Slightly Engaged

“Here,” he says, and hands me a plastic shopping bag that I can feel contains a smallish box, and I get my hopes up even further.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that nobody proposes by handing over a ring box in a plastic shopping bag.

Here’s my thought: Jack isn’t the most traditionally romantic guy in the world. I wouldn’t put it past him to give me—

“A Chia Pet?” I say incredulously, pulling it out of the bag.

“I saw it and thought of you.”

“Really.”

It’s a small gnome. A gnome that will presumably sprout a green Afro.

For a moment, all I can do is stare at it.

Then, knowing I might regret it, I ask, “Why did you think of me?”

“Because you were just talking about how gray and dreary and dead everything is now that summer is over,” he says, and I can tell by his expression that he didn’t think it was this lame a few seconds ago, before he opened his big fat unromantic mouth.

I’m trying to think of something nice to say to bail him out, but all I can come up with is, “Um, thanks.”

“I just figured it would be nice to see something green and growing.”

“It will be.” A gnome with green, growing hair. How…nice.

“Sorry,” he says. “I guess it was a stupid idea.”

“No,” I tell him, feeling sorry for the poor clod. “It was really…sweet.”

I pretend to admire my Chia Pet. Then, when enough time seems to have passed, I put it on the table.

“All I want to do now,” Jack says, sitting down beside me and taking off his shoes, “is put on sweats, order take-out pizza and watch the Mets get clobbered in their playoff game.”

“Oops,” I say.

“What?” He looks at me suspiciously. “Don’t tell me the cable is out.”

“No…but you’re close.”

“How close? Is the picture fuzzy?”

“No, Raphael is coming over to play Trivial Pursuit. We’re making paella. He’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”

Jack has the courtesy not to groan at that news, but I can tell he wants to.

“How is that close to the cable being out?” he wants to know.

“You know…you can’t get more ‘out’ than Raphael,” I crack.

Jack clearly isn’t the least bit amused.

It isn’t that he doesn’t like my friend Raphael, because everyone likes Raphael. Well, maybe not everyone.

Chances are, your average homophobic red-stater isn’t going to appreciate a bawdy, wisecracking male fashionista. But in this little corner of the world, everyone—including Jack—likes Raphael.

That doesn’t mean he prefers Pursuit and Paella to Pizza and Piazza. Still…

“You hate the Mets,” I remind him.

“Right. And I want to witness them die.”

Is it my imagination, or is that hint of viciousness directed at me?

“Sorry,” I say with a shrug. “But you can still watch the game. Raphael and I will be quiet.”

He snorts at that. “Trace, Raphael isn’t even quiet in his sleep.”

He’s right. We shared a room with him at Kate and Billy’s Hamptons share in July and the air was fraught with deafening snores and anguished—or perhaps libidinous—shrieks. I probably should have thought to warn Jack that Raphael talks in his sleep. And that he sleeps in the nude.

“Well, lucky you, he isn’t sleeping over tonight,” I tell Jack.

“Yeah, lucky me. I’m going to change into my sweats.”

“Sweats?”

“What’s wrong with sweats?”

“Sweats are just too…”

“Too…what?” he asks. “Too comfortable? Too hetero? Too…?”

“Dumpy. I mean, come on, Jack, we’re having company. And you know how Raphael is. He’ll be dressed up.”

“So you want me to dig out my feather boa and hot pants so he and I can be twins?”

I have to laugh. “No, just at least wear jeans, okay?”

“Is a sweatshirt out of the question?”

“Only if you were planning to wear the hooded one with the broken zipper and the bleach stain on the front.”

I can tell by his expression that he was.

“What’s wrong with that one?” he asks. “Too dumpy?”

“Too Unabomber.”

He scowls.