The Sleeping Beauty Proposal (37 page)

Most important, I was loved.Truly and passionately loved by a man I, in turn, loved back. And not just any man, Nick.

One golden fall evening, Nick and I are walking hand in hand up to the golf course. The oaks and maples that line the country club are turning red and yellow, losing their leaves, and there is a definite change of seasons in the brisk air. I button up my sweater and let Nick hold me and keep me warm as we watch the Boston skyline fade into the twilight.

I never imagined life could be so perfect.

“That's it. Summer's over,” Nick says, pulling me to him.

"It was a great summer. Hot. Busy. But great.”

Nick smiles. “Hot and busy.You got that right.”

I give him a playful poke in the ribs and, in so doing, notice something glittering in the grass. It can't be.

"My ring!” I shout, bending down to pick it up. “My twenty-four ninety-five cubic zirconia from Bickman's. It's still perfect.”

“Ah, yes. How could I forget? I was there the day you picked it out, remember?”

This is impossible. “How did it get here? I lost it months ago. It never could have survived the golf carts and the mowing.At the very least, it should be mangled and ruined.”

“Maybe you should keep it then. It might be another sign.” Nick's eyes are twinkling. He's up to something.

I think about this, holding the ring up to study how the stone so perfectly catches the evening's last light, shooting off brilliant rays of pink and yellow. Not bad for a cubic zirconia. Not bad at all.

“You know what?” I say, keeping my voice bright so Nick won't know I'm about to cry. “I don't think I will keep this ring.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because I don't need it. For years, I thought I did, that I wouldn't find happiness and fulfillment without a diamond ring, even a fake diamond ring, on my left hand. But I was wrong. I already had what I needed to be happy.”

And with this declaration of independence, I toss the ring as hard as I can toward the city skyline.

Nick throws up his arms. “Genie! I can't believe you did that!”

"It wasn't so hard, actually. Very liberating.” I slap my hips. “Aren't you proud of me?”

But he's not proud. He's in shock. I can tell because his lower jaw is open and his hands are on his head and now he's dashing across the golf course.

“That was real!” he's shouting.

“Real?” I say, laughing. “It wasn't real. That ring cost twenty-four ninety-five!”

"No, it didn't. It was . . .” He is down on the green, searching. “It was supposed to be for you. I made it myself.”

“Platinum?”

"Yes,” Nick says sadly.

"Diamond?”

“Two carats.”

“And you made it yourself?”

Finally, out of the darkness, Nick says, “It's gone.”

I try to be encouraging. “Maybe we can find it in the morning.”

“And if we do,” he asks slowly, “will you wear it?”

After I'm silent for a while, I say, “It's lovely. Why wouldn't I?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No.What do you mean?”

“Now I'm afraid to ask. After seeing what you did with the ring, I'm worried you'll do the same to me.”

“Life's all about risks, Nick. I might toss you across the golf course. I might not.You're never going to get what you want unless you ask.”

He lets out a deep breath. "Would you like to get married?”

“Someday.”

“I mean to me.”

“To you? Hmmm. Let me think about that. Well, any man who doesn't get mad when his bride-to-be throws away his handmade platinum-and-diamond ring is bound to be the best husband ever, wouldn't you say?”

"So . . . your answer is yes?”

I take his hand and tuck my answer into his palm.

“I never threw your ring away. I never would,” I murmur, as Nick gently slides his ring on my finger. “After all I've been through, I think I finally know how to spot the real thing, even if it's taken me a while.”

Like they say, good things come to those who wait.

But, if you ask me, better things come to women who don't.

Acknowledgments

It was while catching up with high school friends at a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, book signing that I came up with the idea for
The Sleeping Beauty Proposal.
A very pretty, very popular classmate of mine confessed that while she had enjoyed great success forming her small business, was blessed with many friends and close ties to her family, she felt, at age forty, something, as if she'd missed out on life by not getting married. I found this so sad.

I ran her tale of woe past my best friend since age four, Lisa, also unmarried, who told me that this was a bunch of hooey. Sure, there were disadvantages to not being married, but that didn't mean her life was incomplete. Her only regret, she said, was not being able to pay back all those brides (including me) who made her dress up in ridiculous bridesmaid's dresses. Also, not raking in the loot from showers.

Hence, the idea for the book. I've always felt that our tradition of not supplying women with the necessary kitchen gadgets, cutlery, dinnerware, etc., was outdated anyway.What's a girl supposed to do? Live on paper plates until she becomes some man's wife? No! Of course not.

To this end, we've started a “Sleeping Beauty Proposal” support group that's accessible through my
Web site—sarahstrohmeyer.com
. Here you can find fun tips, stories, and pictures of how to throw a “Welcome to Real Life” shower for your unmarried friend, sister, or daughter. (Or maybe yourself!) Please don't make her wait to get engaged. She needs that Cuisinart, recipe, and fabulous, glamorous party now.

Along with Lisa, I have to thank Anne Garbush, Debby Mundy, and Kathy Sweeney for their inspiring stories and words. Nor could I have survived without the moral support from my fabulous sisters and fellow authors on our blog, “The Lipstick Chronicles”: Harley Jane Kozak, Michele Martinez, Elaine Viets, Rebecca the Bookseller, Margie (oh, Margie!), and Nancy Martin, who, as always, steered, advised, encouraged, and consoled me. I hope you'll check out her savvy and smart Blackbird Sisters Mysteries. They are a hoot.

My agent, Heather Schroder at ICM, pushed me to make this book as funny and real as it could be, and my editor at Dutton, Julie Doughty, was patient and thoughtful and so insightful in her editorial comments.Thanks also to Trena Keating for contributing valuable input, and to Brian Tart, the most supportive publisher ever. I'm really very lucky.

Finally, my family put up with all my late hours, grumpy moods, and cold dinners as I rewrote and rewrote. For that I owe them my undying gratitude. Thank you so much, Charlie, Anna, and Sam—especially Anna, who, as a devoted reader of women's fiction, provided superb critiques of my rough drafts.

And thank
you
for reading
The Sleeping Beauty Proposal.
Please stop by my Web site and let me know what you thought of it. I love to hear from readers.

An irresistibly delicious novel about the power
of love, dessert, and the unbreakable bond
between mothers and daughters

—HAMLET, ACT IV, SCENE 5

Ah, the magic of an authentic chocolate-chip cannolo made fresh in Boston's Italian North End.

Creamy sweet white ricotta center, crisply fried outside shell— not too thick, not too thin, never stale—the seductive—nay, decadent—contribution of chocolate chips and a light dusting of powdered sugar to sweeten the lips.

This is what brings three generations of my family together for Mother's Day. Cannoli.

At Mike's Pastry, my mother, my teenage daughter, and I gather around our tiny round white table and dig in like pigs, inhaling the aroma of fresh cappuccino around us and savoring each crunch, every sweet creamy mouthful. We are oblivious to the crowds of Sunday churchgoers who have forgotten their solemn prayers not to be led into temptation as they push their way to the front of the line and curse the cutters. Everyone's shouting like dockworkers in this crazy place, but not us.

We are silent in appreciation.

My father says the only way to muzzle a Mueller woman is to feed her.Very funny. Like he has room to talk. He's a man, and what bonding experiences do men have? Football and hunting.Watching intellectually challenged mutants head-butt each other back and forth down a field or pumping defenseless woodland creatures with shot. Really, it's sad. No wonder that when it comes to making friends, men are as clueless as cavemen with cell phones.

“The floor is moving,” says Em, my daughter, as she pushes away what's left of her cannolo and closes her eyes. “I might be drunk.”

Like her grandmother and me, she has a promising sweet tooth, but without our experience she lacks the crucial endurance. Which might be a good thing, since too much sugar can steal a young woman's beauty. Already, her figure is rounding and softening—though that doesn't seem to put off the group of handsome dark Italian boys who've been eyeing her and her long blond hair.

“Fight you for it.” Heartless, my mother points to what's left on Em's plate. “Can't just let it go to waste.”

I sip my foamy cappuccino and tell Mom it's hers. “Happy Mother's Day.”

“Aw, gee. You shouldn't have,” she says, downing the morsel in one bite. “And now,” she adds, opening her purse, “I have
your
present.”

“
My
present?” I'm taken aback. “That's a switch. How thoughtful.”

“Don't get too excited,” Em says. “You're gonna hate it.Worst Mother's Day present ever.”

“Watch it, kiddo. You're turning into a wise guy like your mother.” Mom hands me a large white envelope. “Surprise.”

A gift card to Neiman's, I hope. Or maybe a massage. Perhaps a whole spa visit. I'm dying for one of those.The stress at work has been killing me, and those bags under my eyes! Doty, the makeup guru at WBOS, where I'm a TV reporter, has pulled every trick to get rid of them—teabags, cucumbers, Preparation H—and only the Preparation H worked. (If you ignore the reek of cod liver oil and the trail of cats behind me.)

But when I open the card, my heart falls to my full stomach. “Cooking classes?”

“Dessert,” Mom corrects. “And don't be so ungrateful. It's rude.”

Em mouths, “I told you so.”

This, I suspect, is another one of my mother's sinister efforts to reel me into her world of hard-core domestication. Over the years she's given me oven mitts and aprons, a mini chopper, a flexible cutting board (declared by Mom to be an “absolute godsend!”), a cherry pitter and a garlic press (neither of which I've ever used), and cookbooks galore, most with the word “Dummies” in the title.

Recently, she turned her attention to laundry, singing the praises of oxidizing bleach (“How did I ever live without it?”) and iron-free shirts (polyester-coated cotton—why not just buy straight polyester for a quarter of the price?), though she never fully abandoned her core campaign to get me into the kitchen—as proven by this latest salvo:

It's not that I don't want to learn how to cook; it's that I'm, well, afraid. Cooking reminds me too much of Mom's imprisonment in her harvest gold kitchen, chained to the stove in a dowdy pink quilted zippered housecoat, dicing, rolling, pounding, and mixing her dreams into an impossibility.

Dinner was mom's raison d'être, her daily work product served promptly at six without fail. Though she rarely expanded beyond twenty rotated dishes, there was always a meat, a starch, a vegetable, and a salad, with white bread in a plastic basket on the table next to a plate of rock-hard butter. Two menus, however, were sacrosanct—Monday (meat loaf/mashed potatoes/green beans), because she needed meat loaf sandwiches for school lunches, and Friday (fish/spinach/fried potatoes), because the pope said so.

In between, it was a crapshoot—liver and onions once a month, ham to be recycled endlessly in hash, a Sunday roasted chicken that would mysteriously reappear as tetrazzini on Tuesday and then ground and mushed in those questionable croquets on Thursday. Spareribs with baked beans, brown bread, and apple-sauce on Saturday night. Spaghetti with ground beef, garlic bread, and salad on Wednesday.

I know Mom grew weary of making dinner, but she never tired of making dessert—the gooeyer, the better. Even when European cheeseboards invaded America around the late seventies and doctors urged my father to increase his intake of fresh foods, my mother stood firm. If fruit had to be involved, then it would be baked to death in a cinnamon apple crisp and topped with artery-clogging whipped cream straight from the can, as nature intended.