A Rather Curious Engagement

by C. A. Belmond

  Until afterwards—when we took coffee and dessert in the living room. Most of the men wandered off to a billiard table in the back of the duplex. Harold and Rupert had pinned Jeremy in a corner and were talking urgently to him, and Jeremy’s face took on a slightly perturbed expression that lingered even after the game ended, and the men deigned to rejoin the ladies.

  I had been listening with dutiful attentiveness to one of the women who was very, very pregnant, and who advised me that if I was contemplating having children, then the thing to do was to have them all at once, one right after the other, no matter what people said about spacing them apart.

  “It makes no difference to the kids if you space them out,” she said positively. “So you may as well get it all done, just like a dog with a litter.”

  Jeremy came over to me and said, “Penny, I think we’d better be going. We have an early start tomorrow.” Good, I thought wearily. By tomorrow we’ll be back at the Riviera, back on the case.

  “It’s raining,” Jeremy noted. “I’ll go get the car.” We’d had to put it in a car park down the street. “You wait here,” he said, “and I’ll phone you when I’m right in front of the house.”

  I went upstairs again in search of the “ladies’ loo” which was a powder room with a big mirror and purple chairs, and a lockable door that led to a private water-closet with a toilet and its own sink. Both rooms were empty. But just after I’d washed my hands and was drying them on a purple towel, I heard Lydia and a couple of other women come into the adjacent powder room.

  “So?” Lydia said cunningly. “What do you think?”

  “She’s cute!” one of them said, as if to deliberately stick it to Lydia.

  “Jeremy always liked redheads, didn’t he?” said another. Somebody giggled.

  “I think she’s just charming,” Lydia said firmly, “but I have to say, I do worry about the influence she’s had on him. Do you know he simply walked out of the office one day and never came back? She’s the one who’s making him take a gap year!”

  “Why?” someone asked.

  “Can’t say, really. But people think it’s a bad move. Jeremy’s a company man at heart; so, without a sound business plan, well . . .”

  “He’ll come out of it,” another woman said. “He’s always been so sensible.”

  Lydia said in a low, conspiratorial tone, “Well, the fact is, he’s losing clients. Some will wait for him to see the light, but some are gone for good!”

  “Doesn’t she care about his career?” someone asked, as if she’d been cued by Lydia.

  “She took the lion’s share of the estate right out from under his nose,” Lydia said in a confidential tone. There was a general murmur of disapproval.

  “Well, American girls certainly know what they want and they know how to get it!” one woman declared, as if she half-admired that sort of bitchiness.

  “Oh, I like her!” somebody replied, and I felt a little better. Until I realized that was Lydia again. “It’s just that she’s all wrong for Jeremy, and I worry, that’s all.”

  At this particular inopportune moment, my cell phone rang. Loud. They all stopped talking. Then there was furtive whispering and rustling, as some of them quickly slipped out the door so I wouldn’t see that they’d been part of it. Having been “outed” in this way, I walked into the powder room, and took the call.

  “Penny?” Jeremy said. “I’m out in front.”

  “Hi, Jeremy,” I said. I smiled brightly. “What charming friends you have,” I continued, while beaming at them all. “Won’t we miss them when we’re out there on our yacht? Yes, of course, darling, I’m on my way.”

  You could have heard a pin drop. I certainly heard a few gasps. They all froze.

  I hung up and slipped the phone in my purse even as Jeremy was still saying, “What on earth—?”

  “Cheers!” I said to the gals, and waltzed out.

  Jeremy had the rental car waiting as if he were the driver in a bank robbery requiring a hasty getaway. I raced through the rain-drops and ducked into the car.

  “Well?” he asked after I’d closed the door and we roared off.

  “Oh, nothing much,” I said. “Just Lydia trying to organize the I-Hate-Jeremy’s-New-Girl Club.”

  Jeremy sighed heavily. “It won’t last,” he said gloomily. “They do that with everybody’s new girlfriend.”

  “Do they always make fun of people who want to do something different with their lives?” I asked. Jeremy grinned.

  “Can’t you tell garden-variety envy when you hear it?” he asked. Then he said, very seriously, “Look, I wish we hadn’t had to come back to London, but we did, and it looks as if there really is trouble going on with a client in Frankfurt. I have to go there for a couple of days and straighten it out.”

  “So, who invited the guys from your office?” I said. “Don’t tell me, let me guess.”

  “I’ve been getting frantic e-mails and phone messages from that client in Frankfurt all along,” Jeremy said. “This would have come to a crisis, with or without the party.”

  “You never told me that,” I said.

  “Well, I didn’t want to spoil our fun, did I? Been trying to hold them off without bothering you about it. I just can’t ‘phone it in’ anymore. Harold and Rupert have been doing us a great many favors all along, you know, fielding all those calls and acting as a filter for us,” Jeremy was saying defensively. “I can’t very well tell them that I’m too busy working for strangers, or gazing into my navel trying to contemplate the true meaning of life.” I sat there quietly, trying to comprehend what had been going on tonight.

  “Jeremy, are you losing clients because of me?” I asked.

  “No, of course not,” he said. “Oh, some will go off in a huff, but frankly those are the ones I’d just as soon see the back of. No, what concerns me is more basic. I mean, exactly who am I supposed to be, anyway? Some bloke on permanent vacation? Are we going to spend the rest of our lives chasing after yacht-jackers or antiques thieves, at the behest of some senile old Count? What kind of a life is that for a man? Have you ever seen what Private Investigators look like after years of doing that sort of slogging? What’s next, tailing some guy’s wife who’s having an affair?”

  So, I thought. Lydia’s arrows had met their mark, after all. “We’re not a PI firm,” I reminded him. “We are dealing specifically with a missing antique. With your international legal expertise and my art research experience—those were your words, remember? This is a test case. If we decide to continue doing this line of work afterwards, we can build a good client list of people dealing with the settling of estates, auction houses, museums, etc. It’s an experiment, Jeremy. Nothing is set in stone. But you have to try different things before you know what you want.”

  “You’re used to this nomadic, seat-of-your-pants way of doing things,” Jeremy said. “I admire you for it. I just don’t know if I could make a good partner for you, Pen.” He looked really, truly concerned.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you the real Jeremy, or the clone? You sound like the clone. Because the real Jeremy would never let envious chatter get him down. Come to that, who told Lydia about our Plan?”

  “I certainly didn’t,” he said, a bit testily.

  “Maybe she picked up the extension that time we talked on the phone and she was in your apartment,” I said. At the look on his face, I knew that he realized this could be a distinct possibility. But he wouldn’t admit it.

  “Oh, God, Penny,” Jeremy said, sounding irritated. “You see Lydia behind every tree and under every rock. Well, suppose she did. What’s the difference?”

  I turned and faced him squarely, feeling ornery. “The difference, as I’ve been telling you all along, is that she knows how to ring your bells and push your buttons,” I said. “So how long are you going to let her keep doing this to you, and, therefore, to us?”

  “It’s really got nothing to do with you—” he mumbled, as if this would reassure me.<
br />
  “That’s just the problem!” I exclaimed. “She yanks you right back into the past, where she knows I can’t follow. Meanwhile, I’m trying to create a future for us. But you can’t keep going back and forth, you know. At some point you have to pick which fork in the road you want, and go with it. It’s called commitment, Bub.”

  Jeremy had that stunned, stricken look a guy gets when a woman reads him the riot act. For a moment he didn’t speak or even make a sound. Then, he regrouped.

  “There’s no point in arguing,” he said. “I have to go sort out Frankfurt.”

  “We’re supposed to check on the townhouse tomorrow,” I reminded him. “It won’t be ready, but we should make sure it’s progressing as it should.”

  “Well,” Jeremy said, “I guess you’ll have to do without me.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  It had sounded pretty ominous when he said it, and it felt even worse the next day when Jeremy flew out to Frankfurt and I had to "do without” him.

  When the taxi arrived to take him to the airport, and he waved goodbye, I had the feeling that, although he’d return, I would never again see my buddy, my partner, the one who wanted to explore what the world had to offer before buckling back down in a law firm again.

  I didn’t like the way he’d ridiculed his own soul-searching. It was one thing if a couple of fuddy-duddy friends made jokes; quite another if he let it deter and dishearten him. But perhaps the men had said even more negative things to him over their cigars and brandy, to make him come away feeling foolish about it. At any rate, I felt I ought to face the fact that when Jeremy came back from Frankfurt, he might already have gone right back to his old life again. And it might very well be where he wanted to be.

  I told myself, fine, I’ll do it alone. I’ll keep researching the Beethoven Lion all by myself, without that man. After all, I’d spent my entire working life doing research without the help of some guy, right? And I’d whip that townhouse into shape, too, because Jeremy wasn’t the sort of fellow who functioned well with bits of plaster falling on his head. And, fine, if I had to, I’d go into business all by myself. And fend off all those crazies all by myself. And go back to cooking dinner all by myself . . .

  But, damn it. I missed that pain-in-the-ass man, and his dumb jokes, and the fun we’d had doing the research together. And what good was Penelope’s Dream if it turned out that it was no longer Jeremy’s Dream?

  At any rate, Jeremy was stuck in meetings for days, and just when he was scheduled to return, he sent me a cryptic e-mail: This is going to take longer than I thought. Going to have to miss dinner with your folks. Sorry, please give them my apologies. Jeremy.

  Well, I couldn’t just slog around London feeling sad. So, I went over to the townhouse to check in with the workmen, and we figured out all kinds of complicated stuff about flooring and windows and security systems. Then Claude sent an e-mail saying that the yacht was all repaired and refueled and spruced up and ready to go. Did I think we’d be using it this week? I told him I’d have to get back to him.

  At suppertime I locked up and went out to meet my parents for dinner on their last night in London. They weren’t the least bit offended that Jeremy had to rush off to Frankfurt. They had been enjoying their vacation, but were ready to go home.

  “You look très belle, Penn-ee,” my father said. Bless ’im. He was wearing a fine grey suit with a nice blue and grey linen shirt and a blue tie; and my mother was in a pretty red dress with matching jacket. They were both so cute and dressed up. Every outing they made, they exulted in, as if just happy enjoying each other’s company.

  “Thanks,” I said morosely, trying to pull myself together and resume being a grown-up again. We had gone to a new restaurant with a French/Vietnamese cuisine, and my father kept exhorting me to try different appetizers that he’d ordered.

  “Well, you’re right, this is very good,” I grumbled, poking around with my chopsticks. “Jeremy doesn’t know what he’s missing. ”

  My father said knowingly, “You have to be patient with young men. They are not so good at explaining their worries to the women they love. They want you to admire their strength.”

  “Oh, he told me what he’s worried about, with work,” I said glumly. My father looked at me with gentle humor, as if I were his idiot child who required extra patience.

  “Not work, that’s nothing,” he said with a wave of his hand. He put his hand over his heart. “It is what’s in here that he finds hard to tell you. But,” he added with a chuckle, “always remember that you have my French blood in you.”

  “Oh?” I asked, intrigued. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I glanced at my mother, and she looked amused but did not contradict him.

  “You can charm him whenever you want to,” my father said with utter confidence. “Using lightness and humor.”

  While I sat there trying to imagine how a glamorous French woman would handle the situation, the main course arrived in several platters which my father passed around to us. Seeing how distracted I was, my father scooped things up he thought I should try, and deposited them on my plate. It was what he used to do when I was a little girl, and he wanted to teach me the fine art of appreciating well-prepared food.

  “It can’t be easy,” my mother said, “meeting your boyfriend’s first wife and all her chums. Don’t get stuck on trying to win their approval. The minute you don’t care, that’s when they’ll give it to you.”

  “It’s not that,” I said hesitantly. Now, look. I’m not the kind of girl who calls her mother up every five minutes and tells her the minutiae of my life. In fact, with my own English blood, I’m not much at confiding in others at all. Too embarrassing. So I only said, “It’s just that they have too much influence on him. They make him feel bad for wanting to go out on his own, that’s all. And I think he’s caving in.”

  “Really?” my mother asked crisply. “And what have you offered as an alternative?”

  I didn’t quite get her point at first. “I can’t make him want to stick with our Plan,” I said. “I can’t make him want to build our own enterprise. It wouldn’t mean anything if he didn’t decide he wants to do it on his own.”

  “Well, I must say, that’s not necessarily the best strategy to take.”

  “Strategy?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

  “My advice is, you have to fight for your man,” she said, “so long as he doesn’t make you do it all the time.”

  As her words sank in, I said, “But you didn’t have to fight for Dad . . . did you?”

  “Why, of course, darling!” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in all the world. My father, who was refilling our wine-glasses, beamed.

  “Wait a minute,” I said in a deadly tone. “All my life you’ve told me that you and Dad fell smack-dab in love from the very moment that you ‘clapped eyes on each other.’ Those were your exact words!”

  “That’s right, dear,” my mother said serenely. “Love at first sight is all very well. But it’s second and third and fourth sight where you have to show your mettle.”

  “Wha-a-a-at?!” I said, feeling slightly betrayed. These two always acted as if they were perfectly fitted pieces of a puzzle that just automatically clicked together.

  “Certainly,” my father said in that low chuckle of his. “Smoothing out the rough edges is half the fun.”

  I sat back in my chair. Then, in a more hushed, awed tone, I said, “So what should I actually do?”

  “Well, darling, I really couldn’t say,” my mother began with her usual disclaimer, “but if it were me, I certainly wouldn’t hang about waiting for a man to sort out all his problems so he’s the perfect mate. Meanwhile, you can’t put off your dream while waiting for him to do it for you,” she added incredulously. “If you want to start an enterprise, go ahead, but always leave him an open door, and share your enthusiasm with him, so that it’s so contagious that everyone around you just wants to jump aboard. And do listen to what he’s trying t
o tell you. Otherwise even the best of men might get the wrong idea, and think you didn’t care.”

  “Yeah, but sooner or later he has to decide to make a commitment to one thing or the other,” I said crossly.

  “Of course. And he will. In any event,” my mother said, “it helps to be pleasant. Life is only worth living when you’ve found people you can be pleasant with. Don’t let anyone take that away.”

  After we’d hugged and kissed, I gazed at them as they walked back to their hotel. Tomorrow they’d return to the States, and tell each other how good it was to be home in their happy hermit existence, gardening and going for long walks together in the Connecticut woods when autumn made the tree colors riotous; then, come winter, they’d go south to their Florida bungalow.

  All along, they’d be laughing and cooking together, as always. Mom was a children’s book illustrator, and she and Dad launched their own picture books series. I remember, as a kid, seeing them lay out sketches and pages on the kitchen table after supper, their heads bowed, close, as they leaned conspiratorially over their work, very serious, yet telling wry jokes. They made it seem so easy. But I was beginning to get an inkling of what an accomplishment their lives truly were.

  Before heading back to Aunt Sheila’s, I stopped at Great-Aunt Penelope’s townhouse. The workmen were gone, of course, but they would return tomorrow, so they’d left all their tools lying about downstairs, and even on the stairwell. I stepped over everything and went into Aunt Pen’s second-floor apartment, and over to the locked desk where I’d left my computer this morning. I’d set myself up here, answering a few e-mails that had stacked up, because the second floor had needed the least amount of work, so it was a good place for me to hang out, while still being accessible to the workmen when they had questions or decisions for me.