Something Borrowed (48 page)

bemusement. "What's wrong now?" he said.

I resented his use of the word now, implying that I am always

having a crisis. I couldn't help what had just happened to me. I

told him the whole story, sparing no detail. I wanted outrage from

my new beau. Or at least shock. But no matter how much I tried to

whip him into my same frenzied state, he'd fire back with these

two points: How can you be mad when we did the same thing to

them? And, Don't we want our friends to be as happy as we are?

I told him that our guilt was beside the point and, HELL NO, WE

DON'T WANT THEM TO BE HAPPY!

Marcus kept strumming his guitar and smirking.

"What's so funny?" I asked, exasperated. "Nothing is funny about

this situation!"

"Well maybe not ha-ha funny, but ironic funny."

"There is nothing even remotely funny about this, Marcus! And

stop playing that thing!"

Marcus ran his thumb across the strings one final time before

putting his guitar in its case. Then he sat cross-legged, gripping

the toes of his dirty sneakers as he said again, "I just don't see how

you can be so outraged when we did the same thing "

"It's not the same thing at all!" I said, dropping to the cool floor.

"See, I may have cheated on Dex with you. But I didn't do

anything to Rachel."

"Well," he said. "She and I did date for a minute. We had potential

before you came along."

"You went on a few lousy dates whereas I was engaged to Dex.

What kind of person hooks up with her friend's fiance?"

He crossed his arms and gave me a knowing look.

"Darcy."

"What?"

"You're looking at one. Remember? I was one of Dexter's

groomsmen? Ring a bell?"

I sniffed. True, Marcus and Dex had been college buddies, friends

for years. But it just wasn't a comparable situation. "It's not the

same. Female friendships are more sacred; my relationship with

Rachel has been lifelong. She was my very best friend in the

world, and you were, like, the very last one stuck in the groomsmen lineup. Dex probably wouldn't even have picked you

except that he needed a fifth person to go with my five girls."

"Gee. I'm touched."

I ignored his sarcasm and said, "Besides, you never painted

yourself as a saint like she did."

"You're right about that. I'm no saint."

I continued, "You just don't go there with your best girlfriend's

fiance. Or ex-fiance. Period. Ever. Even if a gazillion years

elapsed, you still can't go there. And you certainly don't hop in bed

with him one day after the breakup." Then I hurled more

questions his way: Did he think it was a one-time thing? Or were

they beginning a relationship? Could they actually fall in love?

Would they ever last?

To which Marcus shrugged and answered some variation of, /

don't know and I don't care.

To which I yelled, Guess! Care! Soothe me!

Finally, he caved, patting my arm and responding satisfyingly to

my leading questions. He agreed that it was likely a one-time

thing with Rachel and Dex. That Dex went over to Rachel's

because he was upset. That being with Rachel was the closest

thing to me. And as for Rachel, she just wanted to throw a bone to

a broken man.

"Okay. So what do you think I should do now?" I asked.

"Nothing you can do," Marcus said, reaching over to open a pizza

box resting near his guitar case. "It's cold, but help yourself."

"As if I could eat now!" I exhaled dramatically and did a spread

eagle on the floor. "The way I see it is I have two options: murder

and/or suicide It would be pretty easy to kill them, you know?"

I wanted him to gasp at my suggestion, but much to my constant

disappointment, he was never too shocked by my words. He

simply pulled a slice of pizza from the box, folded it in half, and

crammed it in his mouth. He chewed for a moment, and with his

mouth still full, pointed out that I would be the prime and only

suspect. "You'd wind up at a female corrections facility in upstate

New York. With a mullet. I can see you now slopping out gruel

with your mullet flapping in the prison yard breeze."

I thought about this and decided that I'd vastly prefer my own

death to a mullet. Which brought me to the suicide option. "Fine.

So murder is out. I'll just kill myself instead. They'd be really sorry

if I killed myself, wouldn't they?" I asked, more for shock value

than because I was really considering my own death.

I wanted Marcus to tell me that he couldn't live without me. But

he didn't take the bait in the suicide game as Rachel had when we

were in ju-nior high, and she'd promise that she'd override my

mother's classical music selections and see to it that Pink Floyd's

"On the Turning Away" was cranked up at my funeral.

"They'd be so sorry if I killed myself," I said to Marcus. "Think

they'd come to my funeral? Would they apologize to my parents?"

"Yeah. Probably so. But people move on fast. In fact, sometimes

they even forget about you at the funeral, depending on how good

the food is."

"But what about their guilt?" I asked. "How could they live with

it?"

He assured me that the initial guilt could be cleared by any good

therapist. So after a few weeknights on a leather couch, the

person, once racked with what-ifs, would come to understand that

only a very troubled soul would take her own life and that one,

albeit significant, act of betrayal doesn't cause a healthy person to

jump in front of the Six train.

I knew that Marcus was right, remembering that when Rachel and

I were sophomores in high school, one of our classmates, Eric

Murray, shot himself in the head with his father's revolver in his

bedroom with his parents watching television downstairs. The

stories varied but bottom line, we all knew that it had something

to do with a fight he'd had with his girlfriend, Amber Lucetti, who

had dumped him for a college guy she met while visiting her sister

at Illinois State. None of us could forget the moment when a

guidance counselor ushered Amber out of speech class to give her

the horrific news. Nor could we forget the sound of Amber's wails

echoing in the halls. We all imagined that she'd lose it altogether

and end up in a mental ward somewhere.

Yet within a few days, Amber was back in class, giving a speech on

the recent stock market crash. I had just given my speech on why

grocery store makeup was the way to go over more expensive

makeup as it all comes from the same big vats of oils and powder.

I marveled at Amber's ability to give such a substantive speech,

barely glancing at her index cards, when her ex-boyfriend was in a

coffin under the frozen ground. And her competent speech was

nothing compared to the spectacle she created when making out

with Alan Hysack at the Spring Dance, fewer than three months

after Eric's funeral.

So if I were striving to destroy Rachel and Dex's world, suicide

might not be the answer, either. Which left me with one option stay on course with my charmed, perfect life.

Don't they

say that happiness is the best revenge? I'd marry Marcus, have his

baby, and ride off into the sunset, never looking back.

"Hey. Give me a slice after all," I said to Marcus. "I'm eating for

two now."

FlRST there was Something Borrowed, next comes Something

Blue