Something Borrowed (38 page)

feet. The taxi is dignified and spacious compared to New York's

yellow cabs.

Ethan asks me how I feel, and for a second I think he is asking

about Dex, but then I realize it's the standard postflight questioning.

"Oh, fine," I say. "I'm really psyched to be here."

"Jet-lagged?"

"A little."

"A pint will fix that," he says. "No napping. We have a lot to do in

a week."

I laugh. "Like what?"

"Sightseeing. Boozing. Reminiscing. Time-consuming, intense

stuff God, it's nice to see you."

We arrive at Ethan's basement flat in Kensington, and he gives me

the brief tour of his bedroom, living room, and kitchen.

His

furniture is sleek and modern, and his walls are covered with

abstract paintings and posters of jazz musicians. It is a bachelor

pad, but without the I'm-trying-at-every-turn-to-get-laid feel.

"You probably want to shower?"

I tell him yes, that I feel pretty grimy. He hands me a towel in the

hallway outside of his bathroom and tells me to be quick, that he

wants to talk.

As soon as I am showered and changed, Ethan asks,

"So how's the

Dex situation? I take it they're still engaged?"

It's not as if I have stopped thinking about him for an instant.

Everything vaguely reminds me of him. A sign for Newcastle.

Drinking New-castles with him on my birthday.

Driving on the left

side of the street. Dex is left-handed. The rain. Alanis Morissette

singing, "It's like rain on your wedding day."

But Ethan's question about Dex still causes a sharp pain in my

chest. My throat tightens as I struggle not to cry.

"Oh God. I knew it," Ethan says. He reaches up and grabs my

hand, pulling me down on his black leather couch.

"Knew what?" I say, still fighting back tears.

"That your stiff-upper-lip, 'I don't care' thing was just a lot of

bluster." He puts his arm around me. "What happened?"

I finally cry as I tell him everything, no editing. Even the dice. So

much for my vow over the Atlantic. My pain feels raw, naked.

When I am finished, Ethan says, "I'm glad I RSVPed no. I don't

think I could stomach it."

I blow my nose, wipe my face. "Those are the exact words Hillary

used. She's not going either."

"You shouldn't go, Rachel. Boycott. It will be too hard.

Spare

yourself."

"I have to go."

"Why?"

"What would I tell her?"

"Tell her that you have to have surgery you have to have an

extraneous organ removed"

"Like what kind of organ?"

"Like your spleen. People can get by without their spleen, right?"

"What's the reason for removing your spleen?"

"I dunno. A spleen stone? A problem an accident, a disease.

Who cares? Make something up. I'll do the research for you we'll

come up with something plausible. Just don't go."

"I have to be there," I say. I am back to rule-following.

We sit in silence for a minute, and then Ethan gets up, switches

off two lamps, and grabs his wallet from a small table in the hall.

"C'mon."

"Where are we going?"

"We're going to my local pub. Getting you good and loaded. Trust

me, it will help."

"It's eleven in the morning!" I laugh at his exuberance.

"So? You got a better idea?" He crosses his arms across his narrow

chest. "You want to sightsee? Think Big Ben's going to do you any

good right now?"

"No," I say. Big Ben would only remind me of the minutes ticking

down to what will be the most horrible day of my life.

"So c'mon then," he says.

I follow Ethan over to a pub called the Brittania. It is exactly how I

expect an English pub to be musty and full of old men smoking

and reading the paper. The walls and carpet are dark red, and bad

oil paintings of foxes and deer and Victorian women cover the

walls. It could be 1955. One man wearing a little cap and smoking

a pipe even resembles Winston Churchill.

"What's your pleasure?" Ethan asks me.

Dex, I think, but tell him a beer would be great. I am beginning to

think that the boozing idea is a pretty good one.

"What kind? Guinness? Kronenbourg? Carling?"

"Whatever," I say. "Anything but Newcastle."

Ethan orders two beers, his several shades darker than mine. We

sit down at a corner table. I trace the grain in the wood of the

table and ask him how long it took for him to get over Brandi.

"Not long," he says. "Once I knew what she did, I realized that she

wasn't what I thought. There was nothing to miss.

That's what you

have to think. He wasn't right for you. Let Darcy have him"

"Why does she always win?" I sound like a five-year-old, but it

helps to hear my misery simplified: Darcy beat me.

Again.

Ethan laughs, flashing his dimple. "Win what?"

"Well, Dex for one." Self-pity envelops me as I picture him with

Darcy. It is morning in New York. They are likely still in bed

together.

"Okay. What else?"

"Everything." I gulp my beer as quickly as I can. I feel it hit my

empty stomach.

"Like?"

How do I explain to a guy what I mean? It sounds so shallow:

she's prettier, her clothes are better, she's thinner. But that is the

least of it. She is happier too. She gets what she wants, whatever

that happens to be. I try to articulate this with real examples.

"Well, she has that great job making tons of money, when all she

has to do is plan parties and look pretty."

"That schmoozing job of hers? Please."

"It's better than mine."

"Better than being a lawyer? I don't think so."

"More fun."

"You'd hate it."

"That's not the point. She loves her job." I know I am not doing a

good job of showing how Darcy is always victorious.

"Then find one you love. Although that's another issue altogether.

One that we will address later But, okay, what else does she

win?"

"Well she got into Notre Dame," I say, knowing that I sound

ridiculous.

"Oh, she did not!"

"Yes she did."

"No. She said she got into Notre Dame. Who picks IU

over Notre

Dame?"

"Plenty of people. Why do you always dump on IU?"

"Okay. Look. I hate Notre Dame more. I'm just saying if you apply

to those two schools and get into both, presumably you want to go

to both. So you'd pick Notre Dame. It's a better school, right?"

I nod. "I guess."

"But she didn't get in there. Nor did she get a, what did she say,

thirteen hundred five and a half or something on her SATs?

Remember that shit?"

"Yeah. She lied about her score."

"And she lied about Notre Dame too. Trust me Did you ever see

the acceptance letter?"

"No. But well, maybe she didn't."

"God, you're so naive," he says, mispronouncing it

"nave" on

purpose. "I assumed we were on the same page there."

"It was a sensitive topic. Remember?"

"Oh yeah. I remember. You were so sad," he says. "You should

have been celebrating your escape from the Midwest.

Of course,

then you pick the second most obnoxious school in the country,

and go to Duke You know my theory about Duke and Notre

Dame, right?"

I smile and tell Ethan that I have trouble keeping all of his

theories straight. "What is it again?"

"Well, aside from you, and a few other exceptions, those two

schools are filled to the brim with obnoxious people.

Perhaps only

obnoxious people apply there or perhaps the schools attract

obnoxious people. Probably a combination, a mutually reinforcing

issue. You're not offended, are you?"

" Course not. Go on," I say. In part, I agree with him.

A lot of

people at Duke including my own boyfriend were hard to take.

"Okay. So why do they have a higher ratio of assholes per capita?

What do those two schools have in common, you ask?"

"I give."

"Simple. Dominance in a Division-One, revenue-generating sport.

Football at Notre Dame and basketball at Duke.

Coupled with the

stellar academic reputation. And the result is an intolerably smug

student body. Can you name another school that has that

combination of characteris-tics?"

"Michigan," I say, thinking of Luke Grimley from our high school

who was insufferable in his chatter about Michigan football. And

he still talks about Rumeal Robinson's clutch free throws in the

NCAA finals.

"Aha! Michigan! Good one, nice try. But it's not an expensive

private school. The public aspect saves Michigan, makes Michigan

alums slightly less obnoxious."

"Wait a minute! What about your own school?

Stanford. You had

Tiger Woods. Great swimmers. Debbie Thomas, that skater, didn't

she win a silver medal? Tennis players galore. Plus great

academics and it's private and expensive. So why aren't you

Stanford grads as irritating?"

"Simple. We're not dominant in football or basketball.

Yeah, we're

good some years, but not like Duke in basketball or football at

Notre Dame. You can't get as jazzed over nonrevenue sports. It

saves us."

I smile and nod. His theory is interesting, but I am more intrigued

with the realization that Darcy got rejected by Notre Dame.

"Mind if I smoke?" Ethan asks as he removes a carton from his

back pocket. He shakes a cigarette free, rolling it between his

fingers.

"I thought you quit."

"For a minute," he says.

"You should quit."

"I know."

"Okay. So back to Darcy."

"Right."

"So maybe she didn't get into Notre Dame. But she did get Dex."

He strikes a match and raises it to his lips. "Who cares?

Let her

keep him. He's spineless. Sincerely, you're better off."

"He's not spineless," I say, hoping that Ethan will convince me

otherwise. I want to latch onto a fatal flaw, believe that Dex is not

the person I thought he was. Which would be a lot less painful

than believing that I am not the woman he wanted.

"Okay, maybe 'spineless' is too strong. But, Rach, I'm positive he'd

rather be with you. He just doesn't know how to dump her."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence. But I actually think he just

decided that he'd rather be with Darcy. He picked her over me.

Everybody picks her." I gulp my beer more quickly.

"Everybody. Who besides spineless Dex?"

"Okay." I smile. "You picked her."

He gives me a puzzled look. "Did not."

I snort. "Ha."

"Is that what she told you?"

After all these years, I have never aired my feelings about their

two-week elementary-school romance. "She didn't need to tell me.

Everybody knew it."

"What are you talking about?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The reunion?" he asks.

"Our ten-year?" I ask, knowing of no other reunion. I remember

the disappointment I felt when Les insisted that I had to work.

Those were the days before I knew to lie. He had scoffed at me

when I said I couldn't work, that I had to go to my ten-year

reunion.

"Yeah. She didn't tell you what happened?" He takes a long drag,

then turns his head, exhaling away from me.

"No. What happened?" I say, thinking that I am going to fall apart

and die if Ethan slept with her. "Please tell me you didn't hook up

with her."

"Hell, no,' he says. "But she tried."

As I finish the rest of my pint and steal a few sips of Ethan's, I

listen to him tell the story of our reunion. How Darcy came on to

him at Horace Carlisle's backyard afterparty. Said she thought

they should have one night together. What would it hurt?

"You're kidding me!"

"No," he says. "And I was like, Darce, hell, no. You have a

boyfriend. What the fuck?"

"Was that why?"

"Why I didn't hook up with her?"

I nod.

"No, that's not why."

"Why then?" For a second, I wonder if he's going to come out of

the closet. Maybe Darcy is right after all.

"Why do you think? It's Darcy. I don't see her that way."

"You don't think she's beautiful?"

"Frankly, no. I don't."

"Why not?"

"I need reasons?'

"Yes."

"Okay." He exhales, looks up at the ceiling. " 'Cause she wears too

much makeup. Cause she's too, I don't know, severe."

"Sharp featured?" I offer.

"Yeah. Sharp and and overplucked."

I picture Darcy's skinny, high-arched brows.

"Overplucked. That's

funny."

"Yeah. And those hipbones jutting out at you. She's way too

skinny. I don't like it. But that's not the point. The point is is that

it is Darcy." He shudders and then takes his beer back from me.

"Hold on. Let me get another round." He crushes out his cigarette

and strolls over to the bar, returning with two more beers. "There

you are."

"Thanks," I say, and then set about chugging mine.

He laughs. "Man! I can't let you outdrink me."

I wipe the foam from my lips with the back of my hand and ask

why he didn't tell me about Darcy and the reunion before now.

"Oh. I dunno. 'Cause it was no big deal. She was wasted." He

shrugs. "Probably didn't even know what she was doing."