My Life as a Doormat (in Three Acts) (26 page)

“Congratulations?” I whispered. Tears were pooling in my eyes, and Kate mistook it for sheer happiness. “How did you know?”

“Edward has called the whole world!” she said. “I think he's called every relative we have, Leah. He is out-of-this-world happy. And I am soooo happy for you. This is perfect timing. I'm in love, too, so I can fully appreciate what a great joy this is.” She embraced me again.

“Mother . . . Mother and Dad know?”

“Yes! And Mom is actually meeting us at the restaurant. She's leaving Dad for a few hours, if you can believe that.”

“What restaurant?”

“We're all going out to celebrate the engagement. Dillan and I are buying. Edward's meeting us there.” She scooted me into the apartment. “Go change and get ready. We're meeting them in thirty minutes.”

My head started pounding so hard I was only hearing about every fourth word. Kate's hand pressed against my back and pushed me toward my bedroom. I glanced back to see Dillan stepping gingerly toward the couch, apparently avoiding all the toys strewn everywhere.

“But . . . but Kate, listen, I don't think—”

“Look, Leah, I know in the past I haven't been in the position to pay for meals, but things are different now, and—”

“No, it's not that. It's that . . . it's . . .”

I watched Kate rummage through my closet, mumbling that she had to find me something exciting to wear. She finally emerged, and in her hand hung a dress. A pink dress. The pink dress. “This is perfect!”

I waved my hands in front of me and shook my head. “Noooooo, no, no. That's not appropriate.” I tried to laugh so I wouldn't burst into tears. “That's too fancy, isn't it? Where are we going again?”

“Dillan recommended this great new restaurant called Mangalos!”

It was over Caesar salads that Dillan finally made eye contact with me. He was sitting across the table, two chairs down, oblivious to the fact that for thirty minutes I'd been staring him down. He was too busy coddling Kate, and it was beginning to irritate me so much that even Edward noticed.

“You okay?” he whispered, leaning into me.

“Fine. How are you?”

“Fine. Perfect.” He put his arm around me. I tried to act snuggly, but I couldn't, so instead I pretended I needed to go to the bathroom. Inside the stall, I tried to get a grip. There was too much at stake. My life was tangling more and more into a web, one strand at a time. My conflict resolution class would've demanded I stand up at dinner, declare I wasn't marrying Edward, and enlighten Kate to her boyfriend's indiscretions.

I wasn't quite ready for that, so what would change my dilemma? I was still engaged to a man I was pretty sure I didn't love, and my sister was falling hard for a man who obviously didn't love her. What could I do?

I leaned against the door of the stall and prayed. It was all I could do. I'd spent many years of my religious life following all the rules and being a good and faithful parishioner. But I'd spent little time on my knees, implementing everything I'd learned. Why should I? I'd managed to keep the conflict in my life to such a minimum that I really never needed much divine help.

I was apparently making up for lost time.

I stepped out of the stall, washed my hands to kill more time, dried them twice, then returned to the table. I couldn't solve either of these problems overnight, or over dinner for that matter, but maybe I could make a little headway.

As I took my seat, I noticed that Dillan wasn't engaged in conversation at the moment. I seized the opportunity.

“So, Dillan,” I began, and he shifted his attention from his salad to me, “this is a great restaurant. How'd you hear about it?”

“Glad you like it.” His smile dripped with innocence, but he avoided the question and stabbed a bite of salad.

“How'd you hear about it?”

He'd managed to stuff his mouth and held up a polite finger as he chewed.
Yeah, you chew. Think up a lie, you
. . . you chewer.
Finally he finished and said, “My brother told me.”

“Your brother. I didn't realize you had a brother.”

He nodded. “Darren.”

“Darren.”

“My twin.”

I almost laughed. His twin. He had a twin. Of course! He had a twin. Kate had mentioned him, but I'd forgotten.

Okay, please. That is so contrived. His twin. That would
never fly in a play of yours.

I wanted to tell Jodie to shut up again, but that would've stopped the huge grin from stretching across my face. My intense gaze must've perplexed Dillan. He tried to smile back, but he cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. I wanted to leap across the table and squeeze him, and he seemed to sense that because he pretended to be interested in something on the side of his drinking glass. Maybe his explanation was contrived, but at least it was an answer!

Before I could think too much more about it, I heard a clanging sound and Edward stood up. As elated as I was about the news of Dillan's brother, my heart sank. Edward was going to make an official toast. I glanced at Mother, who had clasped her hands together and looked as proud as she ever had. This was what she wanted for me . . . a happy home, married to a wonderful, reliable man. With Dad's health, this was probably the one thing that was helping her get through the week.

“Leah,” Edward said, towering above me as he held his champagne, “I am so excited that you have accepted my proposal. I know this was a long time coming, and you were wonderful to wait patiently for the right time. I realize we're just engaged and haven't even discussed a wedding date yet . . .”

I nodded. That would be the only saving grace, a long engagement so I could wiggle my way out of this in a very planned and prepared way.

But suddenly Edward's face turned very somber. Everyone at the table noticed, and even the restaurant seemed to grow still. His head hung, and I thought for a moment he was going to change his mind about this marriage. And then I realized how humiliated I would be. But before I could continue with my worry, he said, “Leah, you know my dear grandmother, Gammie.”

I knew Gammie. She was ninety-seven years old and looked every day of it. Her skin was deeply wrinkled, with flaps of skin where skin normally doesn't flap. She was bent over like a sunflower too heavy for its seeds and was known for carrying a different-colored cane every day of the week.

“What about her?”

Edward's hand was now on his heart. “Gammie's health is failing,” he said. I thought that was an odd statement, because according to Edward, her health had been failing since she was seventy. Nobody knew how she'd made it this long. “The doctors have told my parents she has only a couple of months to live.”

Well, she's ninety-seven. What do they expect?

My thoughts exactly. I was looking up at Edward, wondering how in the world he was going to tie this into a toast about our engagement. Then he said, “Leah, you know how much Gammie means to me. And it would mean the world to me to have Gammie at my wedding. As you know, she paid for my entire education, so it would only be right to allow her this final pleasure and happiness before passing to the other side.”

I was nodding, but I was having a hard time figuring out what education had to do with wedding plans and Gammie's happiness.

“So,” he said, raising his glass, “I propose that we marry in three weeks!”

“Three weeks!” I gasped. I couldn't even begin to pretend properness.

He smiled. “I know, I know. It sounds impossible. But I've thought of everything, even hiring a wedding planner to help us get everything in order. In fact, all we have to do is tell her what we want, and she'll take care of the rest.”

I knew my jaw had dropped in just the way that horrified my mother when I was a child, and an adult for that matter, but I couldn't help it. What was I going to do? I looked at Mother, and she had an eager expression on her face, the likes of which I hadn't seen since the day Dad won the election. She tapped her chin to remind me to close my mouth.

Dad . . . yes, that was it! “Edward, I don't think three weeks will be possible considering my dad's health. Right, Mother?” I tried not to look too desperate as I glanced at her.

She batted the air. “It will be the perfect thing to get him back on his feet!”

I had never felt this sick in my life. Couldn't everybody tell the color was draining out of my face? By the happy looks on their faces, nobody noticed or nobody cared. Edward, still standing, thrust his glass into the air. “May 23 it is!”

I heard the clanging of glasses, one of which was mine. It was the sound of my future shattering.

Chapter 22

[She browses, trying to decide.]

M
onday was the longest day of my life. There were twenty-two messages on my answering machine, twenty-one congratulating me on the engagement. I didn't even know I had that many friends. And I had no idea how the news was spreading so quickly.

The twenty-second message was from J. R., wondering about my play. There was a nasty impatience in her voice, and I knew I was in jeopardy of losing her as my agent if I didn't send her something soon. She mentioned twice in her thirty-second message how Peter was calling and calling, asking to see something, and then she stated how she couldn't possibly show him what she had. She hung up with a curt salutation.

So I spent most of the day trying to rework what I had, trying to add as much conflict as my nauseous stomach could tolerate. It wasn't much.

I felt trapped by the reality of my life, but I couldn't escape into my fantasy world the way I usually did.

By Tuesday afternoon, I was a wreck. I had spent as much time on my play as I had plotting my way out of the engagement. I made little progress on either. My tortured thoughts were undone by the ringing of the phone, the first time on this day.

“Hello?”

“Hello, my bride-to-be.”

“Hi.”

“Surprised I'm calling this time of day?”

I glanced at the clock. “Yes. Aren't you in class?”

“I let class go early today.”

“You did?”

“I did.”

I had never known Edward to do that before, but there wasn't too much left to shock me now.

“Do you want to know why?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“Because you and I are going to go pick out a cake today.”

Now, if that's not the icing on the moral dilemma.

No thanks to Gammie, I was now meeting Edward in an hour and a half to pick out a cake for a wedding that was supposed to take place in three weeks. I stopped by Elisabeth's house for help. I had to talk to someone about this. I thought about talking to Father Harper, but I already knew what he would tell me to do. I didn't need guidance on what the right thing was to do; I needed help coming up with underhanded tactics to get there.

“You could fake schizophrenia,” Elisabeth said, and not glibly, either, after we sat down at her kitchen table. She was totally serious. Little did she know about Jodie, but I kept my mouth shut. “Cynthia can make an appearance every once in a while, real subtly.”

“Who is Cynthia?”

“Your split personality.”

I rolled my eyes. “Elisabeth, right now Edward is so giddy and Cupid-afflicted that if I introduced him to Cynthia, Jan, and Carol, he'd think the more the merrier. Honestly, I've never seen Edward like this. Ever. It's an entirely new side of him that's just now coming out. Maybe it's always been there; maybe marriage is doing something to him—I don't know.”

Amelia tugged on Elisabeth's pant leg. She wiped Amelia's nose with her thumb and forefinger. “Maybe you should give this new-and-improved Edward a shot.”

“It's not . . . it's not a new-and-improved Edward. It's just Edward on a temporary high.”

“You don't know that. Maybe this is the real Edward.” She sighed and sent Amelia off to play in the backyard where she could see her. “Look, Leah, I wish I'd known the side of Henry I saw last week.”

“What side?”

“The side that showed some passion in life, you know? Some passion about me. When Henry found out about, you know, he got so upset and started ranting and raving about family and love and trust. I didn't even know the guy had it in him. I didn't think he cared that much. What I'm trying to say is that maybe this is bringing out a better side of Edward, a side you didn't even know existed before now.”

“But if that's true, it scares me that it takes such extreme measures to bring this side out. You know that pink dress I bought for the party I went to with Edward?” She nodded. “He hated it. He was embarrassed to see me in it. And nothing has been the same since.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

I sighed. “You helped me pick it out. Plus, you've had . . . a lot going on. And truthfully, I wasn't even sure I was right about the whole thing. Maybe the pink dress was too much.”

“You looked beautiful in it, Leah. Absolutely stunning.”

“At the end of the night, I felt like an idiot.”

“If that's how Edward made you feel, then you're right to question this.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

I stared at the tile. It all seemed so unbearably real sitting in Elisabeth's kitchen, talking about it.

“I feel like I've written my own doom,” I finally said.

“What do you mean?”

I shook my head and shrugged off the comment. I looked at my watch. “I've got to go. I'm meeting Edward in twenty minutes.”

“You're going to break it off?”

“Yeah. I've got to.”

I stood and Elisabeth hugged me. Then she said, “If things go badly, don't forget, Cynthia is just one creepy voice away from a sure victory in this situation.”

Spring sunshine warmed my shoulders as I walked down the sidewalk. Freshly sprouted leaves adorned the trees lining the boulevard. Birds twittered and rustled.