Emily Giffin - Something borrowed

"Do you remember when I told you about losing my ring?"

"Yeah?"

"How I lost it in my colleague's apartment?"

Now I am really confused. Dex must be even more confused. I am glad that I never told him how she really lost her ring. He canceled the wedding even without that information.

"How I hooked up with that guy and lost the ring?"

It's like a Three's Company episode where Jack and Chrissy are talking, and Janet is hiding somewhere listening to the conversation, full of misunderstandings and double meanings. I remember the close-ups of Janet's face, shocked and indignant. But there is no confusion here in my studio. There is only one meaning, and Dex is getting it right: she hooked up with someone else. Why didn't you tell me? he will ask me, perhaps accusatorily. It would have made everything so much easier, he will say. I will tell him that I didn't think it was right to sway him. Maybe it will make me look noble, and Darcy all the more wrong for him.

"Well, I didn't really hook up with a guy from work." She speaks slowly, enunciating every syllable.

"You didn't lose your ring?"

Is she about to confess to insurance fraud?

"The guy I was with wasn't a guy from work. It was someone else."

"Who was it?"

"It was Marcus," she says.

"Marcus?" I am floored.

"Your Marcus. Yes."

Of course. My Marcus. The Marcus I had to fly across the Atlantic to get over.

"Do you hate me?" she asks soulfully. "Please say something."

"You were with Marcus the day you lost your ring? You lost it in his apartment?" I am clarifying for myself and Dexter.

She nods. Then there is a fleeting second when she looks at me sideways-a brightening in her eyes, a slight upward movement in the corners of her mouth. She is enjoying this. This is her moment to shock. Shock and shine. Win again.

I give her what she wants. Pretend to be defeated. The gracious loser again.

"So you slept with him?" I keep my voice just south of accusatory, on the hurt side.

"Yes."

"More than once?"

"Yes," she whispers so softly that I know Dex can't hear her answer.

So I ask loudly and clearly, "You did?"

"Yes," she says.

I pretend to digest it all. Actually I am digesting it all. But on a level unknown to Darcy. "So," I say. "So."

I don't ask for further explanation, but she gives it to me anyway. "It all started over the July Fourth weekend. We came back from the Talk-house, loaded. And one thing led to the other."

"July Fourth?" I ask.

This keeps getting better.

"Yes, but he felt terrible. And we swore that it would never happen again. Only we were totally into each other. It was intense… We just couldn't keep apart. We started to meet for lunch and sometimes after work. We felt awful every time because of Dex, and because of you. But then it would happen again and again… Do you hate me?"

I am at a crossroads. I am not sure how to play it. What would Ethan advise? Pretend to fly into a rage? Yes, I hate you. Get out. Get out! That would be one way to go. Or a soft, dejected, How can I hate you? You are my best friend. Or perhaps, I don't know what to think. I need time.

While I contemplate my response, she says she has something else to tell me. Something big.

"There's more?"

"Yes. There's more." Her voice sounds fragile, but her expression gives her away. She is definitely enjoying this.

I stare at my feet. "Go on."

"I am a few days late for my period. And you know that I'm always on a perfect twenty-eight-day schedule." She is touching her stomach fondly. It is still completely flat.

My own stomach lurches. "You're pregnant?"

"I think so. Yeah."

I am afraid to ask who the father is. If it is Dex, all of this might be taken back from me.

"I took a test… it was positive."

"Positive means you're pregnant?"

"Yes. Two pink lines. Yes, I'm pregnant."

I hold my breath, pray, make a deal with God. Never will I ask for anything else, if only… "Who is the father?" The question fills the room, circles over us, under the closet door.

"Marcus."

I exhale, feeling light-headed with relief. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. Positive. Dex and I haven't had sex since before my last period. Ages ago."

"Does he know?"

"Who? Marcus?"

"Yeah. Does Marcus know?"

"Yes. But Dex doesn't. Not yet."

He does now.

"I wanted to talk to you first."

I nod, still taking it all in. "So what are you going to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are you keeping it?"

"Yes. I want to have it." She rubs her stomach in small circular motions. "I want to marry Marcus and have his baby. I know it sounds crazy, but it just feels so right."

"Are you sure Marcus wants to get married?"

"Positive."

"Do you think Dex suspects anything?" I ask quietly. For some reason, I don't want him to hear this question.

"No. But to be honest, I think he sensed how distant I've been. That's probably why he called it off. You know, he said he didn't love me… because he felt that I had turned away from him first."

"I see."

"I'm shocked at how calm you are. Thank you for not hating me."

"Yeah… I don't hate you."

"I hope Dex takes it as well. At least as far as Marcus goes. He's going to hate him for a while. But Dex is rational. Nobody did this on purpose to hurt him. It just happened."

And right when I think that this story is winding up as neatly and tightly as a Three's Company episode, with its get-out-of-jail-free ending, I see Darcy stare at something behind me. By the look on her face, I think that Dex has emerged from his hiding place. I turn around, fully expecting to see him. But no, the door is still closed. I face Darcy again. She is still staring behind me, her expression stony and trancelike.

And then she asks, "Why is Dexter's watch on your nightstand?"

I follow her eyes again. Sure enough, his watch is most definitely on my nightstand. Dexter's watch. My nightstand. There is no way out. At least not one that I can think of.

I shrug and stammer that I don't know. If there were any doubt before this moment as to my ability to think on my feet, that is cleared up now. I mumble, "Oh, it's not his watch. I have one like it… I bought it in England." My voice is shaking. I am a complete mess, a dying calf in a hailstorm.

Darcy leaps from my bed and grabs the watch from my nightstand, flipping it over and reading the inscription. '"All my love. Darcy,'" she says. Then she looks at me with pure hatred, demonstrating how I should have reacted to her Marcus news.

"What the fuck?" she asks. It is a cold, hard question. Her eyes narrow. "What the fuck!" she screams again, but this time it is a statement. Which means that I don't have to answer.

I stand as she pushes roughly past me into the bathroom. I follow her as she whips the shower curtain violently to the side. Only two tan Aveda bottles, a pink plastic razor, and a dwindling bar of soap.

I begin formulating a story: Dex came over to tell me about the breakup. He took his watch off, to woefully read the engraving. He was beside himself with grief. I comforted him briefly, at which point he left to wander in the park, alone.

But it is too late for explanations. The thirty-second window for explaining is over. Darcy's long, skinny fingers are gripping my closet doorknob.

"Darcy, don't," I say, clearly indicating that her ex-fiance is behind door number two. I stand in the way, my back against the door.

"Move!" she bellows. "I know he's in there!"

I move, because what else am I supposed to do? She is right. We all know that he is in there. But as she opens the door, part of me actually thinks that Dex will have found a way to fold himself more neatly and tightly into a back corner of my closet. Or maybe he got out, somehow fled during the four seconds that Darcy and I stood gridlocked in my bathroom. Or maybe he miraculously found a secret opening in the back as in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.