Slightly Engaged

by Wendy Markham

  Then he mouths, “I love you”…

  And I realize that he can.

  Chapter 15

  I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.

  Chances are, I’ll be getting one. The latest weather forecast out of Buffalo calls for bitter cold with windchills below zero, and two feet of snow today—which is Christmas Eve—plus a bonus eighteen inches tomorrow. Yay.

  I’m also dreaming of a white wedding gown, and a white veil, and a pair of white satin pearl-beaded shoes I saw in the bridal magazine I went out to buy this morning on the pretext of getting the New York papers.

  The New York papers aren’t available in Brookside, in case you were wondering. The Buffalo News and the Cleveland Plain Dealer are available, but no Times or Post or Daily News.

  “Getting married soon, Tracey?” asked Al, the old guy behind the counter at the local corner store that sells everything under the non-sun.

  Everything, that is, but the New York papers.

  “Yup, soon,” I told Al, because I had on gloves so he couldn’t see my bare left hand, and I figured I didn’t owe him an explanation even though I’ve known him forever—he lives a few blocks from my parents’ house and goes to our church.

  Then again, in Brookside, just about everybody lives a few blocks from my parents’ house and goes to our church. That doesn’t mean they should be privy to my wedding plans—although when I actually have some, I’m sure I won’t be opposed to sharing.

  Despite the fact that the forecast for my getting that white gown, veil and shoes is far less certain than the one for snow, I read the magazine from cover to cover when I got home. I had to do it in the bathroom so I wouldn’t get roped into helping my mother peel, cube and fry the potatoes for breakfast.

  Yes, we’re having fried potatoes. For breakfast.

  Along with fried eggs, fried bacon and buttered white toast. Typical Spadolini breakfast fare.

  Is it any wonder I’ve had a weight problem my entire life?

  I dare to set foot in the kitchen only when my sister, who’s dropped by, calls me from the foot of the stairs.

  When I get there, I find my father sitting at the table while Mary Beth pours his coffee and my mother fills his plate.

  “Where’s Jack?” he asks, ostensibly because I need to get busy serving my man, too.

  “Still asleep.”

  “He’s tired from all that shopping you two did yesterday,” my mother says sympathetically.

  “Did you go shopping?” Mary Beth asks with interest. “Where?”

  “They went to the Wal-Mart,” my mother says on my behalf.

  Not that I’d have called it “The” Wal-Mart, which is a strictly local colloquialism.

  “Well, that’ll wear anybody out,” my father concludes, and puts a forkful of eggs into his mouth. “No wonder he’s still in bed. Connie, these eggs need salt.”

  If I were the one who was still lounging in bed at 9:00 a.m. on Christmas Eve, they would all be calling me lazy. That, or taking my temperature because you don’t sleep in unless you’ve got a bug.

  I’ve passed off many a hangover as a bug in my day.

  But Jack isn’t hungover, unless it’s from milk. Which is all he drank last night, along with the dozen cucidati my mother fed him before bed.

  We had gone to a movie and he gave my hand a meaningful squeeze during the steamy love scene. When we got back, I was hoping to sneak him into my room for a little preholiday fa-la-la-la-lovin’, but there was Connie, waiting up in her flannel nightgown asking, “How about a little snack?” By the time she was finished with Jack, all that was on his mind was a long winter’s nap in my brothers’ old room down the hall from mine, which is where he’s sleeping while he’s here.

  Oh, well. It isn’t like we don’t get plenty of fa-la-la-lalovin’ action when we’re back home.

  And anyway, it’s hard for me to feel sexy, let alone uninhibited, in my parents’ house. Especially when I’m wearing one of my mother’s flannel nightgowns, which I was forced to do last night because I spilled lasagna sauce on my pajamas.

  But my parents’ house is where I am, and where I’ll stay, so I’ve got to make the best of it.

  In that spirit I have to admit that it’s cozy in the kitchen this morning, just the four of us. An ancient Ray Conniff Singers Christmas album—as in, vinyl—is playing in the next room, and the snow is coming down like crazy beyond the window above the sink.

  “Where are the boys?” I ask Mary Beth.

  She scowls. “With Vinnie.”

  “Oh.” I pause, then ask because I have to, “How are things going with…everything?” Meaning the divorce, which apparently takes forever to accomplish in New York State.

  “Don’t ask.”

  “Sorry, I won’t.”

  Except I already did, and she wants to tell me about it. Her round face, which is normally cute and sweet, takes on that tight bitterness she always gets when she talks about her cheating soon-to-be-ex-husband.

  First she tells me that he’s been late with his court-ordered child-support payments for months, yet he bought his girlfriend fancy jewelry for Christmas.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Nino told me. Vinnie took the boys shopping with him to get her gift.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah. I guess that’s quality father-son time.”

  I shake my head, feeling sorry for my sister. What did she do to deserve this?

  Okay, for one thing, she stupidly married Vinnie.

  I know it sounds callous of me, but anybody could have seen this whole thing coming from a mile away, even way back on their wedding day. And if not then, anybody could have certainly seen it coming when Vinnie was caught with another woman while Mary Beth was in labor.

  But my sister was blindly in love with him, even then. He apologized countless times for cheating on her—which he did countless times—and she took him back countless times. That was on the advice of my mother and Father Stefan, our parish priest, both of whom convinced her that marriage is sacred and must be preserved at any cost, especially when there are young, innocent children involved.

  “Plus,” Mary Beth says now, per the young, innocent children, “Vinnie still claims he wants shared custody.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll fight him on it in court if it comes to that. And he won’t win.”

  I look at my mother, standing by the stove. She heaves a heavy sigh and shakes her head sadly. I know she encouraged Mary Beth to work out her marriage for the kids’ sake, but at this point, she must realize that my sister is better off divorced. Even if it means she can no longer take communion, which, in my mother’s opinion, is tragic.

  “Do you get the boys back tonight?” I ask Mary Beth.

  “Hell, yes.”

  “Mary Beth.” My father doesn’t like swearing. Then he says to my mother, “Bella! The salt! Come on!”

  In our house, it’s fine to give orders if they’re preceded by an endearment.

  “It’s coming, it’s coming, hold your horses. Here you go, honey, now you eat all of that and I mean it.” My mother plunks down a plate that holds enough food to choke one of those horses my father is supposed to be holding.

  I watch her obediently return to the stove, retrieve the saltshaker and hand it over to him. He grunts his thanks.

  I look back at my plate and say, “I’m, uh, not hungry, Ma.”

  No, I’m starved.

  But not because I haven’t eaten. Quite the contrary, in fact. While Jack was feasting on cucidati and milk before bed last night, I was downing a large wedge of leftover lasagna. But it’s almost as if the more I eat, the more I require.

  Mary Beth looks up from her own heap of eggs. “You’re on a diet again, Tracey, aren’t you?”

  “No way!” I say, hoping to head off a lecture on such foolishness.

  I pick up my fork.

  “Good. You’re finally getting some meat on your bones,” my mother sa
ys approvingly.

  I put down my fork.

  Meat on my bones? How depressing is that? What am I, a suckling pig?

  I proceed to poke at my food while the three of them chow down. In the next room, the Ray Conniff Singers hit a sudden vinyl snag and get stuck singing, “Oh come let us adore hi—oh come let us adore hi—”

  “Bella, the record,” my father says, because, you know, she’s deaf and he’s helpless. “It’s skipping.”

  She sighs and starts to push back her chair.

  “Sit and eat, Ma, I’ll get it,” I say, eager for the opportunity to flee the table.

  “You eat,” she says, motioning at my plate. “I’ll get it.”

  As she goes into the other room, my father looks at me. “Not salty enough? Is that why you’re not eating?”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  “Needs more salt.” He shoves the shaker across the table in my direction. “Your mother still hasn’t learned in forty years that eggs need salt.”

  “I think they’re salty enough,” Mary Beth says as the Ray Conniff singers skid all the way to “Sing, choirs of angels…”

  “You, you’re just like your mother, all health conscious,” my father accuses my sister.

  I hide a snort behind my cup of coffee. My mother and Mary Beth—both of whom swear by good old-fashioned recipes that call for lard—health conscious?

  Mary Beth decides to change the subject. “So what did you get for Jack for Christmas, Tracey?”

  This conversation just gets better and better.

  “I got him a, um, gift certificate,” I say as my mother returns to the table and resumes eating.

  “You got who a gift certificate?” she asks.

  “Jack.”

  “For what? Borders?” asks my father, who received just that from me for Father’s Day last year. Not that he ever sets foot in a bookstore. But I had long since run out of gift ideas for him, and I thought he could buy himself some CDs or DVDs if he didn’t want books.

  I guess he didn’t want any of the above, because I spotted the gift card collecting dust on his dresser when I went in to borrow my mother’s flannel nightgown after I got the lasagna on my pajamas last night.

  “No, it isn’t for Borders,” I say. “It’s for…something else.”

  “Oh! I get it,” Mary Beth says slyly.

  “You do?” I ask, betting she doesn’t. There’s a gleam in her eye, and it’s not a Caribbean-vacation gleam. It’s an X-rated gleam.

  “What?” my mother asks, all swivel headed. “What do you get?”

  “Never mind, Ma,” Mary Beth says with a lascivious grin.

  Needing to set her straight, I begin, “Mary Beth—”

  My father cuts me off with an exasperated “What is everybody talking about? Why doesn’t anybody ever tell me anything?”

  My mother shushes him with a terse “This is girl talk! That’s why!”

  Then she turns back to me and asks, again, “What’s the gift certificate for?”

  “Well, it’s not for what she thinks it’s for,” I say, bobbing my head at my dirty-minded sister.

  “Oh, okay.” Mary Beth winks at me.

  Naturally, both my parents pick up on that.

  My father throws up his hands in confusion, and my mother finishes gulping some orange juice before she does the same—then suddenly clutches her head.

  “Oh!”

  “What’s the matter, Ma? Head freeze?” I ask hopefully.

  “Is that gift certificate for something…romantic?” she asks ominously.

  “Romantic? I guess so.”

  “Tracey!” She smacks me in the arm. “I never thought a daughter of mine would go around giving out sex coupons.”

  “Sex coupons?” my father echoes in disbelief. “What?”

  I can only imagine what’s going through their heads. If I weren’t so aggravated, I would probably laugh at the vision of me holed up with a bootleg printing press running off certificates for illicit bedroom services.

  As it is, I can only bury my face in my hands and wish that I were somewhere, anywhere, else. New York, Aspen, even the reflexology room at Deux Coeurs Sur La Plage. Anything would be better than this. Why is it that every conversation I have with my parents tends to become an interrogation?

  “Tracey, what got into you?” my mother wants to know. “I raised you to be a lady. I raised you to—”

  “Ma, I’m not giving Jack a gift certificate for sex, okay?” I glare at Mary Beth, who doesn’t even have the decency to look apologetic.

  “You’re not?”

  “No, Ma.” Jack gets sex for free.

  But I refrain from saying that, and she looks mollified until I feel compelled for some reason to add, “It’s a gift certificate for a Caribbean vacation.”

  Pause.

  “You’re taking Jack to the Caribbean on vacation?”

  I nod.

  To say that she isn’t pleased would be the same thing as saying that it’s a little nippy outside this morning.

  Clearly, to my mother, my Christmas gift to Jack is a mere step down from doling out sex coupons.

  “I really don’t think you should be going around doing that,” she informs me. Surprise, surprise.

  I picture myself “going around” with my Caribbean-vacation coupons. As in door to door. As in, Hi, my name is Tracey Spadolini, and I’d like to whisk you away with me on a sexy island romp.

  “You’re not even married, Tracey,” my mother informs me, because clearly I must have forgotten.

  “Ma, come on. They live together,” Mary Beth speaks up at last.

  “Don’t remind me.” That came from my father, who has resumed shoveling eggs and potatoes into his mouth after dumping salt all over everything.

  “If you were married, Tracey, everything would be different.”

  Yeah, no kidding, Ma. Thanks for enlightening me.

  “Married people travel together all the time,” she goes on, “and nobody thinks anything of it.”

  “Jack and I traveled here together,” I point out.

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “This isn’t a foreign land.”

  What the…?

  Ah, the old Connie Spadolini logic. It’s been a while.

  “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Ma.”

  “It’s one thing to fly to Buffalo,” she says with a shrug. “It’s another thing altogether to go away on a vacation together.”

  You know, there was a time when I actually valued my mother’s infinite wisdom. Either I’ve changed, or her infinite wisdom has been replaced by meaningless bullshit.

  “But we live together,” I remind her helplessly. “What’s the difference where we go?”

  “She wants you to get married,” my father interrupts his chewing to say. “Okay?”

  I look at my mother, who shrugs.

  “I guess I don’t get what any of this has to do with my Christmas gift to him,” I tell her.

  Or what business it is of yours.

  “I think Jack is great, Tracey,” she says simply. “I just wish you two were at least engaged.”

  Okay, so we’re all on the same page here.

  Even Mary Beth is nodding. “I know you probably think living together is the same thing, Trace…”

  Who—me?

  “…but believe me, it isn’t.”

  “Trust me, I believe you, Mary Beth.”

  What I can’t believe is that they’re all sitting here acting as though my marital destiny is in my hands.

  Tell it to Jack, I want to scream at them.

  But before I can, guess who appears in the doorway?

  Okay, in this house, you never know. It could be any number of assorted relatives, friends and church ladies.

  So I won’t make you guess who.

  I’ll tell you: it’s our little adamant-bachelor sleepyhead himself.

  Instant smiles all around. Well, I’m not smiling. I�
��m pissed at him for putting me through this with my family. Why can’t he just give me the damn ring and make us all happy?

  “Sit down, Jack. I’ll get you your eggs.” My mother bustles over to the stove. “Tracey, pour him his coffee.”

  I dig into my fried potatoes, because God knows I can use a little comfort food right about now. “Jack can get his own coffee, Ma.”

  “Tracey! He’s a guest,” she chides, but what she really means is he’s a man.

  And I can tell by the way she’s looking at me that she now understands why Jack hasn’t proposed. It’s because I’m not waiting on him hand and foot.

  “It’s okay, Connie,” Jack says easily, going over to the Mr. Coffee on the counter and opening the cupboard for a mug. “I’ve got it.”

  Not only does he have it, but he also goes around the table, pouring refills for everyone else, including my mother.

  “Oh, Jack, you shouldn’t have,” she says as though he’s just presented her with an extravagant gift.

  “No problem.” He takes a seat and looks at the heap of food on his plate. “If I keep eating like this, I’m going to have to buy two seats for the return flight.”

  Everyone laughs.

  Everyone except me, that is. I’m too busy trying not to eat everything my mother put on my plate, and then go back for seconds.

  But of course, I do.

  Stress makes me eat, and being with my family—especially at Christmas—is as stressful as it gets.

  After breakfast, Mary Beth goes to The Wal-Mart to finish up some shopping. Jack heads out into the blustery weather to shovel the walk and driveway, which of course thrills my father to no end.

  I am roped into kitchen duty, cleaning five pounds of shrimp for tonight’s traditional seven-course seafood dinner. As I scrape the gloppy black threads from each shrimp’s curved spine, I curse whoever started this tradition back in Italy.

  “Why does it have to be seven courses, Ma?” I grumble.

  She looks up from the scrod she’s dipping in eggs and coating with flour for frying. “For the seven sacraments. Baptism, communion, reconciliation—”

  “I know the seven sacraments, Ma,” I cut in.

  I also know that marriage is one of them.