The Sleeping Beauty Proposal (17 page)

He knows.Why wouldn't he? He's a court-appointed Hellenic metallurgist. Snatching back my hand, I snap, “Are you saying my fiancé bought me a fake?”

“There's nothing wrong with a cubic zirconia,” he replies patiently. “Diamonds are very expensive and some men don't see the point in wasting all that money on a tradition that essentially started as a De Beers marketing campaign.”

I can't tell if he's slamming Hugh as cheap or suspicious.

“Believe me,” I say.“Hugh buys only the best, the most authentic stuff.” I try to think what authentic stuff Hugh would buy.“Like Irish wool. Single malt scotch. Hand-tooled Italian leather ...”

“A six-day vacation in the woods watching another man build a post-and-beam house.”

"Yes! ” Wait a minute. Has he been talking to Todd? “I mean no. I mean ...” I try to gather my wits. “What I'm saying is that Hugh comes from a very refined English background. He grew up on a six-hundred-acre estate in the Cotswolds and he went to St. Bart's in Scotland and his great-grandmother was a personal friend of King Edward. He would not, under any circumstances, even consider buying for me, his future wife, the mother of his future children, anything less than the most flawless, perfectly cut diamond.”

“That'll be $24.95, Miss Michaels.” Robert slides me my credit card slip. “Good news. Ten percent off all cubic zirconia solitaires. Only today.”

I snatch the receipt and sign, not even daring to check Nick sidewise.“It's a duplicate,” I say, scrawling my name with a flourish. “For insurance purposes.”

“Perfectly understandable. For insurance purposes. Exactly what an Englishman who grew up on a six-hundred-acre estate in the Cotswolds would insist upon.”

I turn to him, shocked. And with that, Nick winks and goes off to join Patty.

He knows I'm a fraud, but I'm no longer worried he's going to out me to Todd, oh no. He's going to hold this secret over my head, toying with me, teasing me, until I break down and confess it all.

Chapter Eleven

July 10
—Hot-stuff author
Hugh Spencer,
whose tearjerker
Hopeful, Kansas
continues to dominate major bestseller lists, isn't identifying the woman to whom he proposed recently during a
Barbara Walters
prime-time interview, though
PAGE SIX
sources have confirmed she is Spencer's longtime girlfriend, Genie Michaels, an admissions counselor at
Thoreau College,
where Spencer teaches English.

Michaels declined to comment publicly, noting in an official Thoreau College press release that their relationship was a private matter. However, she has been reported wearing a HUGE new diamond on her left hand and rumors are that an August 20 wedding is planned at her family's home in Belmont, Massachusetts.

When reached in London, where Spencer is promoting the British edition of his book, he said only, “What?”

TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: What the ???

Genie:

Again, let me state how much I appreciate your discretion regarding my on-air betrothal. I am very impressed that you have not sought out the press as a sounding board for whatever bitterness you may be harboring. Truly, I had expected and was prepared for the worst. It was so refreshing to see you put my public image first. Thank you.

That said, I am a bit distressed that, in being wonderfully supportive, you have, inadvertently I'm sure, created the impression that we are truly engaged. In particular, as I stated in a recent telephone message, your parents' statements to Pippa were of concern. So much so, it briefly crossed my mind—though I know this can't possibly be the case—that you might be lying to them that we really are getting married. (Ha, ha!) I realized later this was nonsense; only a mentally disturbed person would promote such a fallacy and no matter what flaws you possess, Genie, mental illness is not one of them. (At least, I hope.)

Needless to say, your noble desire to remain mum on inquiries regarding our nonexistent marital status has, unfortunately, caused a bit of confusion/anxiety here, and though I have explained to my fiancée that you are just being supportive of my career, this explanation is fast becoming insufficient in light of the numerous e-mails/phone calls/telegrams and faxes congratulating me on my upcoming wedding to you.

I strongly suggest that, should anyone ask, you simply state that, no, I did not and never will ask you to be my wife.

Also, I am at a loss to understand this August 20 wedding rumor. Was this your idea? If so, I can't imagine what it was that possessed you to mention a date. You need to disabuse friends and colleagues of this notion forthwith.

Lastly, the ring. I find this thoroughly audacious. If your purchase of an engagement-type ring (I do not remember you owning one before) was meant to somehow mock me, then I suggest you remove it immediately. Weak attempts at sarcasm or, worse, desperate attempts to draw attention, do not, Genie, put you in the best of lights.

I trust you will proceed accordingly,

Hugh.

P.S. On a side note, the foreign rights to HOPEFUL have been sold to Thailand and the Republic of Fiji Islands for a whopping total of 40 countries. I know you are as excited as I am.

TO: [email protected] FROM: [email protected] SUBJECT: RE: What the ???

I might be wearing an engagement ring. I might be getting married August 20.

But who said anything about
me
marrying
you
?

Life does go on, you know.

Genie

P.S. Congrats on the foreign rights. You have no idea how that thrills me to my very core.

Chapter Twelve

Let me just say this: I am
loving
the ring.

I've never felt so pretty and special, as if overnight I've become a princess. As if suddenly I'm a gorgeous, glamorous woman who deserves nothing but the best. I don't know why I didn't buy it years ago. Every woman should have at least one.

And the ring is so motivating. It even gets me to wake up early Saturday morning to meet the trainer Lucy arranged for me at Joe's Gym. Do I want to wake up and be abused? No. I want to sleep in and hang around in sweats all day.

But then I see my ring and remember how it is starting to change my life, and I get out of bed. Drink a cup of foul-tasting coffee from the Rite Aid coffeemaker (Patty's right, I really do need an upgrade), pack a bag, and head down to Joe's.

The joint is hopping at 5:45 when I stagger through the double glass doors. Clearly these people have never cottoned on to the concept of a nightlife. They are running. They are spinning. They are chatting as they run and cross-train.They are smiling, for God's sake. Don't they realize it's six A.M.?

“Hi there!”

Oh, Lord, save us. It's Kip Boynton in a Joe's Gym unitard. I met Kip the trainer during a six-week blizzard of fitness fanaticism when I let my former neighbor Robin talk me into taking a kick-boxing class with her, an event that, apparently, they still discuss in the weight room. (Though I did not kick the bulletin board off the wall. That was a total exaggeration. It simply fell when I happened to come near it.)

“Ready to become a buff bride?” Kip slaps his hands.
Slap!
“Hold on. Let me see that gorgeous engagement ring.”

Okay. This is when I discover if the ring can withstand the scrutiny of strangers, not just my friends or expert metallurgists like Nick. If it passes here, at Joe's Gym, I might very well summon the courage to wear it to work.That is, if I can fabricate a plausible backstory of its origins. (I'm thinking Hugh's great grandmother Serena from Cornwall who bequeathed it to Hugh's transsexual uncle Waldo, who never had much use for it, aside from the occasional Mardi Gras party.)

Also, along with a backstory, I'll be needing a manicure.

I've become very self-conscious about my ragged nails now that I understand that, according to Nick, I've got beautiful fingers. In the past, manicures always seemed so self-indulgent to my Yankee soul. I couldn't imagine paying a total stranger sixty bucks to push back my cuticles and polish my nails when I could do it at home for free. (Though I never do.) But now my perspective might be changing.

I find I'm holding my breath as Kip inspects the cubic zirconia in its antique rhodium-treated brass setting. Will he notice it's glass? Will he notice it cost less than his sneakers?

No. He doesn't!

“Donatella.” He calls over to the peppy girl behind the counter. “Come look at Genie's engagement ring. It is Genie, right, from kickboxing?”

I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I may incriminate myself.

"Holy ... !” Donatella stops herself from a full swear. “That is beautiful. Did your fiancé design it?”

I smile like a dope. Less said the better is my philosophy.

“I bet it's a hand-me-down, say?”

This goes on for a few minutes, them speculating on the ring and where it came from and how much Hugh must love me to have given me such a
huge
diamond in such a gorgeous setting. I wish Nick were here so I could rub his face in it.

Another fit and peppy person comes to ooh and aah and then Kip notices it's 6:03.We are behind schedule.

I have no idea what my mother did in her day to get ready for her wedding. But I doubt she had a man in a unitard with his foot on her back as she executed knee push-ups in ten-rep intervals. Did she do forty chair dips, several sets of double crunches? Was she on the treadmill, ratcheting up the program to HIIT (High Intensity—don't ask me why there's an extra
I
or a
T
?)

Kip won't let me attempt the dumbbells, not until I've lost a few pounds. He recommends ten-pounders. “Nothing drastic,” he says. (I have to inform him that—outside fitness fantasyland—ten pounds to the average woman in her midthirties is, indeed, drastic.) Then he provides me with your run-of-the-mill no-fun diet and an exercise program that, according to my cursory brief glance, requires me to visit the gym with disturbing frequency, like every day.

I'm not sure if I'm getting married or joining the marines. I'm reaching the conclusion there's not much of a difference.

“We don't have much time, but I promise you, Genie, that come August twentieth you will be fitter and sexier than you are today,” he pledges.

Sexier.You know, I'm getting a bit tired of the message that as well as being smart and financially prudent and well-groomed and a good housekeeper, as a new bride I've got to be sexy, too. I mean, men don't get this kind of treatment. Men are praised for being hard workers, savvy negotiators, sage investors, or “real family men”—as if that's a rare, esteemed quality. (When was the last time someone observed that a mother was a “real family woman”?)

I haven't read anything in
Cosmo
about “Groom Boot Camp.” Fathers don't take their affianced sons aside and privately advise them to drop a few pounds, maybe six-pack the old abs in order to keep the bride happy.

Still, hearing Kip say this, I feel that I am on the road to sexy. Granted, it's a very steep road and I've gotten a late start. For instance, there's my personal stash of big, cotton underwear at home. Comfortable, sure, but not exactly man bait.

The thing is, I buy bras for ease of wear, not for how they lift my breasts or squeeze my cleavage. And—yes, this might come as a shocker—I have never once bought a bra or panty with a man in mind. Here's why: Men don't have to wear the damned things for fourteen hours a day, whereas I do. Let them deal with scratchy lace against their crotch and see how they like it.

My lack of underwear finesse is further driven home when I arrive in the women's locker room to shower and change just as the Advanced Spinning class has let out.All around me are women with flat abs and high tushes prancing about in black or red thongs and—though I try not to look—an unnatural lack of hair. I mean, most of us have hair there, don't we? But not these women.They're practically bald.

How do they get so bald? This might be the Brazilian thing I've been reading about. Connie goes Brazilian. I am privy to this information because she and I have the same hairdresser (Melody at Stairway to Style, fantastic!) and I've heard stories. Wild stories, like the fact that Connie gets a design. Sometimes it's a heart or a simple triangle. One Christmas it was a merry bell. In the summer, Melody (who actually has to perform these Brazilian waxes on all shapes and sizes and ages of people) says most women go floral, their preference being a daisy.

A daisy.

As I try to make myself and all my au naturel hairiness inconspicuous in the corner by the inconvenient lockers, I decide Connie's daisy is just a symptom of a larger disease.The Aggressive Sexual Woman's Disease. It's not only the daisy, it's also that Connie keeps her body fat to less than twenty percent, that she has maxed out her Victoria's Secret credit card and owns a library full of books and DVDs on how to please a man, how to bring him to the point of arousal and back so that he's on his knees, begging and crying for relief.

In fact, I would accuse Connie of being Hugh's mystery woman if she hadn't admitted to me once that while she envied my relationship with a stable, successful, mature man, she, personally, could never date a “thin, pasty white, slightly effeminate” Brit. Apparently, Connie is so much of a woman that she requires someone with vast stores of testosterone—big, strong men with muscles who engage in daily physical labor.

“Real men,” as she put it, “built for insemination.”

Like Nick, I think, my neck instantly going hot again.Why in the world would I have thought of him?