Slightly Engaged

“I’m really scared, Jack.”

“Of what?”

“You know…” Conscious that the fifty or so people standing within arm’s length might be eavesdropping, I whisper, “Death.”

“Relax. You’re not going to die.”

“How do you know?”

“Because—well, why would you think you’re going to die?” he asks, loudly enough to be heard in Brooklyn.

Terrific. If the guy with the gun/umbrella/penis didn’t think of opening fire yet, Jack just gave him the idea.

“I don’t,” I snap. “I don’t think I’m going to die.”

“But you just said—”

“I was joking.” Before I can muster a requisite laugh, the lights go back on and the engine whirs to life.

The train starts moving again as if none of this ever happened.

Problem over, just like that.

Panic attack averted.

At least for now.

“See?” Jack says. “I told you you’d survive.”

“We’re not home yet,” I point out. “It’s not survival until we’re safe at home.”

“Isn’t that a little extreme?”

“Maybe,” I say with a shrug. Actually, I’ve been in a permanent shrug since we got on the train, thanks to the close quarters. “I just really want to get home.”

Jack just looks at me for a second, then says, “You really are stressed.”

“I really am stressed.”

And you’re the cause of it.

All right, so he had nothing to do with the stalled subway.

But I do find myself thinking life’s minor—and major—disruptions would be much easier to handle if we were engaged.

Then I find myself thinking, in sheer disgust, that I really am one of those marriage-obsessed women after all.

I’m Kate, when she was hell-bent on marrying Billy. All she ever wanted to do was speculate on the status of their marital future, ad nauseam. Raphael and I thought she was our worst nightmare then. Little did we know she’d be even scarier once she had the ring on her finger and a formal Southern wedding to plan.

Now here I am, my own worst nightmare.

How did this happen?

As the train hurtles toward uptown, I tell myself firmly that it didn’t happen—yet—and it won’t happen. I will not focus my energy on an engagement that may or may not be imminent.

If Jack wants to marry me, great.

If not…

Well, not great. But not the end of the world, either.

Mental note: time to stop dwelling on getting engaged.

This wanna-be-fiancée stuff is getting old. I need to toss my secret stash of bridal magazines and stop asking everyone—except Jack—why he hasn’t proposed yet.

Not that I’m going to ask Jack, either.

I’ll have more patience than…well, more patience than I had with Will, for whom I waited an entire summer.

In vain, I might add.

Chapter 6

Speaking of Will, guess who calls me at work the Monday morning after the Sweetest Day when I don’t get engaged?

Yes, Will McCraw, the man—and I use the term loosely—who left for summer stock and never came back. To me, that is. He did return to New York that fall, and he brought with him a souvenir—a blonde named Esme Spencer, with whom he said he had more in common than he did with me. Meaning, she was also a self-absorbed drama queen.

I do not use “queen” loosely, despite the fact that I am apparently the only person in the tristate area who believes in Will’s heterosexuality.

I should know, right? I slept with him for three years and can attest that not every good-looking, cologne-and-couture-wearing, narcissistic actor is gay.

Then again, Will secretly being gay could make his lack of interest in me easier to bear. Not that I’m still pining away for him in the least. But when you’re as insecure as I used to be—and all right, still am in some ways—then you don’t easily get over not being desired by your own boyfriend.

Nevertheless, I truly ninety-nine-point-nine percent believe that what Will McCraw is, aside from a self-absorbed drama queen and a cheating bastard, is a flaming metrosexual.

What Tracey Spadolini is, according to said flaming metrosexual, is sadly bourgeois.

You wanted somebody who would love you and marry you and settle down with you.

That was Will’s breakup accusation, and in his opinion, the ultimate insult. It was also true then and still is, only now I’m not ashamed of it.

My breakup accusation was, “You kept me around because I was as crazy about you as you are about yourself.”

Also true, and a long time in coming.

How I didn’t realize that from the start is beyond me. I guess I was so beyond insecure, so obsessed with being forty pounds overweight and a small-town hick masquerading as a city girl, that I was grateful just to have a boyfriend.

When I think of how I lapped up the slightest attention from Will like melting chocolate ice cream on a ninety-degree day…