Free The Sleeping Beauty Proposal by Sarah Strohmeyer Page A

his ability to stutter his way out of anything.
    Though I love my sister and can, usually, tolerate her goody-two -shoes husband, I am extremely disappointed to see their Windstar in my parents’ driveway when I arrive. Telling my parents that I made up my engagement with Hugh will be painful all by itself; having perfect Jason and Lucy there to witness my shame will be intolerable.
    I park at the curb, apply a modest coat of Honey Blush lipstick, grab the plate of brownies I made, and set my shoulders back. I march past my mother’s roses to the patio, where my family, a smoldering charcoal fire, and certain damnation await.
    â€œThere she is! There’s the bride-to-be!” My father throws down his Sunday newspaper and stands to greet me with open arms. “Nance! Lucy! Come on. Our Eugenia’s here.”
    If he’s calling me “our Eugenia,” then this is going to be worse than I expected. My father is in a cheerful, short-sleeve madras shirt that only a sinister wife like Nancy Michaels would order from Sears.com for her husband. I have barely put down the plate of brownies when he smushes me against him and starts mumbling something about me being such a great daughter. He smells of barbeque and vodka.
    Darn.They’ve started already.
    â€œShe’s here. She’s here!” This is my mother screaming as she whips back the sliding screen door and dashes to the patio. She practically flings a Saran Wrap-covered plate of marinated chicken (from Whole Foods—my mother never cooks if she can help it) onto the glass table and rips me from Dad’s arms. “My baby girl’s getting married. At last, at last.”
    I sniff for the telltale vodka and find it under a layer of Trident cinnamon gum and another layer of Chanel No. 5. This could ruin all my plans. If Mom and Dad are truly on the road to Tanktown, there’s no way I can drop the bomb. Dad will go ballistic and Mom will start sobbing. It’ll be a mess.
    â€œWe never thought this day would come,” she blathers. “Four years. Four long years.Who knew?”
    Not Hugh, that’s for sure.
    Dad puts his hand on my shoulder, paternally. “We figured you’d die a spinster. A dried-up old thing in lace. Just like your crazy old aunt Tilley.”
    â€œThanks, Pop. I appreciate that.” I must maintain my good humor.
    Mom appraises me at arm’s length as if I’ve just returned from a tour of duty overseas. As always, she is impeccably dressed in a Carolina Herrera white shirt. (The only shirt she wears. She’s got, like, fifty.) And a pink and green Lilly Pulitzer wrap skirt. Her silver highlighted hair is pushed back from her face with her standard headband, thereby showcasing her famous Howland cheek-bones. (Mom openly brags that she can trace her ancestry back to Mayflower passenger John Howland—a claim to which my father responds, “You and half of America.”)
    Tears spring to her eyes. “We’re so glad it’s Hugh. I can’t tell you how glad.”
    "And not that loser who sold T-shirts. What’s his name ...” My father looks off, trying to remember. "Tommy.”
    "Toby,” I correct.“He wasn’t a loser. He was an assistant political science professor who printed T-shirts protesting the war and donated his profits to Amnesty International.”
    Dad rolls his eyes as if there couldn’t be a bigger waste of time than the pursuit of world peace.
    Mom says, “At least Toby wasn’t as bad as Kent. Honey, if you had married him, your father and I were prepared to abduct you and take you to one of those deprogrammers.”
    She needn’t have worried. Kent, like Hugh, had no intention of marrying me. Not because of my sexual inadequacy (though, you never know) but because I wouldn’t go into therapy and admit my parents were self-centered social alcoholics who had never re-affirmed my validity as a person. As if