The Good Girl's Guide to Bad Men

  Sophie had divided the three of us into ministations. First she wrote the name onto the card in silver paint pen, then I hot-glued the stems and the flowers down, and finally Zoë was in charge of gluing down the thin strips of silver foil along the outer edge.

  "What's your problem, Jen?" Sophie scolded me for the tenth time, possessively taking the hot glue gun from my hand and showing me the correct way to glue a flower to a stem. "Correct" meaning without getting glue all over the rest of the card.

  "Sorry," I mumbled, setting a handful of dried daisies on the newspaper tablecloth and wiping my sweaty hands on my jeans. "I guess I'm not very crafty."

  "I'll say," Sophie agreed.

  The truth was, I didn't have the brain capacity at the moment to think about flower-and-stem placement. The only placement I could think about was my engagement ring conveniently tucked away in the top drawer of my dresser. I hadn't worn it all day and was somewhat antsy to put it back on. As if I were afraid it might lose its sparkle sitting idly in my drawer.

  "Are you gonna eat that?" Zoë asked, pointing to the untouched piece of cold pizza on my paper plate.

  I shook my head and nudged it toward her. "No. Go ahead."

  She happily reached across the table and grabbed the slice, stuffing it into her mouth. "Oh my God," she began, her lips shiny with pizza grease, as though she had just applied a fresh coat of Chanel gloss. "I have to tell you what happened to me this afternoon at the parking garage at the promenade. . . ."

  I only half listened to Zoë's dramatic road rage (or should I say parking rage) story because my eyes were darting back and forth between the place card in front of me and the door, waiting for a knock to come from the other side of it. I couldn't believe how late John was. My heart was thumping so loudly in my chest, I was certain Zoë and Sophie would be able to hear it and ask me what my deal was.

  ". . . but clearly I had been waiting for the spot, with my blinker on. So I totally rolled down my window and started yelling at the woman. . . ." Zoë was gesturing wildly with the hot glue gun in her hand, causing me to duck and lean repeatedly to avoid second-degree burns.

  "And she was like, 'I don't fucking care if you were waiting for the fucking spot. I'm in a fucking hurry!' "

  I knew Zoë well enough to know that the word fuck was not used quite as liberally in the original enactment of this story. Zoë likes to decorate her narratives with the F-word almost as much as Sophie likes to decorate little index cards with artificial flowers. But I kept my mouth shut and my eyes focused on not messing up "Jackson Henry's" place card. I didn't know who the hell he was, but I was positive he wouldn't appreciate a deformed flower next to his name.

  "So then I'm just about to scream something back to her when she totally trips over a curb in the parking garage and like face plants on the pavement. And I'm like fighting not to laugh because that is just so karma in action right there, and I know if I laugh, I'll just be storing up bad karma for myself, so—"

  "Zoë," Sophie interrupted sternly, nodding toward the place card in front of her. "You need to pay attention to what you're doing. You're holding up the assembly line."

  Zoë looked down in front of her to see a pile of undecorated place cards stacked up next to her. "Sorry," she grumbled, and leaned back over her half-foiled card. "You know, you could help glue some of these silver sparkly things on yourself. Since you seem to be so efficient over there."

  Sophie frowned. "But that would mess up the system."

  I could see in Zoë's eyes that she wanted to escalate this argument, but I shot her a look and shook my head. All of us had been doing a lot of conceding in the past few months out of respect for Sophie's "big day." And we all suffered through it only because we knew that once that day was over, we could go back to mocking her obsessive personality as usual.

  "Whatever," Zoë mumbled.

  "It was a funny story," I offered her as a consolation. She looked up at me and gave me a grateful half smile.

  By 9:45 P.M., John still hadn't shown. I could almost hear the engagement ring calling out to me from the top drawer. Begging for me to acknowledge it and set it free from its velvet-covered prison. Sophie, having become incredibly fed up with the hot-gluing efforts of her two minions, had officially taken over the entire assembly line, and Zoë and I were sitting on the couch, watching the end of a Weeds episode. But I could hardly concentrate on the dialogue of the show because I was far too distracted. I didn't know how much longer I could wait.

  When the doorbell finally rang at ten o'clock, I bounded off the couch and yelled, "He's here! John's here!"

  Zoë and Sophie both peered up at me with the strangest looks on their faces. "Okaaaay," Zoë stated hesitantly before turning her attention back to the television.

  I ignored her and continued for the door, opening it with a wide swing and a relieved breath. As soon as John was visible, I practically leaped into his arms and hugged him. "You made it!" I cried passionately.

  John just stood there, his arms hanging lifelessly at his side. He finally reached up and awkwardly patted the middle of my back with one hand. "Um, yeah. Nice to see you, too, Jen." He disengaged himself from my grasp and made his way into the living room. "What's with her?" he asked, pointing back to me as he plopped down on the couch.

  Zoë shrugged. "Apparently she hates making wedding place cards even more than I do."

  Sophie smacked her on the leg with the back side of her hand.

  "So, Jen," John said, grabbing a piece of pizza crust off Zoë's paper plate and nibbling on it. "What's the latest?"

  Well," I began hesitantly, still standing by the door, "I have some exciting news, actually. The other day—"

  "Wait!" John's eyes immediately lit up with anticipation. "Don't tell me. Let me guess. One of your associates took a bribe from a subject to keep quiet? No! I know! The client showed up in the middle of the assignment and called the whole thing off!"

  I sighed dramatically. I should have known that John had been asking about Ashlyn's life, not mine. Ever since last year when he found out (completely by accident) what I really did for a living, he's been the hugest pain in the ass. I guess you could say he's my biggest "fan." If I were a band, John would be my groupie. He always wants to know every tiny detail about every little thing that happens at the Hawthorne Agency. I think, to him, my work is like a reality show or something, and he's always on the edge of his seat waiting to find out who was last voted off the island. Or in this case, which cheating spouse got voted out of the marriage.

  "Actually—" I started to say, but I was instantly cut off again, this time by Sophie.

  "No," she interjected, obstinately shaking her head. "No talk of cheating this close to my wedding. It'll soak into the place cards and curse the marriage."

  "Oh, please," Zoë begged. "Let us talk about something besides weddings. That's all we've talked about for the past six months!"

  I looked down at my feet, shifting my weight nervously.

  "Well, that's because I'm getting married," Sophie was explaining to Zoë, as if it were the first time she was being presented with this information.

  "Well, obviously," Zoë replied, motioning to the various crafts supplies spread out on my coffee table. "But do we really have to talk about it twenty-four seven? I mean, all I hear about nowadays is wedding, ceremony, reception, place cards, dresses, bridesmaids, flowers, caterers. Fuck, it's exhausting!"

  "Well, excuse me for caring about the most important day of my life," Sophie shot back. "Excuse me for—"

  "I'm getting married!" I finally blurted out, unable to stand there any longer waiting for my friends to take notice of the fact that I had something to say.

  Everyone just sort of fell silent and stared at me.

  The first one to make any sort of noise was John. But it wasn't exactly the kind of noise I expected. I thought he would react the same way he had reacted to Sophie's engagement announcement last year—with a loud, girly scream. One that only a gay boy
living in West Hollywood was capable of generating. But he didn't.

  Instead, he laughed.

  Actually, it was more of a cackle.

  "Yeah, right," Zoë added with a slight chuckle of her own. "Imagine that. Little Miss Fidelity Inspector walking down the aisle."

  "Jen," Sophie stated seriously, "that's not funny. I don't find that amusing at all! Yes, I know I've been kind of hard to deal with lately. But I'm sorry. It's my wedding. And I'm allowed to be a bitch before my wedding. Do you know how stressful it is to plan a wedding?"

  I stood in the middle of the living room, absolutely speechless. I couldn't believe what was happening. I had been waiting to tell them all day, and when I finally do, they think it's a joke!

  Apparently, my engagement was a concept that simply refused to stick. Hot glue gun or no.

  Sophie continued ranting. "I've had three different DJs back out on me in the last six months, and I'm really starting to think I should be taking it personally, and then—"

  "No!" I screamed in frustration, interrupting Sophie's diatribe. "I mean, I'm really getting married. That's what I've been trying to tell you since John walked through the door. Jamie proposed to me last night. We're engaged!"

  There was no laughing this time, just more staring. And the three of them looked at one another, trying to gauge whether anyone else in the room was actually buying this.

  Sophie crossed her arms over her chest. Clearly, she was in no mood for April Fools pranks in October. "Really?" she challenged me. "So if you're engaged, where's your ring?"

  I looked down at my empty left hand. And then, without another word, I raced down the hallway at warp speed, threw open my top dresser drawer, and yanked out the navy blue velvet box. I tore the ring out of its holder and shoved it onto my finger.

  "You mean this ring?" I asked indignantly as soon as I came back into the living room. I stuck out my hand and brandished it in their faces.

  I had never seen three jaws drop in such perfect synchronicity in all my life.

  There was a really long silence. Sophie actually reached out to touch the rock on my finger, as if she were making sure it was real and not just one of those cool hologram illusion tricks.

  After all the grief they'd given me over the past few years about my "intimacy issues," you'd think I would get a more welcoming reception.

  Finally, one of them spoke. It was Sophie. But she wasn't exactly eloquent. "Jen! W-w-why didn't you . . . I mean, how . . . when did this happen? I'm sorry. I'm kind of in a little bit of shock."

  The rest of them just nodded their agreement.

  "Yeah, I can see that," I said with a laugh as I plopped back down on my white sectional couch, hugging a green throw pillow to my chest. "I'm still kind of in shock myself. It happened last night. He took me to the golf course where we had our first date, and he asked me right outside of the snack stand."

  "That's pretty fucking cute," Zoë finally said.

  I nodded. "Yeah, it was. And he's taking me to Cabo next weekend so we can celebrate."

  "But you have your final dress fitting that Saturday!" Sophie protested, and then immediately thought twice about it and shrank back in her seat. "I mean, I'm sure we can move it," she offered.

  I laughed endearingly at her. "Don't worry. I'll call the tailor myself and reschedule."

  "Just don't eat too many carne asada tacos down there," she warned me. "That dress cannot be let out. It can only be taken in."

  I reached out and laid my hand tenderly on her shoulder. "I won't."

  She took hold of it and pulled it up to her face. "It's a beautiful ring," she finally conceded.

  Then I waited for the screams, the jumping up and down, the perfectly timed simultaneous gasps. But there was none of it. They all just stared at me, their faces still blanketed with shock.

  "I just can't believe this," John said dazedly. "With you two gone away to live in Coupleville, I guess it's just me and Zo left." He threw his arm around Zoë's neck, and she quickly pulled away with a horrified look on her face.

  "Great, you two are getting hitched and I'm gonna be stuck with the young, the gay, and the restless over here."

  "I resent that," John said, crossing his arms over his chest. "I am not restless. I'll have you know, I am getting plenty from my new boyfriend, Danny. And he is oh so—"

  "Okay, we get the point," Zoë interrupted. "You're getting laid. Congratulations."

  John squinted suspiciously at Zoë. "More importantly, it sounds like someone is not getting any."

  "I get plenty," Zoë shot back defensively.

  And just like that, the subject was changed. But I didn't protest. A part of me actually felt relieved.

  "From who?" John challenged.

  "No one in particular," she replied.

  Sophie's face brightened. "That's great news!" she exclaimed with a bit too much enthusiasm. We all shot her a questioning look.

  "Jeez, Soph, you act like I was on a three-year dry spell or something." Zoë frowned disapprovingly.

  Sophie giggled. "No, I mean that's not why I'm excited. I mean, I am excited that you're . . . you know, having sex. It's just that this means you'll have a date for my wedding. You finally have a plus one!"

  Zoë thought about that for a second. Sophie's statement seemed to perplex her, as if she had been caught in an awkward dilemma. "But I already RSVP'd for just one."

  Sophie waved this away with her hand. "I know, but I marked you down for two anyway. I knew you'd eventually find a date. So what's his name? We can make him a place card right now!" She reached across the coffee table and pulled a blank card from the stack. She popped the cap off her silver paint pen, like an Old Wild West bandit on the trigger, and sat poised and ready to write.

  All eyes were on Zoë, and for the first time in her life, she actually looked uncomfortable. I had known this girl for years, and never had I seen such a distraught look on her face. She was always so sharp, so quick with a comeback, so seemingly immune to typical girly drama. She always knew what to say, and she was always comfortable saying it. And now she looked as if she had just walked into a surprise party thrown three and a half months before her birthday.

  "What's the matter, Zo?" I asked. "Do we know him or something? Is it someone's ex-boyfriend?"

  John's eyes lit up. "I knew it. It's that guy I dated last year. That Byron guy. I totally knew he was straight!"

  Zoë shook her head. "No . . . it's not that," she stuttered. "It's just . . ."

  Sophie gestured exasperatedly with her paint pen. "So just tell me the name already."

  "I'm not taking him to the wedding," she finally declared.

  "Why not?" Sophie sounded insulted.

  "I . . . um . . . I just don't think we're ready for that." Zoë reached forward and grabbed her half-eaten slice of cold pizza and took an oversize bite.

  I studied her, intrigued. This was definitely not the Zoë I knew. Something was up. She was never one to follow any sort of society-accepted dating rules. That was much more Sophie's department. When Zoë wanted to sleep with a guy, she slept with him. When she wanted to say "I love you," she said it. And when she wanted to take him to a wedding, she took him. There were no games in Zoë's world. It just wasn't her style.

  "You do realize that she's the one walking down the aisle," John commented, pointing conspicuously at the top of Sophie's head. "All you have to do with the guy is dance to a few slow songs and share a piece of cake. It's not a lifelong commitment or anything."

  Zoë shrugged, swallowing her mouthful of pizza. "No, I know. I just don't want to bring him, okay? Can we drop it now?"

  Sophie frowned in confusion as she slipped the top back on the pen and threw it into her shopping bag. "Okay, whatever you say. But if you change your mind, you can always—"

  "I won't," Zoë stated firmly, and we all took that as a sign to change subjects yet again.

  The night eventually wound down, and one by one, my friends offered me a hug and another r
ound of stunned congratulations and then drifted out the front door. Sophie with her one hundred and sixty perfectly (or close enough) glued place cards, Zoë with the last piece of pizza and apparently some kind of chip on her shoulder, and John with his stories about the size of his new boyfriend's package. Until it was just me . . . left alone with my big shiny ring.

  Jamie was staying at his own place tonight, and it felt almost surreal sitting alone in my living room, staring down at my finger, and imagining what my life would be like from here on out, all because of a little piece of jewelry.

  I sat on the couch, admiring it for a moment. I had never actually looked that closely at it before. I mean, really looked at it. I had no idea how many carats it was, because frankly, I knew nothing about that kind of stuff. But I did know it was beautiful. No, beautiful didn't quite do it justice. Spectacular was closer. Perfectly square and seated on a thin, gleaming band of platinum. Just looking at it made me want to run out and get a manicure.

  With a sigh, I pulled myself off the couch and began to clean up the living room. I ran the empty pizza box out into the hallway and threw it down the trash chute. Then I crumpled up all the newspaper that was lining the coffee table and tossed it into the recycle bin. Finally, I brushed my teeth, washed my face, shut off all the lights in the house, and climbed into bed. For some reason, I half expected these everyday, mundane little chores to feel different, maybe even novel. Because now I was doing them as an engaged person. As a soon-to-be married person. But they felt exactly the same. Brushing my teeth was still just brushing my teeth. Even with the massive diamond that flashed brilliantly in the mirror with every stroke.

  Despite everything that had happened in the past day, it all kind of felt like a dream somehow. As if I were living someone else's life. Someone who was, apparently, engaged to a beautiful man, with a beautiful ring on her finger. I figured I just needed more time to let the whole thing sink in. It was a big adjustment. I'd spent the last few years of my life convinced that marriage wasn't for me. That's not something you can just flip a switch and change. You have to ease into it.