Engaging Men Read Online Free PDF Page A

the cradle across the room, which there was no way in hell I could reach with this monstrosity in the way, I decided to summon my perfectly delightful roommate, who had since disappeared into his bedroom, probably to watch the Yankees game.
    “JUSTIN!” I bellowed loud enough for the whole floor to hear.
    “What’s up?” he said, popping his head out of the bedroom, a puzzled frown on his face. As if/were disturbing him.
    “What do you mean, what’s up?” I said, slapping my hand on the couch and sending another load of dust into the air.
    “Sheesh, I didn’t realize that couch was so dirty,” he said to my chorus of sneezes.
    “Apparently there are a lot of things you don’t realize,” I said in frustration.“ Like that we already have two couches. Like that I have to schlep out to Brooklyn Sunday night and still be up at five on Monday—”
    “But you never go to bed any earlier than midnight. Even when you’re home.”
    “That’s not the point!” I shouted.
    Startled, Justin simply stared at me.“What is the point, then?”
    “The point is…the point is…” My throat seized, and suddenly I burst out with, “Kirk is going to see his family this weekend.“
    “So why didn’t you tell your mother that you’re going with him?”
    “Because I’m not going with him.”
    “Oh,” he replied, and I could tell by his confused expression that he still wasn’t getting it.
    “He didn’t ask me to go.”
    “Oh,” he said, his tone implying that it all made sense to him now.
    “Shouldn’t he have asked me to go?” I asked, clutching the phone receiver in my lap.
    Justin seemed to consider this for a moment. “Did you want to go?”
    I sighed.“That’s not the point.” Maybe men were thicker than I realized. “The point is, we have been dating almost two years and I have yet to meet his parents, despite the fact that he has been to my mother’s house in Brooklyn more times than I can count.”
    “Brooklyn is a lot closer than—where’s he from again? Brookline?”
    I sighed. “Newton. But the point is, he doesn’t take me seriously. Not seriously enough to introduce me to his parents. Or to…to marry me.”
    Justin visibly blanched at this. “Marry you?” he said, as if the word caused a bitter taste in his mouth. What is it with men and the M word anyway?
    “Yes, marry me” I replied. “Why is it so hard to believe that Kirk would want to marry me? After all, I’ve been sleeping with him, eating with him, sharing some of my most intimate thoughts with him, for a year and eight months. Don’t you think it’s time we made some kind of commitment?”
    “We eat and sleep together,” Justin said, a smile tugging at his lips,“and we’re not getting married.” Then he paused, glancing over at me with a glint of amusement in his eye. “Are we?”
    “Forget it,” I said, realizing that as lovable as Justin was, he would never understand. He was, after all, a guy. And I knew about guys. I had grown up in a family full of them. “Let’s just find a place for this couch,” I said, wondering where we were going to put it until I convinced Justin of its utter worthless-ness.Then I thought of Kirk’s clutter-free one-bedroom and realized there were other reasons to get married besides love. Like real estate.
    I decided to take my problem to the Committee.The Committee, so named because of their unfailing ability to have an opinion about everything and everyone, consisted of the three women who filled out the other three corners of the office cubicle I shared four times a week, answering the demands of the discerning customers who shopped the Lee and Laurie, a catalog company claiming to be the purveyor of effortlessly casual style.Though I was grateful to Michelle for hooking me up with the job when I decided to give up my nine-to-five gig as a sales rep in the garment district for the actor’s life, I had learned in my short career at Lee and Laurie that there is nothing