Slightly Settled Read online

  “So I decided to run home to Brooklyn to take a shower before coming down here,” Jack is saying.

  Naturally, I immediately picture him naked in the shower. Steam, lather, rippling muscles—and me there with him.

  Oblivious to the late-night Cinemax movie screening in my head, Jack goes on. “I was on my way to the subway when this little old lady stopped me and asked me if I knew where Grand Central was. So I told her that was where I was going, and I offered I’d take her there.”

  “That was nice of you.”

  He flashes those famous (well, to me, anyway) dimples. “I’m a nice guy. And I was going anyway.”

  Jerry pops up at his elbow. “You showed up! She was getting worried.”

  “You were?” Jack looks at me. “Did you think I’d stand you up?”

  “Not really. I mean…I hoped you wouldn’t.”

  Jack touches my hand. “I wouldn’t.”

  We smile at each other. It’s a touching moment until Jerry butts in.

  “It’s actually a good thing you were late, because her friends—”

  “Hey, wasn’t I supposed to get another freebie margarita, Jerry?” I interrupt, before colorful tales of Carl the unruly urban lumberjack spill from Jerry’s pink lipsticked mouth, which, I now notice, is topped by a barely visible fringe of five o’clock shadow.

  I don’t need or want another drink, but Jerry brings it and I sip it as Jack drinks his Dos Equis and finishes telling me why he was late.

  “So, anyway, there I am, escorting this little old lady—who tells me her name is Henrietta but I should call her Henny—to Grand Central, and it’s rush hour and the sidewalks are jammed, and she’s walking, like, two inches an hour.”

  He stand up and demonstrates and I crack up.

  “I’m totally serious. And then,” he says, sitting across from me again, “these three other little old ladies stop her and ask her if she knows where Grand Central is. She says, ‘That’s where we’re going, come with us! I’m Henrietta but you can call me Henny, and this is Jack.’”

  His voice is little-old-lady high-pitched and crackly, and he pulls his lips back over his teeth to look little-old-lady gummy. I’m laughing hysterically.

  “So now I’ve got four little old ladies all shuffling along with me like I’m the Pied Piper, and people are trying to mow us down….” He shakes his head and bites a chip.

  “I forgive you for being late,” I say, wiping tears from my eyes. “Good citizenship is an acceptable excuse.”

  “Wait, I’m not finished. When we finally get to Grand Central, the old ladies are even more confused, so I offer to help them get on the right subway. So the five of us are on our way down the stairs when I hear somebody calling, ‘Help! Help!’ from up at the top.”

  I’m hanging on every word, still half laughing, but half not sure if he’s bullshitting me. I mean, this is so farfetched—and then again, it’s New York, where nothing is far-fetched.

  “So I look up, and there’s a guy in a wheelchair with no arms or legs. I have to go back up and get him and carry him down the stairs, then go back for the wheelchair and carry that down the stairs…and by the time I got Henrietta—”

  “You mean Henny—”

  “I mean Henny,” he agrees, “on her train and the other three on their train, I realized I was going to be late but I really needed a shower because the guy stunk, and thanks to him so did I.”

  “Are you serious?” I say, laughing.

  “Dead serious. He had terrible BO.”

  “Not about the stink. About…the old ladies. And the wheelchair. I mean…that’s some story.”

  “All true.” He grins. “Hey, Tracey, could I possibly make up something like that?”

  I consider it. If he could, I’d probably be even more attracted to him. I like a guy with a creative imagination.

  Suddenly I have to pee.

  “I’ll be right back,” I tell Jack as I grab my purse from the back of the chair.

  He nods, lifting his beer to me in a silent toast.

  The second I stand up, I realize that all that tequila on an empty stomach was a huge mistake.

  I’m not drunk—not really. I’m just…

  Sick.

  I barely make it to the bathroom before the margaritas are backing up my throat and regurgitating right out of me. Oh, ick.

  I flush, rinse my mouth with cold water, and stand in front of the mirror. My face is pale and I puked off my lipstick, but other than that, I look pretty good.

  And the date was going so well.

  Then again…was it? Between Carl being thrown out and Jack being late and now this…

  Maybe I should take it as an omen. Maybe I should tell Jack I’m sick and just go home.

  Nothing can come of this anyway. It’s not like we have a future. Everybody knows you don’t fall in love with the first person you date after a breakup.

  I might think I’m totally attracted to him—okay, I know I’m definitely totally attracted to him—but this is sheer rebound stuff. It’s an illusion. I’d be attracted to anyone right now. The fact that he seems like the perfect guy for me means nothing.

  After all, Buckley also seems like the perfect guy for me. But I had Will when we met, and then, when I didn’t have Will, Buckley had Sonja.

  What if Buckley and Sonja break up? a familiar little voice pipes up. What if you and Buckley fall in love then?

  I see that I’m smiling at myself in the mirror, this sappy thinking-of-Buckley smile.

  Stop it, Tracey. Why do you have to think of every cute guy as a potential boyfriend?

  Because after three years of being part of a couple, being alone doesn’t feel right. It feels…

  Lonely.

  But I can’t jump into another relationship just because I’m lonely. That would be as big a mistake as holding on to Will for three years turned out to be. I clung to him because I was afraid to let go.

  Now here I am looking around for somebody else to grab on to.

  Kate was right.

  I’m still healing. I’m not ready for a relationship yet.

  First I need to figure out who Tracey is on her own.

  I pull my lipstick from my bag and put it on, blotting my lips on a paper towel. Then I find the Halls cough drops in the bottom of my purse and pop one into my mouth, hoping mentholatum kills vomit fumes. For good measure, I find a fragrance sample tube in the change purse of my wallet and dab a little Ralph Lauren perfume behind each ear.

  There. At least I’ll look and smell divine when I tell Jack that I’m sick and have to leave right away.

  As I leave the ladies’ room, I tell myself that it’s the right thing to do.

  After all, he was an hour late—why should I feel bad about leaving early?

  Maybe he’ll be relieved. Maybe he wasn’t into going out with me anyway, and just asked me because of Mike. Maybe Mike and Dianne told him about the depressing state of my love life and they all felt sorry for me.

  Maybe…

  I arrive at the table.

  “Hey, there you are. I missed you,” Jack says with a heart-melting, dimple-punctuated grin.

  Maybe…

  Maybe I should leave, before…

  Before I stay.

  7

  For the first time in weeks, I’m not freezing to death when I wake up.

  That’s because I’m snuggled against the human furnace that is Jack.

  Oh, and his last name is Candell.

  I’m telling you that—smugly—because I don’t want you to think I slept with somebody whose last name is a mystery.

  I even know how you pronounce it—with the emphasis on the second syllable. Not like Candle. It’s Candell.

  See?

  I know other things about him, too. Things like:

  When he was seven, his family moved out of the Bronx to the suburbs, and he lay awake for hours every night because it was so quiet he couldn’t sleep.

  When he was ten, his parents
sent him to sleep-away camp in Massachusetts against his will, and he was homesick, and it took him all summer to learn how to swim.

  When he was twelve, his dog ran away and got hit by an ice-cream truck.

  No, I don’t know the dog’s name.

  Should I have found out the dog’s name before I spent the night with Jack?

  Probably. I probably should have found out a lot more, too. I probably should have waited. In fact, I probably should have kept my promise to myself—and to Kate—and not have slept with him at all.

  But right now, with the gray Saturday-morning light filtering in through the cracks in the blinds and Jack’s arms around me and my head on his chest and his even breathing warm against my cheek, I could care less about shoulds.

  You’re probably wondering how we ended up here after I swore this wouldn’t happen.

  Let’s just say it was a natural progression.

  You know how it goes: first drinks, then vomit, then dinner, then coffee and pastry at a great little place on the corner of Mulberry and Broome in Little Italy…then mind-blowing sex.

  Okay, maybe you don’t know how it goes. But trust me, that’s how it goes. At least, that’s how it went with us, and it felt right at the time. It still does.

  Even this—waking up in Jack’s arms the morning after—feels right.

  There’s no awkwardness, no panic attack, no sudden urge to flee—which is a good thing, since I’m home.

  Going to his apartment was out of the question. He suggested it, but I pointed out that my place is closer to the corner of Mulberry and Broome, so we’d be here quicker. At the time, since we couldn’t seem to keep our hands off of each other, that was important.

  I also pointed out that as far as I knew, his boss wasn’t sleeping on the other side of my bedroom wall.

  So here we are, me and Jack, all snug and snoozey in the big, oak sleigh bed I bought a few months ago. It’s my first real piece of furniture, and Jack is my first real overnight guest since I got it.

  I can’t count Raphael, because I made him sleep on the floor Thursday night, which pissed him off, even when I explained that I didn’t want to catch that juicy cold he’s got.

  But Jack—well, no way was I going to make him sleep on the floor. So he and I christened my new bed—a few times, in fact—and I really wanted to tell him that he’d always be special for being the first person to share it with me. But I didn’t.

  I didn’t tell him a lot of things I was tempted to blurt out in the dark, as we were cuddling and drifting off to sleep.

  I figured some things are better left unsaid.

  Things like I was dumped by the love of my life a few months ago and you’re my Transition Boy and I wasn’t supposed to have sex with you.

  Jack wakes up, gently traces my cheek with his finger, says, “Hey, good morning. You look so serious. What are you thinking?”

  “That Kate is going to kill me.”

  “Who’s Kate?”

  “My friend.”

  “The one who’s having an obsessive love affair with her camera?”

  “No, that’s Latisha, and actually, that was my camera she had the other night. Kate doesn’t work at Blaire Barnett.”

  “Where does she work?”

  “Well, she thinks she’s a Relationship Guru, but technically, she’s unemployed.”

  “And she’s going to kill you because…?”

  “Because I did something she warned me not to do.”

  “Does it have something to do with me?”

  “What are you, psychic?”

  He shrugs. “What else can it be?”

  “Well, it can be lots of other things,” I say. Kate is always giving me advice and warnings, solicited or not. “But actually, you hit it on the head.”

  “Your friend told you not to go out with me?”

  “No, she told me to go out with you, but not to sleep with you.” Oops, that sounds bad. “I mean, it’s not like I do stuff like this all the time. I never do, really. It’s just…I just went through a breakup. And she’s worried that I’m going to, uh, get…”

  Get what?

  Hurt?

  Dumped?

  Impregnated by my boss’s roommate?

  All of the above?

  “Oh.” Jack’s nodding. “I get it.”

  “And the thing is—I mean, I’ve never done this before. Especially not on the first date.”

  I shove away a disturbing vision of my one-night tumble in the Star Wars sheets. That wasn’t a date, so it’s not a lie. That was a bar pickup. There’s a difference, right?

  I wait for Jack to tell me he doesn’t usually do this on the first date, either. But he doesn’t. He just yawns and rolls onto his back, stretching lazily.

  Obviously, he’s not in any hurry to get dressed and leave.

  I plot of ways to keep him here for a while. Or maybe, for the rest of the day. Or even forever.

  I know, I know…he isn’t my Forever Man.

  But a girl can fantasize. A girl can look at Transition Boy and envision Forever Man.

  She can look into his eyes and catch a fleeting glimpse of in-laws and Lamaze classes and house-hunting in the suburbs and SUVs and first communions and curfew arguments and college loans and mother-of-the-bride dresses and silver anniversaries and golden anniversaries and shared headstones.

  A girl can want all of those things so badly that she can practically taste the wedding cake and champagne.

  Jack turns his head toward me. “What are you thinking?”

  Do you think he’ll run screaming into the street if I tell him I’m thinking about wedding cake and champagne?

  Yeah, I think so, too.

  So I shrug and lie. “I was just thinking about all the Christmas shopping I’ve got to do this weekend for my, uh, Secret Snowflake.”

  “Secret Snowflake?”

  “You know—it’s like the Secret Santa thing. Aren’t you in it?”

  “Nope.”

  “Merry said it was mandatory.”

  He shrugs. “She says that every year. Nobody in our department ever does it.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. She just says it’s mandatory because otherwise nobody would sign up.”

  “So she tricked me?” I groan. “And now I have to buy five gifts for Myron for no good reason?”

  “Mail-room Myron? He’s a good guy.”

  “I know he is, but he’s not usually at the top of my Christmas gift list,” I tell Jack. “And what am I supposed to get him on a fifteen-dollar limit for the whole week?”

  “There’s a lot you can get him for that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Off the top of my head? Lottery tickets, candy, a tree ornament, a book—”

  “Hey, I’ve got an idea. How about if you pinch-hit my Snowflake shopping?”

  “Or maybe I can just come with you. Are you going today?”

  “I can,” I say casually, as though my life doesn’t depend on it.

  “Great. I’ve got shopping to do for my sisters, too.”

  “Sisters? How many do you have?”

  “Four. Three older, one younger.”

  “Let me guess. Your dad always wanted a son…and the baby of the family’s nickname is Oops.”

  He laughs. “That’s pretty much it. But she’s my parents’ favorite, so I guess they have no regrets about having five kids.”

  “My parents had five kids, too,” I tell him, reminding myself that one coincidence does not happily-ever-after make. “I’m the youngest, but I’m not the favorite.”

  “Who is?”

  “Everyone but me. My sister and my brothers all stayed in Brookside, like they were supposed to.”

  He laughs.

  Too bad I’m dead serious.

  “So Brookside—that’s your hometown?”

  I nod. “It’s upstate. Like, as far upstate as you can go and not be in Lake Erie.”

  “And your whole family lives there?�
��

  “Yup. My sister, Mary Beth—she just reconciled with her idiot husband. They have two little boys. My brother Danny and his wife, Michaela, have one little boy. Then there’s my brother Joey and his wife Sara. And my brother Frankie. He’s engaged and his fianceé is from Brookside. I’m the only one who ever left.”

  And the only one who’s unattached. At twenty-three, if you’re still single in Brookside and you haven’t had a spiritual calling, lesbian rumors abound.

  Jack asks, “Why’d you leave?”

  If ever there was a question with a one-word answer, that’s it.

  Will.

  Will is why I left. He was like my own personal spiritual calling. I met him in college, and I would have followed him anywhere. Luckily for me, he was only going as far as New York City.

  But I don’t want to talk about Will with Jack, so I say, “I wanted to be a copywriter. And writing classifieds for the Brookside Observer didn’t sound very exciting, so…here I am. Still not a copywriter, but…”

  “Mike says you’re going to interview for a position in Creative when one opens up.”

  “He did?”

  This makes me happy. Not just because it proves Mike hasn’t forgotten about our deal, but because it proves Jack was asking him about me. Unless Mike just volunteered that…and other, potentially embarrassing, information.

  “What else did Mike say about me?” I ask, suddenly filled with trepidation.

  “Not much. Dianne was there.”

  “Oh, Dianne. She’s so sweet.”

  He snorts. “Yeah, sweet like a lime.”

  “You don’t like Dianne?”

  “She’s a bitch.”

  Guess that means he doesn’t like her.

  “I’m so surprised. I mean, she’s really nice to me on the phone.”

  “That’s fake. She’s evil.”

  Suddenly, I remember something.

  Mike has a roommate, but he’s a real asshole.

  How could I have forgotten all about that? Dianne said it that day on the phone when we were talking about my breakup with Will and how she wished she knew somebody she could fix me up with.

  Jack doesn’t seem like a real asshole. But then, I haven’t exactly been the best judge of assholeness in the past.

  What if Dianne’s right and he really is an asshole?