Something Borrowed (32 page)

grateful for the dark.

"Before what?"

Before he told me that he loves me. "Before the Fourth."

"It comes and goes. But when things are going well we have sex

every day. Sometimes twice a day."

I force the sickening images out of my head, struggling to find

something to say. "Maybe it's the pressure of the wedding?"

"Yeah" she says.

And maybe it's because he's having an affair with me. I have a

pang of guilt, which increases tenfold when she switches topics

again and asks out of the blue, "Can you believe how long we've

been friends?"

"I know it's been a long time."

"Think of all the sleepovers we've had. How many sleepovers

would you say we've had? I'm not good at estimating things.

Would you say a thousand?"

"That's probably close," I say.

"It's been a while since we've had one," she says.

My eyes have adjusted to the dark, so I can vaguely see her now.

With her face freshly scrubbed and her hair pulled back into a

ponytail, she looks like a teenager. We could be in her bed back in

high school, giggling and whispering, with Annalise snoring softly

beside the bed in her Garfield sleeping bag. Darcy always let

Annalise fall asleep. I think she almost hoped she would. I know I

sometimes did.

"You wanna play twenty questions?" I ask. It was one of our

favorite games growing up.

"Yeah. Yeah. You go first."

"Okay. I got one."

"Same rules?"

"Same rules."

Our rules were simple: you must choose a person (instated after

Annalise tried to do neighborhood pets), someone we knew

personally (no celebrities, dead or living), and you must ask yesno

questions.

"From high school?" she asks.

"Yes."

"Male?"

"No."

"Our graduating class?"

"No."

"Class above us or below us?"

"That's two questions."

"No, it's a compound," she says. "If the answer's yes, I still have to

break it down and use another question. Remember?"

"Okay, you're right," I say, remembering that nuance.

"The answer

is no."

Student?

"No. That's five questions. Fifteen to go."

Darcy says she knows she's on five, she's counting.

"Teacher we

both had?"

"No," I say, six fingers hiding under the covers. Darcy has been

known to "miscount" during this game.

"Teacher you had?"

"No."

"Teacher I had?"

"No."

"Guidance counselor?"

"No."

"A dean?"

"That's ten. No."

"Other staff?"

"Yes."

"Janitor?"

"No."

"The nark?"

"No." I smile, thinking about the time the nark busted Darcy

leaving school to go to Subway with Blaine at lunch.

Darcy told

him to get a real job as he escorted them to the dean's office.

"What are you, thirty? Isn't it time you left high school?" The

comment earned her an extra pair of demerits.

"Ohh! I think I got it!" She starts giggling uncontrollably. "Is she a

lunch lady?"

I laugh. "Uh-huh."

"It's June!"

"Yep! You got it."

June was a high school icon. She was about eighty years old, four

feet tall, and massively wrinkled from years of heavy smoking.

And her main claim to fame was that she once lost a fake nail in

Tommy Baxter's lasagna. Tommy ceremoniously marched back to

the lunch line and returned the nail to June. "I believe this

belongs to you, June?" June grinned, wiped the sauce and cheese

off the nail, and stuck it back on her finger. Everybody cheered

and clapped and chanted, "Go, June! Go, June!" Other than

reapplying her nail, I'm not sure what she did to earn the respect

of our student body. I think it was more that somebody in the

popular crowd just decided along the way that it was cool to like

June. Maybe it had even been Darcy. She had that sort of power.

Darcy laughs. "Good ole June! I wonder if she's dead yet."

"Nah. I'm sure she's still there, asking kids in her raspy voice if

they want marinara or meat sauce on their rigatoni."

When she finally stops laughing, she says, "Aww. This feels just

like a sleepover from way back."

"Yeah. It does," I say, as a wave of fondness for Darcy washes over

me.

"We had fun as kids, didn't we?"

"Yeah. We did."

Darcy starts laughing again.

"What?" I ask.

"Do you remember the time we spent the night at Annalise's

house and hanged her sister's Barbie dolls?"

I crack up, picturing the Barbies, tied with yarn around their

necks, dangling from the doorways. Annalise's little sister cried

hysterically to her parents, who promptly met with the two other

sets of parents to come up with a suitable punishment.

We could

not play together for a week, which is a long time in the summer.

"That was sort of sick now that I think about it," I say.

"I know! And remember how Annalise kept saying it wasn't her

idea?"

"Yeah. Nothing ever was her idea," I say.

"We always thought of the cool stuff. She was a big-time

coattailer."

"Yeah," I say.

I am quiet, thinking about our childhood. I remember the day we

were dropped off at the mall with our paltry sixth-grade savings,

racing to the Piercing Pagoda to purchase our "best friend"

necklaces, a heart inscribed with the two words, split down the

middle, each side of the charm hanging from a gold-plated chain.

Darcy took the "Be Fri" half, I got the "st end" half. Of course, we

were so worried about Annalise's feelings that we only wore the

necklaces in secret, under our turtlenecks, or in bed at night. But I

remember the thrill of tucking my half of the heart inside my

shirt, against my skin. I had a best friend. There was such security

in that, such a sense of identity and belonging.

I still have my necklace buried in my jewelry box, the gold plate

turned green with grit and time, but now also tarnished with

something impossible to remove. I am suddenly overcome with

profound sadness for those two little girls. For what is now gone

between them. For what might never be regained, no matter what

happens with Dex.

"Talk more," Darcy says sweetly. There is no trace of the brash,

self-centered bride-to-be whom I have come to resent, even

dislike. "Please don't sleep yet. We never get to hang out like this

anymore. I miss it."

"Me too," I say, meaning it.

I ask her if she remembers the day we bought our "best friend"

necklaces.

"Yes. But remind me about the details," she says in her charming

way.

Darcy loves to hear my accounts of our childhood, always praising

my more complete memory. I tell her the story of the necklaces,

give her the longest version possible. After I am finished, I

whisper, "Are you asleep?"

No answer.

As I listen to Darcy breathing in the dark beside me, I wonder how

we got to this. How we could be in love with the same person.

How I could be sabotaging my best friend's engagement. In the

final seconds before sleep, I wish I could go back and undo

everything, give those little girls another chance.

The next morning, I am awakened by the sound of Darcy

rummaging through my medicine cabinet. I listen to her bang

around as I try to piece together my dreams from the night before,

a series of incoherent vignettes featuring a wide cast of the usual

characters my parents, Darcy, Dex, Marcus, even Les.

The plot is

unclear, but I recall a fair amount of running and hiding. I almost

kissed Dex a dozen times, but never did. I can't even be satisfied

in my dreams. Darcy emerges from the bathroom with a happy

face.

"I'm not hungover at all," she announces. "Although I took some

Advil just in case. You're out. Hope you didn't need any."

"I'm fine," I say.

"Not bad for the day after a bachelorette party! What do you want

to do today? Can we spend the day together? Just doing nothing.

Like old times."

"Okay," I say, somewhat reluctantly.

"Awesome!" She walks toward my kitchen, starts rooting around.

"Do you have any cereal?"

"No, I'm out. You want to go to EJ's?"

She says no, that she wants to eat sugar cereal right here in my

apartment, that she wants it to feel just like old times, no New

York brunch scene. She opens my refrigerator and surveys the

contents. "Man, you're out of everything. I'll just run out and get

some coffee and some essentials."

"Should we really drink coffee?" I ask her.

"Why wouldn't we?"

"Because I thought we were going to be authentic. We didn't drink

coffee when we were in high school."

She thinks for a second, missing my sarcasm. "We'll make an

exception for coffee."

"Do you want me to come with you?" I offer.

"No. That's okay. I'll be right back."

As soon as she leaves, I check my voice mail. Dex has left me two

messages one from last night, one from this morning.

In the first,

he says how much he misses me. In the second, he asks if he can

come over tonight. I call him back, surprised at how grateful I feel

when I get voice mail. I leave him a message, telling him that

Darcy is over and plans to stay for a while, so tonight won't really

work out. Then I sit on my couch thinking about last night, my

friendship with Darcy. Will I be able to live with myself if I get

what I want at her expense? What would life be like without her? I

am still thinking about it all when Darcy returns.

Bulging plastic

bags hang from her forearms. I take the coffees from her hands as

she dramatically drops the bags to the floor and shows me the red

indentations the bags made on her arms. I make a sympathetic

noise until she smiles again.

"I got great stuff! Froot Loops! Root beer! Cranapple juice! And

Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream!"

"Ice cream for breakfast?"

"No. For later."

"Aren't you worried about your wedding weight?"

She waves her hand at me. "Whatever. No."

"Why not?" I ask, knowing that she will eat now and ask me later

why I let her do it.

" 'Cause I'm just not! Don't rain on my parade! Now.

Let's eat

Froot Loops!"

She busies herself in the kitchen finding bowls, spoons, napkins.

She brings them out to the coffee table. She is in her giddy, highenergy

mode.

"Would you rather eat over there?" I say, pointing to my little

round table.

"No. I want it to be just like my house after a sleepover. We always

ate in front of the TV. Remember?" She aims the remote control at

the television and flips through the channels until she finds MTV.

Then she pours cereal into bowls, carefully making sure we have

the same amount. I am not in the mood for Froot Loops, but it is

clear that I do not have a choice in the matter. Although I find it

somewhat touching that she wants to re-create our childhood, I

am also annoyed by her bossiness. Running roughshod, Ethan

said. Maybe it is a precise description after all. And here I am, a

willing participant, letting her steamroll me.

"Tell me when," she says, pouring whole milk onto my cereal. I

hate whole milk.

"When," I say, almost instantly.

She stops pouring and looks at me. "Really? They are barely

moist."

"I know," I say, appeasing her, "but this is how I liked it in high

school too."

"Good point," she says, pouring milk in her own bowl.

She fills it

to the brim.

I take a few bites as she stirs her cereal with her spoon, waiting for

the milk to turn pink.

Dido's "Thank You" video is on. Of course, it makes me think of

Dex.

"This song," Darcy says, still stirring. "You know the part when

she says she's home at last and soaking and then 'you handed me

a towel'?"

"Yeah."

"That line totally reminds me of you."

"Of me?" I look at her. "I think it's supposed to be a romantic

song."

She rolls her eyes. "Duh! I know that. Don't worry."

She takes a

bite and continues to talk with her mouth full. "I'm not dyking out

or any-thing. I'm just saying you really are always here for me.

You know, when the chips are down."

"That's sweet." I smile, push away the guilt, sip my coffee.

We listen to the rest of the song as Darcy noisily eats her cereal.

As she finishes her last few bites, she raises the bowl to her lips,

gulping the pastel milk.

"Am I being too loud?" she asks, glancing up at me.

I shake my head. "You're fine."

"Dex calls me the Slurper whenever I eat cereal."

I get a pang as I always do when I glimpse a private part of their

relationship which I like to pretend does not exist.

Then I realize

with an even sharper pang that Dex doesn't have a nickname for

me. Perhaps I am too bland to deserve one. Darcy doesn't have a

bland bone in her body. No wonder it is hard to leave her. She is

the type of woman who draws you in, holds your attention. Even