As Lauren concluded her story, my father offered Marcus a drink.
“A beer would be great,” he said.
“Get him a chilled glass, Hugh,” my mother said, as my dad flicked off the top of a Budweiser.
“Oh, I don’t need a glass. Thanks, though,” Marcus said, taking the bottle from my father.
I gave him a look to indicate that he should have taken the glass as we all followed my mother to the living room. Lauren sat close to my brother on the couch, clutching his arm in a death grip. My brother is a bit of a dork, too, but as I studied his girlfriend’s sweatshirt with the Good Haven logo, acid-washed, cropped jeans, Keds with no socks (a look I couldn’t even stomach during its brief acceptable stint in high school), I determined for the hundredth time that he could do better. Marcus and I took a seat on the opposite couch, and my parents took the two armchairs.
“So,” my mother said, crossing her ankles. I assumed she was ready to interrogate Marcus. I felt nervous, but also excited, hopeful that he would rise to the occasion and make me proud. But instead of focusing on Marcus, my mother said, “Lauren and Jeremy have some news!”
Lauren giggled and threw out her left hand, revealing what appeared from my seat on the opposite couch to be a princess-cut diamond ring set in white gold or platinum. “Surprise!”
I looked at my brother. I was surprised, all right. Surprised that it wasn’t a marquis cut set in yellow gold.
“We’re getting married,” Jeremy confirmed.
Marcus spoke before I could. “Congrats.” He raised his beer.
Jeremy returned the gesture with his glass of Coke. “Thanks, man.”
Jeremy shouldn’t say
man
. He just can’t pull it off. He hasn’t a cool bone in his body.
“Congratulations,” I said, but my voice sounded stilted, unnatural. I stood to survey the goods, quickly determining that although the diamond was a decent size, it was slightly yellowish. I pegged it as a J in color.
“Very nice,” I said, returning Lauren’s hand to my brother’s knee.
My mother started to gush about a May wedding in Indy and a reception at our country club.
I told them how happy I was for them, my mouth stretched into a fake smile as I tried to suppress a stab of envy. I wondered how I could possibly be jealous of my dorky little brother and this girl with bad bangs and thick thighs shoved into acid-washed jeans. Yet incredibly, I was. I was bothered by my mother’s enthusiasm. Bothered that Lauren was replacing me as the bride-to-be, my mother’s focal point. And what annoyed me the very most was that their spring wedding was going to shift the focus from my baby and me.
“Should I ask her now?” Lauren looked eagerly at Jeremy.
“Go ahead.” Jeremy beamed.
“Ask me what?”
“We want you to be a bridesmaid,” Lauren chirped. “Because you’ve always been like a big sister to me.” She looked at Marcus and explained further, “Darcy used to babysit for me.”
“I never babysat for you. Rachel did,” I said.
“Well, true,” Lauren said, her smile fading slightly. Mention of Rachel sombered up the room. I liked the effect—liked reminding everyone of my suffering. But the result was short-lived. Lauren’s grin quickly returned in full force. “But you were always there helping her. You were
so
fun.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I try.”
“So will you?”
“Will I what?” I asked, pretending to be puzzled.
“Be a bridesmaid?”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure thing.”
Lauren clapped and squealed. “Goody! And I want your help. I
need your
help.”
She could say that again, I thought. And sure enough, she did. “I need you to help because you’re so good at this stuff.”
“Why? Because I’m the wedding expert now that I just spent almost a year planning one?” Another reminder of my pain.
Lauren flinched, but then recovered. “No. Not that. Just because you have the most excellent taste.” She turned to Marcus again. “Incredible taste. Nobody has taste like Darcy.”
This much was true.
Marcus nodded and then took another swallow of beer.
“So I need your help,” she continued excitedly.
Okay. Let’s start with those jeans. And the Keds. And your bangs.
I looked at my mother, hoping she was thinking the same thing. She was usually right on board with the Lauren criticism, recently ranting about her application of blush: two round circles of pink missing her cheekbones altogether. Not that Lauren had much in the way of cheekbones. She wasn’t bringing the best genes to the table. But clearly my mother was not in her usual critical mode; she was hypnotized by the rosy glow of a new wedding to plan. She looked at Jeremy and Lauren adoringly. “Lauren has been dying to call you. But Jeremy and I convinced her to wait to tell you in person.”
“I’m so glad you did,” I said flatly.
“You were right, Mom,” Lauren said.
Mom?
Had I heard that right? I looked at Lauren. “So you’re calling her ‘Mom’ now?” Pretty soon she was going to lay claim to my mother’s jewelry and china.
Lauren giggled, pressed Jeremy’s hand to her cheek in a nauseating display of affection. It looked like a bad Kodak commercial, the kind that’s supposed to make you cry. “Yeah. I’ve felt that way about her for a long time, but now it feels right to call her that.”
“I see,” I said, with what I hoped was maximum disapproval. Then I glanced over at Marcus, who was finishing his beer.
“You want another?” I asked, standing for the kitchen.
“Sure,” he said.
I gave him a look. “Come with me.”
Marcus followed me into the kitchen, where I went off on my family. “How could they go on and on about this wedding after what I just went through? Can you believe how insensitive they’re all being? I wanted to tell them about
us
getting married. Now it just doesn’t feel right. Probably because I don’t even have a ring,” I said. I shouldn’t have shifted the blame to Marcus like that, but I couldn’t help it. Casting the blame net wide is just my natural instinct when I’m upset.
Marcus just looked at me, and then said, “Can I get another beer?”
I opened the refrigerator with such force that a bottle of Heinz ketchup flew from the side shelf onto the floor.
“Everything all right in there?” my mother asked from the living room.
“Just dandy!” I said, as Marcus replaced the ketchup and grabbed another beer.
I took a deep breath, and we returned to the living room, where my mother and Lauren were talking about the guest list.
“Two hundred seems just about right,” Lauren said.
“I think you’re going to realize that two hundred is the bare minimum. It adds up fast. If your parents invite twenty couples, and we invite twenty couples, that’s eighty guests right there,” my mother said.
“True,” Lauren said. “And I’m going to want to invite a lot of people from Good Haven.”
“Well, that should cut down on the liquor bill,” Marcus joked.
Lauren shook her head and tittered. “You’d be surprised how much they can put away. Every year at the Christmas party, they get lousy drunk.”
“Sounds like a wild and crazy time,” I said.
“Do they ever… you know… hook up?” Marcus asked. His first substantive contribution to the conversation was about geriatric sex. Lovely.
Lauren giggled and then launched into a story about Walter and Myrtle and their recent escapades in Myrtle’s room. After she exhausted the nursing-home romance tales, my mother finally turned to my boyfriend and said, “So, Marcus. Tell us a little about yourself.”
“What would you like to know?” he asked. Dex would have posed the same question, but with a completely different tone.
“Anything. Everything. We want to get to know you.”
“Well. I’m from Montana. I went to Georgetown. Now I work at a pointless marketing job. That’s about it.”
My mom raised her eyebrows and recrossed her ankles. “Marketing? How interesting.”
“Not really,” Marcus said. “But it pays the bills. Barely.”
“I’ve never been to Montana,” Jeremy remarked.
“Neither have I,” Lauren said.
“Have you ever been out of the state?” I muttered under my breath. Then, before she could tell us about her childhood trip to the Grand Canyon, I said, “So what’s for dinner?”
“Lasagna. Mom and I made it together,” Lauren said.
“You and Mom, huh?”
Lauren was unfazed. “Yeah! And you’ll be my sister! Like the sister I never had! It’s just too, too wonderful.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“So Marcus, do you have brothers and sisters?” my mother asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “One brother.”
“Older or younger?”
“Four years older.”
“How nice.”
Marcus gave her a stiff smile, took another sip of beer. I suddenly remembered how much I wanted to kiss him the night of Rachel’s birthday as I watched him drinking a beer at the bar. Where had those feelings gone?
The cocktail hour mercifully ended, and the six of us made our way into my mom’s Ethan Allen dining room. Her china cabinet was polished to a high gloss and filled with her Lenox china and crystal.
“Take your seats, everyone. Marcus, you may sit there.” She pointed at Dexter’s old chair. I saw a pained look flash in my mother’s eyes. She missed Dex. Then another look crossed her face—one of determination.
But despite her efforts, dinner was painful. There were stilted questions from my parents and terse answers coupled with more beer-guzzling from Marcus. Then he made the comment that will go down in history.
It started with Jeremy talking about one of his patients, an older man who had just left his wife for a much younger woman. Thirty-one years his junior.
“What a shame,” Lauren clucked.
“Shocking,” my mother added.
Even my father, whom I sometimes suspected of committing his own indiscretions, shook his head with apparent disgust.
But for some reason, Marcus couldn’t just get on board and disapprove along with the rest of the group. Or simply say nothing at all, which he had mastered up until that point. Instead he chose to open his mouth and say, “Thirty-one years, huh? Guess that means that my second wife hasn’t even been born yet.”
My father and Jeremy exchanged glances, wearing identical raised-brow expressions. My mother deflated as she stroked the stem of her wine glass. Lauren laughed nervously and said, “That’s really funny, Marcus. Good one!”
Marcus smiled halfheartedly, realizing that his joke had not gone over.
Suddenly, I was in no mood to salvage the night or my new boyfriend’s image. I stood and carried my dishes into the kitchen, my posture ramrod erect. I heard my mother excuse herself and click after me in her heels.
“Sweetheart, he was only trying to be funny,” my mother said under her breath when we were alone in the kitchen. “Or perhaps he’s just nervous, meeting your parents for the first time. Your father can be intimidating.”
But I could tell that she didn’t believe her words. She thought Marcus was crass, subpar, nowhere close to Dexter’s caliber.
“He’s not usually like this,” I said. “He’s just as charming as Dex when he wants to be.”
But as I tried to convince my mother, I realized that I knew that Marcus was absolutely nothing like Dex. Nothing. The last remaining drops of coffee dripped into the pot in time with my one and only thought: I.
Picked. Wrong.
We returned to the dining room, where everyone pretended to en joy a strawberry cream pie from Crawford’s Bakery. My mother apologized twice for not baking one herself.
“I love pies from Crawford’s! They taste homemade,” Lauren said.
My father whistled the theme from
The Andy Griffith Show
between bites until my mother glared at him to stop. After another few painful moments I said, “I’m not in the mood for pie. I’m going to bed. Good night.”
Marcus stood, drummed his fingers on the edge of the table, and said he was “bushed” too. He thanked my mother for dinner and followed me silently, leaving his plate at the table.
I walked up the stairs ahead of him, then down the hall, stopping abruptly at our guest room. “Here’s your room. Good night.” I was too exhausted to gear myself up for a big fight.
Marcus massaged my shoulder. “C’mon, Darce.”
“Are you proud of yourself?”
He smirked—which only further riled me.
“How could you embarrass me like that?”
“It was a joke.”
“It
wasn’t
funny.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not.”
“I
am
sorry.”
“How am I supposed to tell them that we’re getting married and that I’m pregnant with your baby?” I whispered. “The man who plans to leave me in thirty years for another woman?” I felt a stab of vulnerability, something I had never felt before I got pregnant. It was an awful feeling.
“You know it was a joke.”
“Good night, Marcus.”
I went to my room, hoping he would follow me. He didn’t. So I sat and stared at my lavender walls covered with photos from happier days. Photos that were yellowing and curling at the edges, reminding me of how much time had passed, how far removed I was from high school. I studied one picture of Rachel, Annalise, and me after a football game. I was in my cheerleading uniform, and they were both wearing Naperville High sweatshirts. Our cheeks were painted with little orange paw prints. I remembered that Blaine had just caught a long touchdown pass to win the game and advance our team to the state quarterfinals. I remember how he took off his helmet, his hair and face drenched with sweat like the sexy star of a Gatorade commercial. Then, as the crowd roared, he beamed up at me from the sidelines and pointed, as if to say, “That one was for you, sweetie!” It seemed as though everyone in that stadium followed his finger right to me.
Life was good then, I thought, as I started to cry. Not so much because I missed the good times, although I did. It was more that I knew I was turning into one of those girls who, upon looking at high school photos, feels wistful.
fourteen
The next morning I heard a light rapping at the door and my mother’s voice. “Darcy, are you awake?” Her soothing tone—an unnatural one for her—made me feel even worse.
“Come in,” I said, as I felt a wave of morning sickness.
She opened the door, crossed my room, and sat on the foot of my bed. “Sweetheart. Don’t be so upset,” she said, patting my legs through the covers.
“I can’t help it. I know you hate him.”
“I like Marcus,” she said unconvincingly.
“No you don’t. You couldn’t possibly after last night. He barely said anything—except to announce that he plans to leave me someday.”
She gave me a puzzled look. “Leave you?”
“The ‘second wife’ comment,” I said, rearranging my head on my pillow.
“Well, you don’t have plans to marry
this boy
anyway, do you?” she whispered.
The way she said “this boy” told the full story.
“Maybe,” I whimpered.
My mother looked anxious and continued to whisper. “Marcus is probably just your
rebound
boyfriend.”
I sniffed, stared back at her, wondering if I should tell her the big news.
You are months away from being a grandmother
. Instead I said, “He’s just going through a difficult stage.”
“Well, if he doesn’t straighten up, just dump him and start over,” she said, snapping her fingers. “You can get anybody you want.”
If only it were that easy. If only I could go back to the drawing board and fix my mistake. The realization that I couldn’t, that I was stuck with Marcus, made me feel even more nauseated. I told my mother I wasn’t feeling so well, and that I thought I should get a few more hours of sleep.
“Sure, dear. You get your rest… I’ll just get your laundry.”
Our housekeeper always did the laundry, so my mother’s offer was further confirmation of how much she pitied my current state of affairs.
“My dirty stuff is all in that turquoise mesh bag,” I instructed as I closed my eyes. “And please don’t put my La Perla bras in the dryer. They’re very delicate.”
“Okay, honey,” she said.
I heard her unzip my suitcase and pull my clothes from it. Then I heard her gasp. My mother’s gasp is one of her trademarks. A dramatic inhalation with more noise than you’d ever imagine possible. For a moment I thought she was making a point about my volume of dirty clothes. And then I remembered what I had popped last minute into my luggage:
What to Expect When You’re Expecting.
“What in the world is
this
?”
I had no choice but to fess up. I opened my eyes, sat up, and said, “Mom. I’m pregnant.”
She gasped again, pressing her hands to her temples. “No.” She shook her head. “No, you’re
not
.”
“Yes I am,” I said.
“Dex?” she asked hopefully. She wanted desperately for me to tell her that Dex was the father. She wanted to believe that I could reconcile with the ideal man. Get my charmed life back.
I shook my head. “No. Marcus.”
My mother collapsed onto the bed, dug her fists into my mattress, and wept. It wasn’t exactly the “Mom, I’m pregnant” moment I had imagined.
“Mother,
puh-lease
! You’re supposed to be happy for me!”
Her expression changed from mournful to angry. “How could you ruin your life like this? That boy is
awful
.”
“He is
not
awful. He can be charming and
really
funny,” I said, realizing that he hadn’t been charming or even a little bit funny in a very long time. “And I’m marrying him, Mother. End of story.”
“No. No.
No! You
can’t do that, Darcy!” Yes, I can.
“You’re throwing your life away. He’s not good enough for you. Not even close,” she said, her eyes filling with fresh tears.
“Because of
one
comment?”
“Because of a lot of things. Because you are not right for each other. Because of his behavior last night. Dex would never behave in such a deplorable—”
“Stop bringing up Dex! I’m with Marcus now!” I shouted at her, not caring who overheard me.
“You’re ruining your life!” she yelled back at me. “And your father and I are not going to stand by and watch you do it!”
“I’m not ruining my life, Mother. I love Marcus and we’re going to get married and have this baby. And you better just get used to it. Or else you’re going to be one of those women on
Oprah
talking about how she’s never met her grandchildren,” I said, roughly pushing aside the covers and marching over to the guest room, into the arms of my husband-to-be.
After all, there is nothing like a mother telling you that you’re making a bad decision to convince you that what you are doing is the absolute best course of action.
Minutes later, Marcus and I had packed our bags and were standing on the corner of the cul-de-sac waiting for the cab I had called. Nobody—not even my chipper little brother—tried to stop us from leaving. The cab dropped us off at the Holiday Inn next to the airport, where Marcus at least pretended to be contrite. I accepted his apology, and we spent the remainder of the weekend having sex and watching television in a darkened room that smelled of bleach and cigarette smoke. The whole scene was undeniably depressing, but strangely romantic and unifying. Marcus and I rehashed my fight with my mother, both of us agreeing that she was a heartless, shallow bitch.
And when we returned home, things continued to be good between us—or at least not altogether bad. But the peace was shortlived, and within a few weeks, we were at it again. Fighting about everything and anything. My chief complaints were his far-too-frequent poker nights with his newly acquired friends from the underbelly of Manhattan, his shabby wardrobe, and his unwillingness ever to make the trip up to my apartment. His chief complaints were my sudden lack of interest in giving him blow jobs, my keeping the thermostat too low in his apartment, and my obsession with Dex and Rachel.
Then one Saturday morning, after a doozy about baby names (he deigned to suggest the name Julie, when I knew that he had lost his virginity to a girl named Julie), Marcus kicked me out of his apartment, saying that he needed some time alone. So I left his place and went to Barneys, chalking it up to yet another lover’s quarrel. Later that night, I expected him to call and apologize. But that didn’t happen. In fact, he didn’t call at all. Instead, I called him. Over and over. I left him angry messages. Then I left him threatening messages. And then I resorted to hysterical, pathetic, begging messages. When Marcus finally called me back, my venom and tears were gone. I only felt a cold uncertainty.
“Where have you been all weekend?” I asked, feeling pitiful.
“Thinking,” he said.
“About us?” “Yup.”
“What exactly were you thinking?” I asked. “Whether you want to be with me?”
“More or less…”
At that moment, I knew that Marcus had all of the power. Every drop of it. I thought of all the times I had dumped guys, particularly remembering my breakup speech with my high school boyfriend Blaine. I remember how he had asked, “I want to stay together and you want to break up? How come you get your way?”
“Because, Blaine,” I had said. “That’s just how it works. The person who wants out of the relationship always gets her way. It’s definitional.”
The sad truth of the statement hit me in the gut now. If Marcus wanted out, there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop him.
I tried anyway, my voice shaking. “Marcus, please! Don’t do this!”
“Look. We should talk face-to-face. I’ll be over soon,” he said.
“Are you going to break up with me? Just tell me now. Please!” I had waited for him all weekend, but the thought of waiting another twenty minutes was too much to bear.
“I’ll be there soon,” he said. His voice was flat, emotionless.
He arrived an hour later, wearing a Hooters T-shirt.
“You’re dumping me, aren’t you?” I asked, before he could even sit down.
He twisted the cap off a plastic bottle of Sprite, took a swig, and nodded twice.
“Omigod. I just can’t believe this is happening. How can you dump me? I am pregnant with your baby! How can you do this?”
“I’m sorry, Darcy… but I just don’t want to be with you.”
It was the most surprising sentence I had ever heard. It was even more shocking than when Dex came out of the closet, so to speak. Perhaps because it was so utterly one-sided. I wanted Marcus. He did not want me. End of story.
“Why?” I asked. “Because of one fight?”
He shook his head. “You know it’s not about any one fight.”
“Then why?”
“Because I just can’t ever see marrying you.”
“Fine. We don’t have to get married. We’ll be like Goldie Hawn and what’s his name?”
He shook his head again. “No.”
“But I’m pregnant with your baby!”
“I know. And that’s a problem.” He raised his eyebrows and looked at me. “A problem with several different solutions.”
“I’ve told you a million times, I’m
not
getting an abortion!”
“That’s your decision, Darcy. Just like getting pregnant was
your
unilateral decision. Remember that?” he said angrily. “And now, here we are… and I just want you to have all the facts about the future—”
I interrupted him. “What does
that
mean?”
“It means I don’t want to be with you, and I certainly don’t want a kid. I’ll help support it financially if you insist on having it, but I don’t want to be… involved,” he said, looking relieved. “At all.”
“I don’t believe what I’m hearing!”
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking anything but sorry.
I begged. I cried. I pleaded. I promised that I would try harder.
Then he gave me the ultimate insult—“I’m just not that into you anymore”—before leaving my apartment.
It was Dex all over again. Only this time, I had no backup. No suitor waiting in the wings. I was, for the very first time in my life, completely on my own.