kiss on my mouth, leaving me weak in the knees, garlic-fennel breath and all. I find myself setting down the eggnog cup to encircle his neck with both arms, and fervently wishing he weren’t assigned to sleep down the hall.

  “Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t you pay me a little midnight visit later,” I whisper in his ear.

  “Uh-uh,” he whispers back.

  “Why not?”

  “Creaky floorboards. I tried last night.”

  “You did?” And here I thought he ate himself into a cucidati-induced oblivion.

  “I did, but before I could get halfway down the hall, your mother stuck her head out of her room to ask if I needed another snack.”

  “Oh, God, she’s too much.”

  “I don’t suppose she’d consider letting me share your canopy bed instead of sleeping down the hall?”

  “Not unless we’re married.”

  That slips out before I can stop it.

  I fully expect Jack to frown in response, or make a sarcastic remark.

  Instead, he just shrugs, wearing what I choose to interpret as a meaningful little smile.

  Call me overly optimistic, but I’m thinking that smile says, You might just f
ind yourself engaged before the holiday is out.

  No, really. Call me overly optimistic. Go on.

  Maybe I am.

  But maybe not.

  A few hours later, after we’ve returned from Midnight Mass and eaten yet another meal, I find myself alone at last with Jack.

  My parents have gone up to bed, unwittingly leaving Jack and I to our wee-hour moment of truth: our long-awaited gift exchange.

  The living room is lit only by the colored twinkle lights on the Christmas tree. Perry Como is singing “Do You Hear What I Hear?” in the background.

  “How late is it?” Jack asks around a yawn as we stretch out on the floor near the tree, side by side, our backs propped against the couch.

  “Almost three, I think.” I lean my head on his shoulder, wishing I weren’t so tired. I don’t want to yawn through what could be the most exciting experience of my life.

  “That late? Really? It doesn’t seem like it.”

  “That’s because it’s barely past midnight in Aspen.”

  “How glad am I that I’m not there?” he asks, giving my shoulder a squeeze.

  “I don’t know…how glad are you?”

  “Very glad.” He leans in for a kiss. “I’d much rather be here with you.”

  “Really? Even with all the chaos?”

  “I love the chaos,” he says promisingly.

  Enough to marry into it? I want to ask.

  Instead, I ask, to get the ball rolling, “Ready for your present?”

  “Are you?” he volleys back.

  “Yes, but…don’t you want me to give you yours first?”

  “No, you open yours first,” Jack says. “I can’t wait till you see what it is.”

  That’s encouraging.

  Or maybe not.

  I can’t help thinking that he wouldn’t be urging me to go first if his gift to me were a ring. He’d have to know that my gift to him would be a little anticlimactic after that.

  But he doesn’t seem particularly concerned about the gift-giving order, so…

  Not a very good sign, I know.

  “Do you want some more wine or some Funyuns or something?” I ask, wanting to stall because…

  Well, because suddenly, I’m deathly afraid.

  What if this is it?

  What if this isn’t it?

  I’m not so sure I want to know, either way.

  “Funyuns?” Jack is echoing.

  “I love them. Don’t you?”