Engaging Men (20 page)

I cringed. Up until now, I had striven to keep this whole engagement plot a secret from the rest of the Committee, who, I feared, might think of it as the insanity that I had initially seen it as. But now that Michelle had deemed her little scheme a success, she made no bones about letting Doreen and Roberta in on it.

“That’s a load of crap,” Doreen said, when Michelle had finished her explanation.

“Oh, Angela, I don’t know about this,” Roberta chimed in, looking at me as if she feared for my future just as much as I did, now that I had apparently forced my way into it like a bulimic forced her way into a size-two dress.

I suddenly felt nauseous. And I wished the call volume weren’t so low, so we could end this conversation sooner rather than later. But it was the daily four-o’clock lull, when all the Lee and Laurie shoppers apparently contemplated something else besides the perfect T-shirt or a great fit in trousers.

“I’m sorry,” Michelle said, shaking her head, “but a man doesn’t bring up having a family with a woman unless he’s serious about her.”

“Kirk’s talking babies? Oh, Angela, this is serious,” Roberta said, her eyes joyful, as if she thought it was not only serious, but seriously good.

All my doubts resurfaced. ,“ I asked, you know you wanted to have kids when you got married?”

“Oh, I always wanted to have kids,” Roberta said. since I was a kid, I think.“

“Well, I never wanted them,” Doreen said, her lip curling at the thought. “In fact, the minute my ex started demanding them, I was outta there.”

“Oh, Doreen,” Roberta said, her face reproachful, ‘t you two discuss children before you got married?“

“We discussed them all right, and we both agreed that we didn’t want them. But after we got married, he suddenly changed his mind. See, that’s the problem with the whole institution of marriage,” Doreen said, warming to her subject. “It’s a trap de-

signed to keep women down. Why do you think everyone from the government to advertisers to society at large perpetuates this myth of happily-ever-after? Somebody has to keep the population going. So they set about brainwashing women to accept our biological destiny as our only destiny. But the truth is, marriage isn’t the fairy tale everyone from your mother to the government with their big family-values toot claims it to be. It’s an institution designed to regulate breeding habits.“

“Sikorsky, you freak,” Michelle said, “I’m married, and you don’t see me popping out babies.”

Good point, Michelle. But then I wondered why Michelle didn’t have kids. She’d been married seven years; she had a three-bedroom house. It wasn’t like she had much of a career, I thought, glancing around the cubicle-filled space we lived in four times a week for the sake of steady pay. What was she waiting for?

Doreen snorted. “Well, Delgrosso, first you gotta have sex to have babies.”

“Fuck you, Sikorsky,” Michelle said. , Ange, you gonna listen to this idiot? You don’t have to have babies right away.“

She was right, I realized. Because, after all, I did have a career I was still working on. Kirk knew that. If there was one thing he did understand, it was ambition. So if I decided I didn’t want to have kids right away in the hopes of pursuing a new gig, surely he would understand.

“I wouldn’t wait too long,” Roberta said. “I mean, once you hit thirty-five, your fertility goes down by fifty percent, you know.”

“Fifty percent?” I said, new worry filling me. Gosh, that was only four years away. I mean, I didn’t want to have kids now, but if I hoped to have them eventually, I needed to make some strides.

“Angie’s only thirty-one, Roberta,” Michelle said, “which is exactly why she should get married now. This way, she and Kirk could have some time as husband and wife before kids enter the picture.”

Gosh, Michelle was smarter than I realized. Maybe I could have everything I wanted someday, if I just put all the pieces in place. And they were falling in place, weren’t they? Kirk’s lid was off. We were going to get married. He was going to be a leading software entrepreneur, while I…

I didn’t know what I was going to be.

“I think it’s time you started thinking about what you want,” Michelle said now.

“Want?” I replied, still dazed by the thought of the career choices that lay ahead.

“In an engagement ring,” she said simply.

Oh, right. Engagement ring. I was getting married. I was going to be a wife. And a mother, I thought with a shiver as I remembered Kirk’s happy face when he brought up the “F” word (family, that is). Someday. Someday I’d be a mother. But first there was my acting career.

What acting career? a little voice whispered.

“I think you should start dropping hints,” Michelle suggested.

“Hints?” God, I could use a few myself. Because it was just becoming apparent that I didn’t have a clue…about anything.

“About the ring” she reminded me, shaking her head as if I were the idiot now.

“How the hell do I know what kind of ring to get?” I said, all my fears and frustrations reaching a fevered pitch.

Michelle’s eyes widened. “You need more help than I realized,” she said. don’t worry. I got you covered. We’ll go see Rudy. He’s right in the Diamond District.“

“I can’t shop for a ring without Kirk,” I said, wondering anew at her madness.

She sighed. “We’re not gonna buy, we’re just gonna look, Ange. You don’t want Kirk dropping a load a cash on a diamond you don’t want.”

Suddenly I remembered the heart-shaped pendant Kirk had bought me for our first anniversary. I shivered. I hated heart shapes. And it was gold. I never wore gold. Kirk should have known that, having seen my silver-jewelry-clad self often enough. Maybe Michelle was right—Kirk was clearly going to need a little guidance in the jewelry department.

Because if I had no idea what I wanted, Kirk certainly didn’t.

In a ring, I thought, with another shiver. Or in life…

If I thought I was overwhelmed yesterday, I was completely bowled over when I met up with Michelle on the corner of 47th Street and Fifth Avenue, the so-called Diamond District. The street was lined with signs that promised fair prices, quality cuts, great selection—everything, that is, short of happily-ever-after. I didn’t even know where to begin. And I wasn’t even sure I should begin. Because, in truth, now that I had committed to this little pre-Lee and Laurie shopping spree, something felt wrong about it. What was I doing in the Diamond District on a Wednesday afternoon with Michelle? If I was ring shopping, shouldn’t I be with my future husband?

“I feel like I’m getting engaged behind Kirk’s back,” I told Michelle as she led me down the street, taking out her cigarettes and handing me one without even asking if I wanted it (I did).

After she lit us both up with a neon-pink lighter she promptly dropped back into her purse, she said, worrying. We’re just going to get an idea. Rudy will never steer you wrong.“

“Is Rudy’s where Frankie got your ring?” I asked, puffing furiously on that cigarette as we passed glittering storefront after glittering storefront.

“Of course,” she said. “He’s got a great selection, too.”

We stubbed out our cigarettes in front of a battered steel door halfway down the street, which was half-hidden by a placard that read, Diamonds R Us, then passed through that door and headed down a long, dark hallway that gave me the creeps. “Who is this Rudy guy anyway?” I asked.

“He’s my mother’s cousin,” Michelle replied. I wondered how related they really were. After all, Michelle’s mother seemed to be cousins with every Italian from Brooklyn to Manhattan. The real estate agent who had sold Michelle her house. The headhunter who had landed Michelle her job at Lee and Laurie. Even the priest who married Frankie and Michelle was some kind of uncle or cousin.

When the shadowy hallway ended in another door that opened into a brightly lit space lined with glass counters that housed jewelry, I felt a moment of relief.

Then I saw Rudy. Five foot nothing and almost completely bald, he wore a shiny button-down shirt John Travolta might have sported in Saturday Night Fever and a pair of pleated trousers that emphasized his somewhat squat stature. Oh, and then there were the chains—thick, gold and dangling deep into the chest hair that was sprouting from the top of his shirt. “Michelle, baby, how are ya?” he said, standing up from the stool where he sat at the back of the store, a cigarette burning in the large marble ashtray that rested on the glass counter before him.

“Hiya, Rudy,” Michelle said, rather coquettishly, as Rudy stepped around the glass counter and gave her a hug that swallowed her small frame and a kiss right on the lips.

“God, you get more gorgeous every time I see you!” he exclaimed, releasing her and gazing into her eyes. ‘s Frankie? Treating you good?“

“You tell me, Rudy. Has he been in here lately? You know my birthday’s coming…”

“You send him right to me, Michelle, I’ll take care of him. After all, Rudy knows just what you like, baby,” he said with a wink that implied he wasn’t just talking about earrings.

Then he turned to me, his dark eyes roaming over me as if he might be able to determine just what / liked, and I’m not talking about earrings either.

“Angie DiFranco, meet Rudy Michelangelo,” Michelle said.

“Oh, like the sculptor,” I said, with a small smile.

“The very one,” he said, gesturing to the corner of the store, where a plaster replica of the famous David sculpture stood, his neck draped in a what looked like a thick rope chain. “But to tell you the truth,” Rudy said, leaning in closer and giving me a solid whiff of the cologne he apparently bathed in, “if I had sculpted that puppy, I woulda given David a little more of the family jewels, you know what I’m saying?” He laughed raucously.

“Rudy, you are too much,” Michelle said, swatting his arm playfully.

She wasn’t kidding.

“So what can I do for you ladies today, huh? Some nice tennis bracelets? I got some great styles in—”

“Actually, Rudy, we’re here for Angie,” Michelle said, turning toward me with a smile. ‘s shopping for an engagement ring.“

“Is that right?” he said, looking me over again in light of this information. “Breaks my heart! Another beautiful girl off the market!”

“Rudy!” Michelle said with a tinkling laugh. “What would Vicky say if she heard you talking like that?”

He put a hand to his chest, his eyes wide. “You know that woman is my heart. My heart, I tell you!” Then he held up his left hand, which was covered in an assortment of gold rings, one of which looked like a wedding band. ”I’m married thirty-two years next week, and I never regretted a minute of it. Not a minute!“ he cried. ”But I’m a flirt. Can’t help myself. My Vicky knew what she was getting into,“ he continued with another chuckle.

I have to say, I felt a little better now that Rudy had established himself as a harmless married flirt instead of a lecherous old man. Despite the Saturday Night Fever attire, he seemed like someone I could trust. In fact, with his dark Italian looks and bushy little mustache, he looked a bit like my late uncle Gino.

Then as if he were some doting uncle, he turned to me, his face serious. “Good guy?”

It took me a moment to realize he was asking about Kirk. “Urn, yeah, he’s a good guy.”

“Kirk is a great guy, Rudy. You think I’d let my friend Angie marry a bad guy?” Michelle said, making me wonder how she could know so much about Kirk, having only met him a few times almost two years ago, when he was installing software at Lee and Laurie.

“Just checking,” Rudy said, holding up his hands, palms out. “I wouldn’t want to lose a beauty like this to some schmuck, huh?” He barked out another laugh, picked up his cigarette, which had burned down to the filter, and took one last puff before he stubbed it out. “Come on. I’ll show you what I got.”

He led us to a long case on the left wall, which housed more diamond rings than I had ever seen in my life. I began to feel hopeful.

Until I leaned over it to study the hordes of glittering shapes that stood up from the velvet trays that lined the case. It suddenly occurred to me that I had never, ever, contemplated what kind of ring I would want to grace the ring ringer of my left hand…for the rest of my life.

My God, this was big. I was about to make a commitment. To jewelry.

“See anything you like?” Rudy asked. Well, yeah, a lot of things. But nothing jumped out at me. Nothing I would want to wear…forever.

I looked up to see that Michelle had found something she liked. And Rudy had already obligingly opened the case to let her try on what looked like the biggest diamond I had ever seen.

“God, Rudy, I wish I could get married again,” Michelle said with a sigh, gazing at her left hand, where she had removed the colossal rock Frankie had given her and replaced it with this newer monstrosity.

“Hey, there’s always the ten-year anniversary,” Rudy replied. “You’re coming up on that soon, aren’t you?”

“Bite your tongue,” Michelle said reproachfully. ‘m not that old. It’s just seven years now. You should remember. You came to the wedding.“

“Oh, I remember, little girl. You were the most beautiful bride! Just as beautiful as my Vicky. And this one,” he said, looking at me as I still stared somewhat ponderously into the case, “she’s gonna be a knockout! But first we gotta find her the perfect ring.”

Now that all attention had turned back to me, I made my first tentative choice—mostly because it wasn’t gold and because I had to start somewhere.

Rudy pulled out the tray and handed me the ring. “This is a princess cut,” he began, then rambled on some more about the clarity and color. I didn’t understand a thing he was saying—I was too caught up in staring at the ring, which I held between my two fingers as if any moment now his words were going to make sense.

“Try it on, sweetheart! It’s not gonna bite ya!” Rudy said finally, his eyes twinkling at me as I looked up at him.

I felt a moment’s hesitation, then slid it on. At first I was struck by the whiteness of the stone against my skin—I had never worn a diamond on my hand before. And I discovered I liked it. Very much.

But I knew, without knowing why, that this wasn’t the ring. So I moved to another. And another. And another. Soon enough, I was hooked but good, suddenly understanding why Michelle had been so eager to go on this little shopping spree.