Emily Giffin - Something borrowed

But no, he is there, crouched right where I last saw him, holding his jeans and his shirt, wearing striped navy boxers, staring up at us. He unfolds himself and stands upright.

"You liar!" Darcy screams, thrusting her finger into his chest.

He ignores her and dresses calmly, putting one foot into his jeans and then the other. The sound of his zipper is loud in the room.

"You lied to me!"

"You have got to be kidding me," Dex says, finding the armholes in his T-shirt. His voice is low and restrained. "Fuck you, Darcy."

Darcy's face grows red and she is spitting as she yells, "You said there was nobody else in the picture! And you're fucking my best friend!"

I whimper her name like a broken record. "Darcy. Darcy. Darcy."

She ignores me, staring at Dex. I wait for him to defend us, cast a spin on the facts, tell her that there has been no fucking. Nothing at all until today, when he came over to seek comfort. But Dex says calmly, "Isn't that a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, Darce? You and Marcus, huh? Having a baby? I guess congratulations are in order."

I expect her to make a statement about loyalty and love and friendship. I expect her to accuse us of doing it first. But she only looks at me and then Dex and then says that she knew it all along, and that she hates us both very much. And that she always will. She walks over to the door.

"Oh, Darcy?" Dex says.

"What?" She shouts the word, but the look in her eyes is needy, expectant.

"May I have my watch back, please?"

She hurls the evidence overhand at him. Clearly it is meant to strike and hurt him. But her aim is bad and it ricochets off my wall, skating across the parquet back to her feet, inscription up. She looks at it and then at me.

"And you! I never want to see you again! You are dead to me!"

She slams the door and is gone.

Darcy wastes no time in getting het version of the story out. Starting with Jose, apparently. On our way out of the building, minutes after Darcy's departure, we pass my doorman. For once, he is not grinning. Failing in the gatekeeping function is the stuff that can get a doorman fired. He looks worried.

"Hi, Jose," Dex and I say in unison.

"Aw, man, I'm really sorry I let her up," he says. "I, uh, didn't know… you know…"

"No. Not at all," I say. "Don't worry, Jose."

"Did she give you an earful?" Dex asks cheerfully, as if the whole thing were just a crazy little mix-up instead of a life-defining moment for at least four people.

Jose has tacit permission to smile again. "Uhh… you could say I got an earful. Heh, heh. But don't worry." He laughs. "I don't believe what she said about you… not most of it, anyway."

He slaps hands with Dex as though they are old pals, which I guess they are becoming. I walk Dex to the corner. He is going home to salvage as many belongings as he can fit into his luggage-we both believe that Darcy is a slash-and-burn kind of girl, fully up to the task of taking scissors to his wardrobe.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," he says.

I nod.

"And you're sure it's okay if I stay with you for a few days?"

He has asked me the question three times now.

"Of course. Stay as long as you want," I say, thinking that now he not only wants me, but he needs me too. It is a good feeling to be needed by Dex.

We stand facing each other in the street for a moment before Dex flags a cab and leans down to kiss me. Without thinking, I turn my head to give him a cheek. Then I remember that we no longer need to hide. I turn my face again, and our lips meet in daylight.

I return to my apartment in a state of semishock. I feel as if I should do something ceremonious. Write in my journal, which has been untouched for months (I could never bring myself to write about Dex, just in case something happened to me). Dance around my apartment. Cry. Instead I focus on the mundane, what I am good at. I shower, unpack, water my plants, open my mail, drag two fans out of my closet and plug them in near my bed, and eat a couple of stale Fig Newtons.

Dex returns an hour later with his full array of tan Hartmann luggage and two black Nike gym bags, all stuffed haphazardly with clothes, shoes, papers, toiletries, even some framed photographs. "Rescue mission accomplished," he says. "She wasn't home."

I survey the bags. "How did you haul all that stuff over here so fast?"

"It wasn't easy," he says, wiping sweat from his brow. His gray T-shirt is wet around the pits and across his chest.

"You can hang your suits in the front closet," I say, still focusing on the practical, unable to absorb everything, although the presence of Dex's belongings is helping with that.

"Thanks." He shakes out a few dark suits and white shirts and looks at me. "Don't be alarmed. I'm not moving in."

"I'm not alarmed," I say, as I watch him hang his clothes. Although in truth, I am filled with sudden trepidation. What next? What now? I never planned on this-the temporary living arrangement, the end of my friendship with Darcy, the strange and sudden change in the status quo. "I just can't believe it."

He puts his arms around me. "What can't you believe?"

"Everything. Any of it. Us."

I close my eyes just as my phone rings. I jump. "Shit. You think it's her?" I am almost afraid of Darcy, of what she will do.

"I doubt it. She's off with Marcus, I'm sure."

I answer it.

"Is this true?" my mother asks, in a panic. "What I hear from Mrs. Rhone? Say it's not so, Rachel. Please tell me!"

"That depends on what you heard." I choose my words carefully, and then mouth to Dex that it is my mother.

He makes a face and grabs the arm of my sofa as though he is bracing for a meteor to fall into my apartment. I'd prefer a meteor to this conversation.

"She tells me that Dex canceled the wedding?"

"That is correct."

"And that you are somehow involved with Dex?… I told her there must be some mistake, but she was sure. She's very upset. Your father and I were speechless."

"Mom, it is complicated," I say, an admission by any measure.

"Ra-chel. How could you?" She has never sounded more disappointed in me. All of my hard work, accomplishments, years of being a good daughter-it is all down the drain. "Darcy is your oldest friend in the world! How could you?"

I tell my mother that perhaps she would like to hear my side of the story before she casts judgment. I didn't think you needed law school to have the "innocent before proven guilty" concept down.

She says fine, please go on. I can see her shaking her head, pacing in the kitchen, waiting for an explanation, although none could ever suffice.

I am too mad to tell her anything. How can she take Darcy's side over mine before she even hears a thing from my mouth? "I'm not in the mood to discuss it with you," I say. Then I add, "Or Dad." Because I know she will use him as the ultimate weapon, just as she did when I was a child. "Wait until your father gets home," an oft-heard threat to many children, wasn't employed with the same meaning in our house. It was a threat to tarnish my reputation as Daddy's perfect little girl. One stern look from my father was worse than any punishment, and my mom knew it.

"Your father is in the garage, absolutely beside himself," she says, wavering between shrill and calm. "I don't think he could talk even if you wanted to speak to him. Did Darcy or Dr. and Mrs. Rhone cross your mind once?"

When I fell in love? No, they didn't! Neither did your bridge club, nor my third-grade teacher!

"Mom, it's not your life. Or Dad's… Look, I have to go."

I say good-bye and hang up before she can speak again. Let her be sorry when she learns that Darcy is having someone else's child. Let her do the math, subtract the months back to August. Maybe then she will phone me and apologize and toss out another one of her favorites-People in glass houses…