style="font-size:15px;"> This was boring, tedious, and put me in sleep mode better than the Charlie Rose Show when the guests were some cabinet member and a writer for the Atlantic Monthly.
Reading through bridal magazines would spur my inspiration. Deciding to sift through Vogue (I really couldn’t relate to all of those smiley girls in poofy dresses looking into the sunset), I couldn’t help but study the models’ figures with intense focus. If I’d had one of those loupes jewelers used to inspect a diamond, I’d be using it to assess these surgically enhanced bodies.
Thinking of diamonds, it soon occurred to me that my engagement finger did not wink and shine with the most precious of glows. How did I let days slip by without even questioning when I’d be receiving the fun present one gets from being proposed to? I love presents. How haven’t I even wondered when I’d be receiving my engagement ring? I completely lost it.
Added to my checklist: “Engagement ring!!!!????”
Back to the magazines, my annoyance further spurred by seeing one flat stomach perching below one manufactured boob after another. I made up a game, “Real or Fake,” parlaying my enjoyment and extremely satisfying act of making checks, which I used to check anything fake. Defacing an issue of Elle with checks, I logged onto breasts.com for my answer. According to Dr. Jean Parnell, it was quite common to have two breasts not the same size; in fact the percentages favored lopsided breasts.
Returning to Elle to review my answers based on my research, I believed I had a perfect score. Forget cereal boxes, this was a game that I excelled at, thoroughly impressed with myself as I buffed my paint-stained nails on my sleeve. My ringless fingers. Ringless? And what the hell was that about?
In Henry’s defense, perhaps he wanted me to choose my engagement ring. We’d shop at Harry Winston or Tiffany’s and make the decision together. In fact, this was quite brilliant of him. Henry truly knew me! How if he proposed with a ring that I found unacceptable, it would have completely ruined the moment. Possibly even interfered with my decision process. Now we’d shop for the ring together—make a day of it. Buy the ring, register, and have a deliciously long lunch at La Goulue that included many cocktails. Henry was now out of the penalty box for Carmenia’s butt (but he didn’t have to know that yet, as I needed to leverage this and was in the mood for being treated tonight).
The microwave flashed 3:11 PM. 3:11 PM? Now what could that be about? For an entire day I hadn’t even made one check on my wedding To Do list. So I added “Real or Fake” to the last line and checked that. I didn’t quite know how “Real or Fake” applied to my wedding duties, but at least I got to make a check.
Completely opposed to taking cabs in daylight, I walked to the realtor appointment and used the time to come up with a believable excuse on my lateness. But all that came to mind were images of fake boobs and butts, imagining the blobs of silicone, Botox, and fat injections used to swell up these body parts oozing into the city’s streets and crevices like a globby monster from a campy fifties flick.
If I did have implants and possibly died someday (a concept I have not yet come to terms with, as I slightly believed that I was one of the immortal ones), in my 1,400-thread-count quilted coffin would be my remains of bones and two balls of jellyfish.
I arrived at the SoHo condominium in less than an hour, my late arrival hardly noticed, considering that Henry had been under the care of a woman hired for her social-climbing skills. Entering the apartment, she matched my image of her, just slightly younger and without the newscaster blowout. Wearing the requisite realtor uniform—black, expensive labels bought at the Barney’s warehouse sale—she had the urban-hint-of-sex-appeal look in stilettos, slimming pants, and cardigan with the plunging V neck.
Perhaps I should have changed from this morning. I had on my purple low-cut cargo pants in a larger size (one size above my normal size, which was a brilliant device of mine so I would feel particularly skinny on fat days), an Anna Sui knit cardigan in a blue Fair Isle pattern, and a lavender Marc Jacobs coat with oversized buttons.
Henry beamed on sight of me while I regarded the realtor, who appeared to be making the moves on my fiancé, as indicated by the claw clamped to his arm. And, though I couldn’t quite make out but felt pretty certain, her index finger stroked his skin in deliberate movements in the manner of the Grinch’s finger on his chin indicating he was cooking up something mischievous.
“Emily!” Henry cried, walking over to greet me with a kiss, which I reveled in, as Claw Woman was reduced to observing our bliss.
He then introduced us and I entrusted my hand into Barbara “Call me Barb” Paulson’s claw, which had the smoothness of an insect after a spring rain, mentally calculating her monthly Sephora bills for the maintenance of her clammy claws.
“Hello, Emily,” she purred. “Henry was just telling me how behind you feel.”
Behind? Behind! Did he really tell her about my butt? I couldn’t believe Henry shared my personal insecurities with this barracuda. I felt so hurt and betrayed.
“About the wedding preparation,” Henry prodded, probably interpreting my Emily smirk of abhorrence.
“Oh, right,” I said casually. “The wedding. I actually checked off something from my To Do list today and feel quite accomplished as a result.”
“Really,” he said, amusingly, “and which box received your check, may I ask?”
“Fake or Real,” I blurted.
“Fake or Real?” Henry and Call me Barb questioned in unison.
“Wow! This is amazing,” I said, deflecting their unnecessary inquisition to further explore the capacious room where our conversation had been echoing.
The room had all of the standard downtown features—wall of windows, floors stained with the gleam of melted butter, and sparse décor—the key pieces a kidney-shaped coffee table and purple couch in the same boucle texture as my coat. The apartment’s main attraction was that it was a duplex, the addition of stairs in a New York apartment considered a phenomenon akin to elevators in country homes.
Ready to move in and Henry did the very boy thing, asking all of these tiresome questions about maintenance, square feet blah blah blah, while I envisioned putting my crystal chandelier in the mirrored bathroom and how I would fill in the awkward triangular corner with my easel and paint things.
“Okay,” Henry directed. “Let’s see the next place.”
After seeing the Grand Street apartment, our choices became progressively worse. Too dark or not enough space—the décor in most of them stifled me. The sole furniture of a Broome Street loft was the desks and chairs where I used to keep my number 2 pencils and box of Crayolas. I wondered if the resident was an elementary school teacher and lifted things from the office.
Henry, registering my Emily smirk, pulled me to the side and away from Barracuda Barb. She seemed annoyed, which pleased me.
“Seen anything you like?”
“Only the Grand Street place. Nothing else seems to have any of the added features. That something distinguishing, special.”
“I knew you’d say that!” he said, eyes laughing at me.
“But didn’t you like the Grand Street place?”
“Sure I liked it, but it’s an imprudent investment. Twelve hundred square
