Wendy Markham - Slightly Married

“Well?”

Oh, yeah. Jack is still wondering why we shouldn’t just get married here in New York. “Cost, for one thing,” I say. “Do you know how much we’d pay for a sit-down dinner for three hundred in Manhattan?”

“Three hundred?”

I have his full attention now—and he certainly has mine, because it looks as though I may have to administer CPR any second.

“Tracey, you’re not serious about that, are you?”

“A sit-down dinner? Well, we can look into a buffet, but sometimes it’s more cost effective to—”

“No, I’m talking about the head count. Come on. Three hundred?”

“I have a huge family, Jack. And then there’s your family, and all our co-workers, and our friends from New York, and our high-school friends, and college roommates…”

“And don’t forget my old Cub Scout den leader or Jimmy the doorman,” he says dryly.

I decide this is probably not a good time to mention that Jimmy the doorman was on my initial guest list—the one I pared down from just under five hundred to the aforementioned three, and with considerable angst over every cut.

“Hey,” he says suddenly, “if we had it here in New York, I bet a lot of your family wouldn’t come.”

I bristle at that. “So we want to have the wedding in the most inconvenient place as possible? Is that your point?”

“No. That was definitely not my point. Forget I said anything.”

“Listen, Jack…we don’t have to decide all of these details right now. We’re supposed to be basking in the moment, remember?”

“I was basking,” he says defensively, and gulps some beer. “You’re the one who’s scheming.”

“Not scheming. Planning.”

“Planning to turn our simple little wedding into an extravaganza.”

Our simple little wedding?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but did I ever say anything about simple? Or little?

Granted, the guest list is somewhat negotiable…to a certain point.

But if there’s anything I learned from my six months of reading Modern Bride on the sly, it’s that weddings are anything but simple.

However—how could I have forgotten?—if there’s anything I learned in the last few years of living with Jack, it’s that you don’t just spring things on him.

He has always needed time to get used to new ideas—like, say, ordering brown rice instead of white with Chinese food. Or setting the alarm clock to radio instead of that annoying high-pitch bleating sound.

He’s not going to instantly embrace the notion of a gala event for three hundred as opposed to a “simple little wedding.”

The trick is to let an idea seep in and simmer for a while. If I’m lucky, and I let enough time go by, he’ll wind up thinking he came up with it himself.

“Let’s just back-burner the wedding discussion for tonight,” I suggest. “We can talk about it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Not tomorrow?”

“I was thinking in a few days,” he says. “Or maybe, I don’t know, next weekend? We can schedule a time when we can sit down and discuss it.”

“You make it sound like a client meeting,” I say, only half amused and not the least bit surprised.

As I said, he’s not the most spontaneous guy in the world, unless you’re talking about home-entertainment technology.

Then again, a lifetime commitment to TiVo doesn’t involve a public religious ceremony, a wide circle of witnesses or exotic canapés.

In any case, I decide to let Jack off the hook tonight. Between Raphael’s wedding and the engagement, we’ve experienced enough drama for one day.

I go over to the couch, plop down beside him, sling my legs across his lap and my arms around his neck, and ask, “So how do you think we should celebrate our engagement?”

“And Valentine’s Day,” he reminds me.

“Right. I almost forgot.” I have a card and a gift-wrapped sweater for him hidden under the bed. I bought the sweater on winter clearance at Bloomingdale’s.

Had my raise already kicked in—or had I suspected I’d be getting a delightful diamond ring today—I probably would have sprung for a nice shirt from Ralph Lauren’s spring collection for men.

But I had no idea this was the big day. How could I? Even Jack didn’t realize it.

So I guess he can be spontaneous after all. I mean, the man got down on his knee in the streaming gutter on the spur of the moment.

Then again, how spontaneous is a proposal after six agonizing—at least, for me—months of his having the ring in his possession?

Not that he has any idea that I already knew about the ring, thanks to his mother’s inability to keep a secret. He’ll never know that I had actually laid eyes on it once already, when I stumbled across it while rummaging through his suitcase during our Caribbean vacation last month.

No, I wasn’t shamelessly snooping around for the diamond.

I’m not that sneaky.

I only wanted to borrow his sweatshirt and stumbled across the ring box accidentally.

Yes, I opened it and snuck a peek.

Yes, I am that sneaky.

Anyway, I was genuinely surprised by his proposal today. So surprised he’ll never suspect that I’ve been waiting for him to do it since Labor Day weekend; that every gift-giving occasion since then has had me anticipating a diamond, and being crushed with disappointment.

Sweetest Day brought a Chia Pet; Christmas, a Gore-Tex Mountain Guide Gold parka…

Need I say more?

Like I said, though, that’s all behind us now.

“Listen, I made reservations a few days ago for a nice dinner tonight,” he informs me, putting his arm around me as I snuggle close to him on the couch. “Do you still want to do that?”

“Sure.” I’m relieved that he at least had a plan for Valentine’s Day. A plan that doesn’t involve a zip-out fleece lining or a creepy, living green Afro. “Where are we going?”

“To that new bistro you wanted to check out on West Fourth Street. I heard the French onion soup is amazing.”

“That sounds great.”

“Hey! Maybe we can have it at our wedding!” he suggests enthusiastically.

“Maybe we can!” I say just as enthusiastically, but I’m thinking there’s no way in hell I’m going to surround myself by three hundred people with onion breath at our once-in-a-lifetime event.

“So what time are those reservations?” I ask Jack.

“Eight-thirty. Why? Are you hungry now?”

“Not really. I’m sure I will be by then, though.”

“Yeah, I can think of a great way to work up an appetite,” he says suggestively, and in a swift, smooth move, flips me onto my back.

He nuzzles my neck with his stubble-studded face. “Your hair is sticky.”

“That’s hair spray.”

“And it’s all pinned together.”

“That’s my fancy hairdo from the wedding. Don’t you like it?”

“No. I like it better down. Don’t wear it like this for our wedding, okay? It doesn’t feel…normal.”

I laugh, thinking this is one of the things I really love about him.

You know, that he’s such a…typical guy. That, aside from sock sniffing, he’s unabashedly into sex, and sports, and beer, and me…unlike the late thinks-he’s-great Will the Metro-sexual.

I really have come a long way from that one-sided relationship with a man—and I use the term loosely—who was head over heels in love with somebody else. Not another woman. Not even another man. No, Will McCraw was deeply in love with himself. That’s the only thing we ever had in common. It just took me a couple of years and a whole lot of heartache to figure that out.

Jack Candell, however, is indisputably in love with me. Only me. And he’s promised to love me forever.

I am definitely basking now.