Something Borrowed (4 page)

sense that I had even at age ten.

We all assumed that Darcy would land the grand Doug prize. Not

only because Darcy was bolder than the other girls, strutting right

up to Doug in the cafeteria or on the playground, but also because

she was the prettiest girl in our class. With high cheekbones, huge,

well-spaced eyes, and a dainty nose, she has a face that is revered

at any age, although fifth-graders can't pinpoint exactly what

makes it nice. I don't think I even understood what cheekbones

and bone structure were at age ten, but I knew that Darcy was

pretty and I envied her looks. So did Annalise, who openly told

Darcy so every chance she got, which seemed wholly unnecessary

to me. Darcy already knew she was pretty, and in my opinion she

didn't need daily reinforcement.

So that year, on Halloween, Annalise, Darcy, and I assembled in

Annalise's room to prepare our makeshift gypsy costumes Darcy

had insisted that it would be an excellent excuse to wear lots of

makeup. As she examined a pair of rhinestone earrings freshly

purchased from Claire's, she looked in the mirror and said, "You

know, Rachel, I think you're right."

"Right about what?" I said, feeling a surge of satisfaction,

wondering what past debate she was referring to.

She fastened one earring in place and looked at me. I will never

forget that tiny smirk on her face just the faintest hint of a smug

smile. "You're right about Ethan. I think I'm going to like him

too."

"What do you mean, 'going to like him?"

"I'm tired of Doug Jackson. I like Ethan now. I like his dimples."

"He only has one," I snapped.

"Well, then I like his dim-ple."

I looked at Annalise for support, for words to the effect that you

couldn't just decide to like someone new. But of course she said

nothing, just kept applying her ruby lipstick, puckering before a

handheld mirror.

"I can't believe you, Darcy!"

"What's your problem?" she demanded. "Annalise wasn't mad

when I liked Doug. We've shared him with the whole grade for

months. Right, Annalise?"

"Longer than that. I started liking him in the summer.

Remember? At the pool?" Annalise chimed in, always missing the

big picture.

I glared at her, and she lowered her eyes remorsefully.

That was different. That was Doug. He belonged in the public

domain. But Ethan was exclusively mine.

I said nothing else that night, but trick-or-treating was ruined.

The next day in school, Darcy passed Ethan a note, asking him if

he liked me, her, or neither with little boxes next to each selection

and instructions to check one. He must have checked Darcy's

name because they were a couple by recess. Which is to say that

they announced that they were "going out" but never spent any

real time together, unless you count a few phone calls at night,

often scripted ahead of time with Annalise giggling at her side. I

refused to participate in or discuss her fledgling romance.

In my mind, it didn't matter that Darcy and Ethan never kissed, or

that it was only the fifth grade, or that they "broke up"

two weeks

later when Darcy lost interest and decided that she liked Doug

Jackson again. Or that, as my mother told me for comfort,

imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It only mattered that

Darcy stole Ethan from me. Perhaps she did it because she really

did change her mind about him; that's what I told myself so I

would stop hating her. But more likely Darcy took Ethan just to

show me that she could.

So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, in a sense, Darcy Rhone had

this coming to her. What goes around comes around.

Perhaps this

is her comeuppance.

I picture the faces of the jury. They are not swayed.

The male

jurors look bewildered as if they miss the point altogether.

Doesn't the prettiest girl always get the boy? That is precisely the

way the world should work. An older woman in a sensible dress

purses her lips. She is disgusted by the mere comparison a fiance

to a fifth-grade crush! Good heavens! A perfectly groomed, almost

beautiful woman, wearing a canary-yellow Chanel suit, has

already identified and allied herself with Darcy. There is nothing I

can say to change her mind or mitigate my offense.

The only juror who seems moved by the Ethan tale is a slightly

overweight girl with a severe bob the color of day-old coffee. She

slouches in the corner of the jury box, occasionally shoving her

glasses up on her beak of a nose. I have tapped into this girl's

empathy, her sense of justice. She is secretly satisfied by what I

did. Maybe because she, too, has a friend like Darcy, a friend who

always gets everything she wants.

I think back to high school, when Darcy continued to get any boy

she wanted. I can see her kissing Blaine Conner by our locker and

recall the envy that would well up inside me when I, boyfriendless,

was forced to witness their shameless PDA. Blaine transferred to

our school from Columbus, Ohio, in the fall of our junior year, and

became an instant hit everywhere but in the classroom.

Although

he wasn't bright, he was the star receiver on our football team, the

starting point guard for our basketball team, and, of course, our

starting pitcher in the spring. And with his Ken-doll good looks,

the girls loved him. Doug Jackson, part two. But alas, he had a

girlfriend named Cassandra back in Columbus to whom he

claimed to be "110 percent committed" (a jock expression that has

always bugged me for its obvious mathematical impossibility). Or

so he was before Darcy got in the mix, after we watched Blaine

pitch a no-hitter against Central and she decided that she had to

have him. The next day she asked him to go see Les Miserables.

You'd think a three-sport jock like Blaine wouldn't be into

musicals, but he enthusiastically agreed to escort her.

After the

show, in Darcy's living room, Blaine planted a large hickey on her

neck. And the following morning, one Cassandra of Columbus,

Ohio, was dumped on her ear.

I remember talking to Annalise about Darcy's charmed life. We

often discussed Darcy, which made me wonder how much they

gossiped about me. Annalise contended that it wasn't only Darcy's

good looks or perfect body; it was also her confidence, her charm.

I don't know about the charm, but looking back I agree with

Annalise about the confidence. It was as if Darcy had the

perspective of a thirty-year-old while in high school.

The

understanding that none of it really mattered, that you only go

around once, that you might as well go for it. She was never

intimidated, never insecure. She embodied what everyone says

when they look back on high school: "If I only knew back then."

But one thing I have to say about Darcy and dating is this: she

never blew us off for a guy. She always put her friends first which

is an amazing thing for a high school girl to do.

Sometimes she

blew her boyfriend off altogether, but more often she just included

us. Four of us in a row at the theater. The flavor of the month,

then Darcy, then Annalise and me. And Darcy always directed her

whispered comments our way. She was brash and independent,

unlike most high school girls who allow their feelings for a boy to

swallow them up. At the time, I thought she just didn't love them

enough. But maybe Darcy just wanted to keep control, and by

being the one who loved the least, that is what she had.

Whether

she did care less or just pretended to, she kept every one of them

on the hook even after she cut them loose. Take Blaine, for

example. He is living in Iowa with a wife, three kids, and a couple

of chocolate Labs, and he still e-mails Darcy on her birthday every

year. Now that is some kind of power.

To this day Darcy talks wistfully of how great high school was. I

cringe whenever she says it. Sure, I have some fond memories of

those days, and enjoyed moderate popularity a nice fringe benefit

of being Darcy's best friend. I loved going to football games with

Annalise, painting our faces orange and blue, wrapping up in

blankets in the bleachers, and waving to Darcy as she cheered

down on the field. I loved our Saturday-night trips to Colonial Ice

Cream, where we always ordered the same thing one turtle

sundae, one Snickers pie, one double-chocolate brownie and then

split them among us. And I loved my first boyfriend, Brandon

Beamer, who asked me out during our senior year.

Brandon was a

rule-follower too, a Catholic version of me. He didn't drink or do

drugs, and he felt guilty even discussing sex. Darcy, who lost her

virginity our sophomore year to an exchange student from Spain

named Carlos, was always instructing me to corrupt Brandon.

"Grab his penis like this, and I guarantee, it's a done deal." But I

was perfectly happy with our long make-out sessions in Brandon's

family station wagon, and I never had to worry about safe sex or

drunk driving. So if my memories weren't glamorous, at least I

had a few good times.

But I also had plenty of bad times: the awful hair days, the

pimples, the class pictures from hell, never having the right

clothes, being dateless for dances, baby fat that I could never

shed, getting cut from teams, losing the election for class

treasurer. And the overwhelming feeling of sadness and angst that

would come and go willy-nilly (or, more accurately, once a

month), seemingly out of my control. Typical teenager stuff,

really. Cliches, because it happens to everyone.

Everyone but

Darcy, that is, who floated through those tumultuous four years

unscathed by rejection, untouched by the adolescent ugly stick. Of

course she loved high school high school loved her.

Many girls with this view of their teenage years seem to really take

it on the chin later in life. They show up at their ten-year reunion

twenty pounds heavier, divorced, and reminiscing about their

long-gone glory days. But the tide of glory days hasn't ebbed for

Darcy. No crashing and no burning. In fact, life just keeps getting

sweeter for her. As my mother once said,

uncharacteristically,

Darcy has the world by the balls. It was and still is the perfect

description. Darcy always gets what she wants. And that includes

Dex, the dream fiance.

I leave Darcy a message on her cell, which will be turned off

during the movie. I say that I am too tired to make it to dinner.

Just getting out of going makes me less queasy. In fact, I am

suddenly very hungry. I find my menus and call to order a

hamburger with cheddar and fries. Guess I won't be losing five

pounds before Memorial Day. As I wait for my delivery, I picture

Darcy and me playing with the phone book all those years ago,

wondering about the future and what age thirty would bring.

And here I am, without the dashing husband, the responsible

babysitter, the two kids. Instead my benchmark birthday is

forever tainted by scandal Oh, well. No point beating myself up

over it. I hit redial on my phone and add a large chocolate milk

shake to my order. I see my girl in the corner of the jury box wink

at me. She thinks the milk shake is an excellent idea.

After all,

doesn't everyone deserve a few weak moments on her birthday?

When I wake up the next morning, the cavalier girl sucking down

a milk shake is gone, caved to guilt and thirty years of rulefollowing.

I can no longer rationalize what I did. I committed an unspeakable act against a friend, violated a central tenet of

sisterhood. There is no justification.

So on to Plan B: I will pretend that nothing happened.

My

transgression was so great that I have no choice but simply to will

the whole thing to go away. And by proceeding with business as

usual, embracing my Monday-morning routine, this is what I seek

to accomplish.

I shower, dry my hair, put on my most comfortable black suit and

low heels, take the subway to Grand Central, get my coffee at

Starbucks, pick up The New York Times at my newsstand, and

ride two escalators and one elevator up to my office in the MetLife

Building. Each part of my routine represents one step further

from Dex and the Incident.

I arrive at my office at eight-twenty, way early by law-firm

standards. The halls are quiet. Not even the secretaries are in yet.

I am turning to the

Metro section of the paper, sipping my coffee, when I notice the

blinking red message light on my phone usually a warning that

more work awaits me. Some jackass partner must have called me

on the one weekend in recent memory when I failed to check my

messages. My money is on Les, the dominant man in my life and

the biggest jackass partner amid six floors of them. I enter my

password, wait

"You have one new message from an outside caller.

Received

today at seven-forty-two A.M" the recording tells me. I hate that