The Sleeping Beauty Proposal (24 page)

Trey has always just quit drinking.

“And then they ran out of Bud and started talking about going for more. They wanted me to drive over to the packy and get two six-packs, but I said no sir. So Trey got his keys and headed for his truck. That's when I ran around the back and blocked him in with my Saturn. I didn't want him out there driving over mailboxes . . .”

Or people.

“... blowing a point oh eight.”

Point eight oh.

“He got mad, of course.”

“Of course.”

“And bashed in my front end with a tire iron. Next day, he told me it was the best thing I'd ever done. I'd saved his life and kept him out of jail and it was proof I loved him.”

“That is so touching,” I lie, wishing Alice would find a better man. She's too smart for Trey, too good a person. I keep thinking that if she made more money at work, were made an admissions counselor instead of staying as a secretary, for example, she might feel financially secure enough to dump him.

“Later, after he stopped puking in the toilet, he sent me roses. I saved one of the buds and squished it in my
Joy of Cooking
for preservation. It's still there next to 'Cuts of Pork.' ” She collapses in my black-painted Thoreau chair and shoots another glance at the flowers. “Aren't you kind of curious? It'd kill me. I'd have to open it up right away.”

I divert her with the eternal question.“When are you and Trey going to get married?”

She tips back her head and studies the ceiling. “Soon, I hope. You know how Trey has been wanting to marry me for years. He swears he will just as soon as he gets his Mustang out of his exwife's driveway.”

This will end up making sense. I have faith.

“It's not any old Mustang. It's a 1968 Shelby with a 428 Cobra Jet engine. The original muscle car. But if we get married, she'll never give it up. He can't take the chance. It's worth, like, two hundred thousand dollars.”

“Whoa.” I had no idea American cars could be so valuable. “Why doesn't Trey just go get it when she's at work?”

“Jeanine doesn't work. She's on welfare. Though that doesn't keep her from spending her child support when she goes out every night.”

“In the Mustang?”

“Oh, God, no. She doesn't have the key. Only Trey has a key, but he's afraid she'll sabotage the car if he so much as lays a finger on its bumper. Jeanine's very attached to it. She calls it her lifeline since that car's the only thing she has over him, to make sure he keeps up on the support payments.”

Right.Why hadn't I thought of that? Then a superb idea pops into my head. “You could steal it.”

Alice stops staring at the ceiling. “Trey would kill me. So would his ex.”

“Not if you hot-wired it, maybe took it to a friend's garage or hid it in one of those storage places. Then you could show Trey what you'd done and he'd have no excuse not to marry you.”

“It's not an excuse. It's a legitimate reason.”

“Sorry.” Shoot. Alice is so sensitive about Trey. "I didn't mean to call it an excuse.”

Though I did. It amazes me, the “reasons” men come up with to stay single, from Hugh's amorphous marriage-is-an-archaic-construct to Trey's ultimately practical I-need-my-wheels-from-my -old-old-lady line. And yet they lack the guts—or ethics—to tell a woman she'd be better off with some other man. Why should they, when they're getting free HBO, free shelter, free food, and free sex?

Then again, I might have to rethink that. Sex was one reason why Hugh wouldn't stay. Too bad for him. There ain't nothing I don't know about how to give an orgasmic massage, now that I've been reading up.

Alice notes it's past ten and that the meeting has already started so we better get moving. My stomach clenches. I am not at all ready to argue in Hob's defense.

Alice says, “Just read the card before we go.”

“Why?”

“Because.” She picks it off its plastic devil's fork. “It's from the florist the college uses.”

How extremely unsettling.

It could be from Publicity. They're promoting the heck out of
Hopeful, Kansas
and they've been begging me to provide more details about our engagement to include in the latest press release about Hugh.

"After the meeting,” I say, heading for the door.

Alice trots behind. “Okay, but you swear to tell me who it is.”

“Sure.” Though that's ridiculous as Alice already knows who sent the card. Which is why her insistence that I read it is all the more unnerving.

Chapter Nineteen

I cannot remember Connie Robeson ever missing a new student review meeting before. Now I understand why Alice is making such a big deal about her unexpectedly going out of the country and being gone for such a long time. Something is definitely afoot, as they say. Connie never bypasses an opportunity to suck up to Bill.

We all take our seats, the clerks, the IT people, the other admissions counselors, Alice, Kevin the wunderkind assistant director of admissions, and me. I arrange my transcript file, yellow tablet, and pen neatly, preparing myself for a barrage of questions about Hob, when a sparkle of pink catches my eye.

My ring. Spectacularly colorful under the conference room's fluorescent lights.The wise move would be for me to quickly slip my left hand under my tablet before anyone else sees, but I can't resist making it glint and sparkle, twirling the ring from side to side playfully until Bridget, one of our traveling admissions counselors, says, “So there's the famous diamond.Wow.That
is
huge.”

Kevin, who's been chatting with David Smythe, our summer intern, whips around. "Hey. I heard you got engaged. Let me see.”

And before I know it, I'm being peppered with questions about Hugh's television appearance and how come he's not here to celebrate, about when we're getting married,
where
we're getting married, if I'd expected him to propose, how long we had been going out anyway, what finally changed his mind, if we're going to have kids right away, if we're going to buy a house, if Hugh's going to stay here at Thoreau or quit and write and, if so, what I'm going to do, if it's going to be sit-down or buffet reception and where we're going on our honeymoon—the one question, supposedly, that pushes politeness.

It's exhausting. I don't know how real brides-to-be do it.

Felicity Trinkle, a computer clerk, wants to try on the ring, but I won't let her, ostensibly because “I won't part with it for a minute, ” but really because I'm afraid she'll see that the inside of the rhodium-coated brass band is engraved with “Bickman's Jewelers” instead of the initials of its designer.

That's when Felicity says, “You should make sure that ring is covered by Hugh's insurance policy. My sister left her ring on the bathroom sink and forgot about it. Came back five minutes later and it was gone.Their insurance hadn't covered it since she'd been negligent. Now if someone had mugged her . . .”

This opens up a torrent of advice from women in the office who have never before given me the time of day because I was single. It was as if in being single there was no way I could possibly understand the trials and tribulations they endured as put-upon matrons. Now that I'm engaged, however, I have been silently initiated into their secret club.

The matrons urge me to insure not only my ring, but also my entire wedding should “a sudden cancellation arise.” (Considering my circumstances, this is not a bad idea.) Also, speaking of wedding costs, Kevin (who isn't married, mind you) suggests I draw up a wedding budget and not overspend. (He's such a perfect nerd.)

Margery Rothman, one of Admissions' dinosaurs, cautions me against serving white wine at the reception. “People guzzle it like water. It'll bankrupt you.”

Karen Caruso adds that I shouldn't make the mistake she made of stamping NO CHILDREN on the outside of the reply envelopes for her wedding invitations. Her cousin—and mother of five—hasn't spoken to her since.

Nor, apparently, should I have a “standby” guest list to cover the ten to twenty percent (on average) of people who “decline.” I find this horrifying. Do some couples actually do this? And, if so, do they also have a “frequent” guest list and a “first class”?

We are all so abuzz, hashing over weddings do's and don'ts, that we barely notice Bill. He walks in, throws his own files on the desk, and pushes back his coat—Bill language for “enough.” Everyone takes his or her seat as his arresting gaze sweeps the room.

Now is when I hide my hand under the tablet.

“Where's Connie?” He nods to the empty seat at the end of the table.

Yes.Where
is
Connie?

Alice raises her hand slightly. She is petrified of Bill. He's so mean and such a backroom player with his cigars and campus politics, I don't blame her for being scared. He scares me, too.

“England,” she says.

England? Alice never mentioned Connie went to England.

She just said out of the country. What the heck is she doing in England?

Bill cocks an eyebrow, looking for more information.

“She's meeting the parents of her”—Alice shoots me a furtive glance—“boyfriend.”

A boyfriend? In England? Connie? She never mentioned a boyfriend in England. She doesn't even like British men. They're too pasty and white and effeminate. She'd go on and on....

Like magic, the reason for Connie's frequent trashing of Englishmen becomes crystal clear. She doesn't hate British men. She loves them. Oh ... my ... God.

Hugh.

Suddenly, my chest freezes, unable to expand or contract. I feel as if maybe I'm having a heart attack and I grip the table, trying to remember the symptoms. Pulse racing. Chest pain. Arm pain. Heart pain.

“Are you all right?” Kevin whispers in my ear.

Across from me, Alice has the oddest expression. Her eyes have narrowed and she clearly is trying to communicate to me that she knows something I don't. I can't tell if she's laughing or accusing or . . . busting me.

That's it. That's all the confirmation I need.

Connie is in England with Hugh.

My archnemesis across the hall is my ex-boyfriend's mystery fiancée.

"Well, that's too bad,” Bill is saying. His voice seems very, very far away. "Because we have a lot of ground to cover today. Okay, let's start with the incoming student update.”

Margery jumps in with a glowing report about how all her choices managed to maintain their grade point averages since she did such an excellent job of weeding out the fly-by-nights and fakes. Someone's talking about cutoff GPAs and another's bringing up high school rankings, maybe Karen, I don't know. I don't care because I can't focus for the life of me.

I can't think of anything else besides Hugh and Connie, the woman he claimed on national television to love, desire, and worship. And the more I think of them together, the more I think of him longing for
her soft, warm lips,
the more I realize how much sense it makes.

Of course. Connie's been after him for months!

There was that period last year when she started escorting applicants over to the English Department to sit in on Hugh's classes. Then she lost all that weight and got breast implants over Christmas vacation. She really did look like one of those Victoria's Secret models, especially after she let her hair grow and got the highlights.

And let's not forget that warm evening this spring when I was working late and came outside to find Hugh and Connie sitting on the picnic bench waiting for me, her long, bare legs crossed and silky smooth (I remember that).

Well, Connie wasn't waiting for me. She was waiting for Bill, who was taking her to the wine-and-cheese reception over at the dean's house. It doesn't matter. What matters is that she and Hugh were sitting close, very close, and Connie was giggling and tossing her long blond hair and Hugh was leaning back, laughing with her.

Oh! What about that week last April when Connie and I were supposed to hit the road for a Midwest high school evaluation with Bridget? But Connie came down with the flu and stayed home and Hugh told me he'd checked in on her once or twice to make sure she was okay so when Alice asked why Hugh's Saab was parked in Connie's driveway that weekend and . . .

God! I am
such an idiot
! Why didn't I see it before? Connie and Hugh have been carrying on for . . . forever! I'm a walking cliché, the girlfriend who is the last to know. Probably the whole campus has been aware of Hugh's catting around. I bet the entire office has been sniggering behind my back, Margery Rothman and her ilk gossiping about how sad it is that Hugh's such a Lothario while I'm so ... clueless.

Or was I blindly in love? (It's so easy to confuse the two, cluelessness and blind love.)

That explains why Alice kept making such a big deal of Connie being out of the country and how I, of all people, wasn't supposed to know where she was. I am so dense. I kept writing Connie off as a desperate spinster with a library full of books about how to get married after thirty-five when really I should have been on high alert.Those books work.

I'm not with Hugh.
She
is!

Which means—oh, triple crap—that Alice knew all along that Hugh hadn't proposed to me. So Alice also knows the ring is bogus. And the flowers! What does she know about those? I should have read that damn card.

“Genie?”

I look at Alice, who is busy taking notes.

“Genie?”