Otherwise Engaged

by Lindsey Palmer

  Joe answers and Barb picks up the extension. Using their modulated post-meditation voices, they trade off telling us about a new natural pesticide they’ve been trying in their garden, and how they’ve cracked the best carrot-to-ginger juicing ratio. They would go on like this, speaking at us without pause, no detail about their lives too minor to share, if Gabe didn’t interrupt to say we have news. I’m so relieved that I blurt it out: “We’re getting married!”

  I don’t know what I expected from the Dovers. But it wasn’t a tepid “That’s cool” from Barb, as if I’d suggested, say, that she top her carrot juice with a sprinkle of turmeric. Joe follows up with “So what inspired this turn of events?”

  I gape at Gabe, wanting to delight together in their ridiculous response. But Gabe avoids my eyes, and his mouth is set in a line. It’s a look I know well, from whenever his parents are forcing upon him their ideas of what has value and what doesn’t. The Dovers reject anything that smacks of societal norm. “Tradition is hogwash” is practically their mantra, although notably, only in reference to other people’s traditions. It drives Gabe crazy, but personally I’m fascinated by how sure they are of their own way of being. Barb starts in on the familiar story of her wedding day, how she and Joe “just swung on over to the courthouse one morning to sign some papers.” Moments before Barb says the same sentence aloud, I whisper to Gabe, “I wore exactly what I had on—culottes and an old blouse.” Gabe barely cracks a smile.

  “So, are you happy for us?” he says, cutting off his mom. “Are you happy that Molly’s joining the family?” This breaks my heart a little.

  His parents are offended and defensive. “Gabriel, yes!” Joe insists, then Barb takes over: “Silly boy, of course we’re happy! But Molly already is part of the family. We’re simply surprised that such a retrograde institution would interest—”

  “Oh Barb,” Joe interrupts, but I can hear the amusement in his voice. “You crazy kids should be yourselves and feel free to do your thing. More power to you!” Gabe rolls his eyes, as now his dad has swung to the other extreme—treating an engagement like it’s a radical act. “We love you, son!”

  “And you too, Molly!” Barb chimes in.

  I squeeze Gabe’s hand. Because of course his parents love him, in their way. I mouth the words “Literary agent?” but Gabe shakes his head. As we’re saying our goodbyes, Barb promises to send us a batch of their pickled beets.

  “Pickled beets!” I exclaim to Gabe after we hang up. He manages a chuckle, but his distress is apparent. It’s much easier to have a sense of humor about difficult family members who aren’t your own—for the first time, the notion of “in-laws” is a flicker in my mind.

  Gabe perks up: “Next up, ladies and gentlemen, Emily Stone!”

  But as I go to dial my mom, my brother’s name pops up on the phone screen. Leo has a rare break from the hospital for Labor Day weekend, so he and Lana have rented a cottage up in the Finger Lakes. I’m expecting a text about champagne cocktails on a yacht, or a snapshot of a stunning sunrise over their private dock. Leo and Lana’s life tends to be picture-perfect, and I can’t help steeling myself for the stab of envy I’m sure to feel at their paragon of a vacation.

  A swipe of my phone reveals a different kind of update:

  Lana had a water-skiing accident, 3 slipped discs in her lower back, immobile. At ER up here, returning in a.m. for transfer to Lenox Hill. Visiting hours 2-4 tomorrow.

  Icy panic runs through me. I can hear my heartbeat, dull throbs of guilt at my recent thoughts. I picture Lana moaning in agony. Or worse, completely numb. I force myself to banish the image from my head. I ping back a flurry of messages to Leo, filling his phone with every question and condolence I can conjure. But his end has gone silent. Soon my mom calls, already in full-on mobilization mode—she’s drafted a threatening letter on her law firm’s stationery to the water-ski company, she’s researching treatments for spinal disc herniation, and she’s coming to New York in the morning. We make a plan to visit Lana, and then hang up.

  Gabe clears his throat. “You didn’t mention the engagement.” He sounds hurt.

  I look at him like he’s nuts. “Of course not. Lana’s laid up in the hospital seriously hurt. It would be pretty obnoxious to flaunt our good news.”

  “No one said anything about flaunting,” Gabe says. “There’ll always be bad stuff going on. The good news would probably be a nice distraction.”

  I scoff at his insensitivity. “The important thing right now is to do all we can for Lana. Postponing our own celebration is a small price to pay to be there for her.”

  “I guess,” Gabe says. “It’s just … never mind, you’re probably right.” His unsaid retort hangs in the air like humidity, and his nod seems to signal the opposite of assent.

  “What?” I snap.

  “It’s just, fixating on Lana’s suffering isn’t actually helpful to her. You know that, right?”

  Irritation rises in my throat like bile. I echo Gabe’s belittling tone: “If by fixating on her suffering you mean offering our sympathy, actually, I think that’s the most helpful thing we can do.”

  “Fine, okay.” Gabe raises his palms in surrender.

  Feeling pricks of regret for having pushed him into an argument, I try to lighten the mood: “Anyway, the real reason I want to keep our engagement under wraps is for an excuse to take off this ring. I think I’m allergic.”

  Gabe brightens. “You’re still wearing that thing?” He takes my finger, removes the circle of twisty-ties, and kisses the little red bumps that have formed there. “I’ll get some Neosporin.”

  “Mr. Florence Nightingale,” I say, touched.

  “Here’s an idea,” Gabe says. “Instead of wedding rings, we get tattoos.”

  I laugh. Gabe knows that tattoos are my worst nightmare: a permanent stamp on your skin to remind you of a decision you’ll inevitably come to regret. Not that I think I’ll regret marrying Gabe, but I still don’t want to be branded.

  • • •

  When Gabe leaves for his shift at Nonno, I remain in my little burrow on the couch, my mind on tomorrow’s hospital visit. I’m both dreading it and wanting it to hurry up and happen already. To distract myself, I grab Gabe’s manuscript and flip to where I last left off:

  “Baby,” Russell typed, then quickly deleted it, unsure if Dahlia still was his baby. They’d agreed on an open relationship during his semester abroad in Spain.

  Already I’m annoyed—I studied abroad in Spain, not Gabe. I scan down and recognize every description: the bidet in the bathroom, the home-stay Señora who summons her charge every time the Pope appears on TV, the split-second red-to-green traffic lights that send pedestrians scuttling toward the safety of sidewalks. All these details of my experience appear like stolen souvenirs on Gabe’s pages. Next will he appropriate my homesickness? Will he attribute to “Russell” a sudden patriotic passion for Bruce Springsteen and apple pie while in the land of flamenco and tortilla española? Will he detail Russell’s inability to adapt to a schedule that splits sleep between nighttime and siesta, so that he feels stuck in a foggy fugue state (not ideal for those impulsive traffic lights)?

  But no, I discover; apparently Russell is adjusting just fine to Spain, and he’s been quite busy, too:

  Russell didn’t know how to explain to Dahlia that although he’d been with a different girl nearly every night, although he’d learned all the private corners of the local parks since the girls all lived at home under the watchful eyes of their padres, it only made him more desperate for Dahlia. The Spanish girls, with their caramel skin and ample asses and tongues well practiced in rolling their Rs,

  Seriously? I myself am becoming well practiced in rolling my eyes.

  —they only made Russell yearn to squeeze Dahlia’s taut body until she squealed, and to breathe in her intoxicating scent. No, Russell couldn’t say any of that. Anyway, Dahlia wasn’t good with email. She was distractible, her messages strings of half-thoughts, often mi
ssing connections and conjunctions. Dahlia was hard to keep track of, especially from across an entire ocean.

  Russell clicked out of his email and logged on to Expedia, where, on a whim, he bought a roundtrip ticket from Philly to Madrid for Thanksgiving. He probably had enough in his bank account to cover it. He typed, “Dahlia Freid” in the space for passenger name, then forwarded the flight confirmation to his girlfriend.

  This strikes me as equal parts romantic and stupid. Never would I want Gabe to deplete his bank account to surprise me with international plane tickets … but I also happen to know that he never would do that, which gives me pause—why is Dahlia worthy of such an extravagant gesture, but not me?

  Russell refreshed and re-refreshed his email, and soon he received his reward—a record full paragraph from Dahlia:

  “is this for real? if so, wahoooooo! i feel like charlie in the choc factory with my own golden ticket… can’t wait to reconvene … miss you. kiss kiss, dahlia.”

  Russell bounded out of the Internet café. The run-down street now appeared bathed in a luminous glow, and Russell basked in it, imagining that the sunbeams were Dahlia’s limbs swaddling him.

  Jesus, what a tortured image! I can’t help it, I’ve started reading through a squint.

  The day before Dahlia’s scheduled take-off, Russell received another email, subject: “salutations from america.” A trickle of acid rose in his throat.

  “rrrrussell! the sun’s up and smiling, the sky’s bright. is it sunny over there across the world thousands of miles away? tho not for long, baby. 7 hours on a plane and i’m there. i practically forget what you taste like. strange, right? daahling, i. will. see. you. soon. –d.”

  A fear took root in Russell’s gut. His head dropped onto the keyboard, and when he lifted it, he blinked hopelessly at the muddle of letters on the screen. Something was very wrong, and Russell realized he’d been dreading it all along.

  ˜

  Oh no, here comes something I’ve been dreading all along: Dahlia’s point-of-view.

  Dahlia wanted a lot of things very badly and all the time. Sometimes it surprised her that she wasn’t just a massive kinetic ball of want but instead attached to a body, to hips and lips and tits.

  Lord.

  One of the things she wanted was Russell. She was so fired up to see him and to get away from this crappy campus that she’d skipped class all week—presumably to pack, although she hadn’t gotten around to that yet. Her excitement ballooned; she felt giddy and giddier; she had energy for days.

  To celebrate the imminent reunion, Dahlia went out—on her bike around campus, then to a string of parties, then to the roof of the athletic center via a hidden ladder that a pair of soccer players showed her. By the time she made it home, the sky was lightening and Dahlia made for her pill supply. She wasn’t sure how long had passed—the sun was soon gone again—when she felt her roommate, Natasha’s, hands heavy on her shoulders and heard, “Girl, get a grip.” Only then did Dahlia wince at the blare from her speakers. Only then did she wonder when she’d last eaten.

  “What day is it?” she asked.

  “It’s still November 23rd,” Natasha said, “and your flight’s still at 11. It’s 8 now.” Dahlia nodded, feeling like only a thread attached her head to her neck. “You have three hours, okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Dahlia saluted Natasha. She pulled out her duffel bag, an empty vessel, all potential, to be filled with shirts and jeans and bras and panties, toothbrush and makeup, and … ? She added her flask and a smattering of pills, then zipped it shut with satisfaction.

  It was chilly in the cab, conditioned air gusting at Dahlia from what must’ve been a dozen vents. She tried to alert the driver, but the man jabbered into his phone without pause in a foreign language. Dahlia fumbled with every switch and button, but still, the frigid wind. No matter where she slid to on the seat, the jets pointed vengefully at her. She settled for warming swigs of rum.

  Curbside, 9:35. Dahlia gave the driver exact change, no tip, arctic asshole. Confirmation number in the machine, ticket printed. Oh, she should get a gift for Russell, who’d summoned her from halfway around the world, all expenses paid. At the newsstand, she found mini Liberty Bells and Ben Franklin stamps and triangle prisms of Toblerone. “No, no, no,” she said. She turned to a fellow customer. “Will you help me?” but the woman recoiled and strode away. Dahlia made herself think of Russell—his wavy hair, muscled shoulders, gentle eyes. She should get him an award. Yes, he’d love that! “Which aisle are the prize ribbons in?” she asked the clerk.

  “What’s that?”

  Dahlia repeated herself, but the clerk’s face stayed slack, staring. Dahlia had an urge to slap her, to hear the smack of her palm against that dumb, fleshy cheek.

  “Never mind,” she said, “Stupid store.”

  “Excuse me, miss, please lower your voice. There’s no need to get riled up.”

  “Riled up?” Dahlia laughed. “You only don’t have the most important thing.” Her arm reached out and, as if it were an entity separate from her body, swiped at a row of candy bars. They went soaring, thuds and smacks of Kit Kats and Snickers against shelves and calves. Dahlia strutted out.

  She scanned the signs for Terminal B. She marveled at the orderly lines of people, all waiting patiently for their turn to shed their shoes and succumb to security. They were sheep, lemmings, soldiers blindly following orders. When it was her turn, Dahlia high-fived the TSA agent and glided through the metal frame. Beep. She was instructed to try again—and again she triggered the menacing beep. “Miss, please step aside,” someone said, then Dahlia noticed a team of TSA agents approaching her like she was magnetized for it. They closed in on her with their bloc of beige uniforms and stern stares. Dahlia felt all the energy seep out of her body. She could picture it frame by frame: all the fucking bullshit that would follow.

  Thankfully, the chapter ends there. Gabe has spared us a slog through some plaintive explanation of the insidiousness of addiction or unbalanced brain chemistry or whatever’s underlying this debacle. Dahlia is her own unique hot mess. Bearing witness to it has made me squirm and sweat and read at double-speed just to be done. But it isn’t just what Dahlia does that’s so cringe-worthy, I realize; it’s that she’s entirely unashamed of it. Even while getting detained by airport security, Dahlia is wholeheartedly, unapologetically herself. It’s horrifying, yes, but also a little heroic.

  The next chapter is back to Russell, and I speed through it: the checking and re-checking on Dahlia’s flight, the familiar dread “slick and dark as obsidian,” the disappointment giving way to resignation, the bulk box of condoms woefully observed [ugh], the lonely night wandering the city, and the inevitable finale in the arms of una chica muy guapa as Russell pines away for his elusive true love.

  My jaw is clenched and my hands are fists. I want to shake Russell for letting himself be seduced by the desire to save Dahlia, for confusing that impulse with love. For not getting himself a different girlfriend, someone practical and good-natured who at minimum knows how to navigate airport security drama-free … someone like me. Of course, really I want to shake Gabe for having once felt this way about Talia—and, I fear, for still feeling it, despite recent proclamations implying otherwise. I glance at my hands, fingers bare save for the lingering rash from my faux ring. What a chump I am, to have settled for a drunken, do-over subway proposal with twisty-ties in place of a real ring. Dahlia would never stand for such a lame counterfeit of what she wanted. No doubt Talia wouldn’t either. So, what, then, is my problem?

  Chapter 9

  I HATE HOSPITALS. In the face of bodily fluids, smells of sick, and people who need help and for whom I can do nothing, I pretty much shut down. (This despite my insistence to Gabe of the healing power of sympathy; really that was just wishful thinking.) Ever since I was a kid and my family spent those six long months practically living at Maine Medical, I’ve done all I can to avoid the places. My only coping mechanism is the cafeteria s
taple of warm sugar water known as Swiss Miss. Which is why, after a glimpse of the usually exquisite Lana now laid out on a hospital bed writhing in pain, face splotchy and eyelids droopy with drugs, I offer to make a beverage run.

  My mother narrows her eyes at me. “Molly, you just got here. Spend some time with your poor sister-in-law.”

  But Gabe knows my feelings about hospitals. “I’ll take a latte.”

  “Leo? Double espresso?” My brother nods, and I pat him on the back. I haven’t seen him in such rough shape since I used to bring him egg-and-cheeses after his all-nighters in med school.

  “Fine, I’ll take a mint tea, two Splendas.” My mom holds out a twenty, which I wave away.

  I take my time moseying down to the cafeteria. When I return, Lana is passed out, tongue lolling from a slack mouth; Gabe is uncovering the tin vats of food we brought from Nonno; Leo is rattling off medical jargon to a nurse; and my mom is nodding along, unable to hide her pride in her son, the doctor. I half-listen, hitting idly at a Mylar balloon whose cheerful font demands, “Get well soon!”

  When the nurse leaves, Leo’s eyes find the floor. “Her prognosis is not good. She’s either high on Oxycontin or in acute pain. She’ll get an epidural tomorrow, and then her doctor will decide about surgery.”

  No one responds—what can we say? I know that ordinarily Leo’s outlook on hospitals is the opposite of mine: Faced with the fragility of life, he wants to know all there is to know and do all he can do to fend off the inevitable. But right now, it’s clear he can’t do anything for his wife, and he looks bereft. My mom strokes his head like he’s a child.

  I’m glad when Gabe presses plates of pastas into everyone’s hands. We all mechanically chew and swallow. I pick at a piece of garlic bread, my fingers growing slick with butter.

  A moan from Lana rouses her from semi-slumber, and she blinks at her guests. “Molly. Emily. Gabe.” Her voice sounds coated in phlegm. “Exciting news: I’m thinking of training to become a professional water skier.” Gabe is the only one to respond, with a half-hearted “Heh.” Leo murmurs that she’s made this joke three times in the past twenty-four hours.