Something Borrowed (2 page)

after school, the kind of woman (as of tomorrow, I am no longer

any part girl) who flosses every night and makes her bed every

morning.

Darcy returns with the shots but Dex refuses his, so Darcy insists

that I do two. Before I know it, the night starts to take on that

blurry quality, when you cross over from being buzzed to drunk,

losing track of time and the precise order of things.

Apparently

Darcy has reached that point even sooner because she is now

dancing on the bar. Spinning and gyrating in a little red halter

dress and three-inch heels.

"Stealing the show at your party," Hillary, my closest friend from

work, says to me under her breath. "She's shameless."

I laugh. "Yeah. Par for the course."

Darcy lets out a yelp, claps her hands over her head, and beckons

me with a come-hither expression that would appeal to any man

who has ever fancied girl-on-girl action. "Rachel!

Rachel! C'mere!"

Of course she knows that I will not join her. I have never danced

on a bar. I wouldn't know what to do up there besides fall. I shake

my head and smile, a polite refusal. We all wait for her next move,

which is to swivel her hips in perfect time to the music, bend over

slowly, and then whip her body upright again, her long hair

spilling every which way. The limber maneuver reminds me of her

perfect imitation of Tawny Kitaen in the Whitesnake video "Here I

Go Again," how she used to roll around doing splits on the hood of

her father's BMW, to the delight of the pubescent neighborhood

boys. I glance at Dex, who in these moments can never quite

decide whether to be amused or annoyed. To say that the man has

patience is an understatement. Dex and I have this in common.

"Happy birthday, Rachel!" Darcy yells. "Let's all raise a glass to

Rachel!"

Which everyone does. Without taking their eyes off her.

A minute later, Dex whisks her down from the bar, slings her over

his shoulder, and deposits her on the floor next to me in one fluid

motion. Clearly he has done this before. "All right," he announces.

"I'm taking our little party-planner home."

Darcy plucks her drink off the bar and stamps her foot.

"You're

not the boss of me, Dex! Is he, Rachel?" As she asserts her

independence, she stumbles and sloshes her martini all over Dex's

shoe.

Dex grimaces. "You're wasted, Darce. This isn't fun for anyone but

you."

"Okay. Okay. I'll go I'm feeling kind of sick anyway,"

she says,

looking queasy.

"Are you going to be okay?"

"I'll be fine. Don't you worry," she says, now playing the role of

brave little sick girl.

I thank her for my party, tell her that it was a total surprise which

is a lie, because I knew Darcy would capitalize on my thirtieth to

buy a new outfit, throw a big bash, and invite as many of her

friends as my own. Still, it was nice of her to have the party, and I

am glad that she did. She is the kind of friend who always makes

things feel special. She hugs me hard and says she'd do anything

for me, and what would she do without me, her maid of honor, the

sister she never had. She is gushing, as she always does when she

drinks too much.

Dex cuts her off. "Happy birthday, Rachel. We'll talk to you

tomorrow." He gives me a kiss on the cheek.

"Thanks, Dex," I say. "Good night."

I watch him usher her outside, holding her elbow after she nearly

trips on the curb. Oh, to have such a caretaker. To be able to drink

with reckless abandon and know that there will be someone to get

you home safely.

Sometime later Dex reappears in the bar. "Darcy lost her purse.

She thinks she left it here. It's small, silver," he says.

"Have you

seen it?"

"She lost her new Chanel bag?" I shake my head and laugh

because it is just like Darcy to lose things. Usually I keep track of

them for her, but I went off duty on my birthday. Still, I help Dex

search for the purse, finally spotting it under a bar stool.

As he turns to leave, Dex's friend Marcus, one of his groomsmen,

convinces him to stay. "C'mon, man. Hang out for a minute."

So Dex calls Darcy at home and she slurs her consent, tells him to

have fun without her. Although she is probably thinking that such

a thing is not possible.

Gradually my friends peel away, saying their final happy

birthdays. Dex and I outlast everyone, even Marcus.

We sit at the

bar making conversation with the actor/bartender who has an

"Amy" tattoo and zero interest in an aging lawyer. It is after two

when we decide that it's time to go. The night feels more like

midsummer than spring, and the warm air infuses me with

sudden hope: This will be the summer I meet my guy.

Dex hails me a cab, but as it pulls over he says, "How about one

more bar? One more drink?"

"Fine," I say. "Why not?"

We both get in and he tells the cabbie to just drive, that he has to

think about where next. We end up in Alphabet City at a bar on

Seventh and Avenue B, aptly named 7B.

It is not an upbeat scene 7B is dingy and smoke-filled. I like it

anyway it's not sleek and it's not a dive striving to be cool because

it's not sleek.

Dex points to a booth. "Have a seat. I'll be right with you." Then

he turns around. "What can I get you?"

I tell him whatever he's having, and sit and wait for him in the

booth. I watch him say something to a girl at the bar wearing

army-green cargo pants and a tank top that says "Fallen Angel."

She smiles and shakes her head. "Omaha" is playing in the

background. It is one of those songs that seems melancholy and

cheerful at the same time.

A moment later Dex slides in across from me, pushing a beer my

way. "Newcastle," he says. Then he smiles, crinkly lines appearing

around his eyes. "You like?"

I nod and smile.

From the corner of my eye, I see Fallen Angel turn on her bar

stool and survey Dex, absorbing his chiseled features, wavy hair,

full lips. Darcy complained once that Dex garners more stares and

double takes than she does. Yet, unlike his female counterpart,

Dex seems not to notice the attention. Fallen Angel now casts her

eyes my way, likely wondering what Dex is doing with someone so

average. I hope that she thinks we're a couple. Tonight nobody has

to know that I am only a member of the wedding party.

Dex and I talk about our jobs and our Hamptons share that begins

in another week and a lot of things. But Darcy does not come up

and neither does their September wedding.

After we finish our beers we move over to the jukebox, fill it with

dollar bills, searching for good songs. I push the code for

"Thunder Road" twice because it is my favorite song. I tell him

this.

"Yeah. Springsteen's at the top of my list, too. Ever seen him in

concert?"

"Yeah," I say. "Twice. Born in the U.S.A. and Tunnel of Love. "

I almost tell him that I went with Darcy in high school, dragged

her along even though she much preferred groups like Poison and

Bon Jovi. But I don't bring this up. Because then he will

remember to go home to her and I don't want to be alone in my

dwindling moments of twenty somethingness.

Obviously I'd

rather be with a boyfriend, but Dex is better than nothing.

It is last call at 7B. We get a couple more beers and return to our

booth. Sometime later we are in a cab again, going north on First

Avenue. "Two stops," Dex tells our cabbie, because we live on

opposite sides of Central Park. Dex is holding Darcy's Chanel

purse, which looks small and out of place in his large hands. I

glance at the silver dial of his Rolex, a gift from Darcy.

It is just

shy of four o'clock.

We sit silently for a stretch of ten or fifteen blocks, both of us

looking out of our respective side windows, until the cab hits a

pothole and I find myself lurched into the middle of the backseat,

my leg grazing his. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, Dex is kissing

me. Or maybe I kiss him. Somehow we are kissing. My mind goes

blank as I listen to the soft sound of our lips meeting again and

again. At some point, Dex taps on the Plexiglas partition and tells

the driver, between kisses, that it will just be one stop after all.

We arrive on the corner of Seventy-third and Third, near my

apartment. Dex hands the driver a twenty and does not wait for

change. We spill out of the taxi, kissing more on the sidewalk and

then in front of Jose, my doorman. We kiss the whole way up in

the elevator. I am pressed against the elevator wall, my hands on

the back of his head. I am surprised by how soft his hair is.

I fumble with my key, turning it the wrong way in the lock as Dex

keeps his arms around my waist, his lips on my neck and the side

of my face. Finally the door is open, and we are kissing in the

middle of my studio, standing upright, leaning on nothing but

each other. We stumble over to my made bed, complete with tight

hospital corners.

"Are you drunk?" His voice is a whisper in the dark.

"No," I say. Because you always say no when you're drunk. And

even though I am, I have a lucid instant where I consider clearly

what was missing in my twenties and what I wish to find in my

thirties. It strikes me that, in a sense, I can have both on this

momentous birthday night. Dex can be my secret, my last chance

for a dark twenty-something chapter, and he can also be a prelude

of sorts a promise of someone like him to come. Darcy is in my

mind, but she is being pushed to the back, overwhelmed by a force

stronger than our friendship and my own conscience.

Dex moves

over me. My eyes are closed, then open, then closed again.

And then, somehow, I am having sex with my best friend's fiance.

I wake up to my ringing phone, and for a second I am disoriented

in my own apartment. Then I hear Darcy's high-pitched voice on

my machine, urging me to pick up, pick up, please pick up. My

crime snaps into focus. I sit up too quickly, and my apartment

spins. Dexter's back is to me, sculpted and sparsely freckled. I jab

hard at it with one finger.

He rolls over and looks at me. "Oh, Christ! What time is it?"

My clock radio tells us it is seven-fifteen. I have been thirty for

two hours. Correction one hour; I was born in the central time

zone.

Dex gets out of bed quickly, gathering his clothes, which are

strewn along either side of my bed. The answering machine beeps

twice, cutting Darcy off. She calls back, rambling about how Dex

never came home. Again, my machine silences her in midsentence. She calls back a third time, wailing,

"Wake up and

call me! I need you!"

I start to get out of bed, then realize that I am naked. I sit back

down and cover myself with a pillow.

"Omigod. What do we do?" My voice is hoarse and shaking.

"Should I answer? Tell her you crashed here?"

"Hell, no! Don't pick up lemme think for a sec." He sits down,

wearing only boxers, and rubs his jaw, now covered by a shadow

of whiskers.

Sick, sobering dread washes over me. I start to cry.

Which never

helps anything.

"Look, Rachel, don't cry," Dex says. "Everything's going to be

okay."

He puts on his jeans and then his shirt, efficiently zipping and

tucking and buttoning as though it is an ordinary morning. Then

he checks the messages on his cell phone. "Shhhit.

Twelve missed

calls," he says matter-of-factly. Only his eyes show distress.

When he is dressed, he sits back on the edge of the bed and rests

his forehead in his hands. I can hear him breathing hard through

his nose. Air in and out. In and out. Then he looks over at me,

composed. "Okay. Here's what's going to happen.

Rachel, look at

me."

I obey his instructions, still clutching my pillow.

"This will be fine. Just listen," he says, as though talking to a client

in a conference room.

"I'm listening," I say.

"I'm going to tell her I stayed out until five or so and then got

breakfast with Marcus. We got it covered."

"What do I tell her?" I ask. Lying has never been my strong suit.

"Just tell her you left the party and went home Say you can't

remember for sure whether I was still there when you left, but you

think I was still there with Marcus. And be sure to say you

'think' don't be too definite. And that's all you know, okay?" He

points at my phone. "Call her back now I'll call Marcus as soon

as I leave here. Got it?"

I nod, my eyes filling with tears again as he stands.

"And calm down," he says, not meanly, but firmly.

Then he is at

the door, one hand on the knob, the other running through his

dark hair that is just long enough to be really sexy.

"What if she already talked to Marcus?" I ask, as Dex is halfway

out the door. Then, more to myself, "We are so screwed."

He turns around, looks at me through the doorway. For a second,