The Sleeping Beauty Proposal (11 page)

Who sends a six-year-old miles away to boarding school in Scotland? If your answer is the British, you'd be correct. But not all British. Certain types of British, like Susanna and Trevor Spencer. People who “hunt” in tweed clothing nice enough for church, people who travel to estates for weekend-long parties and ski on Alps that are French. I don't even think Trevor works. He does have an office in London, but from what I've been able to discern, it's more like a base station for tête-à-têtes in Knightsbridge.

It always broke my heart to think of little Hugh in his little navy short pants and little beanie waving, “Good-bye, Mummie,” as his nanny—yes, his nanny—led him to the train.

“It was all very jolly,” he explained to me one night. “Rather good for the fortification of one's upper lip.” Here's a tip: No six-year -old should need a stiff upper lip.

Then he told the story of how, suffering from chicken pox at age seven and slightly delirious, he lay in the boarding school infirmary and tried to think pleasant thoughts about what Mummie smelled like. (“Couldn't quite get it right, unfortunately. Kept wanting her to smell like cinnamon and kept coming up Dunhills.”)

That pitiful Victorian tale was so sad, I wished for a time machine so I could turn back the clock and rescue the
enfant
Hugh alone in the St. Bart's Nasty School for Unfortunate Rich Boys. But when I dangled it out there that perhaps his mother might have been a tad neglectful, Hugh immediately rose to her defense, claiming she hadn't neglected him in the slightest because she'd had Nanny send up a box of special tea and lemon drops that the St. Bart's nursing staff took for themselves, arguing candy wasn't good for sick children.

I apologized and assured him this did mean his mum loved him desperately. Secretly, however, I vowed that if I ever were in the position of being in charge of Susanna Spencer's care, I would see to it that she lay alone in an infirmary and tried to recall what someone dear to her smelled like, too.

Okay. So I might have gone a bit overboard with that one.

Anyway, no use sweating the St. Bart's chicken pox drama. There's some other woman to look after Hugh now, to hold him in the middle of the night and be the mummie he never had.

To be fair, Hugh never did treat me like his mother. Far from it. The first night we ever slept together was perhaps one of the most erotic nights of my life. It happened entirely by accident, which, I'm afraid to say, is always the best way. (Sorry, Planned Parenthood.)

We'd been dating for about a month when a freak November snowstorm blanketed Boston and we were stranded in his apartment, which, granted, was above a funeral home, but which also had a spectacular, working fireplace.

There were a few sticks of wood, enough for a small fire. However, we had no food aside from some grapes, crackers, two cans of Progresso clam chowder, and a superb cabernet.To us it was a feast. We drank and ate and talked until the fire died down and snow knocked the power out, and suddenly Hugh was kissing me on the couch in a way I'd never been kissed, ever.

Before I could say “Wait, hold on, not quite ready,” he had nuzzled down the collar of my sweater and his lips were exploring my neck.After that, all I remember is sinking into that deep bed of his with the cream duvet and the 1,000-thread-count sheets. We stayed there for two days until New England Power turned on the lights and the heat cranked up.

I used to think our decadent weekend in bed was because I drove Hugh mad with desire, that he couldn't help making long, slow, passionate love to me over and over and over.

Now, in light of his latest revelation, I realize he was just trying to stay warm.

“Genie?”

It's Frank, the bearded driver of the number 73 who smells like bagels and lox and garlic. “Monday morning daydream?”

“Something like that.” I flip him my pass and get on.

“Don't worry. Friday's just around the corner. See if you can hang on 'til then.”

I like Thoreau best in the summer when the campus is quiet and lush. Aside from some lingering students and the occasional conference attendees, it's practically empty.

That's not counting the tours.The tours and tours of prospective freshmen and anxious parents being led around by various admissions interns to Billings Hall (where Admissions is located), Fillmore Library, the Student Center, and the pièce de résistance— the Sports Complex (heated Olympic-size swimming pool, sixteen tennis courts, racquetball, squash, weight room, Jacuzzi, sauna, and even, I am told, massage by appointment).

Not for nothing was Thoreau voted by
Rolling Stone
magazine as the finest four-year, four-season resort east of Las Vegas.

Alice, our secretary, is fiddling with a window air conditioner when I enter her first-floor office to get my mail. She has leaped into the summer season with both feet by donning a short, short white miniskirt. Her subdued navy cap-sleeve sweater and faux pearls are for the parents who will never see the tattoo of Chinese characters over her left breast or her tiny silver ankle bracelet with its not-so-innocent charms.

I attempt ultimate nonchalance. “Hey, Alice. Have a good weekend?”

Usually, this sets her off as Alice is obsessed with Fridays and Saturdays and can discuss them endlessly. From Monday until Wednesday at noon she can run a nonstop monologue about what she did the previous weekend. At some point on Wednesday, usually during lunch, this train of thought abruptly switches to what she
will
do the upcoming weekend, reaching a crescendo of planning around three on Friday, when she knocks off early.

“The better question is, how was
your
weekend?” she says provocatively.

"Um, okay.”

I can feel her gaze boring into me as I check my box for Saturday's mail and flip through various meaningless Bill Gladstone memos about upcoming meetings and retreat dates, memos that I will round-file in the privacy of my own office.Then I take a deep breath, tuck my mail under my arm, and say with exasperation, “Mondays.What a drag!”

“Not so fast.” Alice snags my left hand. “Where's the ring?”

“What ring?”

“Don't play dumb. We all know what happened. Donna in English practically sent out a newsletter.”

Instantly, my armpits go damp. Though I had an inkling that gossip about Hugh's appearance on TV might be circulating around the English Department, I had not expected it to hit my neck of the woods so soon. If Donna knows, then everyone will.

“What's going on?” asks a male voice from the other side of the window.

Brandon, our building's handyman, is holding the air conditioner from his side.

“She got engaged,” Alice says. “On television. Hugh Spencer asked her to marry him. Colleen Hirst, the dean's secretary, TiVoed it.”

That's how hot Hugh is on campus. Women like Colleen actually TiVo his TV appearances.

Brandon frowns at me in disappointment as though my engagement is a personal affront to his own credentials. “Thought you weren't looking for a serious nonplatonic relationship.”

Oh, dear. Is that what I told him?

Years ago, shortly before I met Hugh, Brandon asked me— in a carefully worded and clearly rehearsed speech—if I would like to see the Boston Pops. This was particularly painful because he'd probably thought and thought about what I might consider a fancy date and he came up with the Pops. (Note to men: No woman under seventy likes the Pops.)

Because he'd gone through such agony and because I knew turning him down would devastate him, I went with him to see the Pops and, prior to that, a way-too-expensive dinner at Pier 4, during which he kept rubbing his sweaty palms on his pants and talking about his ex-wife getting the kids and how that was so unfair.The worst was the awkward fumbling kiss in the car at the end. I cringe recalling his eager lips zeroing in on mine.

Since then, we've never been truly at ease around each other. I rarely ask him for help with the copier or changing the fluorescent light fixture, unless I absolutely have to. And then, I never bring up our personal lives. I just assumed he knew Hugh and I were together. Guess not.

“Alice doesn't know what she's talking about,” I bluff. “She's smoking dope as usual.”

“Not this early in the morning I'm not!”

Gotta love Alice.

“Look, Brandon,” she says, fed up.“Hugh and Genie have been dating for four years, as long as Trey Ray and I have. What would you expect? That he'd dump her?”

“I'll tell you what, if Trey doesn't end up marrying me after all his shit I've put up with, that man will never walk straight again. Kick and twist. Learned it in self-defense.”

Brandon winces and wobbles a bit with the air conditioner.

“I've gotta go,” I say, before Alice kicks and twists me for details. “Bill's swamping me with memos.”

“He called, you know,” Alice says, as I turn the corner.

“Bill?”

“Hugh.”

I freeze with my hand on the banister.Why would Hugh have called the office and not my home? Why didn't he just leave a message on my machine?

“How long ago?”

“Ten minutes or so. Brandon was here, weren't you?”

As if that mattered. “Great. I'll call back.” I do not ask if she mentioned our engagement because that's not a question real brides-to-be would ask.

I manage to climb all of two steps, my heart beating like I'm about to have a coronary, when Alice again shouts,“He wanted to know what the insanity was all about.”

Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Deep breath. “Did he? That joker.”

“I told him to leave a message on your machine. You might want to check.”

I cannot dash to my office fast enough. An eternity passes as I fumble with the lock, open the door, and slam it behind me. Finally, I am safe in my small office with its one window and posters of Athens and Rome, places I'd planned to visit on my honeymoon. Or, like, whenever.

Okay. I cannot panic. We are letting the chips fall where they may, right? I am Zen; problems are a tangent line touching me at one infinitesimal spot.

Besides, what's the worst that can happen? I will not lose my job over this. I mean, it's a personal matter, not a professional one. Sure, the department is supersensitive about honesty after that
Opal Mehta
fiasco, which Connie claims will change admissions policies nationwide forever. But Connie ...

Wait a second.Where
is
Connie?

Connie's office is across from mine and the door is closed, the light underneath off. It's after nine and she's not here.That's funny because Connie's
always
here. That's what you do when your one aspiration in life is to become assistant director of admissions with the “big office” downstairs next to Bill Gladstone's.

And her car. I hadn't noticed it when I came in.

I rush to my one dinky window, which looks out onto the parking lot.

Her parking spot, the one with the sign that reads CONNIE ROBESON, ADMISSIONS COUNSELOR, is empty. (The designated spot was a concession to Connie after she was passed over—again—for the assistant admissions director job that Kevin the Wunderkind now has.) Her leased Saab convertible is not there.

Oh, happy day. Is it too much to dream that Connie the big-mouth busybody is not here to torture me with endless questions about my betrothal?

I pick up my phone, ignore the blinking message light that no doubt is Hugh inquiring what all the insanity is about, and call down to Alice, who answers with her standard “Thoreau College Admissions. Alice speaking. How may I help you?” Even though she knows full well it is just me from room 201.

“Is Connie here?”

“Nooooo, she's not, Genie.” Alice pauses and I hear Brandon crack a joke. His hanging around gives further credence to Connie's theory that when Alice helps Brandon in the basement, the only fuse she's flipping is his.“And I can say no more, especially ... to you.”

To me? This is very strange. Of all the admissions counselors, I am Alice's closest friend. Connie is a user who only sucks up to Alice when there's a paper jam or when she needs a huge file photocopied right away.

"Oh,” I say. "Sure. Just wanted to know if she'll be back later today is all.”

“Don't you want to know where she is?”

"No.That's all right.” I fake a yawn.

"She's ...” Alice pauses again.
“
. . .
out of the country.”

It is heavy, important, the way Alice says “out of the country, ” as if my expected reply is supposed to be, “Oh,
really.
”

But I have no idea what my correct response should be except to say that I didn't know she was planning to go on vacation this week.

“She wasn't. She left yesterday on the spur of the moment.
Hint. Hint
.”

Hint, hint?

“You mean, she's not traveling for work?”

“Nooooo. Guess again.”

“You're crazy, you know that, Alice? I'll catch you later.” And I hang up.

Hint, hint, indeed. Here's a hint: Alice needs more work to occupy her day. She could start by cleaning up my desk, which is a mishmash of memos, Post-its, clipped magazine articles, and files. All stuff I'd left in disarray to meet Steve for drinks and a game of pool on Friday.

Friday seems so faraway now, such a sweeter, simpler time in my life. On Friday, I hadn't yet lied to my family and friends. On Friday, I was still under the impression Hugh and I were a couple never to be split. Look.There's my calendar.“Hugh's back!” excitedly written in red ink on the day he is to return from England.