The Sleeping Beauty Proposal (21 page)

“Does Todd know?”

“I don't know. Why?” What would Todd care if Patty got married?

The wrinkles from my mother's forehead have instantly disappeared. The heart attack is gone. She is back to being in the bloom of health. “Yes, that
does
make me feel better, as a matter of fact.” And with that she takes out a pencil and erases the line over my best friend's name. "She's not so bad, really.”

"Really?”

"She's very bright and hardworking, objectively. Almost principled, in a kind of honorable Don Corleone kind of way, wouldn't you say?”

To my mother, all Italians must subscribe to the code of the underworld as outlined in
The Godfather
parts I through III
.
“Your words. Not mine.Where's Dad?”

“In the den.Wimbledon is on.”

Forget it. The timing is too lousy. Wimbledon is once a year and Dad does not want to be disturbed for one minute of it. I'll come back later.

My inner voice is right. It is now or never. “Mom,” I say, marching to the den. “I need to ask you and Dad a big favor. I hope it won't be too much of a burden.”

She trots after me asking all sorts of questions, most of which have to do with the wedding. “Do you need to change the date? Expand the guest list? If you don't want to invite Aunt Elda, I completely understand.That woman is so unpredictable.”

Dad is half asleep, his mouth open as women's tennis plays on the screen in front of him. “Oh, good,” Mom says. “It's the Russian. He can't stand her.”

I turn off the TV and Dad jolts to attention. "Hey. I was watching that!”

“Sorry, Dad, but this is important.” Pulling up the leather hassock, I sit at his feet—the significance of my supplication not lost on either of us. “Look. I don't know where to begin, so I'll come right out and say it. I want to buy a house and the twenty thousand dollars I have saved is not enough. Could you please help me?”

Mom sucks in a sharp breath. Dad sits up and rubs his face to rouse himself awake. Then he grips and ungrips the armrests before asking me where I suddenly got this urge to buy a house.

“It's the house Todd's been working on in Watertown, the two-family by the golf course. It's a fantastic investment, ask him. The neighborhood is stable. It's on a dead-end street in a pretty good school district. Practicalities aside, I absolutely love it and if I don't make an offer by tomorrow it'll be gone.”

Dad glances up at Mom, who is biting her tongue, I can tell.

“You've talked this over with Hugh, I suppose,” he says.

Okay. This is the hard part. I don't mind lying about being engaged to prove a point, but I'm pretty sure lying to get three hundred thousand dollars is a felony.

“No. Hugh has no idea.”

Mom exhales the breath she'd been holding. “Then why are you asking us? You're jumping the gun here, Genie.You're almost a married couple.You can't go around making unilateral decisions as if you were still a single woman.”

There's something about the word
unilateral
that sets me off. Maybe it's from all those stupid diplomacy courses I took in college when I thought, wrongly, that I wanted to major in international relations and work in the State Department.
Unilateral
sounds so one-sided. So selfish.

“My decision's not unilateral, Mom. It's smart.”

“Say, Nance,” Dad says. “Would you mind getting me a Coke with ice? I'm dying of thirst.”

This, of course, is code for
Scram, Nancy.
Mom presses her lips together, shakes her head in disapproval, and stomps off to the kitchen.

When she's safely out of earshot, he says, “Why haven't you talked to Hugh about this?”

“I haven't been able to reach him. He's all over Europe.”

“Even in this day and age of communication?”

I pat his knee. “It's Hugh we're talking about, Dad. He can't even work a landline. Besides, what does it matter? You helped Lucy buy a house. I know that doesn't automatically mean I deserve the same, but . . .”

“You deserve the same. Better, in my opinion. My only concern is what happens if you buy the place without consulting Hugh and he hits the roof?”

“Hits the roof” is one of my father's favorite expressions.

“Let me ask you something,” I posit, curious. “What if I were single again and I wanted to buy a house.Would you give me the same amount of money you gave Lucy? I mean, not adjusting for inflation.”

Dad grins at my inflation line. He knows I'm clueless when it comes to economics. “And you weren't getting married?”

“Hence my use of the word
single.
”

"Then . . . no.”

“Why not?” Though I expected this answer, a part of me secretly wished my father had enough respect for me not to say it to my face.

“Because what's the point? A single girl doesn't need a house. Houses are for families. They're places to raise kids. All a single girl needs is an apartment, a reliable car, and a closet full of new clothes.”

My left hand balls into a fist. I must keep my cool if I want to win this battle. I cannot bicker about his erroneous use of
girl
for
woman
or his thoroughly insulting statement that houses are for families only.

I need to remember that he's not cruel, he's not intentionally sexist. He's my father who loves me and he is simply ignorant.

“But, if I were getting married—as I am—you would have no problem giving me how much?”

“Well,” he says, pondering his slippered feet. “We gave Jason and Lucy three hundred thousand dollars so they could keep the monthly payments low.What's Todd's house going for?”

“A half a million and Cecily, the owner, wants cash.”

Dad emits a knowing banker snort. “Good luck. Real estate is an industry that thrives on debt, a system the IRS very much encourages.”

Oh, no. Here it comes.The banker lecture number 47.

“It's the biggest federal subsidy, you know. Mortgages.”

“Yes, Dad, I know.You've told me this a gazillion times.”

“So you should know your Cecily is blowing smoke. No way someone's going to show up with a pocket of cash to buy that place.”

Actually, he's made me feel much better. It's a relief to realize I won't be bidding against doctors and lawyers and drug dealers with Franklins falling out of their pockets.

Mom is back with the Coke. I'm amazed she went through the trouble of pouring it since Dad immediately puts it on the side table without so much as a sip.

“Well?” she asks. “Have you reached a decision?”

Dad gives her a newsy update. “Genie can't reach Hugh because he's in Europe and she's worried the house Todd's been working on will get snapped up over the weekend if she doesn't act fast. I think we should give her and Hugh the up-front money, at least.”

Up-front money? What's that?

“I can't hide my disappointment, Eugenia,” Mom says. “Your father and I planned on doing for you and Hugh what we did for Lucy and Jason. Only, we were waiting until Hugh returned. We were going to have a little party and surprise the two of you with our offer to help you buy a house and now it's all been ruined.”

“No it hasn't, Mom,” I say, getting up and hugging her, barely able to hide the happiness that's mixed with my frustration. “It's better this way.”

“You mean without the party?”

"Actually,” I say, "without Hugh.”

Mom says, “You mean without Hugh here.”

“Right.”

It turns out that the “up-front money” my father has in mind is enough to put the house under contract, not enough to satisfy Cecily's whims. Though I'm grateful for his extremely generous offer—no matter how ticked I am that I had to pretend to be engaged to get it—I must recognize defeat.

There is no way I'll get the house. In this market, there'll be enough eager buyers who can gather the necessary cash so Cecily doesn't have to wait a month.

It's over.

This is the message I leave on Nick's machine, being mindful that Cecily might be in the room when he plays it.Then I hang up and survey my tiny apartment with its one-windowed kitchen, its makeshift living room barely big enough for a couch, and sit down to cry, Jorge staring up at me, bored. I don't even bother to answer the phone when it rings. I'm simply too depressed.

“Pick up!” Patty screams from the answering machine.“I know you're there, Sister Eugenia.”

I pick up the phone and carry it to the kitchen, cupping it on my shoulder as I search the freezer for something inspiring. “Where are you?”

“At McGillicuddy's. Your buddy Steve's playing and Todd's here doing his award-winning rendition of ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues.' ”

“Don't let him get away with that,” I say, choosing a Lean Cuisine orange chicken. “He didn't take home first place. He got honorable mention for artistic cue cards.”

“He's still got 'em! They're awesome.Why don't you join us?”

I peel back a corner of the plastic. “I can't. I'm too blue. I just found out tonight that Cecily's put the house on the market and she wants cash. A Realtor I ran into figures it'll be gone by Sunday night.”

There's murmuring in the background, Todd asking whether I'm coming and Patty explaining my house-induced depression.

“So forget the house,” Patty says, getting back on. “All the more reason you should come out with us. It's Saturday night. It's summer. Everyone is roaming the streets. Even White Bob.”

White Bob is the nickname we've given to a student street musician who, aside from being white and probably from Kingston, Ohio, instead of Kingston, Jamaica, operates under the painful delusion that he's the reincarnation of Bob Marley.

“No, really. I think I'll just take a shower, turn on the air-conditioning, and go to bed.”

“We'll get you drunk on Cap'n and Cokes!”As if that is somehow enticing.

“I don't want to get drunk on Cap'n and Cokes. I want to buy the adorable Victorian on Peabody.”

“I give up.Talk to Todd.”

Todd gets on.“Let the house go, Genie. I've been in real estate long enough to know if it's meant to be, you'll get it. Otherwise, forget it.”

My microwave beeps and I give the still-cold chicken a turn. “Todd, that's how I've been living my life, going with the flow. I'm tired of it. I need to act. I need to do something. Take risks, like you said.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, I gotta quickly ask you something while Pugliese's out of earshot. Is she really marrying this guy?”

“I don't know. I guess.” Patty has not brought me up to speed on how far she's gone with this engagement story of hers.

“What bothers me is his name. It sounds so bogus. Moe Howard.”

I stop stirring the chicken. Oh, Lord. Don't tell me she went with that one.That was her old standby when we were in college, the imaginary boyfriend for when she didn't want to get picked up. “Is this Captain Moe Howard of the U.S. Navy we're talking about?”

“Have you met him? Because this is the first I've heard of the guy and suddenly she's engaged.”

“Oh, yeah.Those two have been dating for years. His brother Curly's a laugh riot. Put Patty on.”

Patty gets on. “Back from the bar, me and my Cap'n.”

“That's not the only captain in your life, I gather. Honestly, Patty.What were you thinking?”

“It slipped out. Force of habit or whatever. Anyway, can I help it if I'm a sucker for men in uniforms?”

“Claiming Captain Moe Howard as your boyfriend may have been moderately amusing when you wanted to put down obnoxious fraternity brothers in college. But it's not going to fly at your firm. Pretty soon someone's going to remember the Three Stooges.”

There's a slurp and a crunch of ice.“First of all, you don't have to use
obnoxious
as the modifier of
fraternity brothers.
It's redundant. Second, I seem to have convinced Todd and he's not dumb.”

“Yes, he is.”

“No, he's not. He's smart. Really smart. And I'm not just saying that 'cause he's buying. I think he finally appreciates me, now that I'm the object of another man's infection, as they say.”

Albeit an imaginary man. “What about Nick?” I ask, testing the waters.

“What about Nick? He's a client, nothing more. You know I never step over the line of attorney-client relationships. Geesh, Genie. I may be a slut, but not in the workplace. Only at Whole Foods.”

Actually, if memory serves, there's no place, work or otherwise, Patty
hasn't
been a slut. But I'm not going to debate the point. I'm just tremendously relieved that she and my brother seem to have finally found common ground. It's a miracle.

A miracle that gives me hope. If Patty and Todd can get along, then maybe it's not so impossible to think that I might be able to buy the Peabody Road house after all.

Hey.You never know.

Chapter Sixteen

My miracle doesn't take long.

The next morning, as I'm leaving to go to the gym, I find Patty's yellow Porsche parked in front of my house, Patty asleep at the wheel. She is in her clothes from the night before. A white halter dress with a big Coke stain right on the front.

Classy.

“Are you okay?” I shout.