Yes, I do.

“It’s called a ‘pre-ancé.’ Alex is your pre-ancé now.”

This was Jenn, whom I’d called on Sunday night after a lazy day eating Triscuits and cheese in bed with Alex and checking out apartment listings on Zillow. All Alex wants is a place near enough to the Downtown Berkeley BART, and, if we can swing it, a small second bedroom for a study. I began making Excel charts of our monthly income and expenditures — I know mine, and Alex gave me a rough estimate of his own, which seemed improbably large — and settled on roughly $4,000 as our upper limit for rent, to still have a little left over to save every month. I know, I’m getting ahead of myself, since Alex isn’t even going to give notice until September 1st, and we won’t be moving until we get back from the UK, but it’s good to have an idea of the market. Alex reminded me that the number of listings was artificially low, since the school year is about to start, which gave me some comfort — the pickings are a bit slim at the moment.

“I don’t think that’s a real word, Jenn. We’re ‘committed’ or ‘engaged to be engaged.'” The word sounded ridiculous to me, like something that might come out of Greta’s mouth, not Jenn’s.

“Well, I didn’t make it up! I heard it from some prospective client in last week, some 23-year-old Beverly Hills girl with her daddy. Fake titties like Ivanka’s, and her father probably paid for hers, too, just like Trump. Anyway, her dad brought her in because she is ‘engaged to be engaged’ and he wants her to start thinking about a pre-nup. She corrected him and told him” (Jenn affected a particularly grating West LA whine) “‘Daaaaaaddddyyyyy, how many times to have to tell you? Frahhhhhhnco is my pre-ahhhhhncé. Ugggggghhhhh!’ I wanted to slap her, but her dad’s a client and he pays his bills on time.”

Jenn was still excited for me, whatever the proper nomenclature may be for my new state, and especially happy that Alex and I were on a slow schedule to the altar. “Don’t even think about wedding colors or a honeymoon or even a ring. Focus on your relationship and how you communicate with each other. That’s especially important for you — I know how you, uh, selectively disclose things, Mel. Some people would be rude and call it lying by omission.”

“I’m much better at that these days,” I lied.

“Yeah, right. I’m pretty sure that when your dipshit ex-husband catches wind of this — and trust me, he’s going to know soon, knowing how much some of Al’s friends like to gossip — he’s going to make trouble for you. Whatever Julian may do or say to you, no matter how silly or inconsequential it is, tell Alex. Look, if I can trust him, you can too.” Jenn sighed. “Now go be happy. And go call Jen — pretend you didn’t call me first. She feels a bit sidelined at the moment and Mack — no, you should ask her about Mack. He’s a shithead. Again.”

I called Jen immediately after Jenn hung up, and reached her voicemail. It was a little out of character for Jen on a Sunday night, but it was completely possible she’d been at the movies that afternoon and forgotten to turn it back on. Jen texted back later that evening to say she was up in Yosemite with her parents, reception was bad and she’d call me when she was back later in the week. This was only marginally plausible: Addy Fujima, Jen’s mom, doesn’t do nature, unless outdoor hot tubs are involved. Ever since she finally listened to us all and divorced Mack, Jen has pulled inward further and further, hiding more and more from us all. (I know, I’m hardly one to criticize someone on this point, but at least I’m trying to improve.) Caitlin has a theory that Jen has some secret double life, which Jenn pooh-poohs, as the Jen(n)s make a point to have dinner once a week and Jen never begs off. I still think it’s possible, since I did such a bang up job in hiding how I felt about Alex for so long.

I made the rounds, calling my mom on Monday morning, right before her first appointment of the day. “I’m not surprised, honey. He’s had that marrying look about him for too long. What’s his ex’s name — Minnie?” (Minty.) “Oh yes, ‘Minty.’ Make sure you get Minty on your side, it will make your life so much easier.” What was left unsaid was how pointless it would be to get Julian on board.

My father, who unbelievably is in a high-stakes fantasy baseball league with Julian still (both Dodgers fans), told me that Alex should “do the right thing by” me sooner. “I’m not happy that he thinks it’s okay to string you along for some indefinite period of time. You know my concerns about Alex.” (I do.) He mentioned that it was probably best for Julian’s knowledge of my pre-engagement to develop “organically.” “No point in poking the sleeping bear, Melissa. I’ll do my best to contain it when he finds out.”

“Dad,” I whined, “wouldn’t it just be better to quit that stupid league? I mean, you know what he put me through!” (I thought this was an extremely fair point.)

“Hmmmmm, fair point, Mel.” (See?) “Maybe after this season. I’m leading right now, and Julian’s only two slots behind me. I’d lose quite a bit if I left now, and there’s only a couple of months left in the season. Can you imagine what your mother would say if I left $25,000 on the table?” (Jesus, where are my parents getting all this money, and why is my father wagering it on baseball with Julian of all people?)

Of course Miranda and Will already knew, all it took was a quick Hangouts chat to confirm the plans they (let’s be honest, Miranda) nudged Al into. And I told Ben on Monday when I got into work — he was suspicious of me from the moment I walked in. “Red t-shirt. What is this, Melissa?”

I looked down and checked I hadn’t splashed my front with the Americano I’d picked up at Highwire that morning. “Um, a red t-shirt?” It was a thoroughly unremarkable ringer tee, heathered dark maroon with candy apple trim, and a little green apple iron-on patch on the upper left chest.

“You don’t wear red. You worry it makes you look too pink, which is completely wrongheaded, but still.” Ben tapped a No. 2 pencil against his lips as he raked his eyes over me, looking for a clue to some other difference he could not yet spot. “Jeans and Keds, otherwise normal but. But. Something has changed.”

This was fun for Ben, the longer I kept him guessing. (You can take the boy out of the CIA interviewing process, but you can’t take the CIA first round interviewee out of the boy.) “Oh, nothing much,” I replied, moving past him quickly to go through the pile of mail we’d received that morning. “Bill, bill, Trader Joe’s flyer, bill, stationery catalogue–“

“Can it.” Ben got close to me, sniffed the air above me, which was weird, but then… Ben is weird. “You smell different. You’ve been wearing…” he snapped his fingers and closed his eyes as he reached to recall the scent I’d been wearing for the past month. “Maison Margiela Beach Walk. Now you’re wearing… honestly, I don’t know what you’re wearing. But the change in scent has meaning for you. You switched to Beach Walk because it smells like summertime, ‘like Coppertone and sand,’ you said. So Mel, doll baby.” He batted his sandy eyelashes at me. “It’s still summer. What are you wearing now?”

“Ummmm, it’s another one of those Etat Libre d’Orange testers I got. I can’t remember which one. I’ll be right back, just going to check with Molly if she wants a tea.” I ran downstairs to seek refuge in the chill of the subterranean office; his withering interrogation was making me feel uncomfortably warm. What else could he read off of me?

As I was taking Molly’s order (hibiscus tea, one honey), I heard bellowing down the stairs: “ALEX ASKED YOU TO MARRY HIM, DIDN’T HE?”

Molly looked away from the Excel spreadsheet she was updating to glance up at me. “He is sane, isn’t he?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” I patted her on the back and ran back upstairs, where Ben was waiting with his hands on his hips, tapping his right toe, in front of our children’s section.

“You’re wearing ‘Yes I Do,’ correct?” Ben looked down at his phone. “I quote, ‘Do you know this adorable mademoiselle? She’s a girly-girl, clutching a bouquet of orange blossom and lily-of-the-valley, all sweetness and light and delicate grace.’ Oh, yes, orange blossom and lily-of-the-valley. How… matrimonial. Main notes? ‘Lily-of-the-valley, jasmine, orange blossom, aldehydes, amber, patchouli, cocoa, musk, marshmallow.’ Precisely what you’re wearing.”

“And if I am, that means what, Benjamin?” I was starting to enjoy Ben’s Sherlock Holmes Amateur Hour dramatics.

“Ugh, Melissa. You always think you’re so crafty, that no one can pick up on your little slips of subtext that you weave into your clothing, or your perfume, or the way you wear your hair. I think you do these things to please yourself, but… you secretly would be thrilled if someone could pick up on your little tells.” This was all frighteningly accurate; my skin crawled a little, like, I feel seen. “Unfortunately, that person is me. And your message is that you are going to say ‘yes, I do’ to your man Alexander. Go ahead, tell me I’m brilliant.”

I poked Ben in the stomach and grinned. “You’re almost brilliant. He didn’t ask me to marry him. He told me he is going to ask me to marry him, um, soon.” (I made up the soon part, but I figure it’s probably true.)

“Ohhhhh, so he’s your pre-ancé.” (Does everyone know this word now.) “Aw boo, I’m so happy for you! Where’s the ring?” Ben grabbed my left hand and inspected it. “No ring?”

“You’re supposed to have a ring for getting pre-engaged now?” It hadn’t been that long since I’d been thumbing through wedding magazines and scrolling through The Knot website, had it? “And why do you know this? And when did pre-ancé become a thing?”

Ben reached forward, his brown eyes a little misty, to take me in his arms, plant a kiss on the crown of my head. He smelled of… woozy happiness, bubblegum, home. In his arms, I understood how breaking away from Burbank, creating my own, very new family up here was creating a safe port for my tiny drifting boat. “Time to break the spell of that evil ex-husband, princess. Go marry your boy.”

***

Not that I am hiding the pre-engagement, or whatever I’m supposed to be calling it, from everyone, but I think my father was on to something when he said that the information should roll out “organically.” I mean, it’s not like I have a rock (or even a pebble) on my hand, or that we’re tasting cakes and booking a venue. What I have now is a promise. Granted, that promise is from Alex, and for all his faults, all the times he played at crushing my heart to save his family, I still trust him. He never stopped trying to find a key to let me out of the castle, when I wasn’t aware I was even locked inside, even when he didn’t want to be the hero at the end of the story.

Rachel heard about it from my dad, since I was still on social media blackout from my time in LA the other month. While I allow myself to look at Instagram and Facebook, I’ve resisted the urge time and again to post even the most mundane aspects of my life, something I hadn’t ever considered before. Beautiful bowl of berries, dappled with fresh cream. Click-post. Alex, unaware, reading Madame Bovary with his legs draped over the end of the counterfeit Danish Modern sofa, sunset refracting through the front window across his chest. Click-post. A teacup from my second-favorite set of blue willow china, full of lapsang souchong, steam rising, just out of focus. Click-post. No longer.

And ever since I went incommunicado online, Rachel’s interest in my life has increased. Before, she might have texted me every couple of weeks to ask me a question that could easily be solved by, uh, Google (I learned a long time ago that a LMGTFY link did not go down well with her — “whore, I asked YOU”), on the grounds that I went to an Ivy so I automagically know the answer to everything. I originally thought the uptick in communication was because she felt something akin to remorse for blowing me off for brunch in LA, but remorse really isn’t an emotion Rachel is on speaking terms with. As the texts began to appear every couple of days, sometimes even with heart emojis and sign-offs of “xxxR,” it dawned on me that my beautiful fuck-up of a sister, the one who has pushed me away for my entire life for being gauche and embarrassing in general, has been watching me closely on social media for some time. Whether it’s out of genuine sisterly affection she feels uncomfortable expressing, or to confirm her beliefs that it’s me that’s the fuck-up, I’m not sure.

With the lockdown in place, she’s also turned to another source of information about me — my dad, the lawyer who is capable of keeping his clients’ confidences, but not those of his younger daughter. And it’s from my father (presumably) that Rachel heard enough of my future plans that she felt the following text this past Monday was an appropriate expression of her best wishes:

Hey slut – many tears Alex is off the market – don’t marry him unless u r 100% sure it is right this time, can’t deal with u being a wreck again, so boring xxxR

This was perhaps the most compassionate Rachel has ever been towards me. I took it in the congratulatory spirit it was probably meant in.

Rachel’s a texter, not a caller though: “Ugh, why bother when I have like, literally one question for you? You’re going to want to talk about yourself.” So when I saw her name and picture flash on my phone’s screen on Wednesday night, I picked up assuming she’d meant to call one of her clients (it wouldn’t be the first time). “Rach, I think you meant to call Meg, but hi, and thanks again for your text.”

“Hey loser, congrats on getting Alex to almost commit to you. You must be better in bed than you look like you must be.” Ahhhhhh Rachel, always the razor blade in the candy apple. “Anywayyyyyy, I wasn’t calling Meg. I was calling you, bish. You will never believe who I saw on Melrose today. Guess.”

In LA, the number of notable people she could have spotted on Melrose was nearly infinite — anyone from Gwyneth to the fat guy from Lost to her high school U.S. history teacher, the one with whom Rachel may have traded a grope for a B+. (“Totally untrue,” she told me back then with a wink.) “No clue. Just tell me.”

Rachel laughed. “Too crazy. I was over at James Perse looking at T-shirts for Matt — I can’t have him leaving the house wearing those Hanes tees any longer. Ew. I’m so grossed out by his wardrobe, and he will NOT do anything about it. And then I had this idea that I should just go over to John Varvatos when I was done, see what else I could pick up for him so I can just chuck his whole wardrobe. It’s getting embarrassing. I mean, it is completely plausible that we’re out shopping at Whole Foods and we get papped and then it’s in fucking InTouch, for everyone to see. Too embarrassing, for me and my clients.”

This is not completely plausible, despite what she says. Matt’s last film did well for a documentary, but I don’t think he’s in danger of being followed around by the paparazzi. This is all an excuse for Rachel to make Matt look more like what she imagined her life partner to be — no paunch (Matt has to be dragged to the gym), a full head of hair (he’s just starting to lose some of his at the temples), and a bit of a clothes horse (no Hanes tees, see above).

But I didn’t say any of this, since Rachel would just tell me I was jealous — I’d left my vaguely glamorous life behind and now I had no prospect of being papped myself (it only happened once, when I let myself be dragged along to a Republican fundraiser where Trump was speaking, an evening of infinite yuck and shame). Instead, I said, “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“So as I was saying, I walked over to John Varvatos and guess who was riffling through a rack of blazers when I got there? Julian.”

That tunnel vision-anxiety thrill rushed through me, constricting my range of view to a point, tightening my shoulders. “Julian. As in my Julian?”

“No, my Julian. Shit, Mel, who do you think? Scared the shit out of him, which was too fucking funny. I saw him as soon as I walked in — he was so absorbed in checking out the lining in this jacket that he didn’t even notice me, but I’d know him anywhere, even with that new haircut. By the way, he is looking good.” (Jesus, does everyone think he looks better now that we’re divorced?) “I would 100% put him on my list if I didn’t know it would hurt you. Oh, and Matt.” (I imagined her making a little fake-sad pout for my benefit.)

“How generous of you to deny yourself.” I couldn’t help myself, even though I knew the bitchslap was to come.

“Hey! I am trying to tell you a story. Really, Mel. Do you want to know or not?” Rachel let out an exaggerated moan of exasperation. “ANYWAY, as I was saying, he didn’t see me, so I sneaked up behind him and put my hands over his eyes and said, ‘Hey, hot stuff’ in my best ‘you’ voice.”

Rachel’s impersonation of me is a precision-tooled weapon that she’s been using for years to get me in trouble, or herself out of it. Its timbre and cadence are so very close to my own that it creeps me out. It proved itself useful for things like, oh, when my dad would hear her sneaking back into the house at 3 a.m. on a weeknight back in high school. He’d potter out into the hallway and call out “Rachel? Do you know what time it is?” And in her “Melissa” voice, she’d stage-whisper, “Daddy, it’s Melissa, just getting a glass of water,” and my dad fell for it every time. Every time! Or she’d call up boys she thought I liked, pretending to be me, and ferret out information about herself from them. Such calls usually ended with the boys agreeing that Rachel was by far the better catch, and what a generous and kind sister I was for helping them to see that I was not girlfriend material the way she was.

“Rachel! What the hell were you thinking? You touched him?” Between my dad and Rachel, it’s hard for me to see that much of anyone in my family thinks Julian’s behavior during and after our marriage was and continues to be problematic.

“Jesus, calm down, Mel. It was funny. You should have seen it — he totally froze mid-inspection of the jacket. I mean, he was sniffing the lining, so bizarre. So he has this jacket up to his nose, and he goes, ‘Melissa?’ in this, like, kind of sexy growl. And you would be proud of me, I whisper back, ‘No, do you want it to be?'”

“RACHEL!”

“What? Seriously, it was fucking hilarious. He whipped around and saw it was me, and I just said, ‘Surprise!’ He thought it was funny, too. I can’t believe you don’t,” Rachel sulked.

I was genuinely speechless for a moment. I wondered how much I had never told my sister over the years about the very wrongness of my relationship with my ex-husband. Rachel and I are as close as she will let me be, a distance which is ever in flux depending on her mood and her ego. As far as she is concerned, Julian and I split up because I fell in love with Alex, which is as good enough reason as any to end a marriage in her book. She hadn’t been particularly interested during my married life to know why the ground was fertile for the seeds of love Alex brought me, why they took root. Julian and I were just any other couple that couldn’t make it work, nothing special. She didn’t know why Alex has been so protective of me, chalking it up to a man in love with his girlfriend. It had nothing to do with Rachel, so it didn’t engage her thoughts.

Rachel interrupted the silence. “ANYhow, he was so sweet, asked what I was up to, how business was, blah blah blah, and what I was looking for at the store, and when I told him, he helped me choose some new jeans for Matt. Like, he even modeled them for me so I could see what they look like on a person. I mean, Matt’s not going to look as good in them as he does, but it was still helpful.”

“Rachel, are you really… comparing Jules favorably to Matt? Matt is a SAINT and Julian is a… monster. And may I remind you, you are in love with Matt. How would he feel if he knew you had my ex-husband trying on clothes for you, and that you thought Julian has a better body?” My sister’s shamelessness is frequently appalling to me, but this was a new level of atrocious.

“Ohhhh, calm your tits, Mel. Big deal. He was happy to help, and may I remind you I was there to buy clothing for Matt? Ugggghhhh, you are so ridiculous. It’s not like I’m going to do anything with him, just yank his chain a little. And he had some really good advice on how to deal with the whole ‘Matt dresses like a poor 20-year-old from Stockton’ look. Like, if Matt really wants to respect me, he would dress as well as he can because it puts me in a better light. He said that was one thing he always loved about you, Mel — how much effort you put in to looking put-together, every day, just for him.”

Yeah, I thought, because I knew what happened when I didn’t feel motivated to look my very best — I’d get a lecture on how my appearance reflected poorly on him, like he didn’t provide well enough for his wife to take care of herself.

“I think he’s still got a thing for you, Mel. Don’t know if you know that, just something I picked up on.” Rachel kept rattling on. “And afterwards he asked me to have a drink with him. I thought, why the fuck not, I could do with a cocktail or two. So we went to SUR, mostly because it’s nearby, but you know what? We both know Lisa Vanderpump, and they were filming today, and the cameras came over while she was saying hi to us, so we may be on Season 8 together. Too funny.”

The conversation had veered hard into the realm of the surreal. “You had drinks with Julian at SUR. You had a cocktail with the man who made my life hell for years like it was no big deal? And now you’re going to be on fucking Vanderpump Rules with him? Are you sure you weren’t drunk before you got to John Varvatos?”

“God, Mel, I wasn’t drunk before I started shopping. That’s more your style,” she sniffed.

“ONE TIME, Rachel, that happened one time, and it was your fault. God!” This was true, to my shame. Rachel, five months into her new job as a junior agent, had managed to land a big client for the firm, and I wanted to take her out to celebrate. I thought a little shopping in Old Town Pasadena would be nice after lunch at Ruth’s Chris. Somehow she egged me into drinking three gigantic lemon drop martinis to accompany my wedge salad, and the next thing I knew I was puking lettuce and bacon bits outside of Anthropologie.

“Blah blah blah, so boring. I didn’t exactly pour them down your throat, whore. But I digress. Julian and I had a chance to catch up. Did you know he’s thinking about dating again?”

I grunted. “I had an idea that might be the case.”

“Oh, and he told me all about how he made an ass of himself — sorry, ‘arse’ of himself — with you the other month that day I forgot I was supposed to be having lunch with you in LA. He feels really terrible about it, you know, said he got a little carried away, and he just wants to tell you he’s sorry but you won’t return his calls. Didn’t sound that bad to me, really, so I don’t know what he was so upset about.”

Okay, now I was interested, and furious. “What exactly did he say happened, Rach? Did he tell you he was so angry with me I thought he might hit me? Did he tell you how he he tried to suck my face off and when I pushed him away he tried it again? Did he mention how he’s been drunk dialing Alex at 4 am, and saying terrible things about me? Or that he’s been spreading rumors that I seduced him? Huh? Because all of that is true, Rach, and I doubt anything he’s said is.”

Rachel was actually quiet for a moment, quiet enough that I could hear that she was listening to that Pernice Brothers album she loves, the one she listens to when she’s feeling a little old. “He said he’d made a pass at you, you turned him down, and that he was angry at himself for not realizing how inappropriate it was at the time. He didn’t mention the phone calls, but Julian said Alex was being, what was the word… ‘provocative.’ Alex was being ‘provocative,’ telling your friends all sorts of lies, and forcing you to back him up. Mel, if any of that is true… I mean, you know I always liked Alex –” (liked! you wanted to fuck him, I thought) “– but he is a bit of a beautiful fuck up. Be careful.”

“Be careful? Be careful? Are those words yours or Julian’s?”

“Ugh, Mel, calm down. I’m just worried about you. Julian’s worried about you. You’re so far away up there, and nobody knows what you’re really getting up to now, especially since you’re off social media. Speaking of…”

Oh god, no. No. Not yet. I’d hoped I would have a few more weeks without —

“I asked him if he knew yet about you and Alex and your.. whatever you’re calling it. Engaged to be engaged-ment. Well!” Rachel laughed her dirty little laugh, the one that reels in all the suckers except me, even though I’ve been the biggest sucker of all when it comes to her, always hoping the best for our relationship after an entire lifetime of disappointment. “He choked on his Pump and Glory and sprayed it all over me, totally gross but fucking priceless. I said, ‘I take it that you didn’t know then’ and after he cleaned me up a little — I swear he got a little grope in, but I don’t know if it was on purpose –” (oh, it totally was, Rach) “he said he didn’t know about it, but that he thought it was too soon for you. “

“Like I care, Rachel.” (Of course I care.) “I bet he said that I was throwing my life away on Alex, that if I’d just pay attention to all the warning signs I would run.”

“He wants you to be happy, Mel. That’s what he said, ‘I just want to make sure Melissa is taken care of as she deserves, and I don’t think Alex can do that.’ I thought it was sweet. I know he hates Al, all your weird history, your fucking soap opera syndrome. But he still cares about you. He just wants to talk to you, make sure you know what you’re getting into.”

I made a sound of disgust. “Yeah, I bet Alex would just love hearing that I’m talking to Jules about all of this. I don’t even want to tell him I’m having this conversation with you!”

Rachel made a little cluck of concern. “He said you might say something like that. Are you afraid of Alex losing his temper? Julian said Alex has a very bad temper, especially when he’s drinking. Has he been drinking a lot lately? You know, you always have a home with me and Matt if you ever feel… unsafe.”

I was done. Done with this conversation, done with hearing the lies Julian had poured in my sister’s ears. Done with hearing the concern from my sister I had wanted to hear when I actually was in danger of having myself erased through Julian’s regular verbal slaughter of me. “Rachel, Julian lied to you. He is a LIAR. He may sound sweet and concerned and loving, like he wants me to live in a beautiful cocoon where nothing bad ever touches me. You cannot trust him. He wants one of two things — either to have me back, or to destroy any chance I have at happiness with Alex. He is never getting either of these things from me.”

“Uggggghhhhhh, you always did put the ‘Mel’ in melodramatic. Why should I believe you? You’re a fucking liar, too, slut. One of the best. I’m trying to help you. He just wants to make sure you know what you’re doing. I mean, who knows you and Alex better than him?”

Well, that was actually true. “Rachel, I’m not promising anything to him. He’s taken enough from me. He took Alex away from me before and he’s not doing it again.”

“Fine, your loss, loser. He said he’d put an extra something in your September payment if you give him a call. God, Julian’s money is so wasted on you. Anyway, congrats, I guess, on Alex. He is gorgeous, I’ll give you that. Yum. Bye, bitch.”

*click*

Now I want to know exactly how much “an extra something” would be. Yes, I do. An extra something could be enough to feather my nest a little bit more for the future. For Alex. For us. And the only way to find out would be to call Julian.

Fuck.