“Smells delicious.”
“It’s risotto.” Jane’s face brightened. “Would you like to join us?”
“Ooh, yes please.”
“Hey, Rachel.” Owen appeared, wearing an apron and with adish towel draped over one shoulder. He gave me a big hug. This made me feel terribly guilty about my secret mission.
Owen went back to cooking, and Jane and I settled on the couch with two glasses of red wine. She filled me in on the latest gossip from work—news stations have alarmingly good gossip—and my mind drifted toward her red-haired beau. Owen really was delightful. If I could choose the perfect man for Jane, I don’t think I could find a better one. Okay, perhaps I’d give Owen bigger biceps and slightly better fashion sense, but really, those are small complaints.
The way they’d met was worthy of a romantic comedy. Jane was a new cat owner, and she had taken Linus—the cat currently purring on her lap and gazing at me, threateningly and unblinkingly—to the vet in a fit of worry after he’d thrown up a hairball. The vet was good looking and charming and made a corny joke asking where Linus got his hair done (because his own hair was the same color). He was perfectly professional, telling her to brush Linus once a day and to call him if anything else worried her. Two days later, she received a voicemail from him, apologizing for his lack of professionalism and saying that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. He asked if she would like to join him for dinner on Saturday—and said that regardless of her answer, he was thinking of Linus and hoped he was feeling better. Their relationship proceeded without a hiccup from that second meeting. Jane had asked Owen to move into her condo about a year before, and here we were.
I knew Jane wanted to get married—she was my sister, so of course I knew. Growing up, she’d had simple dreams: she wanted to find her prince, have a big white wedding, and have two children—a girl and a boy. And if anyone deserved to have her dreams come true, it was Jane. She had never done anythingwrong in her entire life. She was kind, she was curious about other people, she had recurring donations set up for about a dozen charities. I had friends with older sisters who had made their lives hell. I couldn’t relate. Jane was my best friend growing up, someone to giggle with as we played make-believe games about fairies and gnomes. And when she wasn’t being a playmate, she was like a mother to me. My first day of kindergarten, she held me while I cried after our mom dropped us off. When I got my first period, she showed me how pads worked and how to heat up the hot-water bottle. As an adult, she’s someone I can talk to about anything and everything. So yes, I’d agreed to help Mom with her reconnaissance mission, because I also had a vested interest in making sure Jane got her happily ever after. Also, if I hadn’t agreed, Mom probably would have made herself sick and posted up in bed for the next week. I couldn’t do that to Dad.
Jane got up to check on dinner, and I excused myself to the bathroom. I bypassed the powder room off the kitchen and went instead to the primary bathroom. With the door locked behind me, I poked around on Owen’s side of the vanity, looking behind cologne bottles and shaving accessories. I tried the linen closet, looking behind towels and rolls of toilet paper. There didn’t seem to be a little jewelry box hidden anywhere. But on the highest shelf—too high for me to reach—was a box of what appeared to be odds and ends. I stood on the edge of the tub, bending sideways to reach for the box. I just had it by the tips of my fingers, but it was heavier than I’d expected and crashed loudly to the floor, scattering bottles of sunscreen and shampoo. I wanted to believe Jane and Owen might not have heard, but I was not such a foolish optimist.
“Rachel?” Jane called after a pause. “Everything okay?”
“Yes!” I scrambled to toss everything back in the box.
Having replaced everything and assured myself there was no engagement ring, I went back to the kitchen. Owen was ladling risotto into three bowls, eyeing me suspiciously as I entered.
I beamed at him. “Anything I can do to help?”
“Hmm. Could you grate that parmesan cheese? And honey, can you take these to the table?”
Jane took the bowls of risotto. I grabbed the block of parmesan and began to grate, but stopped when I noticed Owen an inch away from my elbow.
“You were looking in the wrong place.” He wore an impish smile.
“What?”
“Come with me.”
I put the cheese down and followed him to the bedroom, where Owen beckoned me over to the dresser. He opened a drawer, drew out a pair of socks, and unrolled it. I watched, dumbfounded, as he revealed a green velvet box.
“See?” He opened it. Inside was the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen. A thin gold band set with an elegant emerald-cut diamond. Absolutely perfect for Jane.
“Oh my God,” I breathed. I looked up at him sharply. “Wait, how did you know what I was looking for?”
“Beth put you up to it, didn’t she?” He closed the box and replaced it carefully in his sock.
“As a matter of fact, yes, she did. But how…?”
“Your mom has been pestering me with questions the last few months. Asking what my plans are, if I’m ever going to marry Jane…”
I dropped my face into my hands. Of course she had. Mom had all the subtlety of a… well, of a desperate Jewish mother with four unwed daughters.
“That’s so embarrassing.”
“No, it’s not.” Owen laughed while gently moving my hands away from my face. “I love Jane. Your mom is part of who Jane is—you all are. If she hadn’t had a mom like Beth, Jane might not be so sweet-tempered.”
I narrowed my eyes; if Jane had grown up to be sweet—the opposite of Mom—what did that make me?
“And anyway,” Owen continued, “I don’t want her to worry. So can you tell her I have a ring? And if she asks…” We both knew there was noif. “Tell her it’ll be soon.”
Later, as we ate risotto and salad, I was uncharacteristically quiet. Jane was going to marry her prince. There was going to be awedding, at last. There hadn’t been a wedding in our family since my dad’s creepy cousin Collin had married a nineteen-year-old Ukrainian girl nearly ten years earlier. (And even more mind-boggling: they seem to be very happy together.)
I was so, so happy for Jane—and somewhat alarmed to find that happiness tinged with sadness on my own behalf. I was not desperate to be married: I wasonlytwenty-nine, for God’s sake. But the thought of having someone as a buffer between me and the world, someone who made life’s annoyances a little less important, someone to curl up to at night… it was a lovely thought.
