The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan Read Free Book Online Page A

have his focus. He told her that he lay awake in the middle of the night thinking about whether to have the caterer serve scallops as an hors d’oeuvre during cocktail hour, or whether he ought to jump to the next price level and go with mini lobster rolls. Were they perfectly whimsical or just goofy, and out of place so far from the ocean? He could spend hours consulting old weather charts and the
Farmers’ Almanac
online to try and deduce whether there would be rain. Once, in the middle of a phone call about their sick great-aunt, he had said, “Mason jars are huge right now. Have you noticed?”
    “Excuse me?” she said.
    “People use them for everything at weddings; candles, cocktails, centerpieces. I have to admit I like them. But are they overdone?”
    He was stressed all the time. He told her his hair had started falling out, that he woke up some mornings covered in hives. He’d go to his office, but instead of doing any work, he’d find himself manically Googling the wedding photos of strangers, so that he could steal ideas about flowers and lighting. Entire days were lost to TheKnot.com. He became obsessedwith Pinterest, which was basically online wedding porn: pictures of gorgeous tents and tables, golden retrievers in bow ties, freckled ring bearers out of a Norman Rockwell painting.
    Jeff obsessively read a blog called Near Mrs., about women who had broken off their engagements. He showed her a site called Wedding-Whine—he had started looking there for tips about vendors, but got suck, feminism, an



















nt of her. There was a cartoon lion crouching behind the pair.
    Good Lord, she needed a cocktail.
    The copy read,
A man who is his own man is my love. Strong and proud and sure. And now he’s going to share his life with me. A diamond is forever
.
    “I should probably warn you that De Beers is a conservative client,” Frances said. “They have strict ruln in the advertising. Men and women can never be—That is, nothing at all can suggest—touching.”







2012
    After leaving Toby and Jeff behind at the inn, Kate wished she had some other errand to run, something to keep her mind off the ring. As it was, there was nothing to do but go home and keep looking.
    Back at the house, her brother-in-law Josh stood in the yard throwing a football around with his boy“Thankall">“Yes.” about the s.
    “Well?” he said. “How did they take it?”
    “I didn’t tell them yet,” she said, a bit annoyed by his curiosity.
    Through the screen door, she could hear the sound of Dan singing Marvin Gaye while he washed the breakfast dishes. Her own father had been a great cook when they were growing up. His job had the most flexibility, so he was home with the girls more often than their mother and usually made dinner. Kate did all the cooking in their household now, and Dan took care of the cleaning. They were trying to have an egalitarian partnership, though parenting had made her realize how hard that truly was. When he dressed Ava, Dan might put her in two different colored socks. When he washed her hair, he used about fourteen times more shampoo than seemed necessary.
    Still, she could not imagine parenting without him. Kate had a couple of friends in Brooklyn who had decided to have kids on their own, without a mate—one through adoption, the other sperm donation. She herself could never have done it.
    She entered the kitchen.
    “So?” he said, looking hopeful.
    “I didn’t tell them.”
    “Okay. Well, that’s good. Gives us more time.”
    She shrugged. “I just don’t understand how the ring could be there one minute, and the next it’s gone. You don’t think I subconsciously hid it, do you?”
    Dan laughed. “Uhh, no. Did you?”
    “No! But you know how I feel about diamonds.”
    “Yeah, and for good reason.”
    “Thank you.” She lowered her voice. “Do you think one of the kids could have taken it?”
    “Olivia?” he said.
    “That’s what I was thinking. How are we