The Proposal

by Jasmine Guillory

  Courtney nodded, like she’d heard this a million times before. To be fair, she probably had.

  “Yes, yes, we know, except we also saw the way you looked at Carlos on Saturday night. Maybe you should swear off men for a while after you’ve had your rebound.”

  Did they not listen to her, or did they just decide they knew better?

  “One: I told you guys, starting anything with him, or any man, is a bad idea. Men always think they can make demands on me, and I’m sick of that. Two: Carlos is clearly not interested in me—he didn’t make the slightest move on me on Monday night. And three: if I did want to date someone right now, Carlos is absolutely not that someone.”

  Dana put her hand on Nik’s.

  “You’ve got to get over this doctor thing. This guy is not like Justin. Not all doctors are like Justin.”

  Nik sighed and took a sip of her drink.

  “I know he isn’t. Like, I know that intellectually. And I’ve been over Justin for a long time. I really have been. But it took years after I was over him to get past how shitty he made me feel about my writing. I’m just now at the place where I’m proud of both my work and my career, and I don’t want anyone to try to fuck with that.”

  Dana nodded.

  “We know, honey. But you’re a very different person than you were when you dated Justin. What would you have done two weeks ago if Fisher had pulled a Justin and told you not to take a great new job?”

  “I would have laughed at him,” Nik said immediately.

  “Exactly!” Courtney said. “To take another example from Justin’s greatest hits, what would you have done if that Morton dude you dated had read one of your pieces and had told you to give up writing?”

  Nik had to laugh. Her friends remembered everything. Well, almost everything.

  “Morris, not Morton. And fine, I would have thrown him out of my apartment. I get your point. I’m in a better place in my life, fine. But still.”

  “But still what?” Dana threw her arm around her. “Have more faith in yourself, Nik. We do.”

  Nik refused to let herself cry.

  “Oh, shut up. It’s only because of the faith you two have in me that got me out of the relationship with Justin in the first place, so there.”

  She pulled both of her friends into a brief hug. As much as she loved her friends, they were wrong about Carlos, though. Everything they’d said about the guys she’d recently dated had proved it: the reason it was so easy to discount them and their opinions was because she didn’t like those guys all that much. Carlos, though, she actually liked. Dating someone you found both smart and interesting seemed much harder. Much riskier.

  “To get us back on topic: we were talking about how Monday night I asked a man who I barely knew to come to my apartment with me because I was feeling helpless. And if there’s one thing I hate, it’s feeling helpless.”

  “You also hate raw peaches,” Dana said.

  “That fuzz against your teeth!”

  “And those five-finger running shoes,” Courtney said.

  Nik shuddered.

  “They make your feet look like hobbit feet!”

  “Filled doughnuts,” Dana said.

  “They ooze!” Nik said. “Especially the ones with red stuff inside—it’s like there’s blood in there.”

  “When people have the keyboard sound up on their phone,” Dana said.

  “Okay, but doesn’t everyone hate that?” Nik asked them.

  “Beaches,” Courtney said.

  “So much sand,” Nik said. “It gets everywhere. And I mean everywhere. I don’t know why people love them.”

  “Rompers.”

  “Carrot cake.”

  “Mashed potatoes.”

  “People who don’t use the Oxford comma!”

  “Don’t forget Chardonnay!”

  “Okay, okay, fine, you guys can stop now,” Nik said. They would have gone on forever if she hadn’t interrupted them. “You’re both correct. I hate many things, okay? But feeling helpless is high up there. You happy now?”

  It was amazing that two women who were so different in both looks and personality could have the exact same smug smile.

  “Yes,” they said in unison.

  “After all that, now you know you have to go with me to a self-defense class, right?” Nik said.

  “Oh.” Dana looked at Courtney, and they both looked back at Nik. “We were always going to go with you. We just had to make fun of you first. When’s the first class?”

  Nik grinned.

  “Tomorrow.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Carlos sat down on the corner of his couch with his dinner late on Wednesday night. He hadn’t heard from Nik since Tuesday morning—he’d texted her to check in and see how she was doing, and she’d texted back that she was much better and thanked him again. He’d assumed that was a brush-off and he shouldn’t text her again, but now he was reconsidering that. Nik’s brush-offs didn’t seem that subtle, for one thing. He’d seen that at Dodger Stadium. Maybe he’d text her one more time.

  Did those Thai leftovers kill you? I hope you ate them yesterday. They get spicier over time.

  A few seconds after he pressed send, his phone rang. My God, was it that easy?

  He looked at his phone. Angela. Nope, not that easy.

  “Hey,” she said. “I just got off the phone with Jessie.”

  His cousin Jessica had just been diagnosed with preeclampsia, and he’d been fielding calls from his mom and aunt about it all day. He’d finally gotten to talk to Jessie right before he left the hospital that evening.

  “I talked to her, too,” he said to Angela. “Don’t freak out. It’s still early, but it’s a good sign that her doctors sent her home and had her go on bed rest instead of admitting her.”

  Part of him wished her doctors had admitted her to the hospital—that way she and the baby would be safe and monitored every day in case of any problems. The thing no one told you about being a doctor was how much you would panic when people you loved had anything wrong with them. Doctors knew way too much about the worst-case scenarios.

  “You’re telling me not to freak out? From what Jessie said, you freaked her out! She said her doctors made her feel less stressed about this, and when she left her doctor’s appointment, she wasn’t too worried, but after she talked to you, she’s all anxious again.”

  His phone buzzed.

  Oh wow, really? Thanks for the news bulletin. That would have been a nice thing to tell me on Monday night, not well after I ate them for lunch on Tuesday and had my tongue on fire for 12 full hours. Now I know why you let me have them.

  He tried not to laugh. He didn’t want to have to explain his laughter to Angela.

  “I’m sorry I freaked Jessie out, but she needs to know when she should go back to the hospital. If her blood pressure gets too high, it can be dangerous.”

  He texted back.

  I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just being a gentleman.

  “She knows all of that; that’s what her doctor is for! We all know all of that now. We have Google, too.”

  He rolled his eyes at his bowl of lentil soup. It was like Angela wasn’t even listening to him.

  “I didn’t know that because of Google. I know because I’m a doctor!”

  They all remembered he was a doctor when they needed him, but ignored it whenever they felt like it.

  “I know you’re a doctor, but stop making her more anxious about everything! She needs your support right now, not you trying to drive her blood pressure up.”

  Of course Jessie had his support. Jessie was his younger cousin, but only by a year. She had teased him and played with him and laughed at him and encouraged him and been proud of him his whole life. One of the framed pictures he had in his hous
e was of him at three and Jessie at two, both looking dubiously at baby Angela.

  Ohhhhhh, is that what being a gentleman is? Letting the woman absorb all of the pain while you take the glory? Now I understand what all of those men who told me they were such gentlemen were saying.

  He had to mute his call so he could laugh at that.

  “Look,” Angela continued. “I know you’re stressed right now, coming up on the five-year anniversary of Dad, but—”

  He stopped laughing.

  “It’s not that,” he said. He’d been trying to ignore that the anniversary of his father’s death was coming up. “I’m just trying to take care of this family, that’s all.”

  Ever since his father’s death, Carlos had sort of considered himself head of his family. He’d never say that out loud to his mother or to Tia Eva, but he assumed they thought the same thing. Jessie’s dad had never been around, so his dad had always done all of the car maintenance, yard work, and home repairs for all of them. When his dad died, Carlos had taken over all of that. But it was more than just the physical work: he thought of his family as his responsibility. He wasn’t going to have anything happen to Jessie on his watch.

  “Look, I don’t want to fight about this,” he said to Angela. “I’m just trying to take care of Jessie the best I know how. I have to work late tomorrow, but I’m going to stop by to see her on Friday.”

  Don’t tell anyone I told you the gentleman code. The other gentlemen out there will murder me.

  “Oh great, I have an idea: before you stop by to see Jessie, why don’t you go to the doctor? She would love that, and so would I.”

  He sighed. Not this again.

  “Next topic, Angela.”

  She laughed.

  “Fine, but remember what I said. By the way, did you see the video of that proposal pop up everywhere? Wild, right? Poor Nik. I wonder how she’s holding up.”

  My lips are sealed. I mean, until I write the big exposé about this.

  “She’s hanging in there,” he said, without thinking.

  Oh shit.

  “Oh, is she? How do you know that, may I ask?”

  Well he definitely could not say it was because he and Nik had been texting throughout this conversation. Anytime he even hinted that he enjoyed a woman’s company, Angela was convinced they’d live happily ever after. And while he still didn’t know what was going to happen between him and Nik, he knew that wasn’t in the cards.

  “We had dinner on Monday night. She emailed me to say thanks for Saturday—she wanted me to say thanks to you, too, by the way—and we ended up grabbing Thai food.”

  “Hmmmm. Weird that you didn’t mention that she wanted you to say thanks to me. I wonder how that happened?”

  Why couldn’t they still be talking about Jessie?

  “I’ve kind of had a lot going on this week, Angie. Between being a doctor and taking care of our whole family, it sort of slipped my mind.”

  “Well, I liked her, and it seems like you liked her, too, so . . .”

  Just make sure you don’t use my real name in your exposé. Give me one of those hipster baby names, like Carver or Fletcher or Winston.

  He never should have let it slip that he’d even thought about Nik after Saturday night. He needed to nip this in the bud right away. Even if something did end up happening with Nik, it wasn’t going to be the kind of relationship his sister kept pushing him toward.

  “I didn’t like her that much. I only had dinner with her because I felt sorry for her. She was dealing with some harassment after the video went public and was freaked out.”

  Maybe someday he’d be able to date someone seriously, but it was way too soon since his father had died for that. He couldn’t put another woman over his mother and sister—not to mention Jessie and Tia Eva. He needed to be able to race to Angie’s house when she sprained her ankle or go furniture shopping with his mom on the weekend or change the tires on Tia Eva’s car. All of the things his dad used to do. If he was dating someone, he wouldn’t be able to do any of that.

  “Mmmhmmm,” Angie said. “You felt sorry for her, sure. Like I believe that one.”

  He shook his head.

  “Good-bye, Angela. Talk to you later.”

  How about Atticus? You seem like you could be an Atticus.

  He put his feet up on his coffee table and laughed and laughed.

  Chapter Six

  . . . . . . .

  “I cannot believe you’re making us do this,” Courtney said as they got out of the car. “You know I avoid all situations where the correct attire is athleisure.”

  Nik zipped up her hoodie and ignored her.

  “Oh hush,” Dana said to Courtney. “I like that outfit on you. I’ve been trying to tell you for months how much more comfortable you’d be in leggings or yoga pants at work all day.”

  Courtney shook her head as they walked toward the gym. Nik had almost avoided this class in principle because it was called “Punch Like a Girl,” but it was the only class on the Eastside that started in the next few weeks. And it somehow felt urgent for her to do this now. It wasn’t that she really thought Fisher—or any of the other creepy guys who sent her messages—would actually do anything to her. It was more that she’d realized that she would have no idea what to do if any of them did.

  She couldn’t wait to tell Carlos that she was taking the class. She was pretty sure he’d get a kick out of it. That was, if she ever saw him again. They’d texted for hours last night, and on and off again today, but that didn’t mean anything.

  “I don’t care how comfortable leggings are; I like my dresses for work, thank you very much,” Courtney said. “I spent years dressing in ugly plus-size suits for corporate America. It’s a relief to wear A-line dresses in ridiculous patterns. Plus, I run a cupcake shop that I named after myself; dressing like a cupcake is very hashtag on brand.”

  “I cannot believe you said ‘hashtag’ out loud like that.” Dana pulled her hair up into a ponytail. “You’ve clearly been doing too much store-related social media lately. We might need to have an intervention.”

  Courtney pulled her phone out of the pocket in her leggings.

  “Are you kidding me? I just hit twenty-five thousand Instagram followers! I’m doing something right.” She smiled at a picture of a cupcake before she tucked her phone back in her pocket. “Yes, I know I’m obsessed; you don’t have to tell me twice.”

  Nik pulled out her own phone. Who knows, that source may have emailed her back!

  I swear to God, a patient today told me she babysits for a kid named Kaftan.

  She hid her smile.

  The gym was a big, kind of anonymous-looking building with only a metallic gold sign over the door that said NATALIE’S GYM.

  “Where did you find this place?” Dana whispered to Nik. “I’ve never seen a sparkly gold sign at a gym before.”

  “Shhh,” Courtney said. “I feel more at home at this place already if there are sparkles involved.”

  Nik ignored them and went up to the blond woman in a pink tank top sitting at the front desk.

  “Hi, I signed up online for three of us for the class.” She refused to say the name.

  “Punch Like a Girl? Fantastic!” The incredibly thin, perky, ponytailed woman beamed at her. “What are your names?”

  “Nikole Paterson, Dana Carter, Courtney Park,” Nik said, pointing at herself and each of her friends in turn.

  “Nice to meet all three of you!” the woman said. “It’s a sliding scale, so just let me know what you’re comfortable paying. Usually you can pay for one class at a time, but for this class, we like you to pay for the whole six weeks in advance, so we can count you in for the whole run of the class.”

  Nik handed over her credit card. She’d never heard of a sliding scale gym in L.A. before, especially not a cute one like th
is. That would have been useful when she was just starting out, but luckily, she could afford to pay the list price now.

  “Great!” The woman stood. “You’re all paid up and checked in, the locker rooms are through there, and we’ll be in Studio A for the class—starts in ten minutes!”

  “Great!” Nik said back, and was immediately ashamed that she’d adopted the other woman’s exclamation points. This was just like how whenever she went to the South, she started drawling and saying “y’all” after the first five minutes.

  None of them needed the locker room, so they shuffled into Studio A. It was a big, brightly lit exercise studio, with shiny wood floors, mirrors covering one wall, and a water fountain in the corner. A big sign by the door told them—in more metallic gold letters—to turn off their phones and put any personal items in the cubbies by the door.

  “Are we in kindergarten?” Dana said, gesturing toward the sign. “I don’t know about this place, Nik.”

  Courtney quickly shed her jacket and tucked it and her purse into a cubby.

  “I obey any sign that sparkles at me—you know that,” she said to Dana. “Have an open mind! You’re too used to your high-pressure SoulFit or CrossMethod or whatever the hell it is you do when you work out.”

  Dana raised her eyebrows at Nik.

  “Some sparkly signs and this woman is all in. I’ve never seen her change her mind so quickly about anything.”

  Thank God her friends were with her. There were many things in life she would cheerfully do alone—go to movie, out to dinner, on an international trip—but she never would have had the guts to come to a class like this alone.

  She took out her phone to turn it off, and what the hell, send one more text.

  Now you’re just making things up, but I swear I just heard someone at the gym call someone else Sunshine.

  At seven on the dot, the blond woman from the reception desk bounced into the center of the room.

  “Welcome, everyone!” All of the murmurs quieted down, and everyone turned to her. “I’m Natalie, and I’m so glad to see all of your beautiful faces here today!”