Something Borrowed (23 page)

on one of my mother's preselected radio stations.

Darcy turns the volume down. "I didn't mean that that was a bad

thing. I mean, you know that I totally value being single. I never

wanted to marry before thirty-three. I mean, I'm talking about

them. They are so narrow, you know what I mean?"

She has just made it worse by telling me that she didn't even want

this whole crazy engagement. She would have preferred another

three-plus years of bachelorettehood. And lo and behold, it all just

fell in her lap. What's a girl to do?

"They're so narrow that they don't even know they're narrow," she

continues.

Of course she is right about this. This group of girls, of which

Annalise has been a member since the day she left college, lives

like women in the fifties. They picked out china patterns before

their twenty-second birthdays, married their first boyfriend,

bought three-bedroom homes within miles, if not blocks, of their

parents, and went about the business of starting a family.

"Right," I mumble.

"So that's all I meant," she says innocently. "And deep down

inside, they are so jealous of you. You're a big-time lawyer at a

big-city firm."

I tell her that is crazy not one of those girls longs for a career like

mine. Most don't work at all, in fact.

"Well, it's not only the career. You are free and single. I mean,

they watch Sex and the City. They know what your life's all about.

It's glamorous, full of fun, hot guys, cosmopolitans, excitement!

But they won't let you see their insecure side. Because it would

make their own lives that much more pathetic, you know?" She

smiles, pleased with her pep talk. "Yeah. Your life is totally Sex

and the City, "

"Yes. I am a lot like Carrie Bradshaw," I say flatly.

Minus the fabulous shoes, incredible figure, and empathetic best

friend.

"Exactly!" she says. "Now you're talking."

"Look. I don't really care what they're thinking," I say, knowing it

is only half true. 1 only care to the extent that I agree.

And part of

me believes that being thirty and alone is sad. Even with a good

job. Even in Manhattan.

"Good," she says, slapping her thighs with encouragement. "Good.

That's the spirit."

We arrive at Jessica Pell's a fringe friend of ours from high

school exactly on time. Darcy consults her watch and insists on

driving around for a few minutes, to be fashionably late.

I tell her it's not necessary to be fashionably late to a baby shower,

but I oblige, and at her request, I take her through the McDonald's

drive-through. She leans over me and yells into the speaker that

she "would love a small diet Pepsi." Now, I know that she knows

that McDonald's has Coke, not Pepsi. She has told me before that

she likes to test them, see if they'll ask. That the Pepsi people

always ask if you order the Coke, but the Coke people don't always

ask.

But it is an opportunity to make a stir, create an exchange. Pimply

Suburbanite meets Big-City Supermodel.

"Is diet Coke awright?" the boy mumbles into his microphone.

"Guess it'll have to do," she says with a good-natured chuckle.

She finishes her diet Coke as we pull up to Jessica's house. "Well.

Here goes nothing," she says, fluffing her hair, as if this shower

were all about her instead of Annalise and her unborn child.

The other guests have already assembled in Jessica's wellcoordinated

blue-and-yellow living room when we arrive.

Annalise screams, waddles over to us, and gathers us in a group

hug. Despite the uncommon ground, we are still her best friends.

And it is clear that we are the honored invitees, a role that makes

me somewhat uncomfortable and Darcy bask.

"It's so good to see you guys! Thank you so much for coming in!"

Annalise says. "You both look amazing. Amazing. You get more

stylish every time you come home!"

"You look great too,' I say. "Pregnancy agrees with you. You have

that glow."

Like my parents' house, Annalise resists change. She still has the

same hairstyle shoulder-length with curled-under bangs that

was great in the eighties, horrible in the mid-nineties, and

through sheer luck, slightly less awful now. It passes as a nice

motherly cut. And her face, always round as a persimmon, no

longer looks chubby, but simply part of the cute, pregnant

package. She is the sort of pregnant woman that people gladly

relinquish their seats to on the subway.

Darcy rubs Annalise's stomach with her jeweled left hand. The

diamond catches the light and flashes in my face. "Oh my," Darcy

coos. "There is a little naked person in there!"

Annalise laughs and says, "Well yes, that is one way of looking at

it!" She introduces us to some of the guests, fellow teachers and

guidance counselors from the school where she teaches, and other

neighborhood friends. "And of course, you know everybody else!"

We exchange hugs with Jess and our other high school classmates. There is Brit Miller (who shamelessly worshiped and

copied Darcy in high school). Tricia Salerno. Jennifer McGowan.

Kim Frisby. With the possible exception of Kim, who was a bubbly

cheerleader and, miraculously, also in the advanced science and

math classes, none of the girls were particularly smart, interesting, or popular in high school. But as wives and mothers,

their mediocrity matters no longer.

Kim slides down on the sofa and offers me a spot next to her. I ask

her how Jeff (who also graduated in our class and played baseball

with Brandon and Blaine) and her boys are doing. She says they

are all doing great, that Jeff just got promoted, which was

exciting, that they are buying a new house, that the boys are just

perfect.

"What does Jeff do again?" I ask.

She says sales.

"And you have twins, right?"

Yes, boys. Stanley and Brick.

Now, I know Brick is her mother's maiden name, but I wonder

again how she could have done that to a child. And Stanley? Who

calls a baby Stanley, or even Stan? Stanley and Stan are man

names. Nobody should have that name under the age of thirtyfive.

And even if the names were tolerable in their own right, they

do not go together, my pet peeve in name selection.

Not that you

should choose rhyming names for twins, or even names beginning

with the same letter, like Brick and Brock or Brick and Brack. Go

with Stanley and Frederick both old-man names. Or Brick and

Tyler both pretentious surnames. But Stanley and Brick? Please.

"Did you bring photos of the boys?" I ask the obligatory question.

"As a matter of fact I did," Kim says, whipping out a small album

with "Brag Book" written on the cover in big, purple bubble

letters. I smile, flipping through the pages, pausing for the

requisite time before I go to the next. Brick in the tub.

Stanley

with a Wiffle ball. Brick with Grandma and Grandpa Brick.

"They're precious," I say, closing the album and handing it back to

her.

"We think so," Kim says, nodding, smiling. "I think we'll keep

them."

As she returns the album to her purse, I overhear Darcy telling her

engagement story to Jennifer and Tricia.

Brit is egging her on. "Tell her about the roses," she prompts.

I had forgotten about the roses perhaps blocked them out since

the arrival of my own.

"Yes, a dozen red roses," Darcy is saying. "He had them waiting in

the apartment for me after he proposed."

Not two dozen.

"Where did he ask you?" Tricia wants to know.

"Well, we went out for a really nice lunch, and afterward he

suggested that we take a walk in Central Park"

"Did you suspect it?" two girls ask at once.

"Not at all"

This is a lie. I remember her telling me two days before Dex asked

that she knew it was coming. But to admit this would detract from

the drama of her tale, as well as diminish her image as the one

pursued.

"Then what did he say?" Brit asks.

"You already know the story!" Darcy laughs. She and Brit still

keep in touch occasionally due to Brit's diligence; her fascination

for her teen idol has never eroded.

"Tell it again!" Brit says. "My engagement story is so lame I

picked out the ring myself at the mall! I have to live vicariously

through you."

Darcy puts on her pretend-modest face. "He said,

'Darcy, I can't

think of anything that would make me happier than having you as

my wife.'"

Except being with your best friend.

"Then he said, 'Please share your life with me.' "

And share your best friend with me.

A chorus of oohs and ahhs follow. I tell myself that she is

embellishing the tale, that he really just uttered the standard "Will

you marry me?"

"Take off your ring," Brit clamors. "I want to try it on."

Kim says that it is bad luck to remove your ring during the

engagement.

Take it off!

Darcy shrugs to demonstrate that her free spirit is still very much

intact. Or perhaps to point out that when you are Darcy Rhone,

you don't need luck. She slips off her ring and passes it around the

circle of eager women. It ends up in my hands.

"Try it on, Rach," Brit says.

It is a married girl's fun trick. Make the single girl try on the

diamond ring so she can, if only for a moment, get one step closer

to the unknown euphoria of betrothal. I shake my head politely as

though I'm declining a second helping of casserole.

"That's okay,"

I say.

"Rachel, any prospects?" Tricia asks tentatively, as you would

inquire about someone's CAT scan results.

I am ready to report a firm no, when Darcy answers for me.

"Tons," she says. "But no one special guy. Rachel is very picky."

She is trying to help. But somehow it has the reverse effect, and I

feel even more like an emerging old maid. Besides, I can't help but

think that she is only being charitable because I so clearly look

like the odd woman out, the loser in the group. If I were engaged

to, say, Brad Pitt, there'd be no way that Darcy would brag on my

behalf. She'd be sulking in the corner, her competitive juices

flowing in full force, telling Brit in the bathroom that yes, Brad is

Brad, but Dex is so much cuter just a little less pretty.

Of course,

with that, I would actually agree.

"I wouldn't say I'm that picky," I say matter-of-factly.

Just hopelessly alone and having an affair with Darcy's husbandto-be. But you all do realize that I graduated from a top-ten law

school and make six figures? And that I don't need a man,

dammit! But when I do find one and have a baby, I will sure as

hell pick a better name than Brick!

"Yeah, you are picky," Darcy says to me, but for her audience. She

takes a sip of punch. "Take Marcus, for example."

"Who is Marcus?" Kim asks.

"Marcus is this guy that Dex went to Georgetown with.

Nice,

smart, funny," Darcy says, waving her hand in the air,

"but Rachel

won't give him the time of day."

If she keeps it up, they are going to start wondering if I'm a

lesbian. Which would make me a true freak show in their eyes.

Their idea of diversity is someone who attended an out-of-state

school and didn't rush a sorority.

"What, no sparks?" Kim asks me sympathetically. "You need

sparks. Jeff and I had sparks in the eleventh grade and they never

stopped."

"Right," I say. "You need sparks."

"Absolutely," Brit murmurs.

Their collective advice: don't settle. Keep looking. Find Mr. Right.

That is what they all did. And by God, I think they believe it.

Because nobody who marries at the ripe age of twenty-three can

be settling. Naturally. That is a phenomenon that only happens to

women in their thirties.

"So, have you made a final decision on your baby names?" I ask

Annalise, desperate to change the subject. I know she is

considering Hannah and Grace if she has a girl, Michael or David

for a boy. Wholesome, classic, solid names. Not trying too hard.

"Yes," Annalise says. "But we're not telling." She winks at me. I

know that she'll tell me the final decision later, just as she has

with the runner-up selections. I am safe. The friend who will

never, can never, swipe your baby names.

My specialty is fiance-stealing.

After we play a few silly shower games, Annalise opens her

presents. There is a lot of yellow clothing because Annalise does

not know whether she's having a boy or a girl. So no pink gifts

except for a pink bunny bank from Tiffany, courtesy of Darcy, who

says she knows for sure that Annalise is going to have a girl, that

she has a very good sense about these things. I can tell that

Annalise hopes she is right.

"Besides," Darcy says, "even if I'm wrong and I'm not did you

know that at the turn of the century, pink was for boys and blue

was for girls?"

We all say that we did not. I wonder if she is making it up.

Annalise comes to my gift. She opens my card, murmuring to

herself. Her eyes fill with tears as she reads my words that she is