Something Borrowed (3 page)

I think he is angry, that he is going to yell at me to pull myself

together. That this isn't life-or-death. But his tone is gentle.

"Rach, we are not screwed. I got it covered. Just say what I told

you to say And Rachel?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm really sorry."

"Yeah," I say. "Me too."

Are we talking to each other or to Darcy?

As soon as Dex leaves, I reach for the phone, still feeling dizzy. It

takes a few minutes, but I finally work up the nerve to call Darcy.

She is hysterical. "The bastard didn't come home last night! He

better be laid up in a hospital bed! Do you think he cheated on

me?"

I start to say no, that he was probably just out with Marcus, but

think better of it. Wouldn't that look too obvious?

Would I say

that if I knew nothing? I can't think. My head and heart are

pounding, and the room is still spinning intermittently.

"I'm sure

he wasn't cheating on you."

She blows her nose. "Why are you sure?"

"Because he wouldn't do that to you, Darce." I can't believe my

words, how easily they come.

"Well, then, where the fuck is he? The bars close by four or five.

It's seven-freaking-thirty!"

"I don't know But I'm sure there's a logical explanation."

Which, in fact, there is.

She asks me what time I left and whether he was still there and

who he was with the exact questions that Dex prepped me on. I

answer carefully, as instructed. I suggest that she call Marcus.

"I already called him," she says. "And that dumbass didn't answer

his goddamn cell."

Yes. We have a chance.

I hear the click of call-waiting and Darcy is gone, then back,

telling me that it is Dex and she'll call me when she can.

I stand and walk unsteadily to my bathroom. I look in the mirror.

My skin is blotchy and red. My eyes are ringed with mascara and

charcoal liner, and they burn from sleeping in my contact lenses. I

remove them quickly just before dry-heaving over my toilet. I

haven't thrown up from drinking since college, and that only

happened once. Because I learn from my mistakes.

Most college

kids say, "I will never do this again," and then do it the following

weekend. But I stuck to it. That is how I am. I will learn from this

one too. Just let me get away with it.

I shower, wash the smoke from my hair and skin with my phone

resting on the sink, waiting to hear from Darcy that everything is

okay. But hours pass and she does not call. Around noon, the

birthday well-wishers start dialing in. My parents do their annual

serenade and the "guess where I was thirty years ago today?"

routine. I manage to put on a good front and play along, but it

isn't easy.

By three o'clock, I have not heard from Darcy, and I am still

queasy. I chug a big glass of water, take two Advil, and contemplate ordering fried eggs and bacon, which Darcy swears

by when she's hungover. But I know that nothing will kill the pain

of waiting, wondering what is going on, if Dex is busted, if we both

are.

Did anybody see us together at 7B? In the cab? On the street?

Anyone besides Jose, whose job it is to know nothing?

What was

happening on the Upper West Side in their apartment?

Had he

gone mad and confessed? Was she packing her bags?

Were they

making love all day in an attempt to repair his conscience? Were

they still fighting, going around and around in circles of

accusation and denial?

Fear must supersede all other emotions stifling shame or

regret because crazily enough, I do not seem to feel guilty about

betraying my best friend. Not even when I find our used condom

on the floor. The only real guilt I can muster is guilt over not

feeling guilty. But I will repent later, just as soon as I know that I

am safe. Oh, please, God. I have never done anything like this

before. Please let me have this one pass. I will sacrifice all future

happiness. Any chance of meeting a husband.

I think of all those deals I tried to strike with Him when I was in

school, growing up. Please don't let me get any lower than a B on

this math test. Please, I will do anything work in a soup kitchen

every Saturday instead of just once a month. Those were the days.

To think that a C once symbolized all things gone wrong in my

tidy world. How could I have ever, even fleetingly, wished for a

dark side? How could I have made such a huge, potentially lifealtering,

utterly unforgivable mistake?

Finally I can't take it any longer. I call Darcy's cell phone, but it

goes straight to voice mail. I call their home number, hoping she

will pick up. Instead Dex answers. I cringe.

"Hi, Dex. This is Rachel," I say, trying to sound normal.

You know, the maid of honor in your upcoming wedding the

woman you had sex with last night?

"Hi, Rachel," he says casually. "So did you have fun last night?"

For a second, I think that he is talking about us and am horrified

by his nonchalance. But then I hear Darcy clamoring for the

phone in the background and realize that he is only talking about

the party.

"Oh yeah, it was a great time a great party." I bite my lip.

Darcy has already snatched the phone from him. Her tone is

chipper, fully repaired. "Hey. I'm sorry I forgot to call you back.

You know, it was high drama over here for a while."

"But you're okay now? Everything's all right with you and Dex?" I

have trouble saying his name. As if it will somehow give me away.

"Um, yeah, hold on one sec."

I hear her close a door; she always moves into their bedroom

when she talks on the phone. I picture their four-poster bed,

which I helped Darcy select from Charles P. Rogers.

Soon to be

their marital bed.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine now. He was just with Marcus. They stayed out

late and then ended up going to the diner for breakfast.

But of

course, you know, I'm still working the pissed-off angle. I told him

he's totally pathetic, that he's a thirty-four-year-old engaged man

and he stays out all night. Pathetic, don't you think?"

"Yeah, I guess so. But harmless enough." I swallow hard and

think, yes, that would be harmless enough. "Well, I'm glad you

guys made up."

"Yeah. I'm over it, I guess. But still he should have called. That

shit does not fly with me, you know?"

"I hear you," I say, and then bravely add, "I told you he wasn't

cheating on you."

"I know but I still pictured him with some stripper bimbo from

Scores or something. My overactive imagination."

Is that what last night was? I know I'm not a bimbo, but was it

some conscious choice of his to get laid before the wedding?

Surely not. Surely he wouldn't choose Darcy's maid of honor.

"So anyway, what did you think of the party? I'm such a bad

friend I get wasted and leave early. And, oh shit!

Today's your

actual birthday. Happy birthday! God, I'm the worst, Rach!"

Yeah, you're the bad friend.

"Oh, it was great. The party was so much fun. Thank you for

planning it it was a total surprise really awesome"

I hear their bedroom door open and Dex say something about

being late.

"Yeah, I actually gotta run, Rachel. We're going to the movies. You

wanna come?"

"Um, no, thanks."

"Okay. But we're still on for dinner tonight, right? Rain at eight?"

I totally forgot that I had plans to meet Dex, Darcy, and Hillary for

a small birthday dinner. There is no way I can face Dex or Darcy

tonight and certainly not together. I tell her that I'm not sure I'm

up to it, that I am really hungover. Even though I stopped

drinking at two, I add, before I remember that liars offer too much

extraneous detail.

Darcy doesn't notice. "Maybe you'll feel better later I'll call you

after the movie."

I hang up the phone, thinking that it was way too easy.

But

instead of feeling relieved, I am left with a vague dissatisfaction,

wistfulness, wishing that I were going to the movies.

Not with

Dex, of course. Just someone. How quickly I turn my back on the

deal with God. I want a husband again. Or at least a boyfriend.

I sit on the couch with my hands folded in my lap, contemplating

what I did to Darcy, waiting for the guilt to come. It doesn't. Was

it because I had alcohol as an excuse? I was drunk, not in my right

mind. I think of my first-year Criminal Law class.

Intoxication,

like insanity, infancy, duress, and entrapment, is a legal excuse, a

defense where the defendant is not blameworthy for having

engaged in conduct that would otherwise be a crime.

Shit. That

was only involuntary intoxication. Well, Darcy made me do those

shots. But peer pressure does not constitute involuntary intoxication. Still, it is a mitigating circumstance that the jury

might consider.

Sure, blame the victim. What is wrong with me?

Maybe I am just a bad person. Maybe the only reason I have been

good up to this point has less to do with my true moral fiber and

more to do with the fear of getting caught. I play by the rules

because I am risk-averse. I didn't go along with the junior-high

shoplifting gags at the White Hen Pantry partly because I knew it

was wrong, but mostly because I was sure that I would be the one

to get caught. I never cheated on an exam for the same reason.

Even now I don't take office supplies from work because I figure

that somehow the firm's surveillance cameras will catch me in the

act. So if that is what motivates me to be good, do I really deserve

credit? Am I really a good person? Or just a cowardly pessimist?

Okay. So maybe I am a bad person. There is no other plausible

explanation for my lack of guilt. Do I have it in for Darcy? Was I

driven by jealousy last night? Do I resent her perfect life how

easily things come to her? Or maybe, subconsciously, in my

drunken state, I was getting even for past wrongs.

Darcy hasn't

always been a perfect friend. Far from it. I start to make my case

to the jury, remembering Ethan back in elementary school. I am

on to something Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, consider the

story of Ethan Ainsley

Darcy Rhone and I were best friends growing up, bonded by

geography, a force greater than all else when you are in elementary school. We moved to the same cul-de-sac in Naperville, Indiana, in the summer of 1976, just in time to attend

the town's bicentennial parade together. We marched side by side,

beating matching red, white, and blue drums that Darcy's father

bought for us at Kmart. I remember Darcy leaning in to me and

saying, "Let's pretend we're sisters." The suggestion gave me

goose bumps a sister! And in no time at all, that is what she

became to me. We slept over at each other's houses every Friday

and Saturday during the school year and most nights of the week

during the summer. We absorbed the nuances of each other's

family life, the sort of details you only learn when you live next

door to a friend. I knew, for example, that Darcy's mother folded

towels in neat thirds as she watched The Young and the Restless,

that Darcy's father subscribed to Playboy, that junk food was

allowed for breakfast, and the words "shit" and "damn"

were no

big deal. I'm sure she observed much about my home too,

although it is hard to say what makes your own life unique. We

shared everything clothes, toys, yards, even our love of Andy Gibb

and unicorns.

In the fifth grade we discovered boys. Which brings me to Ethan,

my first real crush. Darcy, along with every other girl in our class,

loved Doug Jackson. I understood Doug's appeal. I appreciated

his blond hair that reminded us of Bo Duke. And the way his

Wranglers fit his butt, his black comb tucked neatly inside the

back left pocket. And his dominance in tetherball how he casually

and effortlessly socked the ball out of everyone's reach at a sharp

upward angle.

But I loved Ethan. I loved his unruly hair and the way his cheeks

turned pink during recess and made him look like he belonged in

a Renoir painting. I loved the way he rotated his number-two

pencil between his full lips, making symmetrical little bite marks

near the eraser whenever he was concentrating really hard. I loved

how hyper and happy he was when he played four square with the

girls (he was the only boy who would ever join us the other boys

stuck to tetherball and football). And I loved that he was always

kind to the most unpopular boy in our class, Johnnie Redmond,

who had a terrible stutter and an unfortunate bowl cut.

Darcy was puzzled, if not irritated, by my dissent, as was our good

friend Annalise Giles, who moved to our cul-de-sac two years after

we did (this delay and the fact that she already had a sister meant

she could never quite catch up and reach full best-friend status).

Darcy and Annalise liked Ethan, but not like that, and they would

insist that Doug was so much cuter and cooler the two attributes

that will get you in trouble when you choose a boy or a man, a