Slightly Engaged. Wendy Markham

I told Emily and Rachel that the first one of them to get married could have it.”

      Emily is Jack’s younger sister; Rachel is the next one up from Jack. They have two more older sisters, Jeannie and Kathleen, who are both married.

      “But both of the girls are positive that they’ll want their own rings when they get engaged,” Mrs. Candell goes on, “so I decided my diamond is there for Jack whenever he wants it. And…he wants it.”

      Well, slap my ass and call me Judy!

      Better yet, slap my ass and call me “Mrs. Candell the Second!”

      Tracey Candell.

      It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

      Speaking of rings…

      “You’re kidding,” I manage to squeak to Mrs. Candell the First.

      “No…I gave him the diamond before he left. But you can’t tell him you know about it, Tracey.”

      “I won’t. I swear.” My hands are shaking. My heart is pounding.

      “Really, I thought the two of you must have discussed this. I guess my son is more romantic than his father ever was,” she adds with a brittle laugh.

      I know that the Candells’ marriage was never lovey-dovey, and Jack said it was always only a matter of time before they split up. The month after Emily graduated from college and moved to Manhattan, they separated. The divorce will be final next spring, and everybody seems relieved that it’s almost over.

      Still, sometimes I wonder if his parents’ failed marriage has anything to do with Jack’s reluctance to commit.

      But right now, all I’m wondering is what cut Wilma’s diamond is, and when Jack is going to give it to me, and how I could have missed the subtle signs that he had this up his sleeve. Because there must have been subtle signs. There always are.

      Do you think his comment that Marriage is for the Asinine was a subtle sign?

      Me neither.

      “Anyway,” Wilma is saying, “if Jack ever knew I’d let this slip to you—”

      “I promise I won’t tell him.”

      “Won’t tell who what?”

      Startled by the voice behind me, I turn to see Jack standing there: boxer shorts, bad breath, bedhead…

      Yes. There he is. The man I love. The man who loves me.

      The man who apparently has a stone concealed somewhere in this minuscule apartment and is trying to throw me off his trail with all this convincing talk about only the Asinine getting married.

      “Who are you talking to?” he asks.

      “Your mother,” I admit, gazing adoringly at him, wondering how I ever could have thought I had to let him go. I didn’t have to let him go to find out that he’s mine. He always was. He always will be.

      “My mother?” He frowns. “You’re keeping secrets from me with my mother?”

      “Secrets?”

      “You just said you won’t tell me something.”

      “Not you,” I say as Wilma makes a warning noise in my ear. “We were talking about someone else.”

      “Who?” he asks dubiously.

      “You mean whom,” I amend, just to buy time.

      He grits his teeth. “Whom are you talking about with my mother, Tracey?”

      “Maybe it actually should have been ‘who’ when you phrase it that—”

      “Tracey, come on! Who?”

      “Your father.”

      Judging by Wilma’s muffled groan, I’m guessing that wasn’t a good choice. But it’s too late now.

      “Your mother said something not very nice about your father and she doesn’t want me to tell him.”

      I wait for him to ask what she said, but he doesn’t. He merely rolls his eyes and says, “What else is new? And since when do you and my father chat?”

      True. I’ve only met the man twice.

      “There’s coffee,” I say brightly, to distract him, and I point at the counter in our kitchenette.

      Our Kitchenette. That’s right. Ours. Forever.

      “I’ll be off the phone in a second. Unless you want to talk to your mother?”

      “Not if she’s on the warpath against my father again.” Jack pads over to the coffeepot, yawning and stretching.

      I feel gloriously giddy. I’m getting married. I’m getting married!

      Just as soon as Jack asks me.

      Which, I’m assuming, will be soon. Won’t it? At least by tonight. Or tomorrow, at the latest.

      Of course by tomorrow, I reassure myself, while making forced, self-conscious conversation with his mother for a few more minutes. Jack is listening in now, no doubt ready to pounce on anyone who dares slander his father’s good name.

      Before the weekend is out, Jack will pop the question, I’ll accept, and it will be full steam ahead to the wedding.

      I can hardly wait.

      I wonder if it’s too late to throw together something for three hundred guests, give or take, in October?

Part II

      Chapter 4

      Previously on Lifestyles of the Poor and Single, Wilma Candell inadvertently—or not—revealed that her son, Jack, had a diamond and would be getting engaged any second.

      Presumably to me.

      That was over a month ago.

      Hearing Jack’s key in the lock, I quickly conceal the dog-eared October issue of Modern Bride—which I purchased back on Labor Day weekend an hour after Jack’s mother spilled the beans—inside this week’s People and stick it in the center of a towering stack of freebie magazines he’ll never touch.

      Here comes the groom, I think.

      I think this with just a pinch of irony, considering that forty days and forty nights have passed since his mother told me that an engagement was imminent.

      Actually, I think it with a dollop of irony and a side of frustration.

      What’s a girl to do when the man she loves is keeping proposal plans and diamonds all to himself?

      All she can do is wait.

      Wait, and secretly plan every detail of the wedding so that when The Question—and celebratory champagne corks, and engagement-photo flashbulbs—finally pop, she won’t be waylaid by research on reception halls, caterers and honeymoon destinations.

      “Hi, honey, I’m home,” Jack quips, draping his coat over the nearest chair.

      I watch him deposit his keys, wallet, sunglasses, Metro-card, umbrella, comb, handkerchief, a handful of change and a pack of Mentos on the table.

      I swear he somehow carries more in his pockets than I do in my purse, which is bigger than this apartment.

      “How was the meeting?” I ask him, tilting my head up as he bends to kiss me from behind the couch.

      “It went great. She was happy with my plan.”

      He’s talking about the client and a media plan, of course.

      I wish he would talk about me and his proposal plan, but short of asking point-blank whether he has one, I have to be patient. As far as he knows, I still think we might be getting married in a few years and I’m just hunky-dory with that.

      If