Slightly Engaged

Or is she trying not to tell me something?

“Tracey, don’t worry about Jack. He wants to get married. He would kill me if he knew I was telling you this—”

I hold my breath.

“—but he’s definitely planning on getting married.”

Sensing there’s more, I’m afraid to exhale; afraid to move; afraid to do anything that might shatter the moment.

“In fact,” she goes on, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “when he was up here for dinner last week, he asked if I could open the safe-deposit box for him.”

I’m turning blue here, trying to figure out what that could possibly mean, certain there’s more. There has to be.

But she doesn’t elaborate, so I’m forced to let my breath out at last and ask bluntly, “What, exactly, does that mean?”

Silence.

Then, “You don’t know?”

Apparently, I don’t. But now I’m dying to.

“Know what?” I ask.

“About the stone?”

Stone? What stone?

I rack my brains.

Stone…stone…grindstone? Rolling stone? Pizza stone? Flintstone?

What the hell is she talking about?

“No,” I say tautly, “I didn’t know about a—er, the—stone.”

Her flat “oh” might as well have been preceded by “uh” because she’s obviously just spilled something she wasn’t supposed to. Which would be tantalizing if I could get a handle on whatever it is she supposedly revealed. But here I am, utterly clueless, my mind racing with possibilities.

“I just assumed the two of you had discussed it.”

“The stone?”

“Yes.”

“See, the thing is, Wilma…I’m just not following you.”

It’s her turn to take a deep breath. “Tracey, when Jack’s father and I separated last year, I had my diamond taken out of my engagement-ring setting, which I never really liked even though I was the one who picked it out—”

Oh…

Oh, wow.

Diamond. As in rock. The only kind of stone that really matters.

Diamond.

Do you believe this? Are you hearing this? Talk about a bombshell…

“—and I told Emily and Rachel that the first one of them to get married could have it.”

Emily is Jack’s younger sister; Rachel is the next one up from Jack. They have two more older sisters, Jeannie and Kathleen, who are both married.

“But both of the girls are positive that they’ll want their own rings when they get engaged,” Mrs. Candell goes on, “so I decided my diamond is there for Jack whenever he wants it. And…he wants it.”

Well, slap my ass and call me Judy!

Better yet, slap my ass and call me “Mrs. Candell the Second!”

Tracey Candell.

It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

Speaking of rings…

“You’re kidding,” I manage to squeak to Mrs. Candell the First.

“No…I gave him the diamond before he left. But you can’t tell him you know about it, Tracey.”

“I won’t. I swear.” My hands are shaking. My heart is pounding.

“Really, I thought the two of you must have discussed this. I guess my son is more romantic than his father ever was,” she adds with a brittle laugh.

I know that the Candells’ marriage was never lovey-dovey, and Jack said it was always only a matter of time before they split up. The month after Emily graduated from college and moved to Manhattan, they separated. The divorce will be final next spring, and everybody seems relieved that it’s almost over.

Still, sometimes I wonder if his parents’ failed marriage has anything to do with Jack’s reluctance to commit.

But right now, all I’m wondering is what cut Wilma’s diamond is, and when Jack is going to give it to me, and how I could have missed the subtle signs that he had this up his sleeve. Because there must have been subtle signs. There always are.

Do you think his comment that Marriage is for the Asinine was a subtle sign?

Me neither.

“Anyway,” Wilma is saying, “if Jack ever knew I’d let this slip to you—”

“I promise I won’t tell him.”

“Won’t tell who what?”

Startled by the voice behind me, I turn to see Jack standing there: boxer shorts, bad breath, bedhead…