Slightly Engaged

“Hello-o! Ye-ah!”

“Petrov?”

“We broke up ages ago!”

“Adam?”

“He was before Petrov.”

“Then who?”

Raphael looks exasperated. “Donatello! Tracey, you so know him.”

I so don’t.

But this is how Raphael operates. He has this annoying habit of insisting that you are familiar—sometimes intimately so—with whoever or whatever he’s talking about, when you know damn well that you wouldn’t know him from Adam. Or Petrov.

“Donatello,” he repeats. “Don’t tell me that name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“The only Donatello that rings a bell is in my nephews’ toy box. Isn’t he a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle?”

“Tracey! Donatello is a full-grown, very normal, very juicy-licious human being.”

Yes, normal and juicy-licious go hand in hand in Raphael’s world.

I think I need a drink.

I reach into the cupboard for a couple of glasses as Raphael prods, “You met him last month when I took you out to lunch at Bacio on my expense account, remember?”

I rack my brains.

All I remember from that lunch is Raphael scolding me for not spending more time with him these days…

Oh, and the divine piece of pumpkin cheesecake that we shared for dessert, which I couldn’t pass up once the waiter rolled it over on the trolley and went on and on about—

“Wait, you mean the waiter?” I ask incredulously.

“Yes! Tracey, I knew you’d remember.”

“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 thinking the question would work better if I left off the first word and made it a yes/no.

Should we celebrate?

His answer to that would probably be no.

His answer to How should we celebrate is merely, “Celebrate?”

Which is no answer. Unwilling to let him off the hook, I say, “Got any ideas?”

“We can watch Game One?”

“Game one?”

“The World Series. Tomorrow night.”

“Oh. Right. I forgot,” I tell the man who once came dangerously close to derailing our relationship by choosing a Giants playoff game over dinner with me.

He chose me in the nick of time.

He even cooked that dinner, the first of many.

Yet here he is, acting like a dopey dog that keeps trotting back to the electric fence line for another jolt.

Jack asks incredulously, “How could you forget about something like the World Series?”

Same way you can forget to propose when your mother has practically done all the work already, I want to tell him.

I say simply, “I don’t know. But it’s not like we don’t have TiVo. Don’t you think we could do something a little more romantic than watch the World Series, in real time, with commercials?”

He has the gall to look alarmed.

Okay, I give up.

“Romantic…like what?” he wants to know.

Time to let him off the hook. “Never mind,” I say with a sigh.

After all, I owe him one for being so charitable to Raphael that night with the paella. He played three rounds of Trivial Pursuit and didn’t even complain when Raphael kept cheating to avoid the Sports and Leisure questions and land instead on Arts and Entertainment.

Anyway, clearly, Jack isn’t planning to propose on Sweetest Day, even now that I’ve enlightened him.

I’ll have to shelve the story I was going to tell our future kids one day about how we got engaged in October, my favorite month of the year. I think it’s safe to assume that the only remotely wedding-related thing anybody’s asking me to be this month is maid of honor at a gay wedding.

I crane my neck to look for the light at the end of the tunnel.

I’m not speaking figuratively.

I’m looking for the actual light, as in the headlight of the number-six train.

All I want is to get home and take off these stockings and two-inch heels. Lame, I know, but two inches are two too many for me.

“Hey, I know!” Jack says suddenly. “How about if we go out to dinner tonight? You know…to celebrate Sweetest Day.”

“Tonight? You mean…go back out after we get home?”

Now that, my friends, is a revolutionary idea. When we first moved in together we came and went at all hours, but we’ve become proficient nesters lately. Most nights, once we’re home, we’re home—especially now that we have TiVo and even last-minute Blockbuster video rentals are a thing of the past. I know. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

“I was thinking we could stop somewhere now, on the way,” he says with the air of one who plans to zip through a drive-through for a couple of Whoppers.

“I don’t know…I’m kind of tired and I don’t really want to hang around all night in this.” I look down at my trench coat, crepe suit and pumps, which I donned for a client presentation with the futile hope that somebody might recognize me as executive material.

“We can go home first so you can change,” Jack offers. “I wouldn’t mind getting into some jeans myself.”

Jeans?

Okay, who said anything about jeans?

Aren’t we talking about a romantic Sweetest Day Eve dinner here?

Apparently, only one of us is. The other has apparently set his sights on the kind of establishment that offers a denim dress code and a tuna-melt special.

I yawn. It’s a fake yawn when I start it, but it turns real before it’s over.

“I don’t think so,” I tell Jack. “I’m really wiped out. It’s been a rough week.”

He’s watching me with an oddly intent expression. The platform has grown so crowded with commuters that his face is about six inches from mine and he’s looking right into my eyes, frowning slightly.

“Are you okay, Tracey?”

“What do you mean?”

“You just seem kind of…edgy.”

I look around at the restless horde of uptown-bound office drones being serenaded by Karaoke Girl, who is now bellowing, “I’ve Been to Paradise But I’ve Never Been to Me.”

“Who isn’t edgy?” I ask. “There hasn’t been a six train in almost ten minutes.”

“No, not about the subway. About…well, I have no idea what. You just seem edgy lately. At home, too.”

“I do?”

“You do.”

I smile to show him that beneath edgy, things couldn’t be more hunky-doodle-dory.

“It’s work, I guess—it’s getting to me,” I tell him, because A) that’s partly true, and B) when you’re in the advertising industry you can believably blame everything on work. It’s second only to PMS in my stress-related-excuse repertoire.

Looking as though he’s had a mini-epiphany, Jack puts an arm around me and pulls me close, pressing his forehead against mine. “I know what you need.”

So do I.

But Grand Central Station at rush hour is no place for him to go getting down on one knee. If the train shows up he might get trampled right onto the tracks, wiping out our future kids and the charming October-engagement story.

“What do I need, Jack?” I ask anyway, per chance we’re not on the same page.

“A quiet night at home. We can watch that new Willie Wonka DVD I just bought in wide screen.”

Willy Wonka? That’s what I need? Is he high?

Granted, I liked the book and I liked the movie—both versions.

But…

Willy Wonka?

“I’ll make that chicken thing you like,” he goes on. “And then I’ll give you a back rub. It’ll get rid of all the stress.”

“Oh.” Big fake-smile. “That sounds great.”

Don’t get me wrong, I would ordinarily welcome a back rub after a tough week at work. And having skipped lunch today, I do find my mouth watering at the mere thought of that Chicken Thing. He makes it with tomatoes and peppers and olives and serves it over diet-friendly whole-grain pasta.

But when I weigh the options—engagement ring versus Willie Wonka/back rub/Chicken Thing—guess which one might as well be full of helium?

“Let’s get strudel for dessert, too,” he suggests.

“Now you’re talking,” I say, amazed at how the mere mention of strudel can make things brighter.

You’ve got to stop obsessing over this ring thing, I tell myself as the long-lost number-six train appears in the distance at last. It’s not healthy.

But I can’t seem to help it.

Especially when, in the sudden shuffle of the crowd to get into position precisely where the train’s doors will ostensibly open, I spot a huge billboard of a smiling bride and groom beside the tag line Married People Live Longer.

Is this a sign, or what?

Okay, intellectually I know it’s just part of that high-profile advertising campaign by some abstinence-advocacy group.

But emotionally, I choose to believe it’s a sign that I’ll be getting an engagement ring in the near future.

But…how near?

And why did his mother have to go and tell me it was coming?

How am I supposed to focus on anything else when every random morning I wake up wondering if today’s the day?

I’m starting to think it would be better if I didn’t secretly know he has a diamond. That it would be better if I were back where I was the night Mike and Dianne got married, when I thought Jack thought marriage was only for Assholes. At least then, I had no expectations.

Then again…maybe he still thinks that. Maybe he just accepted the diamond to humor his mother. Maybe he has no intention of giving it to me in this millennium. Who knows? Maybe he’s already traded it for an ounce of saffron and a six-pack.

The uptown local is packed, of course.

The reverse tug-of-war begins. A mass of people shove to get off; a mass of people shove to get on.

Yes, we are among the shovers.

Because in New York, you do things on a daily basis you wouldn’t dream of doing anywhere else. At least, I wouldn’t.

Back in Brookside, I wouldn’t dream of shouldering my way through the crowded vestibule of Most Precious Mother to snag a primo pew, scattering little old church ladies with limbs akimbo.

But when in Rome—or the subway…

Well, you get the idea. I’m a seasoned Manhattanite after three years here, and I can shove and curse and even flip people off like a native, although only when absolutely necessary.

And only strangers.

When it comes to people I know, I can be oddly complacent in that regard. If only I’d had the nerve to shove, curse and flip off my ex-boyfriend, Will McCraw, before he had a chance to break my heart.

But I was still the old Tracey-sans-cojones back then.

As we shoehorn ourselves into the car, I am careful to align the front of my body with the side of Jack’s to avoid accidental intercourse with the total stranger crammed in beside me.

“You okay?” Jack asks.

“Fine,” I tell him, taking shallow breaths so as not to inhale fresh B.O. from a neighboring straphanger.

“We’ll stop at the store on the way home to get the stuff for my chicken thing.”

“All right.” I feel like I’m going to gag. Does this person not know he’s stinking up the whole car? Or does he not care?

“You don’t seem very into it.”

“I am!” I snap—then repeat sweetly and guiltily at his hurt look.

The train lurches, stalls.

Lurches, stalls.

Then it lurches again, just enough to pull beyond the platform and into the dark tunnel before there’s a hiss as the engine dies and a flicker before the lights go with it.

A cry of protest goes up in the car as people curse in every known language.

“Still okay?” Jack asks in the dark, his voice reassuringly close to my ear. He reaches for my hand and squeezes it.

I take a deep breath of disgusting B.O. air. “Uh-huh.”

If this were two years ago, when I was in the midst of my panic attacks after Will left, I would be about to throw up or pass out or both.

But the panic attacks subsided somewhere around the time Jack came along, with the help of some little pink pills that were prescribed for me by Dr. Trixie Schwartzenbaum. As a delightful pharmaceutical side effect, I lost my appetite and the remainder of the forty pounds I needed to take off.

I eventually tapered off the pills last winter with nary a panic attack nor added pounds, but Dr. Schwartzenbaum warned me that they could be triggered again.

The panic attacks.

The appetite too, I guess. But at least I can combat that with my old standby weapons: cabbage soup, baby carrots and brisk lunch-hour walks to Tribeca and back.

Fighting the panic attacks is a little more complicated. Sometimes I wonder what might set them off again.

Being trapped underground in a packed subway car in a dark tunnel could very well do it.

I try not to remember the old movie I once saw with my grandfather about a subway hijacking. The Taking of Pelham 123.

I squeeze Jack’s hand, hard. He squeezes back.

See, that’s the thing. I always know that he loves me, to the point where his mere presence is reassuring. Not just in this subway crisis (I know, but to me it’s a crisis)—but in my life. That’s why I want to know—need to know—that we’ll be together forever.

Because I can’t imagine my life ever feeling normal again without him.

Surely he feels the same way.

Surely he’s ready to make that final commitment, wouldn’t ya think?

The intercom interrupts my speculation, crackling loudly with a seemingly urgent announcement.

The only words I think I can make out clearly are “grapefruit,” “Ricky Schroeder” and “explosive.”

Or maybe I’m hearing them wrong.

“What did they say?” I ask Jack.

“Who knows?” he replies amid the disgruntled grumbling from similarly stumped commuters.

Okay, I might not have heard grapefruit or Ricky Schroeder, but I’m pretty sure I heard the word explosive.

I try not to think about terrorist attacks and suicide bombers.

Yeah, you know how that goes. Terrorist attacks and suicide bombers are now all I can think about.

In a matter of moments, I am convinced that this is no ordinary malfunction, but an Al Qaeda plot.

We’re all going to die, right here, right now. And when we do, we won’t even be able to slump to the ground because we’re wedged against each other like hundreds of cocktail toothpicks in a full plastic container.

I try to shift my weight, but succeed only slightly.

Great. Now I’m going to die standing up with what I hope is somebody’s umbrella poking into my leg. As opposed to a penis or a gun.

I try to shift my weight back in the opposite direction but that space has been filled. I can’t move.

To add to the drama, from this spot, even in this dim light, I have a clear view of yet another Married People Live Longer ad.

Dammit!

I know it’s not as if all the married people on board the train will be sheltered from harm in a golden beam from heaven while the rest of us losers die a terrible death, but…

Well, that stupid tag line isn’t helping matters. Not at all.

Married People Live Longer.

It might as well have said: Single People Die Young.

My chest is getting tight and my forehead is breaking out into a cold sweat. This definitely feels like a panic attack.

Mental note: place emergency call to Dr. Trixie Schwartzenbaum ASAP.

I’m trapped. Oh, God, I can’t even breathe. There’s no air in here.

Yes there is. Stop that. There’s plenty of air.

I inhale.

Exhale.

See? Plenty of stale, stinky air to go around.

“Come on!” shouts an angry voice in the dark.

“This is bullshit!” somebody else announces.

Another passenger throws in a colorful expletive for good measure.

Then a woman speaks up. “That’s not helping.”

“Shaddup!”

In no time, a train full of civilized commuters has transformed into a vocal, angry mob. If there were more room, fistfights would be breaking out.

“I can’t breathe,” I tell Jack.

“Yes, you can,” he says calmly.

“No, I can’t.”

Verging on hysteria, I fantasize about shoving people aside and breaking a window.

Two things stop me. The first is that it’s too crowded to get the leverage to shove anyone. The other is that I don’t have a window-breaking weapon in my purse.

I guess I can always snatch the umbrella that’s still pressed up against my leg. If it’s an umbrella.

If it’s not…

Well, you definitely don’t want to grab a stranger’s penis in a situation like this.

Then again, if it turns out to be a gun and not a penis, I can always shoot my way out.

Then again, if it’s a gun, its owner might shoot me.

The thing is, if it’s a gun, there’s a distinct possibility that any second now, he might go berserk and start shooting. Things like that happen all the time.

Oh, God. I really can’t breathe.

“Jack,” I say in a shrill whisper, “I’m scared.”

“Why? It’s fine. We’re fine.”

See, the thing is, that’s easy for him to say. He doesn’t know about the freak with the gun.

“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.