Slightly Engaged

by Wendy Markham

  “No, thanks. These are fine for reflexology—and the sunset hike,” I add quickly, after consulting my mental agenda.

  Like I said, these sadistic spa people like to keep you in perpetual grueling motion from dawn till dusk.

  The bright side: at least I know what a “hike” is.

  And that it will be followed by dinner, with which I am also familiar. Then again, last night’s dinner at Deux Coeurs Sur La Plage bore scant resemblance to the average meal back home, which usually consists of a meat, a grain, a vegetable, and of course, a luscious buttery dessert.

  The four main food types I’ve been able to distinguish here at the spa are sprouts, kernels, legumes and greens. All tasteless, yes, but ostensibly very nourishing, very soul-cleansing. I dare say my colon is clean as a whistle as well.

  And to think I was complaining mere days ago over the tragic grape-tomato shortage. I woke up this morning so hungry I could eat tree bark, which, for all I know, might be tonight’s main course.

  Alas, breakfast was meager, steaming, lumpy and unidentifiable. I scraped my bowl clean and it was all I could do not to pull an Oliver.

  Please, suh, can I have some mo-ah?

  No you can’t, you flabby, gluttonous New Yorker! And you can’t have any caffeine, either. Mu-wah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

  That’s right, folks. No coffee here at Deux Coeurs Sur La Plage. As a result, my head is pounding despite the Advil I’ve been popping all day. At this point, I’d kill for a triple caramel macchiato with an espresso chaser.

  Heck, I’d kill for one of Wilma’s rubbery turkey drumsticks doused in tepid gravy, accompanied by jelled cranberry sauce with the can rings etched into the curved surface. Mmm-mmm.

  But for now, there’s only my throbbing skull and hollow, rumbling gut, and nothing but the mysterious reflexology on the immediate horizon.

  So off we go, Jack and me, to reflexology.

  Which might sound like a clever, bouncy little ditty, but trust me, nobody’s singing or skipping along the way.

  En route, we manage to get lost twice in the building’s rambling corridors.

  The spa is located in what was once a turn-of-the-century hotel, perched on the edge of a rocky cliff not far from Newport’s famous mansions. Clearly, this is where the middle-class folk stayed back in the Gilded Age. Not much has changed since then. Every possible interior wall is covered in floral wallpaper, the public spaces seem dimly lit, and there’s a pervasive musty smell that reminds me of a book left out in the rain, like, twenty-five years ago.

  Not that I’m complaining.

  Yesterday, I found the place completely charming, musty smell and all.

  In fact, it would probably regain much of that charm if a coffee-and-Danish cart appeared around the next bend.

  Naturally, that doesn’t happen.

  Finally, we reach the reflexology room, located in the bowels of the building’s annex—a fancy term for “slapped-on concrete-block addition.”

  We’re greeted by Zena and Ted, neither of whom looks a day over twenty-nine, and both of whom have perpetually frozen facial muscles. I’m guessing these two are no strangers to Botox—or the Bobby Sox era, for that matter. Zena has wise old-ladyish eyes that I suspect would be surrounded by wrinkles if not for the miracles of modern poison.

  “You can both go ahead and remove your shoes and socks, then lie on the tables,” Ted instructs us.

  Jack and I exchange glances. Remove our shoes and socks? Mayhap we’ve wandered into the pedicure wing by accident?

  Or the set of a porn flick, I conclude in apprehension when Ted dims the lights, puts on soft music and urges us to lie back and let sensation take over. I half expect him and Zena to strip down and go at it.

  But no, we’re in the right place after all, and everyone remains reassuringly fully clothed, with the exception of our bare feet.

  Reflexology, it turns out, involves Zena and Ted putting pressure on various points in our extremities, ostensibly to reduce stress and send renewed vigor pulsing through our veins. At least, that’s what it says on one of the wall charts I can see from my tabletop perch.

  I’ve read only half of it when Zena commences the treatment. The second I feel her cold fingers on the arch of my right foot, I am convulsed in squirmy giggles.

  “Sorry,” I say when she lifts her hand and gazes questioningly at me. “I guess I’m ticklish.”

  “It’s okay,” she says woodenly, clearly never having so much as chuckled in all her sixty-something years. “Let’s try again.”

  We do.

  This time when she touches me, I nearly fly off the table in hysteria.

  Jack, calmly enduring Ted’s kneading of his heel, looks over at me in alarm. “Are you okay, Trace?”

  “Yes,” I gasp.

  Zena sighs and waits for me to compose myself and lie still. Then she presses a forefinger into the base of my pinkie toe, which apparently doubles as my funny bone.

  Yowza! This time, I really do bolt from the table.

  The moment I’ve stopped laughing and found my voice, I announce firmly, “I can’t do this. It’s physically impossible for me.”

  “Come on, Trace,” Jack says, as though I am perfectly capable of detaching the nerve endings in my extremities. “Sure you can. Just stop goofing around.”

  I glare at him. “I’m not goofing around, I’m laughing. And I can’t help it.”

  “Try to focus,” he says, his eyes drifting closed as though Ted’s thumb jammed into his instep is the most relaxing thing ever.

  “I think I’ll go take a nap,” I tell Zena, and hand her a good-size tip before retrieving my shoes and socks. “Thanks, anyway.”

  Zena shrugs and pockets the tip. Easy come, easy go.

  Jack’s eyes snap open. “You’re leaving?”

  “Yeah, I’ll see you back in the room.”

  “Wait, I’ll come with you,” he says, sitting up.

  “No, stay. Enjoy your foot, uh, thing.”

  “No, really, I’ll come with you.” He swings his legs over the edge of the table.

  “You don’t have to,” I protest, fervently wishing he wouldn’t. If I go solo, I can detour back and recheck all the floors for hidden vending machines. You’d think they’d have at least one tucked away somewhere for staffers who need their daily Hostess or No-Doz fix.

  Wishful thinking, I know.

  Unfortunately for this suffering addict, Jack is already tipping Ted and pulling on his socks.

  In no time, we’re out the door and heading back to the room.

  “You could have stayed,” I tell him. “I honestly wouldn’t have minded.”

  “No, I didn’t want you to go back upstairs alone,” he says quickly—too quickly.

  I sneak a peek at him. Hmm.

  “Come on,” I cajole. “You can’t convince me that having that guy Ted poke the soles of your feet actually felt good?”

  He hesitates.

  Aha!

  “No,” he admits. “It pretty much sucked, actually.”

  “Why didn’t you say something? Why did you lie there in what looked like ecstasy while I was doing my lunatic-hyena act?”

  “It wasn’t ecstasy, trust me. It just didn’t tickle. It actually kind of hurt. I guess I just didn’t get the point.”

  “Sort of like yoga,” I say, having endured two sessions and spent the bulk of both faking poses and checking my watch.

  Which I do now, and see that we’ve got less than an hour before we start that sunset hike. Or not.

  “Want to skip the hike, too?” I ask Jack slyly.

  “And do what?”

  Too bad there’s no TV, I think, for the millionth time since we got here yesterday.

  “Sleep?” I suggest. “Or send out for coffee and cheeseburgers? Or both?”

  He laughs.

  “I’m totally serious.”

  “Really?”

  I nod. “I need caffeine desperately, and I’m starved for something I can actually sin
k my teeth into.”

  “I guess sprouts and seeds don’t qualify?”

  “Not unless one is a rodent.”

  “I have to say, I’m hungry, too.”

  “Too bad we don’t have a car so we could sneak out of here and hit a McDonald’s.”

  Jack contemplates that for a minute, then says, “How about a compromise?”

  “Steal a car and hit a Wendy’s? I could go for chili and a Frosty, too.”

  He grins. “No, I was thinking we could sneak out of here and go for a nice long walk on the beach. Alone.”

  “You mean a nice long walk on la plage.”

  “Is that how you pronounce it? I thought it was la plage.” As in, rhymes with Madge.

  “Nope. It’s Deux Coeurs Sur La Plage,” I say, shamelessly showing off my year of high-school French.

  “That sounds good. What else can you say in French?”

  “Voulez-vous couchez avec moi.”

  He grins. “Sì. Later.”

  “You mean oui.”

  “Oui oui. What else can you say?”

  “I can say, let’s vamoose.”

  “Vamoose is French?”

  “Who knows?”

  And who cares? I’m feeling lighthearted for the first time all day.

  Maybe you can’t take the “spa” out of Spadolini, but you can definitely take the Spadolini out of the spa…and none too soon.

  As we grab jackets and head furtively back outside, feeling vaguely like a pair of truant adolescents, I remind myself that this still hasn’t solved my hunger problem.

  Well, maybe we can forage on the beach for shellfish.

  Do you think Rhode Island’s coastal waters are contaminated?

  I know.

  But do I really care at this point? A few toxins never killed anybody.

  All right, maybe I’m wrong about that, but I can’t help it. My judgment is clouded by starvation.

  We cross the eerily deserted grounds and descend the rickety wooden stairs to a narrow stretch of pebbly bay beach at the base of the rocky cliff. The dense gray sky hangs low over the choppy water and the air is shrouded with mist.

  As I look around, I can’t help noticing that this would be the perfect setting for a murder…

  Or a marriage proposal.

  But that’s too much to hope for, so I settle for holding hands with Jack as we set out along the packed wet sand left by the outgoing tide.

  “This is really nice,” I say, watching a gull swoop low over the green-black waves. “Thanks for bringing me up here.”

  Jack squeezes my hand. “I thought you hated it.”

  I hesitate. “Not all of it.”

  “Really? What did you like?”

  “This part,” I confess. “And…”

  I’m afraid I’m drawing a complete blank.

  “This part is good,” I reiterate.

  Jack smiles. “So much for your big reward. I should have brought you to a bed-and-breakfast somewhere instead.”

  “Or the Caribbean?”

  He laughs. “Or the Caribbean. I didn’t know you wanted to go there.”

  “It would be fun,” I say. “Don’t you think?”

  “I guess. My sister went to Anguilla on her honeymoon.”

  “Kathleen?”

  “Jeannie. I remember her raving about the food, and how beautiful it was. I should ask her which resort they went to.”

  Really? Why should he ask her? Does he want to take me there on our honeymoon?

  “Yeah, you should definitely find out,” I say, and I can feel my heart beating a little faster.

  “I will,” he says, “when I see her again at Christmas.”

  My heart lands with a thud.

  Christmas.

  That was the main topic of conversation last night over dessert, which in absence of pumpkin pie consisted depressingly of Lorna Doones and sliced bananas.

  I have long been aware that the Candells have always spent Christmas together in Aspen, where Jack’s dad has a ski house. Actually, it used to be the family’s house, but he got it in the divorce settlement.

  I’ve seen plenty of pictures and heard countless stories about Candell Christmases, which are always made to seem excitingly Kennedyesque: everybody skis, even the twins, and they all wear three-hundred-dollar parkas accessorized by aviator lenses and those sporty headbands that somehow look great on the snowy, sun-splashed Colorado slopes, but would be ridiculously Olivia Newton-John circa 1982 anywhere else.

  When the subject of Christmas came up Thursday, Wilma acted really excited to be going on her Caribbean jaunt with a fellow divorcée while the rest of the family took off for the Rockies with Dad.

  But if you ask me, she seemed about as enthusiastic about her trip as I am about spending Christmas in Brookside.

  “You mean you’re not coming with us?” Rachel asked me, looking genuinely shocked and so disappointed at first I assumed she was talking to her mother.

  “Me? No, I have to go home for Christmas,” I told her. “My parents would be really upset if I didn’t, especially after I missed Thanksgiving.”

  Everybody seemed to accept that answer, including Jack.

  After all, where we would spend our respective Christmases hadn’t even been a topic for discussion with us.

  But now, as we stroll sur la rocky but romantic plage, he looks a little wistful as he asks, “Are you sure you can’t come with us to Aspen?”

  “For Christmas?” I shake my head vigorously. “No way. I’ve got to go home.”

  “Are you positive?”

  “Positive.”

  “I hate the thought of us spending the holidays apart.”

  So do I.

  If only…

  “We don’t have to, you know,” I hear myself say impulsively.

  He brightens immediately. “You mean you’ll come to Aspen?”

  “No, you can come to Brookside!” Why didn’t I think of it before?

  Maybe, I realize on the heels of what I think was an invitation, because it’s a really, really bad idea.

  Yes, he’s visited Brookside before…

  But never for Christmas.

  If Jack’s Aspen Christmases are Kennedyesque, my Brookside Christmases are…well, cross the Sopranos with the Gottis, replace the crime and guns with perpetual chaos and cucidati, and you get the idea.

  Do I really want to subject nice normal Jack to that?

  Picture this: dozens of opinionated oddball relatives, some with bad colds, some talking loudly and asking too many questions; others not at all because you or somebody in your immediate family offended them last Christmas. Most of them are going to hug and kiss everyone in the house upon arrival and departure, regardless of whether they’re speaking to you and whether you happen to be a complete stranger, a.k.a., somebody’s visiting boyfriend from New York City. All of these will come bearing utterly useless gifts, which will be opened one by one in an endless ritual that goes on into the wee hours.

  Throw in a bunch of bizarre yuletide traditions, too much food, too much steam heat, at least one vomiting kid, cat hair…

  And then there’s the snow. Incessant, wind-driven snow. Feet of it pile up at a time, and my father would expect Jack to shovel it.

  “Are you serious?” Jack is asking.

  I feign confusion. “Serious about what?”

  Jack: “Me coming to Brookside for Christmas.”

  Tracey, brightly: “That? Oh, sure!”

  I suspect my Oscar nomination just went the way of the reflexology session, judging by the look on Jack’s face.

  “You don’t look like you mean it.”

  “No, I do! It’s just…I mean, I know your dad is probably counting on you to come to Aspen.”

  “Screw him,” Jack says darkly. “Look what he did to my mother. Who cares what he wants?”

  Oooh-kay then. I guess it’s safe to assume he’s not quite over the divorce.

  “I’d much rather spend Christmas with you an
d your family in Brookside,” Jack informs me.

  You know what? I believe him.

  Granted, he knows not of what he speaks.

  Still…

  “Great,” I say, cleverly noting that my chances of becoming engaged over the holidays will be much higher if Jack comes to Brookside than they are if we spend Christmas half a continent apart.

  In fact…

  Maybe that’s why he looks so enthusiastic about this sudden change of plans.

  Look at him. Maybe he’s plotting right now how he’s going to smuggle a ring box into my stocking.

  “My sisters are going to be pissed,” he says almost gleefully.

  Or maybe he’s just out for vengeance.

  Sigh.

  Oh, well.

  It’s too late to rescind the offer now.

  Brookside for Christmas, here we come!

  Part IV

  Christmas

  Chapter 13

  “Maybe he sold it for cash to buy drugs, Tracey.”

  That, of course, is Raphael.

  Re: the whereabouts of the diamond Jack has yet to offer.

  “F&%# @(*.”

  That, of course, is me.

  Re: Raphael’s ridiculous claim.

  “Tracey!” His newly dyed-blond eyebrows elevate toward his newly dyed-blond hairline. “That wasn’t a nice thing to say.”

  “Neither was your thing. Jack isn’t on drugs.”

  “You don’t know that for sure. Wait, pull over.” Grabbing my arm, Raphael steps out of the flow of pedestrian traffic along Saint Mark’s Place to examine a sidewalk display of sunglasses.

  “I know for sure that Jack isn’t on drugs,” I argue in frustration, shivering in the brisk night wind blowing off the East River a few blocks away, “but I’m not so sure about you, Raphael.”

  “If I seem high, it’s because I’m madly in love, Tracey.”

  “Oh, please.”

  Raphael stops fondling a pair of leopard-spot cat’s-eye lenses to rest a hand on my arm. “I know it must be painful for you. Jealousy is a natural reaction in your situation. I’m sorry. I’ll try not to mention Donatello any more than is absolutely necessary.”