Something Borrowed (26 page)

word "grande" and ordering his coffee as a guy's guy should.

The perky girl behind the register bellows our order to her

colleague, who promptly marks our cups with a black marker.

Starbucks employees are consistently, freakishly chipper, even

during the worst of morning rush hour when they have to deal

with hordes of cranky people waiting impatiently for their caffeine

fix.

"Oh wait," the girl says, beaming. "Are these together or

separate?"

Dex answers quickly, "We're they're together."

I smile at his slip. We are together.

"Will there be anything else?"

"Um. Yeah. I'll have a blueberry muffin," Dex says and then looks

at me. "Rachel?"

"Yeah. I'll have one too," I say, resisting the urge to order a low-fat

muffin. I don't want to be anything like Darcy.

"So two blueberry muffins." Dex pays and drops his change into

the tip mug in front of the register. The girl smiles at me, as if to

say, your guy is not only hot but generous too.

Dex and I both add a packet of brown sugar to our coffee, stir, and

find a seat at the counter facing the street. The sidewalks are

deserted.

"I like New York this way," I say, tasting my foam. We watch a

lone yellow cab drift up Third Avenue. "Listen no honking."

"Yeah. It really is dead," he says. "I bet we could get reservations

anywhere tonight. Would you like to go out?"

I look at him. "We can't do that."

Getting coffee is one thing. Dinner is another.

"We can do whatever we please. Haven't you figured that out yet?"

He winks and sips his coffee.

"What if somebody sees us?"

"Nobody's here." He motions out the window. "And so what if

they do? We're allowed to eat, aren't we? Hell, I could even tell

Darcy we're going to grab a bite together. She knows that we're

both stuck here working, right?"

"I guess so."

"C'mon. I want to take you out. I've never taken you out on a

proper date. I feel bad about that. What do you say?"

I raise my eyebrows and smirk.

"What's that look for?" Dex asks. His full lips meet the rim of his

cup.

"It's just that 'proper' is not the word that comes to mind when I

think about us."

"Oh, that," Dex says, waving his hand in the air, as though I have

just stated an insignificant detail about our relationship.

"Well,

that can't be helped I mean yes, the circumstances are less

than ideal."

"That's an understatement. Let's call a spade a spade, Dex. We're

having an affair."

It is the most I have ever said about what we are doing.

I know

Hillary wouldn't give me any awards for forthrightness, but my

heart still skips. It is a bold comment for me.

"I guess so," he says hesitantly. "But when I'm with you, I'm not

thinking about the impropriety of our relationship.

Being with

you doesn't feel wrong."

"I know what you mean," I say, thinking that there would be a few

people out there who might beg to differ.

I wait for him to say more about it. About us. Our future. Or at the

very least our coup this weekend. He doesn't. Instead he suggests

we take our coffee home and read the paper in bed.

"Sounds perfect," I say, wondering what section he reads first. I

want to know every single thing about him.

It rains on and off all day, so we stay in, moving from bed to sofa

to bed, talking for hours, never checking the time. We talk about

everything high school, college, law school, our families, friends,

books, movies. But not Darcy or the situation. Not even when she

calls his cell phone to say hello. I study my cuticles as he tells her

he just stepped out of his office to get a bite to eat, and that yes,

he's getting a lot done, been working on a pitch all day.

He

mumbles "Me too" at the end of their brief conversation, so I

know what he has just told her. I tell myself that many couples

punctuate their calls with "I love yous" in the automatic way other

people say "good-bye." It doesn't mean anything.

As Dex snaps his cell phone shut, looking chagrined, my cell

phone rings. It's Darcy. Dex laughs. "She just told me she had to

run. Sure she did! To call you!"

I don't pick up, but I listen to her message afterward.

She bitches

about the weather but says that they are having fun anyway. She

says she misses me. That it's not the same without Dex and me. I

will not feel guilty. I will not.

That evening Dex and I separate for a few hours so that he can go

home and change for dinner, as he has only packed jeans and

shorts and basic toiletries. I miss him while he's gone, but I like

the way the separation makes our dinner seem more like a date.

Besides, I am grateful for the chance to primp alone. I can do the

things that a guy you just started seeing should not see you

do pluck a stray eyebrow hair, strategically spray perfume

(behind the knees, between the breasts) and apply makeup to

make it look like you are wearing very little.

Dex picks me up at seven-forty-five and we cab it down to one of

my favorite restaurants in Manhattan, Balthazar, where it is

usually impossible to get a reservation unless you call weeks in

advance or are willing to take a six o'clock or eleven-thirty seating.

But we get in promptly at eight o'clock and are given an ideal, cozy

booth. I ask Dex if he knows that Jerry Seinfeld proposed to his

wife, Jessica Sklar, at Balthazar. Perhaps this is the exact spot

where Jerry popped the question with the Tiffany ring.

"I didn't know that," Dex says, glancing up from the wine list.

"Did you know that she dumped her husband of four months for

Jerry?"

He laughs. "Yeah, I think I heard that one."

"Soo Balthazar must be the restaurant of choice for the scandalous."

He shakes his head and gives me an exasperated smile.

"Please

stop calling us that."

"Face facts, Dexter. This is scandalous We're just like Jerry and

Jessica."

"Look. We can't help the way we feel," Dex says earnestly.

Yeah. And perhaps that is what Jessica whispered to Jerry on her

cell phone, while her unsuspecting husband sat guffawing at

Must-See TV in the next room.

As I scan my menu, I realize that my opinion of Jerry and Jessica

might be changing. I used to subscribe to the notion that he was a

heartless home wrecker and she a shameless gold digger who

coldly upgraded her Nederlander husband for a wealthier, wittier

model the second the opportunity presented itself, which, I read,

was at the Reebok Sports Club, the Upper West Side gym that

Darcy also belongs to. Now, I'm not so sure. Maybe that was how

it all went down. Then again, maybe Jessica married Eric

Nederlander, whom she thought she loved by any relative

measure in her life up to that point, and then she met Jerry, days

after returning from her Italian honeymoon, and quickly realized

that she had never really loved before, that her feelings for Jerry

far surpassed whatever she felt for Eric.

What was a girl to do? Stay in a marriage with the wrong man, all

in the name of appearances? Jessica knew the shit that she would

get, not only from friends and family and her own husband, whom

she had promised to have and to hold forever (not just a mere 120

days), but from the whole world or at least those of us so bored

with our own lives that we devour People magazine the second it

hits the newsstands. Yet she went for it anyway, realizing that you

only live once. She stuck her neck out in traffic, and like the frog

in my all-time favorite video game, made it across the street,

safely into the little box on top of the screen, or, as it were, into a

six-million-dollar pad overlooking Central Park.

Owning up to her

mistake actually took real grit and courage. And maybe Jerry, too,

deserved credit for ignoring the wrath of the world, following his

heart at any price. Maybe true love just prevailed.

Regardless of what really happened with Jessica, Eric, and Jerry,

my notions of rule-following in love are shifting.

"So, do you know what you'd like to have?" Dex asks me.

I smile and tell him that I am waiting to hear the specials.

After dinner Dex asks me if I want to go get another drink.

"Do you?" I ask, wanting to please him, give him the right answer.

"I asked you first."

"I would rather just go home."

"Good. Me too."

The night has cleared somewhat, and as we are dropped off on my

corner, we see a few fireworks exploding in the distance over the

East River. Blues and pinks and golds illuminate what feels like

our own private city. We hold hands and stare up at the sky,

watching silently for several minutes before we go inside and say

good night to Jose, who by now thinks that Dex is my boyfriend.

We go upstairs, undress, and make love. It is not my imagination it is better every time. Afterward, neither of us

speaks or moves. We fall asleep, our legs and arms entwined.

In the morning, I wake up just as the light is returning to the sky. I

listen to Dex breathe and study the sharp curve of his cheek. His

eyes snap open suddenly. Our faces are close.

"Hi, baby." His voice is scratchy with sleep.

"Hi," I say softly. "Good morning."

"What are you doing awake? It's early."

"I'm watching you."

"Why?"

"Because I love your face," I say.

He looks genuinely surprised by my comment. How could he be?

He must know that he is handsome.

"I love the way you look too," he says. His arms move around me,

pulling me against his chest. "And I love the way you feel."

I feel myself blush.

"And the way you taste," he says, kissing my neck and my face. We

avoid mouths, as you do after sleep. "And I guess all of that makes

sense."

"Why's that?"

"Well, because"

He is breathing hard now and looks nervous, almost scared. I

reach for a condom from my nightstand drawer, but he pulls my

hand back, and moves inside me, and says "because"

again.

"Because why?"

I think I might know why. I hope I know why.

"Because, Rachel" He looks into my eyes. "Because I love you."

He says those words exactly as I am thinking them, fighting a

growing impulse to say it first. And now I don't have to.

I try to memorize everything about this moment. The look in his

eyes, the feel of his skin. Even the way the light is slanting through

my blinds. It is a moment beyond perfection, beyond anything I

have ever felt before. It is almost too much to bear. I don't care

that Dex is engaged to Darcy, or that we are creeping around like a

couple of outlaws. I don't care that my teeth need a good brushing

and that my hair is messy and limp around my face. I only feel

Dex and his words and I know, without a doubt, that this is the

happiest moment of my life. Snapshots flash through my mind.

We are dining by candlelight, sipping fine champagne.

We are

curled up next to a raging fire in an old Vermont farmhouse with

creaky floorboards and snowflakes the size of silver dollars falling

outside. We are sharing a picnic lunch in Bordeaux in the middle

of a meadow filled with yellow flowers, where he will give me a

vintage diamond ring.

This might just happen. He loves me. I love him. What else is

there? Surely he won't marry Darcy. They cannot do happily ever

after. I find my voice and manage to say those three one-syllable

words back to him. Words I haven't uttered in a very, very long

time. Words that meant nothing before now.

Neither of us acknowledges what we said that day, but I can feel it

in the air, all around us. It is more palpable than the thick

humidity. I can feel it in the way he looks at me and the way he

says my name. We are a couple, and our words have made us

brazen. At one point, as we are walking through Central Park, he

takes my hand. It is only for a few seconds, five or six steps, but I

feel a rush of adrenaline. What if we get caught? What then? A

small part of me wants that result, wants to run into an acquaintance of Darcy's, a coworker stuck in the city for work,

going for a brief stroll in the park. She will play informant on

Monday morning, telling Darcy that she saw Dex with a girl,

holding hands. She will describe me in detail but I am generic

enough that Darcy won't suspect me. And if she does, I'll just deny

it, say that I was at work all day. Say that I don't even own a pink

shirt which is new, one that she has never seen. I will be wildly

indignant, and she will apologize and then turn back to the issue

of Dex cheating on her. She will decide to dump him and I will be

supportive, tell her she is doing the right thing. This way Dex

won't have to decide anything or do anything. It will all be

handled for us.

We walk up to the reservoir, circling it as we admire all the views

of the city. We pass a boy wearing head-to-toe army fatigues,

walking an aged beagle, and then an overweight woman panting