The Sleeping Beauty Proposal

Jason is examining a shelf of my mother’s cookbooks when I enter the kitchen. Poor kid. He has no idea that martinis are not food.

“I know what a martini is. I just need to know the proportions. ” He picks out a slim red book of drink recipes circa 1955 and begins flipping through it. “What was that about FDR?”

The huge bottle of vodka’s lying on top of the frozen vegetables and ice-cream sandwiches like the bully of a frozen underworld. I pull it out, one ear cocked toward the patio for the inevitable cry of disbelief when Hugh tells them the truth.

“I’m sorry my parents do this to you. I mean, you shouldn’t have to ... ’cause of your”—oh, God—“beliefs and all.”

“That’s what you get, being a Christian,” he quips, flattening out the pages. “First, we’re thrown to the lions, and then we’re forced to mix martinis for Episcopalians.”

My mother would argue that as Episcopalians we are Christians, too, but I’m not in the mood for religious debate. Instead, I search the refrigerator for olives while Jason tries to find the vermouth.

“So, you and Hugh are going to buck the trend and get married, ” he says, pouring vodka into a measuring cup.

I pull out a tray of ice. My parents’ automated ice maker broke one week after they bought the new refrigerator and they never bothered to fix it. “Yup.”

“Doesn’t know we’re engaged.” I cannot believe I just said that. “Hugh never asked me to marry him. I made it up.”

There is silence. My back is to Jason and I don’t dare turn around, though I hear him pour in something else and then the clank of a spoon against glass. All I can think is Don’t stir, you idiot!

The stirring stops and Jason asks, “You’re kidding me, right?” “Nope.” Grasping a handful of ice, I dump it into the glass pitcher. “You’re not supposed to stir the martini. It bruises the vodka.”

“You can’t bruise vodka. It’s diluted ethyl alcohol. I don’t know how you people can drink it.” He removes the spoon and carefully lays it on a dishcloth.Then he reaches out, takes my hand, and says, “Why?”

A minute passes while he processes this. “I’m not asking why you drink. I’m asking why you’re lying about getting married to Hugh.”

The only reply I can think of is,“It’s a long, complicated story. The bottom line is that Hugh apparently has been having an affair and she’s the woman he proposed to on television, not me.”

I watch as Jason carefully lifts out each ice cube and am reminded of The Gods Must Be Crazy, when the bushman studies the Coke bottle.What an odd ritual this must be to him, the act of preparing and ingesting poison.

Lifting out the last ice cube, he chucks it into the sink and says, “You ever want to sit down and talk about God’s eternal plans for each of us, I’m here for you, Genie, but right now I think you’ve got other stuff to worry about.”

“Like the fact that my parents are talking to Hugh’s parents, who have no idea that their son is fake engaged to me?”

“For starters,” he says. “It’d be better if you were honest with them now so they wouldn’t have to find out from other people, don’t you think?”

I open the olive jar and dump in its brine, holding my fingers against the glass so the olives don’t fall in.

“Might be too late. I may have passed that point.” Still no whooping or crying from the patio. My mother is not flinging back the screen door, demanding to know if I took her for a fool. What’s going on?

Jason is washing glasses and setting them on a tray very neatly. I think about how tidy and uncomplicated his life with Lucy is, how they entered adulthood taking all the appropriate steps—a suitable courtship period, a proper engagement, and a religious wedding. They didn’t move in together before they married.They bought a brand-new house and decorated it in coordinating colors so that it was ready and waiting for them, new sheets and all, when they stepped off the plane from their Jamaican honeymoon.

“Is it true Mom and Dad gave you guys two hundred thousand to buy your house?” Yes, it was rude to ask. It just slipped out.

For some reason I feel busted, even though I didn’t fake my engagement to get money. "No. I didn’t find out Mom and Dad gave you that much until Todd told me today. I thought it was more like twenty or something.”

Jason reddens slightly. “It was way too generous of them. I wouldn’t have taken it if Lucy hadn’t had her heart set on the house. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I was really relieved and grateful. Just that sometimes I feel guilty.”

I pop a green olive into my mouth and suck out the pimiento. It tastes like salty tears as I do a mental tour of Jason and Lucy’s brand-new house with its downstairs master suite, its media room with the plasma TV over the fireplace, and its upstairs “children’s playroom” with four dormers and interconnecting bedrooms and bathrooms.

Three hundred thousand dollars.Whew. If I’d had one-third of that, I could have bought the Somerville house already.

“You know, Lucy wasn’t the only one,” Jason adds, after thinking about it.“Your parents also gave Todd a chunk of change when he started his business.”

It is too my business. Each sibling gets cash for neatly fitting into their assigned, gender-specific roles, whereas I’m left to ride the subway every morning, punch a clock, clip coupons, and live in a cramped apartment. I mean, I don’t want to come off as a pig, but fair is fair.

Jason cocks his head thoughtfully. “I don’t know. The way Nancy and Don put it, they were happy to pay for the house for Lucy and me so we could start off on the right foot.”

“That’s the way your parents think. Me, too, I suppose. I mean, isn’t that why two people get married? It’s a foundation on which you build your family. People our age, the ones who are living together and hooking up and claiming marriage is dead, they’re missing out on the best gift God ever gave to man, aside from life. Check out Genesis 2:24.”

Genesis, ha! Don’t start throwing the Old Testament at me, buddy, I want to say. Trying to hide my hurt, I reach for my purse. “I need to call Todd.”

"Nonsense. I have a right to know.” Opening my cell, I quickly press 3,Todd’s speed dial, while Jason makes a fast escape with the tray of martinis.

“Don’t make me talk to Mom,” Todd says, knowing full well I’m at our parents’ weekly Sunday dinner. “Not after the day I’ve had with Cecily Blake.”

Todd thinks about this before saying, “First of all, Greedy Gilda, there’s nothing in the universe that says Mom and Dad have to treat us equally.”

“But if you have to know, when I wanted to start up this home remodeling business—a brainstorm I see now was a totally cracked idea—Mom and Dad got right behind me. Dad even arranged for a no-interest loan so I could get all the equipment, hire Nick, that kind of thing. It was wonderful of him.”

“Is that a man thing?” I ask. “Because Mom and Dad have never indicated that they’d finance any of my pet projects.”

“but I’m gonna come straight out and tell you that you don’t take any risks, Genie. You get up and go to work and hang out with Patty on the weekends.You have since college. At least I traveled the world and started a business. At least Lucy got married. What have you done with your life except the bare minimum? What was there to finance?”

I have read the expression “to see red.” But until that moment in my parents’ kitchen listening to Todd tell me that my life has been worthless, I have never actually experienced the act of seeing red. I am not only seeing red, I am feeling red. Every nerve in my body is on fire. I am hot. I am angry. I am, oddly, humbled.

I do not say anything to Todd. I don’t say good-bye or scream that I hate all the Michaelses and I wish an earthquake would swallow them whole. I simply end the call, freshen my lipstick, and head outside.

“Not Hugh.” Mom dabs at her eyes with a tissue. “He wasn’t there.And that wasn’t Susanna Spencer, either.The Spencers are in Italy for the summer. It was their house sitter, Pippa, who answered the phone.That’s why she didn’t know your name.”

Mom says, “Don’t play dumb, Genie. No wonder you didn’t want us talking to Hugh. You were afraid he’d tell us, weren’t you?”

I turn to Jason, who is helping my father at the grill, but he just purses his lips in disapproval. I can’t believe Jason spilled my secret so fast.That fink!

“No,” Mom says. “Lucy and I figured it out. Your paleness. Your utter panic at us calling Hugh’s parents.”

For one brilliant moment I feel a breeze of bliss. An out-of-body snapshot of how ridiculous we all are.

“You’re not?” Mom blinks and reaches for my hand. “Then what were you talking about in the kitchen with Jason for so long? We were sure there was some crisis.”

“No crisis. I was just hashing over the wedding.” I smile at Lucy. "After much thought and consideration, I’ve decided not to go with a wedding planner. I’ll make all the arrangements myself, though Mom, I’m going to let you do most of the planning since you’re so good at it. Also, I think we should move the wedding up to August. After all, what’s the point of waiting? Seems to me I’ve waited long enough for what I should have done long, long ago.”