The Sleeping Beauty Proposal

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  I’d have to tell them they should ask someone else. Hugh’s real fiancée—whoever she was.

  “I hope it won’t be too hard for you,” he added. “I never planned for this to happen.The last thing I wanted was for you to get hurt, Genie.”

  Too late. “Maybe they won’t ask,” I said. “Maybe they’ll be polite.”

  “Maybe.”

  More silence.

  Patty, having now given up on me, was downing the shot herself. This was it. This was going to be my last conversation with Hugh. I was definitely not going to call later tonight and beg for him to come back.Those days were over.

  "Is she going to England with you?” I couldn’t help it.“Because if she is, she should be prepared to know your mother does not like women who wear shorts. Also, about her rottweiler Scruffy ...”

  “Genie,” he murmured. “Let it go.”

  “I can’t let it go. It’s four years. Four years ended in one night.” The sobs were coming on again, involuntarily, like hiccups.

  “I’m so sorry. Sometimes things are beyond our control. I wanted to love you in every way possible, but I couldn’t. You have to believe me when I tell you I tried.”

  “I believe you,” I said. But I didn’t, really.

  It was all a lie.We were a lie. And lies cannot last.

  Only truth.

  Click.

  I stared at the phone, the medium of my pain, lying so innocently on my coffee table. It was over. We were over.We would never again be Hugh and Genie.

  Already I felt exhausted, as if my entire body had been run through Hugh’s Italian Atlas pasta machine, leaving me flattened and folded. I had no idea how I’d make it through the night, let alone the rest of my life.

  A shot glass filled with nasty-smelling liquid came into view and I remembered Patty was sitting next to me.

  “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. Leviticus.” She pushed the shot into my hand. “Until then, have a drink.”

  I downed the shot. It burned and tasted awful. It was perfect.

  The phone rang, a number I didn’t recognize.

  “Let me handle this,” she said. “You’re in no shape.”

  “No. It’s my responsibility.”

  Patty grabbed the phone. “Don’t you trust me?”

  “Why?”

  The phone kept ringing and ringing.“I just want to know. Do you trust me?”

  I thought of all the occasions Patty, my former college roommate, had come to my rescue—when I was flunking Soviet Economics and she tutored me to an A, when my car broke down on Storrow Drive in rush hour, when I got that nail in my foot down at the Y, when I missed my period and I needed an ultraexpensive early pregnancy test.

  “Of course, I trust you.”

  “Then let me handle this.” When she answered the phone, her voice immediately melted from tough litigator to Patty of the Belmont Junior League. “Why, hellooo, Connie.”

  Oh, crap. It was Connie Robeson, the only other single admissions counselor over the age of thirty-five in our office. Connie had been studying Hugh and me like we were a rare breed of mating African apes, curious and intrigued as to how I, with my outdated Etienne Aigner loafers, had attracted a prime specimen like Hugh when she had followed every dating book to the footnote with no matched success.

  “Tell her I’ll talk to her later,” I said.

  Patty flapped me away.“It is exciting, isn’t it?Yes, she and Hugh couldn’t be happier.”

  What? What was she doing?

  “Very romantic,” Patty gushed.“They do make a lovely couple. Dr. and Mrs. Hugh Spencer. He is a doctor, you know. A Ph.D.”

  I waved my hands in protest, trying to catch Patty’s attention before she went on, but she just turned her back to me and kept on chatting.

  “I don’t think they’ve set a date yet, no, but I’m sure you’ll be invited. Can Genie get back to you tomorrow? There’s another call coming in and she’s already on her cell to Hugh’s parents.”

  That didn’t even make sense. Hugh’s parents were in London. Who calls London on their cell?

  Patty hung up, reached into her purse, and pulled out her Palm Pilot. I watched dumbly as she scrolled through to her address book.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m calling your sister, Lucy, to make sure she knows you and Hugh are getting hitched.”

  I snatched the phone out of her hand. “You can’t call Lucy. She’ll turn right around and blab to my parents.”

  “Exactly. Then your parents will call all their friends, Connie will tell everyone at Thoreau, and then—bingo—no more questions. When he gets back from England, old Hugh will find himself with a hell of a lot of explaining to do.”

  “You mean you want me to act as if Hugh really did ask me to marry him?”

  Patty shrugged. “Why not? That’s the conclusion everyone is going to make anyway.”

  “That’s insane!”

  “No, it’s not.What’s insane is going on national television and popping the question to your slut ho on the side because you think it’s going to boost book sales.” She poured out two more shots and stopped. “Or is that Machiavellian? Then again, Machiavelli was both cruel and insane, so I guess Machiavellian covers all bases when it comes to Hugh.”

  I thought about this. “You think he proposed just to sell books?”

  “Absolutely.Which is all the more reason that you should tell everyone he proposed to you. Also, because you deserve it.” She handed me the shot. “You deserve to be getting married, Genie. You’ve paid your dues.”

  I stared at the drink in my hand. Patty was making no sense.

  “For the last four years,” she explained, “your life has been on hold.You haven’t grown or changed or anything.You’ve just been washing Hugh’s socks and doing his bidding, waiting for him to ask you to be his wife so you can start your life.”

  “I have not been waiting for Hugh to ask me to be his wife so I can start my life.” That was outrageous. I mean, I was a feminist. Sort of.

  “Really? Think about it. You’re sick of the job you’ve held for fifteen years, but you didn’t dare leave it in case a career move took you away from Hugh.You wanted to buy a house, but didn’t know if Hugh was going to stay here or move back to England.

  “You remind me of that idiot Sleeping Beauty, lying around like a zoned-out zombie waiting for your prince. Well, guess what, he rode right past your castle tonight and now you have a choice— you can either go back to bed or you can wake up.”

  There was a kernel of truth in what she was saying.The years with Hugh were a blur, one running right into the other as I marched through the same routine, day after day. Meanwhile my friends had been getting married, raising kids, or, in Patty’s case, rising through the ranks of their professions and running off to Bali for sex-drenched vacations.Whereas I’d been in limbo.

  “But I can’t tell everyone we’re engaged when we’re not.”

  “You keep acting like that’s a big deal,” Patty said.

  “Because it is a big deal. People will think I’m psycho when they find out it’s not true. Crazy Genie Michaels had a nervous breakdown and hallucinated she and Hugh Spencer were engaged.”

  “Who cares what people think?” She knocked back the shot. “Hell, if I were in your shoes, I’d throw myself one of those destination weddings in the Caribbean and invite all my family and friends and coworkers and bums off the street. Then I’d send the freaking huge bill to Hugh with a note explaining he could either pay for my so-called wedding or he could confess to his loyal female fans that he’d cheated on his girlfriend of four years.”

  Where did Patty come up with this stuff?

  “But since you’re so nice,” she said,“don’t think of faking your engagement as revenge.Think of it as therapy.Wedding therapy. In pretending to be engaged to Hugh, you’ll hold him accountable and, meanwhile, you’ll find out what it’s like to be a bride, for once, instead of the bridesmaid you’ve been fiftee
n times before.”

  "Seventeen,” I corrected.

  “That’s pathetic. Your closet must be jam-packed with ugly pastel satin dresses.”

  Couldn’t argue with that.

  I sat back and considered Patty’s words. A fake engagement could be exactly like those twelve-step programs where you’re supposed to fake it until you make it. I had to think:What if Hugh had really asked me to marry him? Would I be a different person? Would I stop putting my life on hold?

  It was worth finding out.

  I handed her the phone. “I’ll do it. Call Lucy.”

  “Really?” Patty squeezed my arm. “You really will?”

  “What the hell. I have nothing to lose.”

  After all, if my prince wasn’t going to come, then maybe the next best thing was simply pretending he had.

  Chapter Three

  Panic!

  I cannot believe I have let Patty talk me into her so-called Sleeping Beauty Proposal.

  This is the first thought to trip across my brain as I lie in bed, sweating, while the morning sun slants through my window, exposing my web of deceit. How could something that seemed so justifiable last night seem so wrong this morning?

  One of my few remaining brain cells raises its hand: Tequila make Genie go crazy.

  Correct. Anyone else? Yes, you in the back by the cerebellum: Patty Pugliese can talk a jury into believing O. J. Simpson really is innocent.

  Very good. All right. One more: Hugh Spencer is a cruel cad and he deserves to be thoroughly humiliated.

  Possibly. Though I might be going too far, because now the whole world thinks we’re engaged. Like my silly sister, Lucy— whose bazillion calls I’ve so far been able to avoid—and my mother, who, I’m sure, has phoned five hundred of her closest family and friends to spread the word.

  It might be wise for me to tell Mom the truth now, before it gets too late. Yes, it will be humiliating, horribly humiliating, to have to admit that I concocted an engagement out of spite and, okay, on a sappier note, a broken heart.

  I didn’t want to admit this to Patty last night, but a teeny tiny part of me hoped that if I threw a wedding, Hugh would come. Kind of like Field of Dreams for brides. Only, in the cold, sober (I hope I’m sober) light of day, I realize that’s just ridiculous. Hugh would never marry me simply because I sent out invitations.What was I thinking?

  Of course, telling the truth will also mean enduring the gossip fest of all gossip fests that Mom and Lucy will throw as soon as I’m out of earshot. Hours will be spent rehashing how weird it is for an “otherwise normal woman” to fake an engagement, how I might need medication or maybe a stay up the street at McLean.

  Lucy will act shocked that I fantasized Hugh proposed to me and then Mom will rely on her extensive medical background (soap operas, television dramas, movies, and Tuesday’s Science Times) to diagnose me as suffering from a classic case of “Fatal Attraction Psychosis.”

  Not that I’ve really said “Hugh proposed.” I didn’t have to. All I had to say was, “Hello?” and the next I knew Mom was screaming and Dad was on the family room extension congratulating me with his gruff voice (to hide his emotion), spouting platitudes like “I’m glad you two have decided to quit shacking up and are making it legal” and “Guess my little girl’s grown up.” (Okay, Dad, I’m thirty-six. I think I’m grown-up.)

  Meanwhile, Hugh—oblivious to the fact that half of the East Coast and certain areas of the Midwest are under the impression we are tying the knot—is somewhere over the Atlantic, reading the morning paper and drinking his coffee on a flight to England, possibly with her, his real fiancée, Miss Hot Tamale. Likely she has a father just as proud as mine and a mother who also screamed nonstop for five minutes.

  Or maybe not. Maybe she is from New York City, the Upper East Side, where engagements and marriages are all very passé.You know, they’re what the masses do between buying megapacks of toilet paper at Wal-Mart and watching reality television.

  Then again, I don’t know anyone like that at Thoreau (we all steal toilet paper from the ladies’ room). Wait. What if she’s from Thoreau? When Hugh wasn’t on campus, teaching or writing, he was hanging out with me, so where else could she be from?

  It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense. I mean, who can this other woman be?

  Here, so far, is my list of potential candidates. Women I know who have harbored suspected crushes on my boyfriend. Or, rather, ex-boyfriend.

  Alice, Admissions Department Secretary

  Age: 25-55, no one’s quite sure.

  Weight: Permanent diet.

  Marital Status: Living with on/off boyfriend,Trey Ray.

  Favorites: White shoes. Extensive coffee breaks. Tight pants. Kool Menthol Ultra Lights. The electric bull at the Somerville Tavern. Brandon, the guy who fixes the copy machine and other sundry appliances.

  How she knows Hugh: Met when the rear left tire on her Grand Marquis blew out on Ballou Drive. Flat caused by Trey, who was ticked she threw out all his beer the night before. To this day, Alice considers Hugh her knight in shining armor and, until last night, she wasn’t the only one.

  Connie, Admissions Counselor

  Age: 36, though claims 30.

  Weight: Struggling to keep it under 129.

  Marital status: Single and not loving it.

  Favorites: Online dating. Speed dating. Coffee club dating. Books on How to Date and How to Meet Men and Why They’re Not Into You When You Do Meet Them.

  How she knows Hugh: Through me and she’s none too happy about that—despite her claim that she finds British men “effeminate.”

  Isabel, Spanish Literature Professor

  Age: Young.

  Weight: A lithe 115, and one of those who can eat anything she wants and never put on a pound, curse her.

  Marital status: Divorced.

  Favorites: Swaying hips while walking.Talking with a thick, sexy Spanish accent. Looking like Penélope Cruz.

  How she knows Hugh: Because she knows all the men on campus and they know her.

  Simone,Women’s Lit Professor

  Age: Forty. Do you want to make something of it?

  Weight: That’s not important. Why are you concentrating on a male-defined paradigm?

  Marital status: Do you always judge a woman according to her relationship with a man?

  Favorites: Black coffee. Shawls. Using words like deconstruct and phrases like “employing the feminine speculum.”

  How she knows Hugh: Corners him at every chance to badger him about why he failed to include Anzia Yezierska in the freshman canon.

  Nope. None fits Hugh’s type. Except for Isabel. I’ll have to keep an eye on her, the hot-blooded Spaniard.

  Speaking of hot-blooded Spaniards, here comes Jorge the cat staggering through the doorway in his blind pursuit of a sun patch and leftovers. He collapses on my carpet of roses and green vines, exhausted from having hiked all of five feet, and looks up at me with the equivalent of feline disgust.

  My alarm clock claims it’s seven thirty, though as it is a largely untrustworthy piece of junk, that could mean anywhere from seven twenty to seven forty. Still, enough time to make it to work and be reasonably efficient. I just need a cup of coffee, a shower, and a jiffy blood transfusion.

  Oh, wait! It’s not Monday. It’s Sunday. Relief. I have one full day to recover and regroup. I could go back to sleep, but Jorge is having none of it. He is meowing relentlessly and won’t let me rest until I’ve fed him and shot him up with insulin. (It’s true. Jorge gets enough Humulin to treat a three-hundred-pound Snickers freak.)

  Slowly, I ease myself out of bed, my head throbbing as I squeeze by the bureau. Gee. That brings back memories. Whenever Hugh bumped his knee on that damned bureau, he’d vow to get me out of this tiny apartment.

  "You’re a grown woman, Genie,” he’d say. "The era of living like a college student is over. You need to get yourself a decent space.”

  No. Stop! I cannot spend my life like this, d
elving into nostalgia at the least little memory. I must move forward. Therefore, I march to the kitchen, grab a cupful of diabetic-maintenance cat food, and dump it in Jorge’s bowl.

  “You’re up!”

  Patty, her hair sticking out in scary angles and with dark black smudges of mascara under her eyes, is yawning and holding a gigantic plant tied up in a white bow.

  “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful,” she says, handing me the plant. “Who knew that FTD delivered at seven on a Sunday morning?”

  My pathetic reaction is to hope that Hugh has sent the plant with a card (“It was all a joke. Of course I love you, you sexy vixen, you!”) and a British Airways ticket to London. Jumping up, I grab the flowers and rip open the envelope while Patty collapses at the kitchen table.

  "May today be the saddest day of your life!” Love, Aunt Jean.

  Holy crap! I grip the counter for support as my entire body turns to petrified wood. I am both disappointed (that it is not a ticket to London) and terrified (that Aunt Jean has found out I am lying).

  But how? I mean, I knew she did the Sunday crossword puzzles in pen and could guess all the answers on Jeopardy!, but I never figured she was this smart. Smart enough to smell a scam all the way in Jersey? I feel dizzy, as if I’m about to pass out.

  Patty lifts her head from the table. She is wearing nothing but my old Supertramp T-shirt. “What’s wrong?”

  “Aunt Jean knows Hugh didn’t propose to me.”

  “She does not.”

  “Read for yourself.” I toss it to her so she can read for herself.

  While she decodes Aunt Jean’s threat, I try to determine how quickly I can pack up and head west. Of course, I’ll need cash and an alias. How about Penelope Truehart? And then there will be Jorge. It’ll be a drag to carry around his fat ass in a cat caravan, begging for Humulin and clean needles along the way. Motels won’t look kindly on lending out rooms to a drug-dependent cat.

  Patty is smiling. “Aww, that’s sweet.”

  “Sweet?”