Slightly Engaged. Wendy Markham

get me started on the shoes, the CDs and DVDs, the stuff that comes out of Jack’s pockets every time he comes home.

      It’s not like I’m FlyLady, or Will, but at least I’m neater than Jack, and his clutter is starting to bug me. It’s so tempting to start tossing it, which, don’t worry, I won’t do, because Will once threw away a magazine I was reading when I set it down to go to the bathroom. I’m serious; in the space of time it took me to unzip, sit, pee, zip and wash, he not only threw it into the garbage, but carried the garbage down the hall and dumped it into the garbage chute. He didn’t do it on purpose, he said, seeming shocked by my disbelief.

      Yeah, and he didn’t do Esme Spencer, his summer-stock costar, on purpose, either.

      Anyway, here I am, curled up on the couch with my second cup of coffee, trying to read the Metro section of the Times while pondering my non-future with clutterholic, marriagephobic Jack, when the phone rings.

      I figure it’s probably my friend Buckley O’Hanlon. He mentioned something about me and Jack joining him and his girlfriend, Sonja, for in-line skating in Central Park this afternoon. It sounded like fun when he brought it up the other day.

      Now, not so much.

      For one thing, I’m exhausted from all that dancing, and Jack will inevitably be hungover. For another, I’ve never in-line skated in my life. If my ice-skating and roller-skating prowess are any indication of my skill potential, I should probably learn to blade in a private bouncy tent, as opposed to a public park with gravel, roaming humans and other hazards.

      Then again, maybe we should go anyway. After all, Buckley and Sonja are the only true peers we have left in New York. Unbetrothed, cohabiting couples seem to be a dying breed.

      As I pick up the phone, I am already wondering if perhaps my weak Spadolini ankles have strengthened over the years, and whether the skate-rental place Buckley mentioned also supplies full-body padding that doesn’t make you look fat.

      “Hello?”

      “Tracey?” says a voice that isn’t Buckley’s. “It’s me, Wilma.”

      “Oh, hi, Mrs. Candell,” I say to the wonderful woman who—sob—will never be my mother-in-law.

      “Call me Wilma,” Mrs. Candell urges for the nine hundredth time since we met, and I murmur that I will, but I know that I won’t.

      For some reason, I just can’t. Maybe because the name Wilma conjures an image of a cartoonish red bun, a prehistoric jagged-hemmed dress with a rock pearl choker and dots for eyes.

      There’s nothing remotely Flintstone-ish about Jack’s mother, an elegant yet bubbly brunette with a penchant for designer clothes and chatty conversation. She’s the furthest thing from Wilma Flintstone, and the furthest thing from my own mother, that I can imagine.

      You wouldn’t catch Mrs. Candell in a jagged-hemmed dress and rock pearls, let alone in stretch pants with graying hair and an unappealing line of dark fuzz on her upper lip.

      All right, that’s mean. My mother might have a mustache, but she has her good points. She makes a mean minestrone, and she…um…

      Well, she has some other good points. But it would be nice if she were as laid back and easy to talk to as Jack’s mother is.

      “How was the wedding?” Mrs. Candell asks, and I marvel at how she always remembers exactly what our plans are on any given weekend.

      “It was fun.” I tell her the highlights of the ceremony and reception, skipping over the bride and groom’s dance-floor fight as well as her son’s callous torture.

      She asks about the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses, the flavor of the cake, the honeymoon destination.

      I know! I told you she was great!

      Then she says cryptically, “Well, I guess you’ll be next.”

      Excuse me?

      Did she just tell me she guesses I’ll be next?

      What does she mean by that?

      I’m silent for a moment, my mind racing. Can Jack’s mother possibly know something I don’t know?

      I probably shouldn’t ask, but I can’t help it. My entire future—or non-future—with her son is hanging in the balance.

      “Mrs. Candell?”

      “It’s Wilma.”

      Not.

      “Oh. Right. Um, Wilma?” I ask, thinking Mom has a more natural ring to it.

      “Mmm-hmm?”

      “What do you mean? When you say I’ll be next,” I clarify, in case feigned confusion and sidestepping of issues runs in the family.

      “You’ll be next,” she repeats. “You and Jack.”

      “Next…?”

      “Next. To get married.”

      Next…after whom? Hazel and Phinnaeus Moder?

      Okay, either the woman is seriously deluded, or she’s privy to some vast Candell conspiracy.

      “I don’t think so,” I say cautiously, testing the waters. “I mean, I really doubt Jack wants to marry me.”

      “Tracey! Why would you say something like that? Jack loves you.”

      If those words coming from his mother don’t warm my heart, I don’t know what will.

      Well, yes, I actually do. A proposal on bended knee from Jack himself would definitely be even toastier.

      “Well,” I tell his mother, trying not to reveal my burgeoning excitement, “regardless of whether Jack loves me or not, I don’t think he wants to get married.”

      “You’re wrong about that.”

      “How do you know?”

      “I just know.” Her tone is oozing confidence.

      I think.

      Well, it’s definitely oozing something. Hopefully not bullshit.

      “Mrs.—Wilma, I’m not sure I get what you’re trying to tell me.”

      Is she trying to tell me something?

      Or is she trying not to tell me something?

      “Tracey, don’t worry about Jack. He wants to get married. He would kill me if he knew I was telling you this—”

      I hold my breath.

      “—but he’s definitely planning on getting married.”

      Sensing there’s more, I’m afraid to exhale; afraid to move; afraid to do anything that might shatter the moment.

      “In fact,” she goes on, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “when he was up here for dinner last week, he asked if I could open the safe-deposit box for him.”

      I’m turning blue here, trying to figure out what that could possibly mean, certain there’s more. There has to be.

      But she doesn’t elaborate, so I’m forced to let my breath out at last and ask bluntly, “What, exactly, does that mean?”

      Silence.

      Then, “You don’t know?”

      Apparently, I don’t. But now I’m dying to.

      “Know what?” I ask.

      “About the stone?”

      Stone? What stone?

      I rack my brains.

      Stone…stone…grindstone? Rolling stone? Pizza stone? Flintstone?

      What the hell is she talking about?

      “No,” I say tautly, “I didn’t know about a—er,