The question of the name should have been easy, but Sophia found it almost impossible, biting her lip every time she thought about it. Reeker. Her fiancé’s last name was Reeker. In a teenage game of “Would You Rather?” Sophia had chosen to sacrifice her sense of smell for a guarantee of being perpetually odor-free over the second alternative of a nose that worked normally except for the infrequent but potent BO, conspicuous to everyone but her, she’d be plagued with for life, the choice seeming easy. She imagined introducing herself as the newlywed Mrs. Sophia Reeker, and the conflation of horror and pity on people’s faces as they sensed a funk about her no matter how hard she scrubbed. Patrick is perfect. But how is it fair that he is Patrick Reeker and not Patrick Miller, or Matthews, or Mintifresh?
Sophia paced an empty house, thinking that her first full day of engagement shouldn’t include pacing. She loved that he’d worked so hard to make the proposal yesterday a surprise, though she hated surprises. Patrick had that way of doing things that made Sophia both marvel at her luck and wonder why she wasn’t happier about it. She might have come to take his pampering for granted, she thought as early-afternoon sun filled her quiet home. The memory of Patrick, her Patrick – wonderful, kind, generous Patrick – lifting the ring from its velvet box Saturday choked her throat. So lovable, she thought, almost in tears. Her answer to the question was automatic and immediate, but somehow generated more questions.
Who knew a full carat weighed this much? Not that the engagement ring was really that heavy, though the clear, multi-faceted center-cut diamond was big, even show-offy in a good way. The band felt loose, and since slipping it on, she’d questioned the likelihood of it slipping off. She stopped in the foyer where he’d last kissed her, running a thumb along the slick platinum band, reassuring herself again despite looking right at it.
Patrick had returned to the city after a celebratory Sunday brunch. Sophia wandered into her home office, planning to spread the news, but soon found herself getting a half-hearted start on Monday’s workday. Unable to focus, she glanced from her laptop to the several professional certificates on the wall, lingering on one granted for expertise in Conflict Resolution. Her boss said this achievement rounded her skillset and that she should be proud of earning it. She’d watched a dreary PowerPoint at some conference, later finding the certificate in the mail. She recalls missing Patrick’s birthday to attend that conference and his laid-back understanding, though she cannot recall any Conflict Resolution techniques learned, thinking absently she was never very good at it.
Sophia stretched her fingers, feeling a little wiggle in the stomach while watching the diamond’s sheer facets bend daylight into tiny, dancing prisms. She had always considered her fingers among her best assets, even thinking them elegant, like a pianist, though she couldn’t play. Why had Patrick not remembered her artful, slender fingers when he picked a ring that could circumscribe a kielbasa? Had he never admired, or even noticed, these graceful hands? But it’s not his fault, Sophia decided immediately. This isn’t elegance, and the nails are embarrassing: chipped at the edges, flecks of enamel in various hues clinging inside neglected grooves.
Rummaging through a drawer for an emery board, the full carat toppled, the stone’s glassy mass slumping against her pinkie. A jeweler could fix it, she thought. She wouldn’t even need to tell Patrick.
No, Sophia decided. It’s perfect.
She had thought this would be more fun. Though Sophia was not a girl who’d sketched gossamer gowns and veils of tulle in her notebook margins, she had given it thought, assuming her logical brain would relent at least temporarily, allowing the occasion to be understood by nothing more complicated than the world being wonderful. But walking-on-air came and went like brisk bouts of fever, inevitably deflating into pacing, since Patrick slid the ring down her finger yesterday. Sophia scanned her inbox again, half-hoping for some unfolding emergency at work to jump on.
She worried about Monday, the new sparkle on her left hand exposing a woman who hated talking about herself only slightly less than BO to nosy questions. She was careful about what she let people know, and the tacit admission that a single person could thrill her to goofiness, make her want to cook, and strike paralyzing fear of flatulence in his bathroom was nobody’s business. Sophia had kept Patrick a secret when they started dating – not that she wasn’t excited, she just dreaded the thought of slicing herself open – finally telling Sarah, her closest office friend, on their third margarita at an after-work teambuilding Taco Tuesday. Sarah acted like she’d been awaiting the news forever and had almost abandoned hope, the unspoken relief in her reaction feeling to Sophia like passing a test, albeit one she hadn’t studied for.
An expert in Bankruptcy Law but less confident in personal relationships, Sophia told Sarah that night that in romantic matters she leaned on the concepts of wiping away past mistakes with a public declaration and the resultant “fresh start” from their profession. She knew bankruptcy was not an ideal model for commitment, but while friends learned lessons through achy playlists and journaling, Sophia memorized case law and wrote briefs. A pragmatist, she recognized her deficiencies and arguable priorities, but also the years frittered on a youthful false start she never talked about. She hoped the shaky Bankruptcy analogy held relevance when Patrick came along just as worries about windows closing started interrupting her sleep. Sophia mentally role-played a new conversation with Sarah she imagined happening tomorrow.
After finally acknowledging the futility of getting work done, Sunday afternoon was spent on a first draft Wedding spreadsheet, which she attacked with the same verve as creditor prioritization and debtor means determination, delighting in things clicking into place like her best Foreclosure proposals. Her satisfaction peaked fantasizing about sacred music, devotional vows, meditative blessings, and white silk radiant through stained glass filters, but dipped when remembering the dinners and trips and little moments Patrick had planned and sprung for her happiness, weighing the fairness of asserting her preferences now. She stared meditatively at the Conflict Resolution certificate, admiring its officious script and Greek Key border while also despairing its untidy white spaces, then impulsively added a tab to her spreadsheet labeled “Risks.” Sophia nervously typed then immediately backspaced “P. reconsiders” as a child would scrawl the filthiest curse word they knew, then urgently rub out the evidence such obscenity could foul their mind. Eventually, she closed the spreadsheet, leaving the lone entry unsaved: “Exposure/Exacerbation of Inadequacies.”
She laid awake most of the night, still wearing the ring, unsure of the rules about it. Dazed by unending thoughts peppered by little grabs of feeble sleep, she watched the clock slip from two to three and thought of Patrick, reveling in the sensation of leaning back and falling into him, the melting of her shoulder blades against his chest as he wrapped his arm around her middle and kissed gently the little gulley where her ear and neck converged. She is lucky, she mused, entranced by the moon’s gray-gold luminescence. He’s swept her off her feet and expected nothing in return, titles reconciled in gloomy hours as unattainable somehow bestowed with a storybook prince’s benevolent hand. But then he has that habit: drying himself with a crusty towel that never gets washed, except when she breaks down and does it for him because she can’t stand it anymore. Patrick is more of a spender than a saver. He tends to overuse the word “hence” in conversation, like some kind of damned poser philosophy professor. Not to mention his careless mode of vacuuming – little more than just pushing dirt around.
Sophia studied the clock’s numerals, floating ghostly green in the darkness. She supposed she would have to start calling him her “fiancé,” both charmed and anxious about the fustiness. An attractive and successful woman, since starting over from the novice entanglement she’d managed to conceal even from Sarah, Sophia had drawn an odd coterie of uninspiring professional peers seeing synergy in merger and broke musicians made more romantic by the prospect of steady lodging. Patrick was neither and a bit of both, the first and only to make her heart beat fast enough to consider a fresh start. “Oh Patrick, my dear, darling fiancé,” she said to herself in a stilted Jane Austen voice. “What have you gotten yourself into?”
A beautiful Spring afternoon a few weeks ago crashed her thoughts. Patrick brought her to a city park, full-bloom roses spilling fragrance and forsythias popping yellow against tender green leaves, the lush space filled, it seemed, with nothing but happy couples and well-groomed children. Among them was a street mime looking like the Tin Woodsman as portrayed by Bob Marley, wild dreads framing a face caked in silver paint, the crowd delighted by his silent, mechanical movements. Sophia luxuriated in Patrick’s arm around her waist when they paused to watch. Inexplicably, the mime marched toward them, thundering wordlessly with arched brows, angry mouth, and wild gesticulations.
He seemed to demand an explanation, palms up, pointing frantically between them, making quizzical kissy-faces and clutching his heart while peeling eyes in hyperbolic confusion. Patrick heard the crowd’s laughs and smoothly joined the act, feigning misunderstanding, pretending not to know Sophia to everyone’s great amusement, jumping away and shaking his head as if he’d made some kind of big mistake.
She remembered the urgency to explain everything to the mime and assembled strangers. This man belonged to her. Or rather, she belonged to him. Or rather, they belonged… Or rather. Or rather. Or rather. She wasn’t a fun person like Patrick, incapable even of pleasing a bunch of randos for ten seconds in an improvised pantomime skit, so just stood there like a dope, face burning. Patrick laughed it off.
What was so hilarious about it?
Finally, Sophia’s mind melted into a warm, dusk-draped pool, sleep gently lapping over her, uncoiling tense muscles and coaxing a taut jaw slack. In a watery visage, Patrick thundered as the mime had, only in loud, harsh tones, demanding she name three things she’d ever contributed to their relationship, or done for his happiness alone. Like the mime, she threw up her hands and in this swift motion the loose platinum band flew from her finger. It made a chilling tiny ping against an iron sewer grate, the stone’s iridescence swirling into the cold black below their feet.
She detected a strange clarity in Patrick’s beleaguered smile, of suspicions confirmed, and soon watched his back disappear into a crowd. The goddamned mime stuck his painted aluminum face into hers, squeezing black Sharpie eyebrows downward and puffing up his lips in a theatrical pout while rolling fists around mascara-ringed eyes in mockery of tears. Just before shuddering awake, she realized with disappointment in her own predictability she had also been naked the whole time.
That the ring was still on her finger when she woke was a relief. And like the low strata of pink sky that gently shooed away the black above it, her mind was beginning to clear. Just before falling asleep, she’d remembered losing front teeth as an apple-cheeked kid, and also shake-walking unsteadily in heels as a teen. The full carat’s brilliance would be like a beacon flashing semaphore over and over: “Look! Look! Sophia got engaged!”
She held her hand out and watched the diamond transform the hastening daylight into cobalt and silver sparks, relaxing with the idea that the ring would do the work, and that it couldn’t be as bad as she feared. She would focus on accepting co-workers’ well-wishes with memorable grace, succinctly adding only that she was “super-happy.” Maybe “super-excited.” Maybe both.
But what fun is it to simply dismiss her engagement as just super-anything? Blue sky greatly improved the look of this Monday, and while brushing and flossing, Sophia found herself newly charmed by the thought of saying certain things out loud, rehearsing trial answers about whether Patrick dropped to one knee Saturday and her preference for a mermaid dress. How could they respond with anything but approval, she reasoned. And like Sarah’s approval before had stamped everything about her courtship as perfectly fine, might their happy validation get the judgement out of the way and speed-up her fresh start? Was it so illogical that things might work that way? Today would be like platform diving without training or practice, the decision to jump the hardest part, the only thing left to look brave, slice the water as gracefully as possible.
She walked into the law office, heavier by a carat, but her steps light. Sophia braced for celebration with everyone she passed though the march to her desk was routine, people nodding and mumbling perfunctorily. It’s Monday, she reminded herself. Nobody is in a good mood. She entered the familiar pod of four connected cubicles she shared with Dom, Malik, and Sarah, sat down, and opened her laptop.
“Morning, Soaf,” called Dom, strolling by. He stopped suddenly, with a startled, almost shocked, look.
Instinctively, she hid her hands, snapping them into her lap like a child caught snatching cookie dough. “Morning Dom,” she laughed, sheepishly placing them on the desk in surrender.
Dom looked at her thoughtfully. “Sarah called-in sick,” he said finally. “Can you cover for her at the ten o’clock staff meeting?”
“Sure,” she said, voice trailing off. Sophia put her left hand to her jaw and began rubbing, struggling to produce words.
“You, ok?” Dom asked, furrowing a bushy brow. “You got a toothache or something?”
“No…”
Suddenly, from the adjoining cubicle, Malik turned his chair around, wheeling himself over with alacrity. “Hey, Sophia!” he cried, sliding his chair next to hers. Sophia gasped and fumbled to remember what she’d rehearsed in the car. But Malik just asked to borrow a client file.
She drummed the fingers of her left hand on the rows of color-coded tabs in the drawer, pretending to deliberate, the brilliant stone twinkling with each gyration under icy fluorescent office light. “Thanks,” Malik mumbled when she handed the folder over, quickly wheeling himself away. Dom coughed and turned, seemingly satisfied.
The staff meeting was attended by at least twenty people, and Sophia had steeled herself to be the center of her own press conference, like a soot-faced rescuer fresh from the burning building answering shouted questions from reporters. When called on, Sophia did a masterful job covering Sarah’s agenda items. But no one looked up from their laptops or phones, and nobody said a word. The rest of the day was the same – in the halls, the cafeteria, at the copier, the ordinary banalities flew, but nobody noticed and no crowds gathered. By lunch Sophia started wondering what she was doing wrong, wishing for a manual or flowchart to consult. Couldn’t someone just ask “hey, are you still dating what’s-his-name?” or even just, “how was your weekend?” Curiously, she came across a few who seemed to sense something was up, even offering puckish looks of merry conspiracy. She would scramble to remember the talking points, grasping for super-happy and super-excited. They seemed eager, practically overjoyed, but then faded away wordlessly. She grew to hate these people most of all.
Sophia drove home feeling unapproved. She’d pulled off miracles for clueless clients in over their heads before and was accustomed to hearing the gavel slam in validation of her skillfulness. She had hoped for a similar miracle, to be granted favorable judgement and somehow dodge the concealed omission that neither reticence nor professional posturing could excuse. But during the commute, somewhere between today’s hits, yesterday’s favorites, and traffic-on-the-eights, her rational mind concluded that hope was not a plan and that success only came from hard work.
Patrick was stuck at his office, their nightly FaceTime delayed until tomorrow; she had much to say, but welcomed the reprieve. At home, Sophia floated her hand past the window near her desk, stretching to catch the sunlight, heart filling and straining at the prize on her finger yet feeling as if it drifted, disconnected, through the air by itself. When the loose platinum band slipped, the show-offy diamond’s slumping iridescence sent shimmery sparkles across the crimped silver stamp of the Conflict Resolution certificate earned despite knowing little about resolving conflicts, the peculiar argent gleam almost as disturbing as the dreadlocked Tin Woodsman’s silver face.
She imagined telling Patrick about the problem with the perfect ring, the hard work she hadn’t done, and the public declaration she sincerely hoped to mean. Her fiancé was a lenient judge, but she couldn’t anticipate his verdict; Bankruptcy truly offered fresh starts but equity and fairness were embedded principles, along with the precept of mutual good faith efforts. “What’s the big deal?” she imagined him laughing in his laid-back way, trying to smile herself and watching the diamond’s sharp edges refine sunset’s ochre rays into silver-blue shards, wanting very badly to see this spectacle every night for the rest of her life.
Tuesday morning Sarah was back. Sophia tossed her greetings on the way past Malik and Dom. Sarah stiffened as if an internal calibration had been disturbed, her expression swirling between suspicion, curiosity, and delight. She flew to Sophia, plucking her hands from the keyboard, a crazy smile blooming. “Oh, my gaaaaaawwwwd!” Sarah shrieked.
“What’s going on?” demanded Dom.
“Somebody need help?” called Malik.
Sarah stomped her feet like a joyful child, body quaking as she swung Sophia’s slender hands around like a marionette. “Congratulations, Mrs. Reeker!” she cried.
Sophia felt the ring slip as her hand shot up instinctively to cover her bitten lip. She put on a game smile, trying to remember whether she was super-happy or super-excited.
Photo by Fray Bekele on Unsplash
