Slightly Engaged (32 page)

“Oh, well, the reservation is for four, at eight,” Gregory says breezily. “It wasn’t easy to get it, but I gave the cute concierge a big fat tip.”

“He probably would have rather had a big fat—”

“Danielle!” Gregory pretends to be shocked. “You naughty, naughty girl!”

The two of them dissolve in bawdy laughter.

Jack looks at me.

Again, I can’t see his eyes beyond the lenses of his black Daggers, but…

Well, maybe that’s a good thing.

Jack is silent as we walk back to the room.

Ominously so.

I don’t dare say anything.

I keep thinking of the ring in the box in his duffel bag in the closet. When was he planning on giving it to me?

Last night, probably.

But when that fell through, he must have decided tonight would be the night.

“Maybe we can pretend we’re sick and blow off dinner,” I say hopefully as we step into the dim, air-conditioned interior.

“And just not show up? Wouldn’t that be rude?”

“No, we can call and tell them that we can’t make it.”

“Call them where?”

“You know, at their…hotel.” It occurs to me that I can’t remember which one it is. “Where did they say they were staying again?” I ask Jack.

He shrugs. “I have no idea.”

“But they told us last night, and I know they mentioned it again today.” I deposit my sandy beach bag on the rug and kick off my flip-flops. “What was it? The Beach-something, I think. Wasn’t it?”

“Tracey, I have no idea. And anyway, it would be rude to blow them off after you’re the one who set up this whole dinner, don’t you think?”

“I didn’t set up this dinner, Jack. They made the reservations.”

“Apparently, it was
your
plan.”

“I really don’t think so. I wouldn’t have done that.”

“Why not? Come on, Tracey. You invited them to Raphael’s wedding! Why wouldn’t you invite them to dinner?”

“I don’t remember doing it,” I say, and it’s a flat-out lie, but I can’t help it. I screwed up big time, and I’m desperate to fix it.

“Maybe,” Jack says succinctly, “you were so wasted you forgot.”

“I was not wasted!” I protest. “I was just having fun.”

Lies, lies, lies. They’re all lies. Yet I can’t seem to keep them from spewing out.

“Tracey, you passed out!” He tosses the room key on the dresser with a loud clink.

“I went to bed. There’s a big difference between that and passing out.”

“You’re right, there
is
a big difference, and you passed out. Trust me. I’m the one who had to keep trying to wake you up.”

“Well, even if I did drink too much, isn’t that what you’re supposed to do on vacation? Drink dirty bananas and dance and have a good time?”

“Sure it is.” He shrugs. “It’s fine. Whatever.”

But it isn’t fine. He’s pissed off because I ruined his plans last night, and I don’t blame him. Only I can’t tell him that, because I’m not supposed to know.

Now I guess we’re stuck having dinner with Gregory and Daniel.

“Jack, there’s always tomorrow night,” I tell him.

“I guess.”

“Come on, don’t be mad. Let’s make the best of tonight, and then tomorrow night, we’ll go have a romantic dinner, just the two of us. I’ll go shopping and buy something decent to wear so that we can go somewhere nice. We can watch the sunset and have champagne…”

Not that I’m trying to make plans for him, or anything.

I mean, I’m sure he’s thought this through. I’m sure he knows exactly how he’s going to propose, now that it’s actually imminent.

Oh my God! It’s actually imminent! I’m going to be getting engaged!

I wonder how much it would cost to call and reserve the banquet facilities at Shorewood from here. Probably a lot. But I really can’t waste any time nailing down that October date.

And I’ll need to start shopping for dresses right away.

Only, I really should lose at least ten pounds first.

Well, now I’ll finally have the incentive.

At dinner, I’m tempted to order the fried-oyster appetizer, but instead go with the raw bar oysters on the half shell. The pasta in cream sauce entrée sounds delicious, but instead I stick with grilled fish. And instead of the fattening—and potent—piña coladas Jack and the boyfriends are drinking, I ask for a white-wine spritzer.

They serve on island time around here, so the meal is leisurely, to say the least. The conversation flows freely, and Jack finally seems to have relaxed around Gregory and Daniel.

By the time we’re finished with dessert—a reportedly luscious whipped cream, pineapple-and-coconut cake for the others, plain old fruit for me—it’s nearly midnight.

“Should we go out for a nightcap?” Daniel suggests as we stroll into the balmy evening air.

Jack looks at me. I can tell he doesn’t want to go.

“Actually, I’m exhausted,” I say truthfully.

Gregory makes a pouty face. “Then what’s the plan for tomorrow?”

You know, I have to wonder how we’ve apparently become a tighter foursome than Abba. Was it something I said?

Mental note: in future, do not profess love to total strangers within half hour of making their acquaintance.

“I think we’re going to play it by ear,” Jack says casually.

“Well, we should exchange cell-phone numbers so we can all meet for dinner again.” Gregory pulls out a business card and scribbles on the back, then hands it to Jack. “These are ours. What are yours?”

“Oh, Tracey doesn’t have a cell phone, and mine doesn’t get service down here,” Jack says easily, pocketing the card. “We’ll just call you if we’re free, okay?”

After hugs all around, we finally go our separate ways.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” I ask Jack as we walk back down the deserted midnight beach toward our room.

“No, it wasn’t,” he admits. “But tomorrow night, it’ll be just us.”

“Right,” I say, tucking my hand into his.

He smiles and stops me so that he can kiss me beneath the crescent moon, with the sound of the gentle waves lapping at the sugary shore.

Ah. Paradise at last.

Twenty-four hours from right now, I think contentedly, I’ll have that beautiful ring on my finger and Jack’s eloquent proposal ringing in my ears.

Chapter 17

“
T
hen
what happened?” Kate asks incredulously, wide-eyed over the forkful of pasta she’s about to pop into her mouth.

We’ve been in the restaurant more than twenty minutes, and it’s taken me this long to work the conversation around from Kate’s daily drama report to my legitimate vacation drama, which is now a week old, but just as dramatic in retrospect.

“Then Jack wound up having to contact the U.S. consul to recommend an emergency-care clinic,” I reminisce as I push my own lunch around on my plate.

“What did they do for you?”

“They sent us to this hot, crowded place where we had to wait for hours. The doctor said I was severely dehydrated and they hooked me up to an IV.”

“Oh my God.”

“I know. Then I had to stay overnight and we missed our flight home.”

“Wow.”

“I know.” I shake my head, feeling sorry for myself. “It was awful.”

“Well, you can’t dwell on it. There are worse things that can happen, so just look at the bright side,” says Kate, who has been hospitalized for splinters. And less.

“What bright side? Kate, I got deathly ill and ruined what was supposed to be the most important night of my life.”

“Yeah, but you got to spend an extra day in Anguilla.”

“Kate, I was so sick I just wanted to be home. And when we finally did get to leave, everything was booked and we had to take three connecting flights—one of them was through Denver.”

“What’s wrong with Denver?”

“It’s a little out of the way, don’t you think?” I ask, before she can tell me how darling the Rockies are.

“I guess.” She reaches for the Parmesan cheese dispenser and dumps more on her pasta. “What about those guys you met?”

“Gregory and Daniel? What about them?”

“Are they coming to Raphael’s wedding?”

“No, they’re history. Jack accidentally tossed their phone numbers before we left Anguilla.”

“Accidentally?” She snickers. “Billy would never have even taken the card in the first place. So what did the doctor say was wrong with you in the end?”

“Food poisoning, what else? It must have been the raw oysters I ate at dinner the night before.”

She stops chewing abruptly.

“What’s wrong, Kate?”

She squirms a little. “Oh, gracious.”

“What?”

“Just the thought of raw oysters…”

“Are you okay?”

“Excuse me, Tracey…”

I watch Kate bolt from the table and race through the restaurant toward the bathroom.

While she’s gone, I toy with my food and relive the rest of last week’s ill-fated Caribbean vacation.

Leave it to me to get
thisclose
to Jack’s proposal at last, and then screw it up royally with a spectacular forty-eight-hour diarrhea-fest.

If I hadn’t eaten those tainted oysters—or perhaps it was that tainted fish—I would be engaged to Jack right now.

But no. Instead of spending the flight—rather,
flights—
back to New York making wedding plans, I spent my time rushing back and forth to the tiny bathrooms as the remains of the food poisoning worked its way through my system.

Even now, a week later, I’m still feeling a little weak and queasy.

The good news is that I’ve lost eight pounds without trying. Which means I’ll be able to go wedding gown shopping any day now…

Well, as soon as Jack gives me that ring.

Which should be any day now.

I keep waiting for him to suggest a fancy date night. Or even just a moonlit walk along the East River. Something, anything other than coming home hours late from the office every night, collapsing in front of the television and falling asleep minutes later.

I know this is his busy Planning season at work, but still…

It only takes a few minutes to get engaged.

Okay, hours, if you do it right.

I can’t help noticing he spent more time than that on the football playoff games last weekend.

Kate returns to the table, looking green. “Good gracious, that was ugly,” she informs me, pushing her plate away as she sits down. Her Southern twang is always more pronounced when she’s being dramatic.

“Maybe you have food poisoning,” I say sympathetically. “Or maybe you caught one of those twenty-four-hour—”

“No,” she cuts in, “I really think I’m pregnant.”

“Kate, you’ve thought you were pregnant every day for months now, and you never are.”

“But this time I have a real feeling about it, Tracey. I think I just had morning sickness.”

“Kate, it’s afternoon.”

“I slept until eleven-thirty,” she drawls. “It’s morning for me. And I’ve been craving carbs like crazy.”

“You always crave carbs, Kate,” I tell her impatiently, anxious to get back to my heartbreaking tale of the Engagement That Wasn’t.

“Not like this. I had three bowls of Lucky Charms for breakfast.”

I check my watch. It’s just past one. “You got up at eleven-thirty and managed to sneak in breakfast between then and now?”

“See what I mean? I bet you anything I’m eating for two.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re pregnant,” I say, having eaten for two throughout most of the fall and well into the winter.

Now here I am, barely eating for one. I’m not complaining about having lost my appetite. But I honestly can’t wait to start feeling like my old energetic self again.

We spend the rest of our lunch date talking about whether Jack will propose this coming weekend or next, and why Kate is positive she’s pregnant this time, and the decidedly
not
darling gowns we’re wearing as Raphael’s bridal attendants in less than three weeks.

I take my time walking the ten blocks back to the office. The fresh air feels good, and my stomach is a little queasy again, thanks to Kate’s graphic parting description of her bathroom adventure.

It’s a nice day for January—not bright sun and blue skies, but at least it’s not raining, sleeting, snowing.

I can’t believe I only got one beach day out of that long-awaited Caribbean vacation. One beach day and zero proposals. What a bust.

Upstairs, I find Latisha waiting for me.

“Tracey,” she says urgently, all hush-hush, “I just heard they’re about to make a job offer to somebody for Mike’s old job.”

“Really? It’s about time.” I sit down at my desk and open my top drawer in search of the Pepto-Bismol tablets I keep there.

“Trust me, you don’t want this to happen. I met this chick when she came in to interview with Carol, and she was a bitch on wheels.”

“How can you tell that from meeting her once, in passing?”

“I have a feeling about these sorts of things,” Latisha says resolutely. “Listen, you need to go talk to Carol about giving you a shot at that job before it’s too late.”

“Latisha, what I really need to do is go lie down.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Nothing. I’m just still wiped out from being sick.” In my desk, I find a fresh shrink-wrapped packet of Post-it Notes I didn’t even know I had, and a whole box of rolling-ball pens. I really should go through my drawers more often.

“You mean the food poisoning? That was a week ago.”

“I was really sick,” I protest.

“Well, pull yourself together, girl, and get your butt in there.
I’m
sick of your wishy-washy attitude.”

I look up from the Pepto-Bismol hunt, surprised by her harsh tone. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, take a big step back and look at yourself. You need to stop dicking around waiting for stuff to happen and start taking control of your life.”

“I’m in control of my life.”

But even as I say it, I realize that I’m so
not.

Latisha’s right. I’ve been dicking around for months. Years, even.

And not just about work.

After I met Jack, the man of my dreams, I guess I might have slacked off a little, thinking I was all set. That he was everything I needed.