Engaging Men (5 page)

“So listen to this,” I said, as Roberta and Michelle fixed their gazes on me and Doreen rushed her customer off the phone.

“Kirk is going home to see his parents this weekend,” I continued, studying the expressions of all three women expectantly, “without me.”

“Have you ever met his parents before?” Michelle asked.

“No,” I replied, noting that Roberta’s brow had furrowed at my response.

“Break up with him,” Doreen said succinctly. I glanced toward Roberta frantically, but she had already launched into a call.

“Don’t listen to her,” Michelle said, waving a hand in Doreen’s direction dismissively before focusing her dark brown eyes on me. “Let me ask you something, Angie. How long have you two been together?”

“A year and eight months.”

“That long, huh? Hmm…” Michelle’s well-penciled eyes grew pensive and her glossy lips pursed.

“You don’t want to marry this guy. Or any guy, for that matter, trust me on this,” Doreen chimed in again. I glanced once again over at Roberta, but she was still on her phone call and would be for some timejudging by the way she was typing furiously into her keyboard. “A man like that will never give you anything you need,” Doreen continued.

“Well, that all depends on what Angie wants,” Michelle said, her face brightening as she looked at me hopefully. “What do you want from him, Angie?”

For some reason, her question filled me with a flutter of confusion. What
did
I want from Kirk? Looking into her face, I saw all the hopes and dreams the Comfortably Marrieds of the world felt for the Anxiously Single. Then I remembered that wedding gown—and my amazing climax. Clearly, marriage was something I had been craving. And why wouldn’t I want it? I loved the idea of coming home to someone night after night, someone I knew would be there for me during the rough patches. I wanted to share my life with a man, not just some two-to-four-year interval we would later laugh about over drinks, as I often found myself doing with Josh and even Randy.

And as my eyes roamed over Michelle’s well-groomed coif and expensive jeans, I realized I wanted something else: a dual income. Could you blame me? Living in New York City was no cakewalk on the measly salary I gleaned from a part-time job and my illustrious role at
Rise and Shine
. This is not to say I didn’t love Kirk. I did. All the more reason for us to combine incomes, phone bills and, even more important, rent, I thought, remembering the sofa-laden flat I shared with Justin.

“I want to marry him, of course,” I said, as if the answer were self-evident.

And to Michelle, who had, from age eighteen, plotted and planned her wedding to Frankie Delgrosso, co-owner (with his dad, course) of Kings County Cadillac in Brooklyn, this was not only self-evident but cause for celebration. “Angela is getting married!” she practically shouted before moving seamlessly into “Thank you for calling Lee and Laurie Catalog, where casual comes easy…”

“Married?” Roberta said, now done with her call and swivel-ing to confront me. “To Kirk?”

“Of course to Kirk!” I replied with a laugh. “Who else?” Beep. “Thank you for calling Lee and Laurie Catalog, where casual comes easy. This is Angela. How may I help you today?”

Turning away from Roberta’s somewhat confused expression, I attempted to focus on the customer’s question, which had to do with sizing on the slim-cut trousers we’d just debuted in our fall collection. But as I tried to guide the poor woman toward pants that would accommodate the somewhat peculiar proportions she described, I couldn’t help but wonder what had struck Roberta as so odd about the notion of Kirk and me getting married. Frustrated after a solid four minutes of flipping through catalog pages while the customer rejected my every recommendation, I barked somewhat irritably into the phone, “Have you ever considered something with an adjustable waist?” The woman made some equally irritated reply and huffed off the phone. With a quick prayer that no one in the quality assurance department was monitoring that call, I turned to Roberta once more.

“What’s wrong with Kirk?” I asked, studying Roberta’s expression. After all, she had gotten to know Kirk somewhat during his brief time servicing Lee and Laurie. She had witnessed the flirtation between us, had seen the first fluttering of romance as we began dating, watched as we eased into coupledom. If she had an issue, I needed to know.

“Nothing’s wrong with Kirk,” she said. “In fact, I like Kirk very much.”

“So?”

“I’m just surprised, that’s all. I didn’t think you two were moving in that direction.”

“That’s just the problem,” I said. “Kirk isn’t moving in that direction.”

“Some men need a little nudge,” Michelle said, turning to face us once more. “A little lid loosening,” she continued, reminding me of her tight-lid theory. “You know, Frankie wasn’t even thinking marriage when I started leading him into jewelry stores to look at rings. I think he had his credit card out before he even knew what hit him,” she added with a gleeful little giggle.

“Oh, brother,” Doreen said, with a roll of the eyes.

“What’s got you moving in that direction?” Roberta asked now.

Her question filled my face with heat. I couldn’t even confess my wedding-fantasy orgasm to Grace, much less to these women. “I’m thirty-one years old—shouldn’t I at least be thinking about it?”

“Ah,” Roberta said with a knowing smile. “It’s the old biological clock, isn’t it? I guess that makes sense. When I turned thirty, all I could think about was having my first child.”

Oh, God. Who said anything about kids? I mean, they’re cute and all, but one thing at a time…“It’s not that, really. I just want to be taken seriously,“ I said, realizing that Roberta wasn’t listening as she launched into a story she’d already told us countless times, about her struggle to potty-train her daughter, who had just now turned thirteen and I’m sure wouldn’t appreciate the fact that her mother still dwelled on this part of her history. Fortunately, another call came in just before Roberta got into the particulars. Clearly she was going to be no help, I realized, as Michelle clicked off her call and faced me once more.

“You want to be taken seriously?” she asked. “I’ll tell you how.” Then she leaned in low, and whispered, “Go on break.”

“I just got here. I can’t go on break,” I whispered back.

“The call volume is pretty slow,” Michelle said. “Go on break.” Then she leaned back in her chair. “Gee, Roberta, all that time you spend in the can is putting ideas in my head. Now

I have to go to the bathroom.“ She put her phone on standby and took off her headset, giving me a meaningful look.

I clicked my phone onto standby mode. “I have to go, too,” I said, sliding off my own handset.

“You can’t both go on break!” Doreen began to protest before her cries were cut off by her own rather curt “Thank you for calling Lee and Laurie Catalog…”

Though I felt guilty leaving Doreen and Roberta to juggle all the calls that came into the phone cue for our unit, I was desperate for help. And I was sure Michelle was going to be able to provide it, judging by the confident sway of her Calvin Kleins as she headed through the office, out the double doors which closed off customer service from the rest of the world that was Lee and Laurie Catalog and to the elevator bank.

“Let’s go outside a minute. So I can smoke a butt.”

I sighed. Clearly I was at Michelle’s mercy now, I thought, feeling even more guilty as we got on the elevator and headed down eleven floors and outside into the cloying summer heat.

The moment we stepped onto the concrete out in front of the building, Michelle had already lit up a Virginia Slims and was puffing steadily. “Want one?” she asked, holding out the pack with one well-manicured hand.

“All right,” I said, taking a cigarette though I had given up the habit, for the most part, shortly after my father died from cancer four years ago. Some things, however, still required nicotine.

After she had lit me up and I had taken one heady drag, Michelle started in.“Getting married is a game.You want to do it, you gotta play the fucking game.”

“Game?” I said, grimacing at the all-too-frequent swearwords that flew out of Michelle’s mouth, especially when she was on her favorite subject: men.

“You know, getting the lid loose. It doesn’t happen overnight—”

“This tight-lid theory is bullshit,” I said, taking another acrid puff of the cigarette before I dropped it to the ground.

“Bullshit? I’ll give you bullshit.You remember who Frankie was dating before I hooked up with him, don’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah. Rosanna Cuzio. But that was high school. No one marries their high school sweetheart anymore—”

“But Rosanna Cuzio was the prom queen. The fucking prom queen, Angie. She and Frankie went out for four fucking years. Then, just about the time she’s picking out china patterns, he dumps her. Dumps her!” Her eyebrows shot up and she took another drag of her cigarette. “So a few months later, Frankie and I start going out. Within two years, whammo,” she said, holding up her left hand, which was covered in gold rings, one of which sported a one-and-a-half carat emerald-cut.

I have to say, the sight of that ring was about to convert me once more. Until I remembered Susan, Kirk’s ex. No, she wasn’t the prom queen, but with a degree in engineering from MIT, she was a pretty strong contender for a lid-loosener of the very best kind. “Kirk’s last girlfriend gave him the old ultimatum. But I don’t see him shopping for rings with me anytime soon. He didn’t even invite me to meet his parents, for chrissakes. Does that indicate a man who is about to pop the question?”

Michelle shook her head, blowing out another blast of smoke. “You’re not fucking getting it,” she said. “The lid is loose, but it’s not off. You have to apply a little pressure.You have to play the game. In fact, it’s really only a matter of three steps.”

“Steps?”

“Yeah, to get him to pop the fucking question. The first one is deprivation.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “And what, exactly, does that entail?”

“Just don’t be so available. When he calls up to make plans, tell him you’re busy.”

Maybe that was what I was doing wrong, I thought, remembering the look of pure longing I’d seen in Justin’s eyes at the thought of Lauren coming home after three months. Hmm…

“And whatever you do, do not have sex with him.”

“What?” This particular step would be a lot harder on me.

After all, sex was one of the best things in Kirk’s and my relationship.

“I know it sounds crazy, but all that shit about getting the milk for free is true,” she said, blowing out a last puff of smoke and crushing the butt beneath one three-inch heel.

“I don’t know, Michelle, it sounds kind of…manipulative.” I wanted a proposal that was genuine—that came from Kirk and Kirk alone. “That’s just not me,” I continued. “I’m not a game player.”

“Okay,” she said, waving that weighty engagement ring in the air as she pulled open the door and headed inside once more. “But, remember, you got to be in it to win it.”