The Sleeping Beauty Proposal (33 page)

Could it be that Hugh is such a whore for publicity that he'd lie about an engagement announcement, just to be featured in the
New York Times
?

To prove she's really spoken to him, Christy rattles off his office number at Thoreau and his home number, his mother's maiden name, the age of their dog, Winston, when he died and sparked Hugh's literary career (don't ask). Even the name of his nanny, the one who took him to the train station when he was six to attend St. Bart's School for Neglected Boys.

Yup.That's Hugh all right.

"Christy,” I ask, working hard to keep my voice level.“Do you happen to be familiar with the current circulation numbers of the Sunday
New York Times
?”

“It fluctuates, but the last reported figure I heard was one point six million.”

Swooning with light-headedness, I lean against the dressing room wall for support. How can I lie to 1.6 million people that Hugh and I are getting married? How could Hugh lie, too, even if it would again boost book sales?

“I'll have to call you back, Christy. Something's come up.”

Unfortunately for the new sundress I'm wearing, it happens to be my lunch.

Hugh is nowhere to be found. He has simply disappeared.

I try his apartment in Somerville, his office, Thoreau's library, and even Harvard's libraries (where he prefers to write on his laptop, the pretentious snot). Nothing.

This is not what I need right now, for Hugh to suddenly be telling the world that we're engaged when we're not.

I mean, it's hardly okay if
I
do it and I was the
dumpee,
whereas he was the
dumper.
Alms to the rejected and all that. I'm sure Emily Post would back me up on this.

Bogus engagement protocol aside, I can't for the life of me comprehend what he's up to. Then again, what am I thinking? It's the
New York Times.
Only an idiot author with no marketing savvy whatsoever would turn down an opportunity to appear in an exclusive
Times
feature about his wedding. Especially when this author is supposed to be melting the hearts of female readers everywhere.

I can't imagine that such a public announcement would sit well with Hugh's fiancée, whoever she is. I was too busy being pissed to ask him during our last confrontation, and Bill has allowed me no time to snoop during office hours.

Bill wasn't exaggerating when he told Hugh he was a taskmaster. My cluttered new office with its unpacked boxes of books and files are hallmarks of my current slavery. I haven't been able to so much as slap my name plaque on my desk or hang my Thoreau painting or even put up curtains so that every evening the campus can't see me working long after everyone else has left.

And tonight is no exception.

It is after seven and I'm still at my desk checking the incoming class spreadsheet while compiling a report for the dean, when I hear a strange sound and look up to find Connie looming over me like a vulture. It's true. She is the spitting image of a vulture.

Thanks to her botched nose job, her one eye is slightly lower than the other and her ears aren't quite right. She's definitely scary.

“I need to speak with you,” she says icily. "It's important.”

Okay, this could be bad. Connie has never forgiven me for snaring Kevin's job even though I had nothing to do with the hiring decision. I've tried telling her that, but she won't listen. She won't even say hello or acknowledge me in the women's room.

“I'm all ears,” I say, cheerily.

Slapping her professionally manicured hand on my desk, she declares, “You're not marrying Hugh Spencer. You never were marrying Hugh Spencer. You have been scamming everyone— including Bill—in a conniving move to get the job I deserve. And I'm going to see to it that you're fired.”

Well, that was certainly succinct and to the point, I have to give her that. Tossing my pencil, I lean back in my fancy new all-leather swivel chair and call her bluff.

“Connie, I don't know what the hell you're talking about.”

“Of course you do.” She opens a manila file (Connie's mad for manila files) and pulls out a sheet of paper on which is stamped the familiar Thoreau seal. “I wouldn't have gone snooping around if you hadn't barged into my office ranting that Hugh had dumped you, that he wasn't sexually attracted to you.”

“Did I say that?”

“Don't deny it,” she says, waving the memo about. “You did. And even if you do deny it, I have evidence that you two never were engaged.”

It is at this moment that my knees actually knock under the protective cover of my desk. Until now, I secretly doubted the knocking-knee phenomenon. Not anymore. My knees really are knocking and for good reason. Connie does not issue idle threats. If she says she has proof, she does.And if she promises to go to Bill and out me, she will. Connie really, really wants this corner office.

Nor is she pleased that when Bill asked who I'd recommend to replace me upstairs, I heartily encouraged him to pick Alice. Alice is smart and intuitive. Plus, she's been working in Admissions so long, she can sort the wheat from the chaff with one glance. Rumor has it that Connie threatened to quit if Bill promoted Alice to admissions officer, which, last week, he did.

Still clutching that Thoreau memo, she says, “At first I passed off your ramblings as the typical Genie Michaels babble. But the more I thought about it, the more I began to wonder, especially after Alice told me Hugh never calls to talk to you. Never.”

“That's because he has my cell.”

“And he's only been by the office once.”

True, true. She had me there.

“So I took Donna Mandretti out to lunch and we had a very interesting conversation.”

Oh, no. Not Mandretti the Mouth, the blabbing secretary of the English Department with sodium pentothal running through her veins.

“It was Donna who told me you and Hugh broke up, and that the rumor was he'd been seeing another woman for months.”

I sit up, now attentive. “No kidding. Who?” Wrong response. “I mean,
who
could believe a ridiculous rumor like that?”

Connie gives me a withering smile. “You are so pathetic, Genie. Here Hugh has already moved on to another woman while you cling to the desperate fantasy that he'll eventually marry you. God.You're so
Fatal Attraction.
”

Fatal Attraction.
Man, I hate that stupid movie.Who lives in an all-white cinder-block apartment anyway? I swear. No other film has done more to slam single women in their thirties than that misogynistic hour and a half of Glenn Close with a bad perm. Married women = good. Single women = bad. Thanks, Hollywood, very insightful.

Connie's threats and memories of bunny boiling are quickly exhausting me.

"All right, Connie,” I say, logging out of my computer. “What do you want?”

She squares her shoulders triumphantly. “Not much. Quit your job. Tell Bill that you want to go back to being an ordinary admissions counselor. Do that and our secret will remain our secret. Don't do it and I'll tell Bill everything.”

I slap the spreadsheet closed. “You got yourself a deal there, honeybunch.”

“You mean you'll quit?”

“No. I mean I'll take my chances with Bill.” I reach down under my desk and fetch my purse.“In other words, you'll have to kill me to get this job.”

Connie flutters her evidence hysterically. “But you haven't read what I've got here.This is indisputable proof that you've been lying and falsifying your personal information. Bill will fire you on the spot when he reads this. He might even blackball you so you'll never be able to work for another university again.”

“And if so, you should know that the memo comparing incoming minority students to last year's total applicant pool plus an analysis of how we could improve acceptance rates for inner-city kids with SAT scores over two thousand was due on the dean's desk yesterday, so you might want to work on that now.”

With that, I turn off the light and close the door, leaving Connie in the office she so desperately desires.

Chapter Twenty-nine

I expected that after her dramatic presentation, Connie would have been perched outside Bill's office the next morning, her file folder in hand. But she wasn't. She spent the entire day holed up in her office and came downstairs only to go to lunch or fax something or pester Alice to make copies.

The next day it was the same routine. And the day after that. And the day after that.

It was really annoying. Let's get on with it, already.

All week, I checked my mailbox for an official notification from the dean that I was both
terminated
and
blackballed
for lying about being engaged. Every afternoon I steeled myself for the eventuality of coming back from lunch to find my office locked and some thug from Thoreau's security standing guard.

I imagined Alice shaking her head in disappointment. Bill cursing me in the three languages he speaks fluently. Throngs of campus personnel with torches chasing me off school property.

Yet every morning was the same. Coffee on the burner. Faxes in the fax machine. Sherry the new secretary (Alice's replacement) and Brandon discussing the weekend to come or the weekend that had just passed. Brandon pretending to fix the copy machine as he held forth on the best campsites in Maine or where you could buy a good used RV and how to grill a lobster.

Meanwhile, I was left hanging and wondering what Connie was waiting for. She had her “indisputable proof.” She had the goods to get my job. Not only that, but Bill was headed to Martha's Vineyard for his summer vacation. She had better act fast or she was going to blow this opportunity.

Connie wasn't my only problem.There was also Nick.

Craftily, we managed to avoid each other all week. Nick left for work every morning before dawn, while I closed down the office every night so I could be assured Nick's light would be off when I got home. I did my laundry Saturday morning; Nick did his on Saturday afternoon.We even took care to haul our trash to the curb at different hours, lest we accidentally brush shoulders over the recyclables and dissolve into a heap of steamy sex.

I couldn't wait until Patty's shower was over on Saturday night so I could tell Nick the truth. I kept holding on to his promise that he would wait. I envisioned confessing everything, Nick accepting me, forgiving me, and, finally, us beginning a wonderful life together.

But the universe has a funny way of twisting fate. Some might call it cruel.

“I met Hugh.”

It is the first complete sentence Nick has spoken to me since our tryst in the bathroom, and I don't know what to make of it. We are on my porch and it is Saturday afternoon, hours away from Patty's shower. Nick has his sleeves pushed up and is looking off to the thunderhead across the golf course, as if his heart is already elsewhere.

“What do you mean, you met Hugh?”

“He stopped by this afternoon, to check out the house. Took him long enough.”

While I was at the dry cleaner's picking up my dress for the party, dammit. That was Murphy and his law for you.

Throwing the dress over the edge of the railing, I collapse into an Adirondack chair, my whole body now suddenly weak and achy, anticipating the worst.

Surely, Hugh told Nick the truth, that he and I were not getting married.Then again, there was that odd experience with the
New York Times.
These days, I have no idea what Hugh is capable of. He's toying with me, I think, like a mouse.

“What did he say?”

“He said he loves the house.” Nick turns and folds his strong arms, laced with veins. “He loves the cabinets. The ceilings. The bookcases.The location . . . he can't wait to move in.”

"But . . .” Move in? What is going on with this man? Hugh can't move in. Shoot, the last I knew he thought I was marrying Bill. “He's not . . .”

Nick cuts me off, an unfamiliar edge to his voice. “Don't bother explaining, Genie. I think I made my feelings pretty clear the other day. I thought you had, too . . . in that kiss.”

In that kiss. He's right. So clear.

“Then again, like the song goes, maybe a kiss is just a kiss.”

Now he's quoting
Casablanca.
He's torturing me. “It wasn't just a kiss.” I can't bear to make eye contact with him so I kick a strip of peeling paint on the porch instead. “It was more. Much more.”

“What you're really saying is it could have been more, if you weren't getting married. A last fling before settling down to wedded bliss.”

What does
that
mean, I think, watching him pass by me and down the stairs.

"Nick, hold on . . .” Rushing to the railing, I blurt, “I made it up. I was never engaged to Hugh. What happened was, he proposed to someone else on national television and left me with the job of explaining to everyone that actually he dumped me. So I lied and said he really did propose and then things kind of got out of hand and, oh, God, I can tell you don't believe me and even if you do believe me, you probably think I'm nuts.”

I'm crying, sobbing, actually, but Nick doesn't seem to care. He is standing on our front walk, hands in his pockets, with a puzzled expression. He's regarding me like I'm crazy, which makes perfect sense as right now I
feel
crazy.

“I'll rent out my apartment to Adrien. I'll be out of here by Monday.”

And then he's gone.

Chapter Thirty

Patty, the big spender, has sent a limousine to pick me up and take me to Rowes Wharf, the fabulously swanky site of her fabulously swanky shower. While incredibly extravagant, the limo is also really thoughtful since I have no desire to wear my brand-new Ann Taylor übersexy Sophia silk dress with the spaghetti straps and plunging neckline while sitting on wet gum on the Green Line to Government Center.