Some Like It Perfect (A Temporary Engagement) (8 page)

Mom didn’t know why Karen had taken a year off work. At sixty-five, Mom was thinking about
thinking about
retiring.

Paul said, “How is Little Princess?”

“Happy now that Daddy is home making faces at her and willing to carry her around everywhere. You don’t think twenty pounds is a lot until you can’t put it down.”

“I’ll have to carve out some time to come over and carry her around. Give you guys a break.”

“Yes. Please. Sometime before she turns one.”

“I should be able to just about do that.” If he was lucky. “But right now I need some adult advice.”

“Use protection.”

He grinned. “That’s kind of the advice I was looking for. How do you know when you’re ready for kids, for marriage?”

“The skies open up, the birds break into song.”

“And in the real world?”

“You’re willing to fork over two months’ salary on a ring that she will wear to change diapers and mop the floor.”

Two months’ salary
was
a deterrent. He said, “Seriously. How did you know Steve was it?”

Karen stopped with the glib remarks and paused. “Seriously? How seriously?”

“Serious enough to be asking my sleep-deprived sister. Maybe I should talk to Steve.”

“No way. He’s changing a diaper right now. The third one since Little Princess was born nine months ago. I’m not giving him an out.”

“Then just go ask him how he knew when it was time to pop the question.”

“Well. I’m awake now. Are we talking about Justine?”

Paul looked back out the window. “She wants us to move in together, which I think I’m okay with. But the rest? I just don’t know. I don’t want to string her along. If she’s not it, it would be kinder to tell her now. To stop this before it went any further.”

“Are you sure you’re a lawyer? That is such a decent and good thing for any man to think, let alone one who is a lawyer.”

“She was in my office crying that she was thirty-six. She told me that if this wasn’t going to work she needed to know sooner rather than later.”

His sister hummed in the back of her throat. “I didn’t realize. Thirty-six.”

Two years older than Paul. Seven years older than Karen.

She said, “All right, I’ll go ask Steve. But I am not changing this diaper, no matter how much he gags.” She muttered to herself, “I will not change this diaper. Be strong, Karen. Be strong.”

She covered the phone and after a minute Paul heard a muffled, “Oh, come on. You’re gagging over
this
.”

Steve whined at Karen and Paul listened to them, listened to what a family was.

It didn’t always smell like a bed of roses but he knew they were both happy with what they had. Or maybe it was one day they’d be happy that they’d done it.

His sister came back on the line and said dryly, “He says he thought I was the best he could get.”

She held the phone away from her mouth and said, “You weren’t wrong.”

Steve said faintly, “I know it, babe. I still know it.”

Paul knew why Karen had married Steve, probably even knew why the guy had only changed three diapers. He made Karen feel like he’d lucked out by getting her. They had their moments, moments where Karen would call asking Paulie what the statue of limitations on murder was, but they were a team. They were part of a whole.

Steve came on the line and Paul smiled. “Got out of another diaper, huh? You’re welcome.”

“You’re asking when it’s time to pop the question, man. That’s not something you ask a woman. They’ll always say it was yesterday.”

Paul grinned. “And you’ll say it’s. . .”

“Always someday. Put it off as long as they’ll let you.”

Paul imagined Steve’s shaggy blond hair, his plaid flannel shirt, the big hulking bear of a man. His sister’s dark hair, glasses permanently perched on her nose, her face in a book. She was on parental leave from Harvard, assistant professor of ancient history, until the end of December. Steve worked for the forest service. They didn’t look like they went together but, somehow, they did.

Paul said, “You didn’t.”

“I know, but I married up. I had to nail that down before everyone talked her out of it.”

“And how did you know you were sure? That this was it, that
she
was it?”

“I just knew. I knew that I’d never be happy without her. I knew the first time I saw her that she was mine.”

“And you’re not just saying that because Karen’s standing right there threatening you with a gag-worthy diaper?”

Steve made a noise in the back of his throat. “I know Mother Nature can be nasty, I see plenty in my line of work, but the things that come out of my sweet, little princess? It is just not right, man. Just not right.”

Paul closed his eyes, trying not to imagine what could be so horrible that it would make a man who’d sucked an eyeball out of a fish, a man who hunted and field dressed his own game every year, sound so horrified.

Steve said, “I love Karen more every time she lets me pass that cup. I would lay down my life for that woman. You feel that way about your woman? Would you give her your life?”

That expectation was a lot to live up to. To love someone more than yourself. He
didn’t
feel that way about Justine.

Paul said, “Did you feel like that before Little Princess?”

“Maybe not. There’s something that happens to a man when he becomes a father. Something magical when you hold your baby in your arms that first time, when you realize you’re what’s standing between her and the world.”

Paul was a lawyer. He’d seen the dregs of society, and he knew nothing magical happened when someone became a father. But he knew Steve, he’d been there when Little Princess had been placed in his arms, he’d seen the tears streaming from the giant man’s eyes.

Paul had always assumed he would get married, have a family.

He’d also assumed that he would put it off as long as he could. He was just wondering if maybe he’d passed that point. It was time; was it time?

Paul heard Karen say, “Take her, you big baby,” and he chuckled.

The longer they stayed married, the more Karen became like Steve, gruff and expressive.

There was a loud smacking sound as Steve kissed his wife. He said into the phone, “If you get the chance to have this, Paulie, you should take it.”

And Steve became more like Karen.

And maybe that was the trick with picking someone to marry. When there were no birds, no halo of light telling you this was the one, no moment where you just
knew
, you had to pick someone you wouldn’t mind becoming more like.

Karen said, “Bring Justine to dinner one night. It’ll give me an excuse to get out of these stained sweats. Give me an excuse to get a sitter. Oh, please, say yes.”

“I’ll think about it. In my spare moments.” He looked at the stacks of folders on his desk, behind his desk. “It won’t be anytime soon.”

“Before Little Princess turns one.”

“Before she turns one. I will.”

He hung up, thinking. He knew his marriage wouldn’t be like his sister’s.

She hadn’t married down, but she’d certainly married different. There was no one like Steve in their family. They were studious and bookish while he was rugged. Almost wild.

Justine was driven, smart. She was an accountant. She’d fit in their family.

But he wondered, did he want to become more like her?

And he wondered, was Justine the best he could get?

Paul picked up a spare key during lunch the next day and surprised Justine at work. He knew she’d be there, she always worked through lunch.

Her eyes widened when she saw him and he smiled, holding out the key to her. “In case you’re done before me.”

She blinked when she saw it, her face flushing, and she slowly reached out to take it. She smiled down at it and then up at him. “I haven’t got you one yet.”

“That’s fine. I just didn’t want you to have to wait for me in case I get stuck tonight.” He nodded at the suitcase sitting behind her desk. “Packed already?”

“I thought I could just go straight to your place after work.”

“I’m glad I brought you the key, then. Call me when you leave and I’ll see if I can’t make my escape.”

“I’ll be a little late. I need to do some shopping. I thought I could wear my normal pajamas. I can’t.”

He tried to remember if he’d ever seen her pajamas. “I can’t imagine what you wear to bed that could be so bad. That you would be embarrassed to show me.”

She looked down the aisle to the next desk, then unzipped the suitcase and pulled out a long flannel sleeve covered in jack-o’-lanterns. She stuffed it back in the bag. “I have fall leaves that are bright red and yellow and orange. Neon red, yellow, and orange. And scary green witches. The jack-o’-lanterns are the least embarrassing.”

This was something new, that this intense woman wore theme pajamas. He said, “I love it. How come I’ve never seen them before?”

She muttered, “We’ve never slept together before.”

They’d never slept the whole night together before.

She looked in disgust at the suitcase. “I should have prepared better. It’s silly.”

“Justine, are you ever silly?”

She waved her hand toward her suitcase. “Unfortunately.”

He said, “Do you have Santa pajamas?”

She nodded slowly, closing her eyes. “And snowmen. And Christmas trees.”

He laughed, perching on the edge of her desk. “I can’t wait to see them. You only wear them after Thanksgiving, right?”

Her eyes popped open.

He grinned, tapping her temple lightly. “Everything in its place. And don’t worry, it’s nowhere near as embarrassing as what I wear.”

“Leopard-print bikinis?”

He laughed and leaned down to whisper in her ear, “I don’t wear anything.”

When he pulled back, she said, “Maybe I don’t have to worry about pajamas.”

“Maybe not.”

They smiled at each other until one of her coworkers passed her desk.

He pulled back. “Should we go somewhere for dinner to celebrate our first night sleeping together?”

“I thought dinner at home might be nice.”

“That does sound nice. And then we can model our pajamas for each other afterward.”

He stroked her hand, then stood up. “I’d better get back to work so I can actually make it home for dinner and the show.”

He didn’t kiss her. Too many people walking around her communal desk.

He stopped before he got too far away and turned around. “How come you can wear Halloween pajamas still? It’s November.”

Oh, he knew Justine. He knew she was the kind of person who took her Halloween decorations down the day after Halloween. Put her Christmas decorations up the day after Thanksgiving.

She said, “I can’t. But it’s better than the neon leaves so I was making an exception. They’re pumpkins, I thought it would be okay.”

“What about Thanksgiving pajamas?”

She ducked her head. “They’re turkeys. Carrying axes.”

He laughed until she looked up at him. “Now those, I’d like to see.”

“Next weekend.”

“I’m going to have to see the whole collection.”

She nodded, trying not to smile. Trying not to be embarrassed.

He left, still smiling. Still thinking that he knew Justine and he didn’t. She could surprise him with her silliness. But it was ordered silliness.

He liked it. He liked her.

Maybe this was really it.

He thought, two months’ salary? Who came up with that rule?

Friday morning, Delia entered Jack’s office. Late, of course, but not later than her normal, and she pulled on her booties carefully. She studied the ceiling, making sure she wasn’t getting lost.

The blue sky was tinted. Pink, yellow, orange, red. East to west, the breaking dawn, the setting sun.

Now would come the detail, the clouds and the angels. And the shadows.

And then they’d have to move his desk and she’d have to do the other side of the room.

She grabbed one end of the scaffolding and Jack said, “Are you going to ask me to help?”

She shook her head and he pushed his chair back. He walked slowly towards her and her stomach flipped and flopped. She watched him and mentally sketched his nose, wondering why some people were considered beautiful. There were all sorts of theories, usually relying on proportions, but she didn’t believe any of them.