Slightly Settled (18 page)

The other dancers—Will and the drunks—are all fully costumed.

And there I am, wearing only a top hat, wondering why I didn’t learn my lesson in
Hello, Dolly!

Wondering why I never learn my lesson, ever.

M
onday morning, I wake up convinced that I dreamed the answering machine message from Jack.

I try to check the machine, but of course the message has been erased.

Why didn’t I keep it as evidence?

Now I can’t call him back, because if I do and he didn’t really call, I’ll look like even more of an idiot than I already do to him, if that’s even possible.

But if he didn’t really call me and I don’t call him back, it’ll seem like I’m blowing him off.

Well, maybe he’ll call again.

Or maybe he never will.

Maybe we’ll meet some day as senior citizens, and we’ll put it all together and rekindle the flame.

You know, like those people you read about in Dear Abby—the World War II vets and the girls they left behind.
The ones who never got together because one of them never got a letter the other sent, so their hearts were broken and they went off and married other people….

You’ve never heard about those people?

Well, it happens all the time. Trust me.

And it could happen to me and Jack, all because I might have imagined his phone call….

But then again, I might not have.

When I limp to my desk—my heels are now oozing blisters beneath the Band-Aids that keep peeling off—I half expect to find a Secret Snowflake gift waiting.

Mercifully, there’s nothing.

The poinsettia is still there, drooping a little. Guess I need to water it. Or maybe it needs light or something. Maybe I should bring it home with me, since there aren’t any windows anywhere near my cube.

I lift it off the desk, and several of the pink-and-white leaves promptly drop off, drifting to the floor.

Oops.

I quickly plunk it back onto the desk.

More leaves fall off.

It seems to be dying a slow death. How depressing.

I check my voice mail, hoping Jack might have left me a message.

Nothing.

I check my e-mail.

Nothing there, either.

Talk about depressing.

I bet I imagined that answering machine message.

I scroll through a long, boring e-mail from Kate about her long, boring weekend with Billy. She wants to know if
I want to meet her for lunch today since she has to return something to Saks and it’s in the neighborhood. I write back that I’ll meet her at Sephora, which is also in the neighborhood. I might as well spend my Secret Snowflake gift certificate.

Then I scroll through one of those chain-letter prayer things from my sister-in-law, Sara, who’s too superstitious not to forward every single one she receives.

This one says that if you send it to everyone you know, something fabulous will happen within seven days. If you don’t, something tragic will happen. It goes on to talk about all the people who won the lottery or were miraculously cured of cancer after forwarding the chain letter, and all the ones who were hit by a bus when they didn’t.

I almost delete it.

I usually do.

But then my superstitious Sicilian gene takes hold, and I decide not to tempt fate. So I forward the chain e-mail. Not to everyone I know—just to Kate, Raphael and Buckley. Just to be safe.

I’m about to stand up when I notice that I’ve got mail again.

I click on the inbox…

Lo and behold, there’s an e-mail from Jack!

Okay, that’s freaky.

It’s not like I really believed the chain-letter thing, but…

I close my eyes, count to three, open them again.

The e-mail is still there. Definitely not my imagination. And definitely from Jcandell, in-house, Blaire Barnett.

I check the date and time. It was sent one minute ago.

Hi, Tracey. Hope you’re feeling better. If you’re here and reading this, you must be. Talk to you soon. Jack.

“Hi, Chief. What’s so funny?”

I look up from the screen to see Mike standing there, watching me. I realize I’m wearing a huge grin.

“Nothing,” I tell him, too thrilled about the e-mail to remember to be embarrassed about falling down naked in front of him last week. “It’s just some joke my sister-in-law sent me.”

“What is it?” he asks, like he’s all geared up for a good laugh.

“Oops, sorry, I just deleted it,” I lie. “How was your weekend?”

“Busy. Dianne and I went skiing up in Vermont. Sorry to hear you were sick. Jack was disappointed about Saturday night. He had everything all set.”

“He did?” I wonder what that means.

“Yeah, and he didn’t want to waste all those groceries….”

Groceries?

“So he made the stuff anyway, last night. It was great.”

“Stuff?”

“Yeah, the stuff he was going to cook for you. Something French—I can’t pronounce it.”

“He was going to cook for me?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No.”

That was the surprise. Oh my God. How freaking sweet.

No guy has ever cooked for me.

Well, except Will, who thinks he’s a good cook but who only used low-fat ingredients in whatever he made me, which I took as an insulting hint.

I bet Jack uses real butter and cream. French recipes always call for butter and cream.

“I didn’t even know that he knew how to cook,” I tell Mike.

“You didn’t? I thought—”

“He said he had a surprise for me.”

“Uh-oh. Then I just ruined it. Don’t tell him, okay?”

“I won’t,” I promise. “I just can’t believe he knows how to cook.”

“Yeah, he told me he wanted to be a chef, but his father talked him out of it. Said he’d make more money in advertising, like he did.”

“Jack’s father?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s rich?”

“Yeah. He was a big creative director twenty or thirty years ago. He made a fortune, and then there was a big buyout in the eighties and he sold his share and retired young. He’s a real bastard.”

“Why?”

“He pushed Jack into advertising. He said he wouldn’t pay for culinary school, only for an MBA. Then, when Jack graduated, he said he was through supporting him, and he wouldn’t even help him get an interview. He said he did it on his own and he expected Jack to do it without his help. He wasn’t thrilled when Jack landed in the media department.”

“Why?” I ask. “Because it’s low-paying and not the ‘glam’ part of the business?”

Mike shakes his head. “Don’t tell Jack I told you his father’s a bastard. You’ll see for yourself when you meet him. And his mother’s a snob, too.”

I can’t help feeling a little jolt of excitement at Mike’s assumption that I’ll be meeting Jack’s parents.

“Wow. I had no idea he came from money,” I tell Mike.

Not that it matters. I mean, I was into Jack when I thought he was a poor, starving media planner with a dumpy apartment.

In fact, he
is
a poor, starving media planner with a dumpy apartment.

“Yeah,” Mike says, “you wouldn’t think somebody from his background would be living in Brooklyn with me, would you? Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything to you. Maybe he didn’t want you to know.”

“It’s okay,” I say quickly. “I won’t tell him. Anyway, he did mention that his parents live up in Bedford and he has cousins in Scarsdale. He said they were stuffy.”

He just failed to tell me that his parents apparently are, too.

Oh, well, who cares about that?

I can deal with stuffy in-laws as long as they’re up in the suburbs and Jack and I are—

Hold it right there, missy. What the hell are you thinking?

Oops.

Even if Jack has forgiven me for framing us together, and even if he still wants to go out with me…

That doesn’t change the fact that I’m not anywhere near ready for a relationship. I mean, if I were, I wouldn’t be going around kissing Buckley.

Going around? Come on, Tracey, it was one kiss.

On long, luscious, lip-smacker of a kiss.

Mental Note: One errant kiss does not a floozy make.

And anyway, I only kissed Buckley because I thought I’d lost Jack.

Okay, and also because I’ve always been attracted to Buckley.

If I were ready for a real relationship, I’d be able to focus on one person.

Plus, I wouldn’t still be hung up on Will.

Not hung up in the sense that I want him back, but hung up in the sense that I still think about him a lot, and I care about what he thinks of me.

And even though I mostly hate him, there’s a tiny part of me that might still love him. Just a little. Just the nice part of him…which he keeps so well hidden that it’s usually pretty easy to forget that part of him even exists.

My sister Mary Beth told me last summer that you don’t just get over somebody you used to love by turning off your feelings for him. It’s not that easy. No matter how badly somebody treats you, you have to fall out of love, just like you fell into it. And you have to
want
to fall out of love.

Mary Beth didn’t want to. She couldn’t let go.

Watching her take her cheating husband back was enough to make me swear I’d never give Will another chance.

Not that he even wanted one.

Anyway, I know in my heart—and definitely in my head—that it’s truly over between us.

It’s just that he keeps popping up in my life, damn him, and every time he does, it’s not just a reminder of the good times I had with him, but also of how hard it is to be alone.

I want to be in love again, dammit.

Not with Will.

With Jack.

Or maybe with Buckley.

Or maybe just with
someone
.

I want to be a couple.

You want it so badly that you’re willing to plunge in head over
blistered, oozing heels with whoever comes along and pays the slightest bit of attention to you,
accuses Inner Tracey.

I haven’t even given myself a chance to be single for a while. I haven’t even explored the dating world yet. I can’t throw myself into a relationship with Jack or Buckley or anyone else until I’ve learned to be on my own first.

“Are you still with us there, Chief?”

I look up at Mike, realizing I must have a glazed-over expression on my face. “Nothing. I’m just tired. I guess I need some caffeine. I better go get coffee. I’m down a quart.”

He laughs like that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

I leave him and head for the kitchen, where I find Brenda waiting for the coffee to brew.

“How was your weekend?” I ask her.

“Sucky. Paulie and I had a fight. Don’t ever get married,” she says darkly.

Okay.

“How about your weekend?” she asks me.

I fill her in on Friday night with Jack and Saturday morning’s fiasco.

She doesn’t laugh the way Buckley did. She just pats my shoulders and tells me she totally understands how humiliating it must have been.

“It was,” I say. “But he still called me last night, if you can believe that.”

“What did he say?”

“He left a message. I was out with Buckley. Oh, yeah, and Buckley kissed me,” I add.

Brenda’s eyes bulge. “He did?”

“Well, no. I kissed him, actually. But it was his idea.”

“I knew the two of you were going to hook up sooner or later!” Brenda says. “You’re perfect for each other.”

“What about Jack?”

She shrugs. “He’s nice, too. But you’ve known Buckley longer. I can’t see you getting serious about somebody you just met after what you went through with Will. At least you know Buckley is trustworthy.”

“Jack seems trustworthy, too.”

“Yeah, but Buckley is just so…wholesome.”

“So is Jack,” I tell her. To illustrate my point, I tell her how he was late for our first date because he was busy escorting a gaggle of little old ladies to Grand Central and carrying a disabled person and his wheelchair down the subway stairs.

“And you believe that?” Brenda asks.

“Of course I believe it.”

She shakes her head.

“What? You think he could make up a story like that?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think, Tracey. You’re not going to listen to me anyway.”

Actually, it does matter what she thinks. I don’t trust my own judgment anymore.

And I can tell she doesn’t think I should be so into Jack.

But I’m not in the mood to be convinced, so I change the subject.

“Is everything set for the bachelorette party Wednesday night?”