eleven
My apartment’s contents hadn’t been too depleted when Dex moved out, but he had taken our kitchen table, two lamps, and a dresser. I was thrilled to see them all go, especially the rustic pine table that looked as if it belonged in an Amish home. I planned on going for a sleeker, more contemporary look that would complement the slick high-rise apartment with a view that Marcus and I would purchase together. Good riddance to Dexter’s traditional taste, his insistence on prewar buildings long on charm and short on closet space.
So about two weeks after what would have been my wedding day, I dragged Marcus on a furniture-shopping expedition. We took the subway uptown to Fifty-ninth and Lex and walked over to Crate and Barrel on Madison Avenue. As we pushed open the glass doors, I felt a surprising wave of sadness, remembering my last visit to the store, when Dex and I had registered for wedding gifts. I shared the memory with Marcus, who had developed a pat response to such recollections.
“Ahh. The good ol’ days,” he said, as he followed me to the second floor. At the top of the stairs, I admired an oblong cherry table with tapered legs. It was exactly what I had in mind for our table, but never imagined I would find it so easily. I swept my hand across the smooth surface. “This is perfect. Do you like it? What do you think? Picture it with upholstered chairs. Something in lime green, perhaps?”
Marcus shrugged. “Sure. Sounds good.” He was staring at something behind me. “Um, Darcy… Rachel and Dex are here,” he said in a tone that made me know it was not a joke.
“What?”
I froze, and my heart stopped for several seconds. Then it began to race, beating faster than it does after a spinning class. “Where?” I whispered.
“At your nine o’clock. Over by that brown couch.”
I turned around slowly, cautiously. Sure enough, there to my left, less than thirty feet away, was the enemy, scrutinizing a chenille couch the color of baby poo. They both had the whole casual Saturday look going—jeans and tennis shoes. Dex had his standard Saturday gray Georgetown sweatshirt, and Rachel was wearing a navy blue BCBG sweater that I helped her pick out at Bloomingdale’s last year. The weekend before Dex had proposed, to be exact. A lifetime ago.
“Oh
shit!
How do I look?” I fumbled for the compact tucked into the side pocket of my Prada bag, and remembered that at the last minute I had removed it to add more blush and left it on Marcus’s coffee table. I had no mirror. Instead I had to rely on Marcus. “How’s my face?”
“You look fine,” Marcus said. His eyes darted back to Rachel and Dex.
“What do we do? Should we get out of here?” I said. My knees felt weak as I leaned on my prospective table. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“Maybe we should go have a chat,” Marcus deadpanned. “It’d be the well-adjusted, mature thing to do.”
“Are you crazy? I don’t want to have a
chat
!”
Marcus shrugged. Dex had called Marcus a couple of days earlier to say “no hard feelings and congratulations on the baby.” They had both glossed over the details, neither of them uttering my name or Rachel’s. Marcus said the conversation was awkward, but had lasted fewer than three minutes. He said there was a tacit understanding that the friendship was over; even for guys, our situation was too much to get past.
“Okay, Darce. Let’s get outta here,” Marcus said. “I’m not in the mood for a reunion either.” He pointed behind me at the staircase leading to the ground floor. We had an easy escape route. Clearly, we hadn’t been spotted yet. Dex and Rachel were cheerfully chatting away, completely oblivious to the furniture-shopping coincidence of the century.
I wanted to turn and walk down the stairs, but I couldn’t make myself go. It was like watching a gruesome scene in a scary movie. You don’t want to see the girl get decapitated, but somehow, you always part your fingers to sneak a peek. I hid behind a bookcase and pulled Marcus down next to me. We watched Rachel and Dex stand and wander over to another couch, slightly closer to us. This one was boxier than the first, and as far as I was concerned, the better choice. Dex studied it and then made a face. It was too modern for him. I translated what had just transpired for Marcus. “See, he doesn’t like clean lines. See?”
“Darcy, I don’t give a shit about the couch they buy.”
”
They buy
?You mean you think it’s
a joint purchase
?”
“They buy. He buys. She buys,” Marcus said, as if conjugating a verb in French class.
“Does she look good? Do they look happy?”
“Come on, Darce. Let’s just go,” he said.
I kept staring at them, my insides churning.
“Tell me,” I demanded. “Does she look prettier than usual? Thinner maybe?” We watched Rachel and Dex return to their boring, brown couch. She sat and reclined smugly. Then she looked up at Dex and said something. His back was to us, but I could see him nod, run his fingers along the back of the couch. Then he stooped to flip through a book of color swatches on a coffee table next to the couch.
“Do you think they’re moving in together?” I asked.
“How the hell should I know?”
“Did he say anything about that when you talked?”
He sighed. “I told you ten times every word of that conversation.”
“He’s just replacing our couch then, right? She’s just helping him, right?”
He sighed harder this time. “I don’t know, Darcy. Probably. Who cares?”
“Look. Don’t lose your patience with me, mister,” I said. “This is
major.”
I thrust a finger toward them and then studied Dex and Rachel more, taking in every little detail. Three weeks ago, they were the people that I knew the best. My best friend and my fiance. Now they seemed like strangers or estranged loved ones whom I hadn’t heard from in years. As Rachel turned her head, I noticed that her hair was layered a bit at the bottom, a radical departure from her usual blunt ends.
“Do you like her hair like that?” I asked Marcus.
“Sure. It’s great,” he said dismissively.
I gave him a look that said,
Wrong answer
.
“Okay. It sucks. It’s hideous.”
“Come on. Look at it! Tell me your honest opinion!” I was feeling frantic, wishing that Claire were with me. She’d find
something
to criticize. Sneakers. Hair. Something.
Marcus thrust his hands in his pockets and glanced over at Rachel. “She looks the same to me.”
I shook my head. “No. They both look better than usual,” I said. “What is it? Is it just that some time has passed?”
Then, just as Dex sat down beside Rachel, it hit me. Dex was tanned. Even Rachel didn’t have her usual white glow. The realization slashed through my heart. They had gone to Hawaii together! I gasped. “Omigod. They’re tan. She went on
my
trip to Hawaii! She went on my honeymoon! Omigod. Omigod. I’m going to confront them!” You hear people say that rage can be blinding, and I learned at that moment that it was true. My vision became blurry as I took one step toward them.
Marcus grabbed my arm. “Darce—do
not
go over there. Let’s just leave.
Now
.”
“He told me he was going to eat those tickets! How
dare
she go on my honeymoon!” I was crying. A couple standing near our bookcase bunker looked at me, then over at Dex and Rachel.
“You told me he offered them to you,” Marcus said.
“That is totally beside the point! I wouldn’t have taken you to Hawaii!”
Marcus raised his eyebrows as if to consider this. “Yeah—that is kind of fucked up,” he conceded. “You have a point.”
“She went on my honeymoon! What kind of a psycho bitch goes on her friend’s honeymoon?” My voice was louder now.
“I’m leaving. Now.” He took the stairs, two at a time, and as I turned to follow him, I got one more sickening visual: Dex leaning down to kiss Rachel. On her lips. Tan, happy, smitten, kissing couch consumers.
My eyes filled with tears as I rushed down the stairs, past Marcus, past the barware, out the door to Madison Avenue.
“I know, honey,” Marcus said, when he caught up to me. For the first time, he seemed to have genuine empathy for my ordeal. “This has gotta be hard for you.”
His kindness made me sob harder. “I can’t
believe
she’d go to Hawaii,” I said, hyperventilating. “What kind of person does that? I hate her! I want her to die!”
“You don’t mean that,” Marcus said.
“Fine. Maybe not death. But I want her to get a bad case of cystic acne that Accutane won’t cure,” I said, thinking that incurable acne would actually be worse than death.
Marcus put his arm around me as we jaywalked across Sixtieth Street, narrowly escaping a delivery guy on a bike. “Just forget about them, Darce. What does it matter what they do?”
“It
matters!”
I sobbed, thinking that there was no way around it: Dex and Rachel were a couple. I couldn’t pretend otherwise. A wave of buyer’s remorse washed over me. For the first time, I started to wonder if I should have stayed with Dex—if only to keep this from happening with Rachel. When my affair with Marcus began, the grass seemed so much greener with him. But after watching my former fiance furniture-shop, Dexter’s pastures seemed blissfully bucolic.
Marcus hailed a cab, and then helped me inside. I cried the whole way down Park Avenue, picturing Rachel and Dex in all of the scenes that I had studied from our honeymoon brochures: the two of them in a Jacuzzi sipping champagne… at a luau grinning over a roasted pig amid native dancers twirling flames… frolicking in turquoise water… having sex under a coconut tree.
I remembered saying to Dex that we were a better-looking couple than any of the featured honeymooners in those brochures. Dex had laughed and asked me how I got to be so modest.
“Can we go to Hawaii on our honeymoon?” I asked Marcus when we arrived back at his apartment.
“Whatever you want,” he said, sprawling on his bed. He motioned for me to join him.
“We should go somewhere even more exotic,” I said. “Dex picked Hawaii, and if you ask me, Hawaii is a trite choice.”
“Yeah,” he said, wearing his “I want sex” expression. “Everyone goes to Hawaii. Now c’mere.”
“Where will we go, then?” I asked Marcus as I reluctantly lay down next to him.
“Turkey. Greece. Bali. Fiji. Wherever you want.” You promise?
“Yeah,” he said, pulling me on top of him.
“And can we get a new, big apartment?” I asked, looking around at his stark white walls, his overflowing closet, and his hulking stereo equipment belching wires all over the scratched parquet floors, “Sure.”
I smiled a sad but hopeful smile.
“But in the meantime,” he said, “I know how to make you feel better.”
“Just one sec,” I said, as I picked up the cordless phone next to his bed.
Marcus sighed and gave me an exasperated look. “Who are you calling? Don’t you call them!”
“I’m
not
calling them. I’m over them,” I lied. “I’m calling Crate and Barrel. I want that table.”
Rachel may have stolen Dex and my trip to Hawaii, but I was sure as hell going to have a nicer table.
But even the table (which was in stock) and sex with Marcus (which was incredible) did nothing to repair my mood. I just couldn’t believe that Rachel and Dex were actually together—that their relationship was real. Real enough to go shopping for couches together. Real enough to go to Hawaii.
And from that day forward, I was totally obsessed with Rachel and Dex. They were two people cut entirely from my life, yet from my perspective, the three of us had never been so inextricably and permanently bound together.
twelve
Things only got worse when I turned thirty. I woke up on the morning of my birthday to my first dose of morning sickness. I was in bed with Marcus, on the side farthest from the bathroom, and barely made it over him to the toilet before I puked up the fajitas I had eaten for dinner the night before at Rosa Mexicano. I flushed, rinsed my mouth with Listerine, and brushed my teeth. Another wave overcame me and more red and yellow bits of pepper descended. I flushed, rinsed, brushed again. Then I collapsed onto the floor and moaned loudly, hoping that Marcus would wake up and come to my rescue. He didn’t.
I thought to myself that Dex would have heard me puking. He was a very light sleeper, but at the moment, I chalked it up to him having greater compassion. Maybe Marcus wasn’t nurturing enough for me. I moaned again, louder this time. When Marcus still didn’t stir, I picked myself up from the cold tile and returned to bed, whimpering, “Hold me.”
Marcus snored in response.
I nestled into the crevice between his arm and body and made some more needy sounds as I surveyed his clock. Seven thirty-three. The alarm was set for seven forty-five. I had twelve minutes before he officially wished me a happy birthday. I closed my eyes and wondered what Rachel and Dex were doing at that moment—and more important, what they were going to do about my birthday. This was their
last chance,
I had ranted to my mother and Marcus the night before. I wasn’t quite sure what I expected or wanted them to do—but a phone call or e-mail seemed a step in the right direction.
Surely Rachel and Dex had discussed the issue in recent days. My guess was that Dex voted to leave me alone, Rachel to call. “I’ve been celebrating her birthday for over twenty-five years,” she would say to Dex. “I just can’t blow this day off. I have to call her.” I could hear Dex saying back, “It’s for the best. I know it’s hard, but no good can come of it.” How long had they debated the point? Perhaps it had escalated into an argument, maybe even a permanent rift. Unfortunately, neither Dex nor Rachel was particularly stubborn or argumentative. Since they were both pleasers by nature, I was sure that they had a calm, reasoned conversation and came to a unanimous conclusion about how to approach the anniversary of my birth.
One thing I did know for sure was this: if Dex and Rachel did not wish me a happy birthday in some form, there would be no redemption. Ever. My hatred for them was growing faster than the fruit flies had multiplied in our peanut butter jars in biology class sophomore year. I tried to remember what that experiment sought to prove, vaguely recalling something about eye color. Red eyes versus green eyes. I forgot the details. With Rachel as a lab partner, I hadn’t needed to pay too much attention. She had done all the work. I suddenly wondered what color eyes my baby would have. I hoped for blue, or at least green like mine. Everyone knows blue eyes are prettier, at least on a girl, which is why there were so many songs about brown-eyed girls, to make them feel better. I listened to Marcus snore as I played with a tuft of hair on his chest. He had just the right amount.
“Hmm,” he said, pulling me on top of him.
Having just puked fajitas, I wasn’t in the mood for sex, but I caved. It seemed as good a way as any to begin my thirtieth birthday. So after a quick, perfunctory round, I waited for him to open his eyes and wish me a happy birthday. Tell me that he loved me. Reassure me that thirty wasn’t old and that I had at least six good years left before I would need to think about plastic surgery. Ten, fifteen, twenty seconds passed with still no words from my boyfriend.
“Did you fall back asleep?” I demanded.
“No. I’m awake…” he mumbled, his eyelids fluttering.
The alarm clock sounded in a series of increasingly louder, high-pitched beeps. Marcus reached over and silenced his clock with a slap. I waited, feeling like Molly Ringwald in
Sixteen Candles
when her whole family forgot her birthday. Sure, it had only been a few minutes, whereas Molly’s character had to endure a whole day of neglect, but after all I’d been through in recent weeks, all of the trauma and pain, those minutes felt like hours. It was bad enough that I had to turn thirty on a Monday and that I had to puke twice. But now the father of my child couldn’t even muster a tiny, heartfelt “happy birthday” on the heels of gratuitous sex.
“I’m sick,” I said, trying another angle for attention. “Morning sickness. I threw up twice.”
He rolled over, his back toward me. “You feel better now?” he asked, his voice muffled under his comforter.
“No,” I said. “Worse.”
“Mmmmmm. I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said.
I sighed loudly and said in my most sardonic tone, “Happy birthday to me.”
I expected his eyes to snap open, an immediate apology to spring from his lips. But he only mumbled again, still facedown in his pillow, “Happy birthday, Darce. I was getting to that.”
“The hell you were. You
totally
forgot!”
“I didn’t forget… I just gave you your present,” he said. I couldn’t see his face but knew he was smirking.
I told him I wasn’t amused and then announced that I was going to take a shower. “By all means,” I said, “you just stay in bed and relax.”
Marcus tried to redeem himself after I had showered, but he didn’t have much ammunition. It was clear he had not yet bought me a card or a present. Nor had he purchased my Pillsbury sticky cinnamon buns and pink candles even though I had told him that this was my family tradition, a tradition that Dex had continued over the past seven years. Instead, Marcus only offered me a few
sweeties
and
babies,
along with a pack of saltines from his delivery from the diner the night before. “Here,” he said. “In case you start to feel morning sickness again. I heard once that these do the trick.”
I wondered where he had heard that before. Had he ever gotten another girl pregnant? I decided to broach the topic later and snatched the crackers from his outstretched hand, saying, “You’re way too good to me. Really, Marcus, you have to tone this down. I can’t handle all the over-the-top gestures.”
“Oh, relax. I got you covered, Darce. You’ll get your present tonight,” Marcus said as he sauntered naked toward the bathroom. “Now go play nice with the other kids.”
“Buh-
bye
,” I said, as I slipped on my favorite Marc Jacobs pumps and walked toward the door. “Have fun shopping for my gift!”
“What makes you think I don’t have it already?” he said.
“Because I know you, Mr. Last Minute… and I mean it, Marcus. I want something good. Think Fifty-seventh Street!”
When I got to work, Claire was waiting in my office with yellow roses and what appeared to be a professionally wrapped gift. “Happy birthday, hon!” she trilled.
“You remembered!” I said. “What gorgeous roses!”
“Of course I remembered, silly,” she said, placing the fishbowl vase of flowers on my desk. “So how do you feel today?”
I looked at her, worried that she could tell I had morning sickness. “Fine. Why?”
“Just wondering if it feels any different being thirty?” she whispered. Claire was still twenty-eight for another few weeks, in the safety zone, buffered by twenty-nine.
“A little,” I said. “Not too bad, though.”
“Well, when you look as good as you do, what’s a little thing called age?” Claire said. She had been full of compliments since my breakup with Dex. I enjoyed them, of course, but sometimes I had the sense that they verged on pity remarks. She continued, “You could easily still pass for twenty-seven.”
“Thanks,” I said, wanting to believe her.
Claire smiled sweetly as she handed me my gift. “Here! Open! Open!”
“I thought you were going to make me wait until lunch!” I said, eagerly eyeing the present. Claire had excellent taste and never skimped in the gifting department. I ripped open the paper and saw a satisfying, red Baccarat box. I lifted the hinged lid and peered down at the chunky green crystal heart threaded with a black silk cord.
“Claire! I love it! I love it!”
“You do? Really? I have a gift receipt if you want to get a different color. The purple one was really pretty, too, but I thought this one would look nice with your eyes…”
“No way! This is perfect!” I said, thinking that Rachel probably would have picked some boring limited edition book. “You’re the best.” I hugged her, silently taking back every mean thing I had ever thought about her, every petty criticism. Like how annoying and clingy she got after too many drinks, always needing to accompany me to the bathroom at bars. How she bragged about her hometown of Greenwich and her debutante days. And how she stayed so hopelessly lumpy despite daily visits to the gym. What was she doing, I used to ask Rachel, eating Ho Hos in the locker room?
“The green matches your eyes,” Claire said again, beaming.
“I
love
it,” I said, as I admired the necklace from my compact mirror. The heart fell at just the right spot, accentuating my thin collarbone.
Claire took me to lunch later that day. I kept my cell phone on, just in case Dex or Rachel decided that lunchtime was the appropriate time to phone, apologize profusely, beg for my forgiveness, and wish me a happy birthday. It rang five different times, and every time I’d say to Claire, “Do you mind?” and she’d wave her hand and say, “Of course not. Go on.”
All of the calls (except Bliss Spa reminding me of my five o’clock facial) were from birthday well-wishers. But no Rachel or Dex.
I know it was on Claire’s mind, too, as she mouthed, “Who?” each time I answered.
After the fifth call, she asked, “Have you heard from Rachel today?”
“No,” I said. Dex? Nope.
“How rude not to call on your birthday and try to make up.”
“I know!”
“Any sightings since Crate and Barrel?” she asked.
“No. Have you seen them?”
“No.
Nobody
has seen them,” Claire said—which was saying something as her network was expansive. The next best thing to hiring a private investigator (and believe me, I had considered it) was having Claire as my new best friend.
“Maybe they broke up,” I said.
“Probably so,” she said. “Out of guilt if nothing else.”
“Or maybe they just went on another exotic trip together,” I said.
She patted my arm sympathetically and ordered me a second glass of chardonnay. I knew I shouldn’t be drinking—but Dr. Jan had specifically said that I could drink on special occasions. Besides, plenty of French babies were born undamaged, and I was sure their mothers kept up with their daily intake of wine.
“I do have a little nugget for you, though,” I said, inhaling deeply, excited to drop the Marcus news on her. Minus the pregnancy, of course.
“Oh, really?” Her bangle bracelets clinked together as she crossed her arms and leaned toward me.
“I’m seeing someone,” I said proudly.
“Who?” she asked, wide-eyed. I detected a hint of jealousy. Claire, bless her heart, was a fast and furious matchmaker, but she never seemed to make much progress in her own right.
I smiled mysteriously, took a sip of water, and wiped the lipstick off my glass with my thumb. “Marcus,” I said proudly.
“Marcus?” she asked with bewilderment. “You mean,
Marcus
Marcus?”
I nodded.
“Really?” she asked.
“Uh-huh. Isn’t that crazy?”
Something flashed across her face that I wasn’t sure how to read. Was it jealousy that I had someone new so fast on the heels of a broken engagement? Did she, too, find him sexy in an unorthodox way? Or was it disapproval? My heart fluttered over the possibility of the latter. I desperately needed affirmation that Marcus was acceptable to a member of the Manhattan elite. I needed to be with someone whom everyone else wanted.
“When did this come about?” she asked.
“Oh, recently…” I said vaguely.
“I’m… I guess I’m a little bit surprised.”
“I know,” I said, thinking that she would have been less surprised if she hadn’t been such a sound sleeper that night over our July Fourth weekend. “Who would have thunk it?… But I
really
like him.”
”
Really?” This
time I definitely pegged her expression as disapproving.
“Why are you so surprised?”
“It’s just… I don’t know. I just didn’t think Marcus was your type.”
“You mean his looks?” I asked. “You mean the fact that I’m better looking than he is?”
“Well, that,” Claire said, struggling for tactful wording. “And, I don’t know, just everything. He’s a nice, fun guy—don’t get me wrong…” She trailed off.
“You don’t think he’s sexy?” I said. “I think he’s
so
sexy.”
Claire looked at me blankly. Her answer was clear. She did not find Marcus sexy. Not in the least.
“Well, I think he is,” I said again, feeling highly offended.
“That’s all that matters, then,” Claire said, patting my hand condescendingly.
“Right,” I said, knowing that that was
not
all that mattered. “I can’t believe you don’t think he’s cute.”
“I guess,” she said. “In a… I don’t know… ‘guy’s guy’ kind of way.”
“Well, he’s great in bed,” I said, trying to convince Claire—and myself—that this single fact could make up for all of his shortcomings.
By five o’clock, I had received a dozen or more birthday e-mails and phone calls, and a stream of chipper office visits from colleagues. Still nothing from Rachel or Dex. There was one last possibility: maybe they had sent a card, note, or gift to my apartment, which I hadn’t returned to in several days. So after my facial, I cabbed it across the park to my apartment, anticipating the apologies that were surely awaiting me.
Minutes later I grabbed my mail from the lobby, unlocked my door, and surveyed my stash: I had cards from the usual lineup: my parents; my brother, Jeremy; my still-smitten high school boyfriend, Blaine; my grandmother; and my second-oldest friend from home, Annalise. The final one had no return address. It had to be from Rachel or Dex! I ripped open the envelope to find a picture of wriggling golden retriever puppies piled into a white wicker basket. A “Happy Birthday” banner stretched over the basket, each letter written in a different shade of pink. My heart sank, as I realized that the card was likely from my aunt Clarice, who still treated me as if I were ten. Unless Rachel was playing on the whole “friends since childhood” theme. I slowly opened the card, feeling hopeful until I saw the telltale ten-dollar bill taped inside and Aunt Clarice’s wobbly signature below the greeting “Hope your day is a basket of fun!”