Slightly Settled (23 page)

“No.” I swallow a sigh. “He’s from
near
the city.”

“Where are his people from?” she wants to know, as she rolls out more dough on the flour-dusted vinyl poinsettia-covered tablecloth.

“His people? He’s not an emperor, Ma,” I say lightly.

She doesn’t laugh.

“Tracey, you know what she means,” my sister says.

She’s right. I do. And that’s why I’m feeling pissy. His ethnic heritage shouldn’t matter to my family.

“I don’t know where his people are from, Ma. His last name is Candell.”

“That’s not Italian.”

“How do you know? Maybe it was Candellini or Candello, and the guy at Ellis Island shortened it.”

My mother brightens. “Maybe.”

“Or maybe it was Candellinski,” I say, “or Candellowitz, or O’Candell or—”

“Maybe his mother’s people are Italian,” my mother decides. “Who was she from home?”

Translation from Spadolini Speak:
What was her maiden name?

“I don’t know who she was from home, Ma,” I say as she checks the thickness of the dough, then keeps rolling. “I’ve never even met her or Jack’s father.”

“His name is Jack?”

“Yeah.”

“Short for John?”

“I guess.”

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

“Oh,” my mother says with a tight-lipped little shrug.

“What
do
you know about him?” my sister asks as my nephew drives the mini Harley up my jeans leg making brrm, brrm noises.

“I know that he’s bighearted, and smart and he, uh…”

Mental Note: Do not mention state capital thing. They won’t appreciate it.

Addendum to above: Do not mention vast Candell wealth. Remember how Ma always bad-mouthed the Carringtons back when she was watching all those
Dynasty
reruns.

“He what?” Mary Beth prods.

“He cooks.” There.

They can’t criticize that. They cook, too.

“He cooks?”

Sure, they can criticize it. They can criticize anything.

My mother frowns, deft hands working the rolling pin. “What, he’s a chef?”

“No, he works in advertising, but—”

“You mean he cooks for
fun?
” my sister asks. “Like a hobby?”

“Yeah.”

Clearly this, to the two of them, is as newfangled a concept as all-white holiday lights and store-bought Christmas cookies.

“He was going to surprise me by cooking dinner for me last week,” I say.

“Why didn’t he?” Mary Beth wants to know.

“Because I got sick.”

“That’s because you don’t eat,” my mother comments darkly.

Shit.

Before she gets on a you’re wasting away to nothing roll,
I say brightly, “Jack went to Atlanta on business this week and he brought back peach jam for me.”

“He sounds like a smooth operator,” is my mother’s response.

A smooth operator?

Yes, of course. How could I have forgotten that smooth operators frequently use Southern preserves to lure unsuspecting women to their lairs?

“Be careful, Tracey,” warns my sister, devoted wife of Vinnie the Philanderer. “I’d hate to see you go jumping into something so fast.”

“I’m not jumping into anything, Mary Beth.”

“You just said you were thinking about marrying him.”

“I did not. Ma said that.”

“I didn’t say that,” my mother denies.

“Yes, you did, Ma. I said I met someone and you said, Are you getting married?”

My mother just shrugs.

My sisters says, “Tracey, you don’t have good judgment when it comes to men.”

Flabbergasting.

I say, “But—”

“Just don’t let him break your heart,” my mother says ominously.

“I won’t, Ma,” I say, because what else is there to say?

On Christmas Eve, Sara tells us that she doesn’t have the flu after all; she’s pregnant.

My mother and Mary Beth and my brother Danny’s wife, Michaela, crowd around her, giving advice and asking questions and sharing morning-sickness stories.

I stand apart, feeling left out, longing for…

Something.

To be a part of the married mommy club?

Or to flee?

I don’t know. I just have this unsettled feeling. Sara was my ally in the family, and now she’s one of
them
. And here I am, single Tracey, living in New York, hopelessly hung up on a “smooth operator” who seems too good to be true and probably is.

At six on the dot, we go as a group to my grandmother’s for seven different kinds of fish and
strufoli,
which are a heap of little honey-drizzled balls of dough covered in red and green sprinkles. Later we go, again as a group, to midnight mass, and then back home through the snow to drink wine and eat the sausage that has been simmering in the Crock-Pot since dusk.

There was a time when I could dig into sausage with peppers and onions at two in the morning, then climb into bed and sleep soundly till noon.

Those days are as over as my size-fourteen jeans.

I think about Angie Nardone getting married, and about Sara having a baby, and I feel like crying.

I don’t want to be them….

Really, I don’t.

But sometimes, it’s kind of lonely being single.

Okay, excruciatingly lonely. I want to be in love. I want to belong to somebody. I want it so badly that…

That you’re not willing to wait for Mr. Right to come along? That you’re trying to convince yourself that it can work out with Jack?

Everybody knows that things that seem too good to be true really are too good to be true.

Which means, of course, that Jack will never call me again.

There’s always Buckley….

No. There isn’t.

He was great about the whole Radio City thing, but I know his feelings must be hurt. There’s no way he’s ever going to make a move on me again now, and I can’t do it, either. Not after I blew him off once. It just wouldn’t be fair to jump into his arms every time I’m lonely. Or horny. Our friendship is too important to me, and I get the feeling that Buckley and I are meant to be platonic. Period.

After a restless night and the worst case of heartburn I’ve ever had, I wake to the smell of bacon frying and the sound of my mother calling, “Tracey! Phone’s for you.”

Yawning, I fumble into my robe and go into my parents’ room. Unlike the cluttery rest of the house, the master bedroom room is spartan: just a double—rather than queen-size—bed, a bureau with mass cards stuck into the mirror, and white-painted walls that are bare aside from a framed wedding picture and the obligatory plaster crucifix.

I sit on their neatly made chenille bedspread and reach for the telephone—blue, with a curly cord—that’s on their bedside table.

I’m certain it must be Kate, who promised to call me from Alabama the second she gets engaged,
if
she gets engaged.

But it isn’t Kate.

“Merry Christmas,” a familiar male voice greets me.

My still-burning heart flops around excitedly. “Jack! Merry Christmas.”

I can hear clattering pans and running water in the background. For a second, I think it’s coming from Jack’s end of the line.

Then I distinctly hear my mother say, “I don’t know if it’s him. I just said it was a man. She’s not a teenager anymore. I feel funny asking his name.”

Oh, crap.

“Hang on a second,” I tell Jack sweetly. I hold the receiver against my robe and holler, “Ma! Hang up the phone! I got it!”

I put it back to my ear just in time to hear a clatter, and then silence.

“That’s better,” I say.

“Your mother sounded suspicious when I asked for you,” Jack informs me.

“That’s because she thinks you’re a smooth operator.”

“What?”

“Never mind. How’s Aspen?”

“Snowy. How’s Brookside?”

“Snowier, I bet,” I say, glancing out the window to see a Christmas morning wonderland.

“I miss you,” Jack says.

“I miss you, too.”

“I was thinking I wished I had bought you a Christmas present.”

Wow.

Smooth operator or not, too good to be true or not, I’m in love.

“You gave me that jam,” I point out.

“Not jam,” he says. “I mean a good present.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I know, but I wish that I had.”

I smile.

“Yeah, me, too. I mean, I got all those presents for Myron…I could’ve picked up a little something for you. A football lollypop or something.”

He laughs. “For the record, I’m a Giants fan.”

“I’ll remember that.”

We chat for a few minutes more and make plans to see each other as soon as we’re both back in New York.

I hang up, smiling, thinking that he did give me a Christmas present—and it was the best one I’ve ever received.

B
ack in Manhattan, the next few weeks pass in a happy blur.

Kate is planning her June wedding to Billy, who didn’t give her a ring for Christmas but gave her one at midnight on New Year’s Eve. She called me at my parents’ house first thing the next morning to share the news. I was miserably hungover from too much cheap white Zinfandel at the annual Most Precious Mother church hall bash, but I think I managed to sound thrilled when Kate asked me to be her maid of honor.

Buckley and Sonja are giving it another go-round. She took back her living-together ultimatum, and he actually told me, over a game of pool last week, that he might consider living with her now that he doesn’t feel so cornered.

Mike seems to have gotten over the whole Secret Snowflake thing. He even teases me about it now.

Merry doesn’t, though. Whenever I see her in the eleva
tor or cafeteria, she turns the other way. I doubt she’ll ever speak to me again.

Raphael, as usual, has a new hairstyle, a new wardrobe and a new boyfriend. This time, it’s Terence, who broke up with Bentley, who refused to laser before the first of the year. I guess he likes his hideous oozing growth better than he likes Terence, which works out well for everyone, particularly Raphael.

Yvonne is back from her honeymoon, and I have to say marriage agrees with our blushing bride. Okay, granted, the only thing that’s truly blushing about her is her hair, but she’s definitely softened a bit.

Brenda and Paulie are trying to get pregnant; Latisha and Derek are, too. I asked Latisha if she’d consider getting married first—or ever—and she shrugged and said she doubts it. I’d give anything to be as self-sufficient as she is.

Speaking of self-sufficiency—rather, my lack of it—Will keeps calling. He’s left me at least five messages about the clothes he’s holding hostage in his apartment.

I don’t want to see—or even speak to—him until I’ve run it by Dr. Schwartzenbaum, who won’t be available for at least another week. I guess I’m worried that seeing Will after all this time might undo all the progress I’ve made in getting over him.

And I really am getting over him.

Mostly because Raphael isn’t the only one who has a new boyfriend.

Yup, Jack and I are a couple.

We’ve spent almost every night together since the beginning of January, mostly at his place.

The problem with my place is that I forgot to pay my bills
before I went away, and they shut off the cable. I spent so much on Christmas presents at Wal-Mart that when I got back, I was only able to pay the necessary ones like Con Ed and the telephone. It’ll take me at least until the end of the month to be able to afford cable again.

So, since Jack and I both like to hang out and watch television at night, we’ve been spending most of our time in Brooklyn. Which is fine, even if Mike’s around—unless Dianne is, too.

I can see now why she gets on Jack’s nerves. When she’s not being fake-nice, or talking to Mike in this annoying little-girl baby talk, she makes these nasty little digs. Mostly at Mike, but often at Jack and sometimes at me, too.

Like, she’ll tell me how lucky I am that I can “dress down” for the office when I’m standing there in my best outfit.

Or she’ll tell me I remind her of someone and she can never remember who, and then Mike will suggest flattering would-be doppelgängers like Sandra Bullock or Parker Posey, and Dianne will say “No!” in an
Are you high?
tone and I’m left paranoid that she thinks I look like Carnie Wilson pre–stomach-stapling surgery, even though I know that I don’t.

I’m getting kind of sick of her.

Jack’s been trying to cook that dinner for me for the past two weekends, and both times Dianne put a wrench in our plans.

The first time, she accidentally broke the oven dial off the stove and it took almost a week for the landlord to get it fixed.

Then Jack brought all the groceries once again and we
were all set for our romantic dinner, but Dianne got some horrible stomach bug and instead of going skiing with Mike or going home to her mother, spent the weekend lying on the couch while he waited on her.

Naturally, Mike, Jack and I all caught the bug, too. I spent twenty-four hours in the bathroom, half the time not sure if I should sit or kneel, cursing Dianne all the while.

“Why don’t you just move?” I ask Jack one night when we’ve barricaded ourselves in his room so we don’t have to play Trivial Pursuit with Mike and Dianne, the self-pro-claimed champion of all board games.

“I’d love to, but if I move, I’m moving into Manhattan, and I can’t afford to live alone,” he says.

By now he’s told me all about his parents’ money, and how his father refuses to help support him. It’s pretty much the way Mike said it is, but Jack doesn’t seem to mind. He figures his dad just wants him to make it on his own, the way he did.

“Well, then, why don’t you get a different roommate?”

He shrugs. “Most guys I know aren’t interested in a roommate unless it’s a girlfriend.”

“You could answer one of those roommate-finder ads.”

“Nah. I don’t want to live with a stranger.”

“You’d rather live with Dianne? Did you know she called you an asshole behind your back before I even knew you existed?”

He laughs. “She’s called me one plenty of times to my face, too. I just keep thinking maybe Mike’ll come to his senses and dump her.” He pulls me close and kisses me, then says, “Why don’t you and I move in together?”

My stomach flip-flops.

He’s kidding, right?

I open my eyes.

It’s hard to tell.

But he must be. We’ve only known each other six weeks.

“You’re kidding, right?” I say.

He hesitates, then says, “Yeah, just kidding.”

I’d be lying if I said I’m not disappointed.

But that’s ridiculous.

I mean, people don’t move in together after a few weeks.

Well, Billy and Kate did.

And now they’re getting married.

But Buckley and Sonja broke up over moving in together after six
months.

And Will wouldn’t live with me after three
years.

So, yeah, of course Jack is kidding.

Except that he’s not.

I know this because he suddenly says, “I was lying, Tracey. I wasn’t kidding.”

I stare at him.

I have to feign ignorance in case I’m wrong about what he wasn’t kidding about. I say, “Huh?”

But my heart is pounding.

“About living together. I wasn’t kidding. My lease is up in April.”

“But…it’s January.”

“It’s almost February.”

“So April is…it’s two months away. Who knows what could happen in two months?”

“You mean, what if we’re not together?”

I nod. The thought of us together is still so new that I actually tingle when I hear him acknowledge that we’re a couple.

“We will be,” he says, oozing confidence.

“How do you know?”

He kisses me. More tingles.

“Tracey, I’ve never felt this way about anybody else.”

Tingles and goose bumps.

And my mother’s voice, ominous.

Smooth operator. Beware.

“And you told me you’ve never felt this way, either,” he goes on.

Did I say that?

Oh, yeah. I guess I did. In a moment of unbridled passion. I assumed he wasn’t paying much attention. Geez, talk about multitasking.

“I don’t want to scare you off,” he goes on, “but I’m just thinking that if we’re still together in a few months, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t try living together. You’re here or I’m at your apartment every night as it is. Plus, we’re both broke. It would be cheaper to live together and split everything.”

He does have a point.

Still…scare
me
off?

I’m
usually the one who’s scaring people off.
I’m
usually the one who’s craving a commitment from somebody who’s frantically scrambling toward the Exit sign.

Suddenly, it’s like I just don’t know how to
be
in this kind of relationship. I don’t know what to do, and I’m afraid of how I feel.

Because how I feel is…reckless. I feel like I want to say, “What the hell? Let’s do it.”

But I can’t throw caution to the wind.

I can’t, because Inner Tracey won’t let me.

She keeps screaming at me to be careful. She keeps telling me that I’m so desperate to not be alone that I’m latching on to the first guy to come along since Will.

“Just think about it, okay?” Jack says over Inner Tracey’s shrill admonishment.

I
am
thinking about it.

I’m thinking I should tell him he’s crazy, and I’d be crazy, too, if I said yes.

“Will you, Tracey?”

“Sure,” I tell him. “I’ll think about it.”

“You’d look great in the teal one, too,” Kate says, grabbing a dress off the rack and adding it to the armload of pastel gowns she’s holding.

We’re in Kleinfeld, a vast bridal salon in Brooklyn. I hear it’s a loony bin on weekends and during their famous annual sales, but the place is pleasantly empty on this slushy Monday morning in late January. Kate convinced me to call in sick, and Jack promised he won’t tell Mike that I’m not.

He left for a business trip to Seattle early this morning. Jack, not Mike. I miss him already. He won’t be back until Friday night.

“I look washed-out in teal,” I tell Kate. “I think the red would be best on me. Or black.”

“My maid of honor can’t wear black,” Kate informs me.

“People do it all the time.”

“Yeah, in New York. We’re getting married down South, remember? In June. And there are eight other bridesmaids, who are expecting pink dresses. Or lavender. I can’t put them in black.”

“Then what about red?”

Kate makes a face. “Try the teal, Tracey. Please? For me?”

“Okay.”

We head toward the dressing rooms. Naturally, Kate the Control-Freak Bride is coming in with me.

Which I suppose is only fair, since she’s buying my dress for me, since she’s rich and she knows that I’m not and that I have to somehow scrape together plane fare to Alabama for the wedding in June.

She already bought her dress from a salon in Mobile. She’s flying down every month between now and June for fittings.

“I’m so stressed out, Trace,” she says, as we step into the dressing room and the saleswoman closes the door behind us. “Don’t ever let anybody tell you six months is enough time to plan a long-distance wedding. It might as well be six weeks.”

“Speaking of six weeks,” I say, stepping out of my jeans, “Jack wants to move in together.”

“Here, try this one first.” Kate passes me the hanger holding the teal dress. Then, “What did you say?”

“I said, Jack wants to move in together.”

“Is he crazy?”

“Of course he’s not crazy,” I say, even though I’ve secretly been wondering the same thing.

“Yes, he is, and so are you if you do it.” Kate’s twang is more pronounced, the way it always is when she’s telling me what I should do.

And even though I’ve basically told myself exactly what she just said, I retort, “That’s not fair, Kate. I didn’t say you were crazy when you moved in with Billy.”

“That was different. Billy and I moved in together for different reasons than you would be, Tracey.”

“How do you know that? What are my reasons?” I pull the dress over my head. The full skirt swishes down over my bare, white, goose-bumpy legs.

“There’s just one big reason, and it’s that you don’t want to be alone,” she says, zipping the dress up the back for me.

Ouch. That’s true, and it’s almost as painful as my reflection in the teal dress.

I may have lost a ton of weight, but every ounce that still clings to my belly, hips and thighs is highlighted by slippery teal satin.

I grimace at myself in the mirror, and I ask, “Well, who
does
want to be alone?”

“I shouldn’t have put it that way. I meant, you think you
can’t
be alone. You haven’t even given it a try.”

“So, like, what? I’m just supposed to spend a year hibernating in my apartment before I’m allowed to date?”

“Of course not. You should date. I’m the one who told you to go out with Jack in the first place, when you didn’t want to. Remember?”

“Yeah. So why are you changing your tune now, Kate?”

“Because it’s too soon for you to jump into a permanent relationship, Tracey.” She stands beside me, looking serene and beautiful in her creamy white sweater and trim khaki pants, her pale blond hair pulled back in a simple ponytail.