The Sleeping Beauty Proposal (18 page)

“Genie?”

I stop musing about Nick and look up to find Tracy Gridell naked along with two perfectly formed globes that, in some plastic surgery circles, must pass for mammary glands. These have to be upgrades because Tracy and I went through junior and high school gym class together and though my memory is not the best, I am positive she never sported basketballs instead of breasts.

“Genie Michaels? I haven't seen you since forever. How
are
you?”

I would like to say that I pride myself on being beyond the realm of pettiness, but those breasts are my tipping point. In a moment of impulse I know I will regret later, I hold up my hand and say, “How am I? I'm
engaged,
that's how I am!”

That is so satisfying, that squeal. I hate to admit it.

Tracy practically tears off my hand, inspecting the ring.This is even more nerve-wracking than Kip's review downstairs because with her new plastic anatomy, I bet Tracy is an expert in all things false.

“Oh, my God. It's gorgeous.Who?”

See, now, this is where maybe I should shut up. Though, of course, I don't.

“Hugh. Hugh Spencer. You know”—I actually flutter my eyelids—“the author of
Hopeful, Kansas
? We've been going out for four years so, whew, finally, right? August twentieth. That's the big day.”

Tracy has no idea who a Hugh Spencer is or what or where is
Hopeful, Kansas
. Nor does she care because I've just said something that could affect her life and, as we all recognize, a conversation improves dramatically when it's about ourselves rather than the other person.

“You're getting married in August? Do you have a house yet?”

Just when I'm about to get a handle on this engagement thing, she throws me a curveball. A house. Everyone wants me to buy a house.

“Because I'm a real estate agent now with Hennicker Realty, so if you're looking, give me a call. I can get you a terrific deal even in this seller's market.” Tracy reaches in her gym bag and produces a business card. Sure enough, it says Tracy William-son, Hennicker Realty. She can now write off this month's gym membership.

“Williamson? Did you get married?”

“Already divorced.What a cliché, huh? Get divorced, become a Realtor. Anyway, that's the way the cookie crumbles. Hey, how's Todd?”

Todd. I'd forgotten Tracy had a huge crush on him in high school. “He's okay.”

“Still single?” Tracy drops her towel and slips into a hot pink silk thong. She, too, is bald. In fact, she's smooth and curvy and white all over. I feel like some lice-ridden cavewoman in comparison.

“Uh-huh.” I wrap my own towel more securely as I step into my flowered Fruit of the Loom cotton briefs.Tracy shoots a glance at them, a glance that says volumes.

“He's in home remodeling now,” I say, pretending that I've come to terms with my Fruit of the Looms. “He's been working on a great house by the golf course, on Peabody.”

Slathering on moisturizer,Tracy says, "Not the Victorian two-family with the stained-glass windows.”

“That's it.” Surreptitiously, I bring out my white cotton bra (a meager 36C) and try snapping it in the back.

“But that went on the market yesterday.”

My bra snaps off. “What?”

“If it's the one I'm thinking about. The one with the poplars in the back.The one abutting the golf course, right?”

“That's it.” Could it be for sale so soon? Todd didn't say anything.

“Yup. I swear it popped up on the MLS listed for about five hundred thousand dollars. And, you know, there was a note on it about needing some work. Guess that's the renovation Todd's been doing, huh?”

The notion of yet another dream house once again slipping through my fingers to someone who doesn't appreciate it is maddening. My life is one long stretch on the bench watching other lives go by. Just when will the coach pick me to play?

Hold on. Isn't this the whole point of what I'm doing—to get my butt off the bench and play? Why, yes it is!

"I want to buy it.” I can't believe I just said that.

Tracy slaps her hands on her narrow hips, her uncovered pink nipples pointing at me accusatorily. "Are you serious?”

"I am. Only ...” Oh, man. I wish I knew if my parents were going to give me the money or not. “I'm not sure I can rake up the deposit.”

“A hundred grand is what you'll need. That is, if you're not going balloon—and I definitely recommend in this economy that you not go balloon.”

It's hard to face those breasts and not go balloon.

Retrieving my bra, I say, “It was just a thought. I really love the place, is all.”

“Then you should get your money together and buy it. I can't tell you what a steal it is at this price.” She comes closer, bringing with her clouds of lavender and rose. “I shouldn't be telling you this since Todd's involved, but the rumor is that the woman who owns the house has a boy toy out in California. She hates Boston and wants to be rid of all memories of it and her ex as quick as possible.Which is code for you know what.”

I know what. This means Cecily Blake wants cash and that she might be willing to drop the price if she gets it.Todd said she was running out of money, but a boy toy is better. Much more motivational.

“So, think about it and if you do decide to act, call me. But act fast because this will be gone by Sunday.You can take that to the bank.”

Chapter Thirteen

It is pathetic that this is my first visit, ever, to Victoria's Secret.

Thirtysomething years old, almost forty, and I've never been. Why? Because every time I scrounge up the courage to walk in, there is some guy in a raincoat by the door looking both awkward and kind of, well,
turned on,
as he ogles women picking through the central display of lace-etched thongs. And no, he is not a bouncer. (Although, it's an idea worth considering.)

I keep thinking of all those male fantasies (delusions) or that movie,
St. Elmo's Fire,
where Judd Nelson goes to buy Ally Sheedy some fancy lingerie and he ends up getting
extremely
personal attention from a clerk who has just added a whole new dimension to customer care. I just love male screenwriters and their
absurd
imaginations.

Okay, so the creep by the door is probably a boyfriend or a husband, but how can I be sure? What if he's your garden-variety perv who gets his thrills looking at women picking through underwear? This is why I don't go to Victoria's Secret.

But that was before. Now, with my ring, I visibly belong to some other man and I am not to be messed with. (Hands off, pervert by the door.) As I walk past him, I make a big display of my left hand so that the glints from my fake diamond practically blind him with their supermarital powers. Take that! And that! And that!

After I successfully
kapow
him with cubic zirconia, he doesn't dare stare at me. He has to look away until a dumpy woman approaches, displaying for his approval a long, high-necked nightgown from what must be the “Victorian” end of Victoria's Secret. So ends the male fantasy.

Let's see. Where to start? First I have to figure out what I'm doing here with all these sexually adventurous twentysomethings who think nothing of picking up $60 leopard-print, gel-filledVery Sexy push-up bras. I'm not sure they're getting adequate support with those. They'll live to regret it when they hit middle age and find they've become dependent on the gel.

But I am getting distracted. I must concentrate on the business at hand. My goal is to achieve a complete underwear overhaul, to execute the kind of purge a real bride would undertake in preparation for a sex-filled honeymoon. It's a daunting task, eschewing my high-waisted cottons, and I'm not entirely positive that my body, which is beginning to mount a full-scale protest of this morning's physical activity, can pull off something called a “flutter thong” or a “satin lace-up tanga.”

Oh, what the hell. Why am I sweating this? This is not brain surgery. Soon I am randomly gathering anything in a size 5— thongs, which I will have to resist constantly yanking downward; plunge bras; “keyhole panties” (whatever they are); and a couple of baby-dolls.

Surveying my basket filled with feather-light pink, purple, black, and emerald green lingerie, I swell in new sensuality. Yes, this has been my destiny, a secret life as a sexual ingénue, one denied me by Nancy Michaels's upbringing. From this day forward, I will be Genie with the hard body and purple lace-up, keyhole panties. (Doesn't sound like much coverage, does it?) I may even shave places heretofore declared unshavable.

Though no daisies. Or holiday bells, either.

As I saunter to the counter, I try to keep in mind that, naturally, this transformation will not take place overnight. But if I work out every day and smooth my skin with baby oil, perhaps darken it with some spray-on tan, by August 20 I bet I'll look like ... no. Not her.

Karolina Kurkova is pouting at me from a display above the register, her thighs so hard you could bend steel on them.

Okay, so maybe it might take a bit longer than a couple of months. Still, I'll get there, I really will.

And won't that be rich when Hugh returns from England to start the new semester with his new fiancée and he bumps into me on campus, barely recognizing my highlighted hair, my taut triceps, and my sculpted figure.

He'll have to ask himself who is this beautiful, sexy woman with the keyhole panty? Could this be the warm-hearted Genie Michaels whom I
sponged off
for four years while I wrote my bestselling sap fest? No, this couldn't be the woman who never turned me on, because this vision of sexuality could turn granite on.

“My God, what a mistake I've made!” he'll cry, as he runs at breakneck speed to break up with said fiancée, who will plead and beg but who, upon seeing the New Me, will have to admit I am too fabulous for any mortal man to resist.

Eventually, he'll win me back with a real diamond and a fervent pledge to spend every day of his life making up for the hurt he inflicted. And we really will be married. In a church, not the backyard. Maybe even in England like my mother wants. There will be six bridesmaids and shower gifts I won't have to return or donate to charity.And best of all, Hugh will be so madly in love with me he'll never think of looking at another woman and will spend all his free time berating himself for having strayed in the first place.

“That'll be one hundred sixty-five dollars,” the girl at the register says.

One hundred and sixty-five dollars. Yes. There'd better be an English countryside wedding for that kind of money. I pull out my Visa and, with a slightly tremulous hand, submit it.

In a weak attempt to distract me from this astronomical bill, she observes, “That's a beautiful ring. Engagement?”

“It is!” With each lie, I grow more comfortable exclaiming this. “Getting married August twentieth.”

“No way! Me, too.” She thrusts out her hand, on which sits a smaller diamond, though one that probably cost more than $24.95. “I can't believe it's the same day.What a coincidence.”

Patty claims there's no such thing as coincidence; everything is destined by God, I think.

“Where's your ceremony going to be?” Hoping, praying, that it will be at All Saints Episcopal Church and I'm off the hook as far as a church wedding is concerned.

“St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. My boyfriend's from Cyprus.”

Patty would call this a sign from God. But do I see it?

No.

My divine insight has been obscured by the dazzling temptations of the Great Whore of Babylon. Also known as the Victoria's Secret 30 Percent Off Table.

Next stop after Victoria's Secret is the porn section of Barnes & Noble.

Yes, yes, I know there's not really a porn section since very few books on erotica have actual pictures. Those you're supposed to invent in your mind.That's what makes them literature.

Actually, erotica is not where I want to be.That's not going to help me become a more sexually skilled woman.What I need is a manual of some sort, a book that tells me what to do and how to do it with easy-to-follow instructions. Otherwise, I'm afraid I'm doomed to a life of sexual sluggery.

Look. I have all the underwear. Not much point in spending one hundred and sixty-five dollars on flutter thongs if I'm just going to lie there on the bed, arms frozen to my sides in sexual paralysis. No! I need to take action. Practice with bananas and all that.

Normally, I'm a bit shy about lingering in the Sexuality section. You never know whom you're going to meet and then, of course, there's the issue of appearing to be a failure.
What's so wrong with her that she has to consult a book?
is what I fear people are asking themselves as they walk by to Gardening or Home Improvement or other perfectly normal sections.

My answer to that is
Hello, have you met my parents, Don and Nancy Michaels?
Todd once told me that in his estimation our parents have had sex exactly four times: on their wedding night; on the night they conceived him; and then, a prudent fifteen months later so Todd and I would be born exactly two years apart, on the night they conceived me; and lastly, after the Schiffmans' Halloween party where they got drunk (no surprise there!) and conceived Lucy. Lucy “our spooky accident,” my father calls her. Also, “our freaky mistake.”

The point is that I did not grow up in a family where physical affection was often displayed.There was my father's good-bye kiss to my mother each morning and their Christmas smooches under the mistletoe (my father wearing the most gawdawful bright green plaid pants). But that was pretty much it as far as displays of hot, unbridled passion were concerned.