The Sleeping Beauty Proposal (27 page)

“Captain Moe is not a scum after her hard-earned money,” I say, defensively, having grown rather fond of Captain Moe.“He's a devoted family man, very close to his brothers.”

“Captain Moe,” Todd scoffs, setting the chair in the back of his truck. “It's gotta be bullshit. Sounds like one of the Stooges.”

Close call.

Patty reemerges having done the magical makeup thing she does that makes her eyes sparkle and her lips shine. At the sight of her, Todd straightens up and starts hauling stuff he doesn't have to.

We drive up the street to Peabody, Patty following in her Porsche with Jorge in his cat carrier meowing all the way.Though my condo is only about a quarter mile from my old apartment, I know he's going to have a hard time adjusting. Jorge fears change.

With Nick's help, we set up my antique sleigh bed in the spare, but large, master bedroom while Todd, Nick, and Patty bring in the couch.

Todd, Nick, and Patty bringing in the couch pretty much means Patty holds open the door while Todd and Nick heave and huff in. Now I'm certain my brother's trying to impress her, because he insists on single-handedly hauling more unwieldy furniture: my kitchen table and chairs, an upholstered chair for my living room, and the television and television cabinet.All the while bragging about how strong he is.

“Like to see Captain Moe try this,” he says from underneath the loveseat on his back.

“Can Captain Moe lift a solid oak table with one arm? Well, can he?” he barks, carrying the table into the dining room.

If Todd only knew.

The midsummer sun is setting by the time we finish. Nick and Todd crack open beers and help themselves to a bucket of fried chicken from the KFC in Watertown. Using leftovers from my refrigerator back in the old place, Patty whips up a salad and somehow manages to find another bottle of white wine.

We end up heading to the golf course to catch the Boston skyline and, when it turns dark, for an invigorating, slightly risky game of nighttime golf using balls Todd painted with glow-in-the -dark paint. I keep sneaking glances back at my house—
our
house—its windows glowing warmly. I am going to be very happy here.Very happy.

Finally, Todd and Patty leave, Nick and I waving good-bye from the porch as if we're already a couple. It's not until their cars turn off Peabody that it dawns on me how very comfortable our coupledom is. And how, ironically, that makes me feel all the more awkward.

“Well,” Nick says, folding his arms and leaning against the porch railing. “Here we are.”

“Yes. Here we are. Home sweet home.”

He looks rather sexy with the streetlight on his hair and I can't help thinking what it would be like if we were really a couple. We'd clean up the cups and bottles, chatting about the evening, and then he'd take my hand and say softly, “Ready for bed?”

Or maybe we'd blow off the dishes and instead we'd pour ourselves another cup of coffee and enjoy the summer evening, Nick casually placing his arm around my back while we rocked on the wooden porch swing (note to self: get one of those), occasionally leaning over to kiss my cheek or playfully unbutton my blouse as we discussed whether to spend our vacation at the Cape or save up for a trip to Italy next spring.

“Too bad Hugh couldn't make it,” he says.

Crash!
Back to reality.“It's jet lag.Takes him days to recover,” I say, gathering up the trash, hoping he'll leave it at that.

“Do you expect Hugh to be moving in right off or are you two going to do it the old-fashioned way and wait until after you're married?”

I cannot tell, because his face is shadowed, whether he's grinning. “The old-fashioned way. If you met my mother, you'd know why.”

“I'd like to meet your mother if she's anything like you.”

“She's nothing like me. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.”

Nick takes the empty bottles as I carry the plates inside, our footsteps hollow in the bare rooms. The kitchen suddenly strikes me as depressing with its unfinished counters and cabinets, the bare light fixture hanging from the ceiling. I dump everything in a black garbage bag and want to cry—though I have no idea why.

That's when I feel Nick's arm around my shoulders, warm and consoling.“The kitchen won't always be like this, Genie, I promise. I'll have everything finished by your wedding. Cabinets. Counters. I'll bust a hump so Hugh won't hate it.That's what you're worried about, aren't you? That Hugh will hate it.”

No, I want to say. I'm worried that you'll hate me when you find I've been lying all this time about my engagement, especially after you “busted a hump” to get the kitchen done.

“It's not that,” I lie.“I'm just tired.And filthy.” God. I can smell my shirt from here. “I could really use a shower.”

“You don't have one.You'll have to use mine.”

I must seem shocked because he adds, laughingly, “It's fairly clean. I even have, believe it or not, soap. Come on. I'll show you.”

To get to Nick's apartment, we go through my kitchen and up the back stairs. I'm expecting the standard bachelor pad—La-Z-Boy recliners, a big TV, a computer, beer cans scattered about—and am delightfully surprised to find that while it's no Taj Mahal, his apartment has a refreshing order and warmth to it.

There is a red leather couch and what appears to be a hand-carved coffee table.Two nice accent lamps and a high-backed chair with a reading lamp. Also, a stereo perched on a shelf and artwork scattered about on the walls.

Plus books.Tons and tons of books. Most of them in boxes.

“I haven't had a chance to do any work on this place.” He's actually tidying up for me, snatching a newspaper and balling a pair of dirty socks on the floor.“Gives you an idea what the house was like before Todd and I started the renovations. A 1970s special.”

A woodstove extends from his fireplace and whereas my living room is spacious and open, his has been divided into two. There's worn green wall-to-wall carpeting on the floor that, underneath, is probably oak, like mine, and all the woodwork is brown instead of white.The kitchen, painted a hideous yellow, features a vintage General Electric stove in the retro style of Harvest Gold.

“It's like night and day.” My diplomatic way of calling his kitchen the pits.

“I call it Hell's Kitchen. Not very original and I'm sorry that the bathroom's not that much better.”

The bathroom is above mine, just like his bedroom is above mine. I can't help myself from sneaking a quick peek. Rumpled navy duvet over a queen-size bed with a plain oak headboard. More books.What's with the books?

Nick catches me looking and smiles to himself while I feel my face flush red again. Busted.

“The shampoo's in the corner and the soap's in the bottle. There's a relatively clean towel on the door. Okay?”

“Okay.Thanks.”

“Enjoy yourself. I can't wait to take one next.”

He leaves me in the bathroom, which some unfortunate soul painted a nauseating pinky peach. Nick's toiletries are scattered about—shaver, shaving soap (interesting), deodorant. The basics. Not like Hugh's expensive supply of Kiehl's Eye Alert, N.V. Perricone M.D. Skin Fitness After Shave Prep, and Jack Black Face Buff. And that didn't include his premium stock inside the medicine cabinet.

I shower up, wash my hair, and feel a billion times better. I do not let my mind wander to how many women have been here, how many have studied his use of shaving soap as if it were a clue to the mystery that is Nick. No. I turn off the water, reach for the brown towel hanging on the hook, and find it can barely reach around my body. Great.

“Hey, Nick?” I call, discreetly opening the bathroom door a crack. “Your towel, um, is kind of small.”

He comes down the hallway, his shirt unbuttoned, revealing a relatively smooth chest with almost no hair.“That's all I have. How about I get you something else?”

In a second, he's back with a white T-shirt that barely covers the tops of my thighs. It'll have to do as I inch out of the bathroom, keeping my back to the wall. “Thanks again.”

Nick's sitting on his bed, reading, his legs propped up. “No problem. In the morning, just let yourself in.Todd and I are out by five to get to Hingham.You'll have the place to yourself.”

“I'll remember to bring my own towel.”

“Wise idea. Feel better?”

“I do.”

I'm stalling. I don't want to leave. In fact, I want to sit myself at the end of his bed and pepper him with questions.Why do you read so much? Did you go to college? Why are you a carpenter? How come you're in your midthirties and still single? Who's this Elena person? Why don't you have much of a Greek accent? What do you think about me?
Do
you think about me? What do you want out of life? Because intuition tells me I want the same thing, too, and I think I'm falling in love.

But all I say is, “Good night.”

Chapter Twenty-two

Since my old address is defunct and I refuse to let my mother give out my new one (lest Hugh should find me), wedding gifts are piling up in my office.

White boxes with silver bows and billows of white tissue paper. Plate after plate of heartbreakingly beautiful Chauteaubriand fine china by Bernardaud, the edges etched in gold with cheerful sprigs of pink thistles. Coordinating Waterford stemware with tiny gold bands along the base. Teacups. Saucers. Even creamers and dessert bowls.

And the miracle of it is, I've registered for not one piece. Someone must be signing me up for Reed & Barton, Spode, Orrefors, and Bernardaud in my place. Naturally, my first suspect is Lucy. Only she would have taste this ornate. If it were my mother, it'd be her plain white Wedgwood all the way.

“Here's another one.” Alice kicks open the door. “It's heavy.”

Oh no.

“This is the life, eh?” she says, watching as I untie another silver bow. "Get engaged. Go online and sign up for gifts and bingo, the next you know you're pulling two-hundred-dollar platters off the UPS truck.”

She is referring to a Roman antique gold salmon platter I received—correction, Hugh and I received—last week from Zoe Murray, my mother's college roommate. Alice found the idea of serving smelly fish on a glass platter etched in 14-karat gold to be terrifically ridiculous. Then again, the only fish Alice likes is followed by the word
stick.

“Yowzee!” she exclaims, reading the card as I pull out a heavy cut-glass cake platter. “It's Baccarat. It's from the dean.” Before I can stop her, she is at my computer indulging in her newest hobby: checking the prices of my gifts on the Bloomingdale's registry.

The dean! Oh, man. This is really getting out of hand. How does he know I'm getting married? Please tell me my mother did not send a wedding invitation to the dean, who hardly knows me. I keep reminding her to keep the list to close family and friends. And she keeps “forgetting.”

We are now up to over one hundred and fifty guests. This is not what I had planned at all.

“That cake platter's over a thousand dollars!”Alice pushes back my swivel chair. “A thousand dollars for a cake platter. Can you imagine? What if you left it at the school bake sale?”

“Well, I wouldn't, would I?” I say this calmly though my shaking hand belies my utter horror. A one-thousand-dollar cake platter. Of course, this is to curry favor with Hugh, Thoreau's hottest celebrity.

The card from the dean reads:

It's an adventure, all right. Now I've got the dean to add to my list of apologies. And thank-you notes. I've been writing thank-you notes every night after work while Nick paints trim in the kitchen.

Nick and I've been doing a lot of talking during our painting and note-writing sessions. Mostly he tells stories about his childhood on the island of Leros, which happens to be the home of the goddess Artemis, a fierce feminist, who once sicked dogs on a mortal man because he saw her naked. Somewhat over the top, if you ask me.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the tradition on Leros is for women to pass property down to their daughters instead of the more traditional patriarchal route.To Nick, it is perfectly natural for me, the future wife, to present my future husband with a marital home. I think I might like Leros.

Especially the way he describes it—Grecian blue skies and the turquoise Aegean lapping the white beaches framing the island's scrabbly hills. No wonder the Germans, the Italians, the Crusaders, the Turks, even Homer's Argonauts have all sought to conquer the place.

The good thing about Nick, aside from his being a halfway decent raconteur, is that he's encouraging me to be a self-reliant home owner. For example, when the faucet in the bathroom started dripping, he didn't just change the washer; he showed me how. (It's really easy. Just replace a worn rubber ring with another. Men have gotten so much mileage out of this one stupid act.)

But no amount of self-reliance could help me a few weeks after I moved in and disaster hit.

It was a Saturday night and I was alone, naturally. Patty was off doing her thing and Steve was playing at a club that was way too loud and crowded with teenagers for me to consider visiting. I was in the dining room cutting out French toile curtains for the windows that face Mrs. Ipilito's house and trying not to think about where Nick went on his date.

At least I was pretty sure it was a date. Around six, I heard him leave, taking the steps two at a time. He was whistling and he looked good. Freshly showered with damp hair. Denim shirt over khakis. Definitely date wear. Not that I was spying out my front window or anything.