Slightly Engaged. Wendy Markham

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      “How could I forget? The way you were flirting with him right from the start—and the way he described that cheesecake…” I shudder at the waiter’s risqué-in-retrospect description of velvety cream cheese melting on the warmth of the tongue. And here I thought he was talking to me. About dessert. “It was very…vivid.”

      “Wasn’t it just?” Raphael looks dreamy.

      A drink, I think. A drink, and a cigarette.

      I take a fresh pack of Salems out of the cupboard and tap it against my palm.

      “So what you’re telling me is that you want to get engaged to the waiter from Bacio on Sweetest Day?”

      “Absolutely, Tracey. Unless you think that’s too cliché?”

      “I wouldn’t call it cliché in the least.”

      I pour a couple of inches of rum into a jelly glass and wonder how to make a mojito, then decide I don’t really care at this point.

      “I was thinking we could schedule our commitment ceremony for Valentine’s Day,” Raphael goes on, oblivious to my imminent bender, “and I’d want you as my maid of honor, of course.”

      Touched, I look up from the cigarette I’m lighting to make sure that he’s serious.

      Judging by the tear glistening in the corner of his eye, he is.

      “That would mean a lot to me,” I tell him sincerely. “Thank you. I would be honored.”

      “And I’ll be honored to return the favor someday, Tracey,” he says, gently patting my arm as if assuring a maiden aunt that someday her prince will come.

      “Jack has a diamond, Raphael.” I exhale twin trails of smoke through my nostrils and try not to think about the Chia Pet.

      “Of course he does.”

      “I’m serious! He has a diamond, and he’s probably just waiting for…for, you know…”

      “The right moment?”

      “Yes, and for…um…”

      “For the jeweler to make a setting?”

      “Exactly.”

      “Speaking of settings, Tracey, what do you think of this?” Raphael pulls a black velvet box out of his pocket and flips it open. “It’s my big splurge.”

      I’ll say. I gape at the marquis-cut diamond engagement ring.

      “It’s beautiful, Raphael, but…” I search for a tactful way to put it. “I mean, isn’t that for a woman?”

      “Tracey! No!”

      “I have to say…” I tilt my head dubiously. “I’m thinking yes.”

      “The jeweler said it’s definitely unisex. And I say it’s uni-sexy. I love it, and Donatello will love it, and that’s all that counts.”

      Right. Next thing you know, Raphael will be checking out the bridal sample sale at Kleinfeld.

      “So what do you think, Tracey? I’m getting married! I’m planning a glorious proposal and an even more glorious wedding!”

      Et tu, Raphael? is what I think.

      But I give him a congratulatory hug and I try not to be wistful as he talks about cakes and flowers and dance bands.

      After all, my whole life doesn’t hinge on when—or even whether—Jack pops the question. I am not one of those so-called New York career women whose secret main goal in life is a diamond ring on her finger and wedding date on the calendar.

      Those women are pathetic.

      I’m not pathetic. I’m…

      Well, I’ve got a whole lot more going on in my life.

      I’ve got great friends, a semifunctional family, and someday I’ll be promoted to junior copywriter.

      But I can’t help wondering, as I take another drag off my cigarette, what Jack is waiting for.

      Is he uncertain?

      Is he falling out of love?

      Or maybe it’s Sweetest Day.

      Maybe he wants to do it on Sweetest Day.

      That has to be it.

      Chapter 5

      “Sweetest Day? Never heard of it,” Jack informs me.

      We’re headed home from work on the third Friday night in October—which, if all goes as planned, will be our rehearsal dinner a year from now—waiting in a rush-hour crowd on the uptown subway platform at Grand Central.

      “Sure you have,” I say as though he’s just claimed he’s never once wondered what it would be like to sleep with the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover model.

      “Sweetest Day?” He shakes his head. “I don’t think so. What is it?”

      “It’s a day when you show your appreciation to loved ones,” I recite, having looked it up on the Internet earlier so I’d be prepared for this conversation.

      “Show appreciation how?”

      “You know…cards…candy…” Diamond engagement rings…

      NOT Chia Pets…

      “Who invented it? Hallmark? Brach’s?”

      “Brach’s?” I echo in disdain. At least he could have said Godiva.

      “Yeah, you know…the candy guys.”

      “I know,” I tell him—or rather, shout at him as the uptown express train comes roaring into the station on the opposite side of the platform. “Brach’s. The candy guys.”

      I must say, this exchange isn’t going quite the way I envisioned.

      I was supposed to very casually ask Jack how we’re going to celebrate Sweetest Day tomorrow, and he was supposed to get a knowing gleam in his eye and feign ignorance.

      The ignorance is there all right, but it sure seems authentic, and the knowing gleam is as scarce as the number-six local.

      I wait to make my point until the express train has left the station and the noise level has been reduced to the rumble of trains and screeching of brakes on distant tracks, an unintelligibly staticky public-address announcement upstairs, and—right here for our listening pleasure—an off-key portable-karaoke singer and her coin-cup-jangling pimplike male companion.

      I ask, again, “How should we celebrate?”

      I can tell Jack’s СКАЧАТЬ