Читать книгу Slightly Married - Wendy Markham, Wendy Markham - Страница 10

My cell phone rings as I’m striding down Lexington Avenue on Wednesday afternoon, headed to Sushi Lucy’s for lunch.

I bet my next paycheck that it’s Carol, wondering where I am. Everyone’s going crazy getting ready to present to McMurray-White again tomorrow.

I snuck away while Carol was on the phone with the Client, who have made it abundantly clear that they don’t believe we Account people need meals, sleep or natural light.

Checking caller ID, I see that it’s not Carol; it’s Will McCraw.

I was just kidding about my next paycheck—you knew that, right?

“Tracey, how’s it going?”

Yes, I answer the call. I’ve been waiting for this moment for years now.

“Funny you should ask that, Will, because it’s going particularly well, as a matter of fact. I—”

“That’s great. I just wanted to call and thank you for the Valentine—”

Yes, I sent him a Valentine, but it’s not what you think. It was a funny Shoebox one and I only sent it as an excuse to tuck in my new Tracey Spadolini, Account Executive, business card. Which apparently he didn’t notice, because he says nothing about the promotion.

“—and I couldn’t wait to tell you I got a lead in a European touring-company production of La Cage Aux Folles!”

Will starring as a gay man?

“Wow, I’d love to see that,” I say truthfully. “Listen, I have news—”

But he’s talking over me—“Yeah, it’s going to be great”—at least, that’s what I think he said. It might have actually been “I’m going to be great,” knowing Will, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

“I’m sure it will be,” I say, “and I’ve got something to—”

“I leave for Transylvania next week—”

“Will, I have to tell—wait, did you say Transylvania?”

“Right.”

Huh. I didn’t even realize Transylvania is a real place. Had I known it was a real place, I would imagine it filled with dark, brooding types and, yes, vampires—not musical-theater buffs. You learn something new every day.

“Will,” I jump in, realizing there’s been a lull, “I’m engaged.”

Dead silence.

“Hello?” That explains the lull; we must have gotten disconnected.

Nope. He’s still on the line.

“That’s great,” he says slowly, for once having been struck momentarily speechless. Ah, life is good. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” I beam.

“When’s the wedding?”

“October, I think. We have to—”

“October, I should be back by then.”

Okay, back?

Does he actually think he’s going to be invited to my wedding?

I really want to say, “You don’t know Jack.”

How I longed to tell Will McCraw, after he pretty much threw me away, that he was utterly clueless. About me. About life.

But now, strangely, I don’t feel as though I have anything to prove to him.

My work here is done.

“Well,” he says, “good luck with the planning and everything.”

“Thanks. Good luck to you, too.”

Doing gay musical theater in Transylvania.

For once, I think as I hang up the phone, both Will and I have simultaneously gotten exactly what we deserve.

I get to Sushi Lucy’s and hang around in the small mirrored vestibule, trying to diagnose the painful bump on my nose. Yup. It’s a newly erupting zit, all right. It’s been ages since I’ve had one, but I know they’re brought on by stress.

I bet I’ve escaped this problem until now because I could always rely on cigarettes to blow off steam. Now that I’m no longer smoking, all that tension is pent-up inside me, just waiting to erupt.

Is it any wonder that my reflection reveals a big, ugly red blemish, thanks to the living hell that is Abate’s Summer Barbecue campaign?

Mental note: stop for cigarettes—I mean, Clearasil—on way home later.

There’s some in the medicine cabinet at home, but I noticed when I was rummaging around in there the other day that it expired in ’03.

I know, you’re wondering why I don’t just toss it.

Because it’s Jack’s, that’s why. The last time I got rid of one of his decrepit belongings—a single stray gray-white nubby gym sock that had been kicking around various surfaces in the bedroom for ages—he was annoyed.

No, I don’t know why. But I decided on the spot that he would be responsible for disposing his own useless crap from there on in.

And I’ve noticed he never does, even when I call his attention to stuff like expired medication, single socks and aging takeout leftovers he never should have saved in the first place.

Magazines are the worst. Thanks to his media job on consumer electronics and men’s personal-care products, he gets comp subscriptions to just about everything but Modern Bride. There are towering stacks everywhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if, near the bottom, there are cover stories on the pope’s passing, the Red Sox World Series or Nick and Jessica’s divorce. Their wedding, too, probably.

Oh, well, that’s a fault I can live with, in the grand scheme of things. Nobody’s perfect.

Nor, to my dismay, is my complexion.

That’s a big fat ugly zit on my nose, all right.

But I’m not here at Sushi Lucy’s strictly for pimple verification. I’m actually waiting for my friend Buckley to meet me for lunch so I can finally share my big news. I wanted to do it yesterday, but it was such a zoo at the office that I couldn’t get away.

Today is a zoo, too. I shouldn’t be here, I should be working.

But I want to tell Buckley about my engagement in person before he hears it from someone else because…

Well, partly because I still haven’t been able to relish the pleasure of telling anyone in person. That will happen when we meet Jack’s mom and sisters for dinner tomorrow night, I’m sure, and when Raphael comes home from his honeymoon, and again when we fly up to Buffalo in a few weeks to tell my family—the soonest we could get an affordable flight.

But I’m dying to share my news in person right away with someone who will appreciate it. And I’m sure Buckley will, because he’s my friend….

Except…

Part of the reason I want to tell him in person is that maybe there’s a lingering teensy, tiny shred of something other than friendship in our relationship.

Did I mention that Buckley and I almost hooked up a few years ago? And that it overlapped with me and Jack, but not really with him and Sonja…?

Oh, right. I did mention it.

I guess I’ve just been thinking about that a lot lately for some reason.

Ever since I got engaged.

I wonder why.

Maybe because when you’re engaged, you realize that you will never ever kiss anyone else ever again. Not just kiss, but…fool around with.

I mean, you’ll fool around with your fiancé, of course—and you will go on fooling around with him after he becomes your husband…

(Unless you listen to Latisha, and I’ve chosen not to. The next time she starts in about the postmarital lack of sparks, I’m going to stick my fingers in my ears and sing “Love and Marriage” at the top of my lungs.)

Anyway, being an engaged woman, you can’t help but wonder about what you might be missing from here on in.

I can’t help but wonder that, anyway.

But just about Buckley. No one else.

Probably because Buckley is the last person I kissed before Jack, and because it never went any further with him than that, physically. Emotionally, yes. He’s the only other guy I’ve ever felt really connected to, unless you count Will (which I don’t because that was all an illusion on my part—make that a delusion) or Raphael (which I don’t, because I guess I kind of think of him as a girlfriend).

So I guess I kind of think of Buckley as the One Who Slipped Away.

And something tells me he kind of thinks of me that way, too…even though he’s never said it. I mean, he and Sonja have been engaged since last fall.

I still remember exactly how and where he broke the news to me.

Not that it had to be broken, like bad news. Because it wasn’t. I mean, isn’t everyone happy to learn that a good friend is getting married?

It’s just that I was a little surprised, that’s all. Buckley and Sonja had already broken up because she had given him an ultimatum and he didn’t want to get married. Then he changed his mind.

And I guess I’ll always wonder whether…

Nah. Never mind. Forget I said anything about that, or about there being a lingering shred of anything other than friendship between us. Really, the only reason I’m so determined to tell Buckley my news in person is because he’ll be thrilled for me.

For us.

Maybe I should have included Jack today. But he was having lunch with a print rep anyway.

Then there’s Sonja, who is a production editor at some publishing house. She happens to work just a few blocks away and is usually free for lunch. Hmm, maybe I should have asked her to come, too.

Then again, if Buckley wanted her to be here, he’d have asked her himself, right? I mean, it’s not like he knows we’re having lunch together for a specific reason today. I just e-mailed him this morning to set it up. We do that all the time. Still…

Mental note: Set up celebratory dinner that includes both Jack and Sonja.

We were right here at Sushi Lucy’s when Buckley told me he’d realized that if he didn’t step up to the plate, he was going to lose Sonja. He said it in those words. Then he said he had gotten engaged to her the night before, in the middle of watching the World Series.

At the time, I’ll admit, I was a little taken aback. Maybe even a little upset. Not jealous, definitely. Just…I don’t know. Maybe wistful.

But that was ages ago, and I’m sure that it will be no big deal to tell him Jack and I are getting married in October. (Did I mention that I found out—still, without giving my name—that Shorewood is definitely available that third Saturday in October? No? Well, I haven’t mentioned it to Jack yet, either, but I plan to, so we can book it ASAP.)

The second I spot Buckley’s familiar long-legged stride heading toward the restaurant door, my stomach does an uneasy little somersault for no reason whatsoever.

After all, it’s just Buckley. Familiar, solid Buckley. He’s got on his worn brown leather jacket with a scarf tied around his neck and manages to look effortlessly fashionable, as usual.

Oh, and it really is effortless. That’s one of the things I liked about him when I met him. He’s just a regular, casual, good-looking guy. He—like Jack—doesn’t have a metro-sexual bone in his body. Unlike Will.

I met Buckley right around the time that Will was leaving me for summer stock, never to return…to me, anyway. Will came back to New York with Esme, his new girlfriend, in tow, after I spent the summer reinventing myself so that he would find me more desirable. Yes, I know that sounds pathetic.

And it was.

But who, at one point or another, hasn’t had her pathetic moments where some guy is concerned?

In the end, my reinvention was also a reawakening. Or maybe just a long-overdue awakening. For the first time, I was able to see who I am and to see Will for who he really is. More importantly, for who he isn’t.

But it took awhile for that to happen. If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in him when I met Buckley, who knows what might have happened between us? By the time I came to my senses, Buckley was involved with Sonja. When they broke up, I was involved with Jack.

So pretty much, Buckley and I have never been simultaneously romantically available.

But I’ve got this terminal case of wondering what if.

What if I’d met Buckley after I fell out of infatuation with Will?

What if I’d been on time meeting him the night he met Sonja, who started chatting with him in some bar while he was waiting for me?

What if, when I found myself in Buckley’s arms the December after Will dumped me—and right after I met Jack—I hadn’t decided that I was kissing Buckley by default, and we were meant to be platonic?

Who knows what might have happened?

We probably would have hooked up, the relationship would have run its course because it wasn’t meant to be, and we would have gone our separate ways.

Or maybe we would have hooked up and stayed together. Who knows?

I don’t like to think about it, and I usually don’t let myself.

So why now?

Mental note: JACK. Remember Jack? Do not forget about Jack. Your fiancé.

I take a fortifying look at my engagement ring, then find myself swept into Buckley’s familiar, platonic embrace. His face is cold against mine.

“Hey!” he says, smelling like cold air and Big Red. “Sorry I’m late. You could have sat down.”

“I didn’t want to sit alone. You know I hate that.”

“I know you do.”

Jack knows, too, that I’m self-conscious about being alone in a restaurant even if someone is meeting me. It’s one of my little quirks.

Jack knows pretty much everything there is to know about me, just as Buckley does. And I know pretty much everything there is to know about Buckley, too.

Except, of course, for the intimate stuff.

Of course.

Anyway…

We sit down and tell the waiter we’re going to order right away. I have to because I’ve got to get back to work. Adrian has been treating me differently ever since he caught me showing off my new engagement ring to Brenda and Carol the other day. I can’t help but sense an undercurrent of disdain whenever I have contact with him.

And I’ve had a lot of it because we’re working on the new presentation.

“Hungry?” Buckley asks as we open our menus.

“Starved.”

“Me, too. Want to share an app?”

We do that a lot, me and Buckley—especially when we go out for Japanese. We’ll order a maki appetizer to split, and eat it with chopsticks off a platter between us.

We’ve done that dozens of times.

But suddenly, there’s something unnervingly intimate about the idea of it.

“No, thanks,” I say quickly. “I’m not that hungry.”

“You just said you were starved.”

“Did I? I meant for soup. What I really want is soup. And sashimi. No appetizer.”

I shift my weight and find myself involuntarily playing footsie with Buckley under the table.

“Sorry,” I say.

“It’s okay. I don’t need an appetizer, either, I guess.”

I open my mouth to tell him I meant that I was sorry about my foot rubbing against his shin, but that seems awkward, so I close my mouth again and pretend to study the menu, but of course I’ve already told him what I’m ordering: soup and sashimi.

Sneaking a peak around the room, I’ve noticed that they’ve reconfigured the dining room since we were last here, to get more tables in. So that’s it. We’re at a newly installed table for two by the window. It’s close quarters, which is why my stocking-clad legs keep bumping up against Buckley’s jean-clad knees no matter how I position myself.

“Oops, sorry,” I say again as I try to change position only to find myself all but intertwined with him under the table.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, focused on the menu, which is good.

That way, he can’t see the alpine zit on my nose.

Or how rattled I am, for no good reason.

Normally, this physical contact with Buckley wouldn’t faze me…much less make me acutely aware of how good-looking he is.

“Hey,” I say a little loudly, because Buckley flinches a little and looks up. “How was your weekend at the bed-and-breakfast in the Hamptons?”

“Oh…we didn’t stay the whole weekend.”

“Why not?”

“Sonja didn’t really like it so we left Sunday morning.”

A bed-and-breakfast in the Hamptons…what’s not to like?

If you ask me, she’s unnecessarily picky.

But Buckley didn’t ask me, and the waiter is back with tea, so I keep my opinion of Sonja to myself.

“How’s work going now that you’re the big cheese?” Buckley asks me after the waiter leaves us alone to sip from steaming, handleless teacups.

“Work? Oh, God, it’s crazy, actually. But—”

“Don’t tell me the promotion is turning out to be one of those be careful what you wish for things?” he cuts in.

No, I find myself thinking, but this might be.

And, dammit, yes, I’m looking right at my engagement ring when I think it.

Why would I think such a thing, even in passing?

What the hell is wrong with me?

I’m in love with Jack.

I’m not in love with Buckley, by any means.

Because I’m in love with Jack. I’m marrying Jack.

You can’t be in love with two guys at the same time.

And when you’re in love with someone, you shouldn’t be attracted to someone else. So I’m not.

“No, I’m definitely not regretting anything,” I tell Buckley firmly—and I’m not just talking about the promotion at work.

“Good. Because you deserve it, Tracey. And I’m really happy for you. You’ve got a great future ahead of you.”

I know he’s not talking about being Jack’s wife, but I pretend that he is. It makes it that much easier to stick my left hand across the table and say, “Guess what?”

He looks down, removing his chopsticks from their red paper sleeve.

I wait for him to look up…

But he doesn’t.

Not right away, anyway.

And when he does, his crinkly Irish green eyes aren’t wearing the ultra-ecstatic expression you’d expect.

Well, the one I would expect, anyway, especially since I dutifully wore it for him when he announced he was engaged.

“You’re engaged?” he asks, wide-eyed and, dare I say…

No, I don’t dare say it.

But I do dare think it.

Dismayed.

That’s what he seems to be.

“Yes!” I say with gusto. “I’m engaged! Yes! See? Yes!”

All right already with the gusto.

“Jack proposed?”

I nod vigorously and repeat my new favorite word, “Yes!”

I add, “On Valentine’s Day, after the wedding!”

Then I add, “So you didn’t know he was going to?”

I add this part because I want to remind myself—and him—that he and Jack are friends.

Maybe Buckley and I were friends first, but he and Jack are definitely friends now. Not that the two of them pal around together without me so much, come to think of it, the way they both do with their other friends.

I’m the common denominator in their relationship with each other. Which is fine. It’s not as if I hang out doing girl things with Buckley’s wife-to-be, either. He’s my primary friend; she a friend by default. I’m sure that’s how she thinks of me, too.

“No,” Buckley says, having broken apart his chopsticks.

Huh? The conversational thread seems to have snapped as well—at least, for me.

“No…what?” I ask him blankly.

“No…I didn’t know Jack was going to propose. In fact…”

He begins rubbing his chopsticks against each other to remove the splinters.

“In fact what?”

“No, it’s just…” He’s rubbing those chopsticks so hard I’m expecting them to ignite any second now. “I was thinking he wasn’t going to.”

“Propose? Did he say that?” I ask, wondering if Buckley knows something I don’t know about Jack after all.

“No! He never said that. I just thought that if he hadn’t done it by now, he wasn’t going to.”

“Why did you think that? You took your sweet time proposing to Sonja.” I mean it as a quip, but it comes out more as an accusation.

Buckley reacts with a defensive, “That’s different.”

“How?”

“Because I wasn’t sure.”

“About wanting to get married?”

“About anything,” he says cryptically, and the waiter arrives with two steaming miso soups.

When he leaves a second later, I wait for Buckley to elaborate on what else, exactly, he wasn’t sure about.

He merely eats a spoonful of soup.

“Buckley.”

“Yeah?” He looks up, spoon halfway to his mouth again.

“You were saying…?”

He blinks. “What?”

“What were you saying? About not being sure you wanted to get married?” I add helpfully. And about anything else?

“Oh. Right. I mean, you know better than anyone—well, except Sonja—that I wasn’t sure about it.”

It, I want to ask, or her?

Because that’s what we’re talking about here, folks. And it’s the first time in ages that Buckley has said anything the least bit ambivalent about his relationship.

“I think it’s just a guy thing,” he concludes. “You know…cold feet.”

I want to ask him if that’s really all it is, but I’m afraid Buckley would think I’m not rooting for him and Sonja to live happily ever after. And believe me, no one wants that for them more than I do.

Okay, well maybe Sonja wants it more than I do. And I’m sure her family, who adore Buckley, want it more than I do. I’m way down on the list of people rooting for their happily-ever-after, I’m sure.

What about Buckley, though?

Does he want happily-ever-after with Sonja?

I honestly thought he did.

I think he honestly thought he did, too.

But maybe he doesn’t anymore. Maybe he needs to talk about this with a good friend.

A good platonic friend who has no personal agenda where he’s concerned.

That would be me, I tell myself…except that it wouldn’t be me. Because after hearing that Buckley may not be gung ho about marrying Sonja after all, I can’t help but be…well…not all that disappointed.

Wait a minute.

Did I really hear that Buckley may not be gung ho about marrying Sonja?

I mean, I know that’s what I heard…but did he really say it?

No. He didn’t. What he said was that he wasn’t sure “about anything,” including getting married.

What else is there?

There’s being in love with the person you’re marrying.

Forgive me if I’m jumping to conclusions here, but…

Well, hasn’t it seemed all along as though Buckley wasn’t a hundred percent on board the Sonja train? It’s like he jumped on when he realized it was about to leave the station without him, and he’s enjoying the ride, more or less…but now he might not want to take it all the way to its final destination. And he wishes he could jump off.

Okay, I really am very clever with my analogies lately.

Too bad I can’t channel all this creativity into a Creative job at the agency.

Too bad I can’t even tell Buckley what I’m thinking….

But I can’t, because that would open the door to trouble. Exactly what kind of trouble, I don’t know. I just sense that I should keep my verbal speculation on the apparent state of his relationship to a minimum.

What I can do, however, is ask him how things are going with Sonja and the wedding plans.

So I do.

“Not great,” he replies.

“Uh-oh.” I swear to God I’m psychic. “What’s wrong?”

“Remember how we were going to get married a year from this summer so that Sonja would have time to plan the wedding?”

“Yes.”

“Well, now she wants to expedite things.”

“How much?”

“A year. She wants us to get married in July.”

“This July? But that’s only a few months away.”

“I know.” He shakes his head, looking at me.

I shake my head, looking back at him.

Okay, this is going to sound crazy, but remember that old movie Dead Man Walking? The one where Sean Penn is on death row and Susan Sarandon is the nun who tries to save him?

The vibe between us is exactly like that right now.

Then again…

Buckley didn’t kill anyone, and he isn’t sentenced to death. And I’m not a nun. Far from it.

So maybe this vibe isn’t exactly like that.

“Well,” I say, “I guess since you’re getting married anyway, it doesn’t matter when.”

Yes, that came from the girl who had her heart set on an October wedding before she ever had a fiancé.

“Yeah, but this July is just so soon…”

“You’re right,” I tell him. “If Sonja has her heart set on her dream wedding, it will probably take much longer than that to plan it anyway. Trust me, she’ll figure that out when she starts trying to pull something together.”

I sure as hell did.

“That’s the thing. She says she doesn’t care about the wedding anymore. She just wants us to be married. The sooner the better, she says.”

Aha!

Does my pimply nose smell a desperate bride?

“Did you tell her you’d rather wait until next summer, like you planned?” I ask him, reaching out and putting a hand on his lower arm, all Sister Prejean again.

Or maybe it’s more My Best Friend’s Wedding than Dead Man Walking.

“Yeah, I told her. Well, I tried. But she wanted to know why we should wait. Then she accused me of not wanting to marry her.”

“At all?”

He nods.

See? What’d I tell you? Desperate bride.

But I refuse to play Julia Roberts to Sonja’s Cameron Diaz. Truly, I don’t want to disrupt Buckley’s wedding plans so that I can steal him away for myself. I’m just his friend, looking out for his best interests. I have a fiancé and a wedding-in-progress of my own.

Buckley sighs and shakes his head, pushing his soup bowl away. I think he’s so upset that he’s lost his appetite until I look down and see that the bowl is empty.

I dip my spoon into my own bowl and fish around half-heartedly for a floating ribbon of seaweed.

Maybe I’m the one who’s lost my appetite.

This just isn’t going the way I imagined it would.

I push away my own soup, which I was supposedly craving so desperately, and do my best not to ask the million-dollar question that I’m sure is on both of our minds.

Unfortunately, my best isn’t good enough, and I hear myself ask, “So is Sonja right about you not wanting to marry her at all?”

I wait for Buckley to tell me of course she’s not right.

But some small part of me hopes he’ll tell me that she is right, and he doesn’t want to marry her after all.

Why am I hoping that? Good question. I have no business hoping that.

“Forget I said anything.” Buckley heaves a two-ton sigh as the too-damn-efficient waiter pops up to whisk our soup bowls away.

He simultaneously replaces them with two sashimi deluxe lunches.