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“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?
