by Emily Giffin
So, because of Rachel's heretofore unflagging morality, coupled with her anxiety over what people might think of her character, I had assumed that if she had had feelings for Dex prior to our breakup, she surely hadn't shared them with anyone. I think I also wanted to believe that Ethan, although closer to Rachel, was my friend, too, and that he therefore wasn't holding out on me in any significant way. It was sickening to realize that not only did he likely know much more than he had let on-but that total strangers in London knew everything too. I felt like a fool-and feeling foolish is one of the all-time worst emotions. Suddenly I was burning up, fanning at my face with my small Chanel purse, panicking that perhaps Rachel and Dex had hooked up even before the day I caught them together.
In an attempt to ferret out the truth, I looked Phoebe straight in the eye and asked in a volume way louder than necessary, even in a noisy restaurant filled with a bunch of drunken Brits, "When you met my friend Rachel, did she happen to mention that she wanted to fuck my fiance? Or had she already fucked him at that point?"
Martin looked pained as he intently studied our bill. Ethan shook his head. Phoebe let out a gleeful chortle.
"I'm glad that somebody here is amused," I said, standing angrily from the table. My heel caught on the edge of my chair, causing it to crash to the ground. Everyone-including the two cute twenty-something guys who were now joined by two cute twenty-something girls-turned to stare, looking embarrassed for me. I fumbled in my purse for money, realizing that I had left my wallet on the floor next to my air mattress. This was unfortunate, because it would have been a way stronger statement to throw down a wad of bills before exiting. Instead I had to mumble to Ethan that I'd pay him back later. Then I stomped off, wondering if I could find my way home, and how much my feet were going to ache walking all that way in my new shoes. As I spilled onto the dark street, I realized that I had no idea where I was. I walked in one direction, then turned in the other, and was hugely relieved when Ethan appeared from the door of the restaurant.
"Darcy, just wait here. I have to pay our part of the bill," he said, as if he were the one who had the right to be annoyed.
"You owe me an apology!" I shouted.
"Just wait here. I'll be right back. Okay?"
I crossed my arms, glared at him, and said fine, I'd wait. As if I had much of a choice. A minute later Ethan was back on the street, his lips set in an angry line. He hailed us a cab and opened the door roughly. How dare he be mad at me! I was the wronged party here. My instinct was to unleash, but I bit my lip, literally, waiting for him to talk first. He said nothing for several minutes and then spoke in a wry tone. "So you and Phoebe got along brilliantly."
"She's such a miserable cow, Ethan!"
"Calm down."
"Don't tell me to calm down!" I shouted. "How dare you bring me out with them when they know everything about me! You should have told me they had already met Rachel! I can't believe you all had a good laugh at my expense! I thought you were my friend!"
"I am your friend," he said.
"Then tell me what you told them, Ethan! And while you're at it, tell me everything you know about Dex and Rachel!"
His neck muscles twitched. "We'll talk about it at home, okay?"
"No. We'll talk about it now!" I shouted, but Ethan looked resolute, and I was afraid of pressing my luck. I wanted the truth too much to jeopardize pissing him off. It took all of my resolve, but I managed to keep my mouth shut the rest of the way home.
When Ethan and I arrived back at his flat, he disappeared to his bedroom, possibly to call Rachel and seek permission to divulge her dirty little secrets. I paced in the living room, wondering what he was going to tell me. How bad the truth was. After a few minutes, he returned to the living room and began rummaging through his CDs. I took off my jacket and heels and sat cross-legged on the floor, keeping my face placid, as I waited for the truth. The whole truth. Ethan calmly selected a Coldplay CD, turned the volume higher than I thought appropriate, and sank into his couch. He gave me a steely gaze. "Okay. Look," he said over the music. "I'm really tired of this shit, Darcy. I am really, really sick of it."
"So am I," I said, reaching over to turn down his stereo.
He held up his hand as if to warn me that interrupting was not an option.
"So we're going to discuss this tonight and then never again, okay?"
"Fine," I said. "That's all I wanted in the first place."
"Okay. When Rachel came here to visit me, she told me that she… that she had feelings for Dex."
"I knew it!" I said, pointing at him.
"Are you going to listen or not?"
I swallowed hard and nodded.
"And she had been having those feelings for some time, but not that long a time."
"How long?"
"A few weeks… maybe a few months."
"A few months?" I shouted.
He gave me a look of warning, as if he were poised to exit the conversation. Sorry. Go on.
"I don't have much else to say."
"When did they first hook up?" I asked, petrified of the answer, but needing to know just how big a fool I had been.
He paused and then said that he didn't know.
"I can tell you're lying," I said. "I know you know!"
"What I do know is this," Ethan said, dodging the question. "Rachel didn't want to feel the way she did. She was in agony over the whole thing. She had every intention of going back to New York after her visit here and being your maid of honor. She was prepared to move on, force herself to get over Dex, and be your friend. Which is more than most people would do in her shoes."
My heart pounded in my ears. I was fixated on one thing. One fact. "Give me a date, Ethan. When did they first hook up?"
He crossed his arms and exhaled loudly.
"Was it before or after Rachel's birthday?" I asked. I honestly don't know what made me pick that date. Perhaps because Rachel's birthday is in late May, always coinciding with the start of summer. I could have just as easily said Memorial Day. But I didn't. I said, "Rachel's birthday," and by the look on Ethan's face, I knew I had hit the jackpot. My mind raced back to the night, how I had thrown a surprise party for her. Suddenly, I remembered with horror how Dex hadn't come home until nearly seven in the morning. How he had said he was with Marcus. And how Marcus had backed him up. They had all lied to me! My fiance had spent the night with my best friend! Months before I had ever cheated on him!
Suddenly everything came into sharp focus: Dexter's later-than-usual nights working, how Rachel had dragged her feet during my wedding plans, and the July Fourth weekend! My God, Rachel and Dex had both stayed home from the Hamptons! They had been together that entire weekend! It was too horrible to be true, but I was certain that it was true.
I laid it all out for Ethan who didn't deny a thing. He just looked at me, without a trace of compassion or remorse.
"How could you, Ethan? How could you?" I sobbed.
"How could I what?"
"How could you be friends with her? How could you take me out with those people who knew the whole story? You made me look like a fool! All of you were probably laughing behind my back!"
"Nobody was laughing behind your back."
"Yeah, right. That mad cow laughed up a storm."
"Phoebe was a bit rude. I'll admit that."
"And admit the rest! Admit that Rachel told all of you what she was doing to me."
He hesitated and then said, "Her relationship with Dex did come up. But obviously I didn't think you'd ever meet Martin and Phoebe. And besides, we weren't discussing the situation in a 'ha ha what a fool Darcy is' kind of way. It was more of a 'gosh, how bad it sucks to have feelings for your best friend's fiance' sort of way."
"Right. She really suffered."
"Well, didn't you suffer when you started seeing Marcus? While you were still with Dex?"
"It's not the same thing, Ethan."
How was it that everyone had such difficulty grasping the obvious d
ifference between cheating on one's fiance and screwing over your very best girlfriend?
"This isn't about me and Dex. It's about me and Rachel. And I would never have done that to her," I continued, feeling shocked that my mousy friend had it in her.
He looked at me, folded his arms, and cocked his head with a knowing smile. "Really?"
"Never," I said, taking mental inventory of Rachel's utterly unappealing ex-boyfriends. Her law school boyfriend and most significant ex, Nate, had a unibrow, sloping shoulders, and an effeminate voice.
"If you say so," Ethan said skeptically.
"What is that supposed to mean? I have never, ever tried to steal one of Rachel's boyfriends."
He smiled an oblique, private smile. I knew what he was driving at: I had hooked up with Marcus even though Rachel was interested in him.
"Oh, give me a freaking break, Ethan. Marcus was not Rachel's boyfriend! They had kissed, like, one time. It was never going to go anywhere."
"I wasn't thinking of Marcus."
"So then what were you thinking of?"
"Well… I just think that you would do the same thing to Rachel if the circumstances presented themselves. If you had fallen in love with one of her boyfriends, nothing would have stopped you from going after him. Not Rachel's feelings, not the stigma of taking your best friend's man. Nothing."
"No," I said firmly. "That's not true."
Ethan continued. He was on a roll now, leaning forward on the couch, thrusting his index finger at me as he talked. "I think you have a long, long history of going after exactly what you want, Darcy. Whatever that is. Come hell or high water. Until now, Rachel has always played second fiddle to you. And you shamelessly let her do the whole lady-in-waiting routine. All through high school she was at your beck and call, letting you show off. You liked it that way. And now that it is all over, you can't handle it."
"That's just… not true!" I sputtered, feeling my face burn. "You're being so unfair!"
Ethan ignored me and kept going, now pacing in front of his faux fireplace. "You were the star of the show in high school. The star of the show in college. The star of the show in Manhattan. And Rachel let you shine. Now you can't step back and be happy for her."
"Be happy for her for stealing my fiance? You've got to be kidding me!"
"Darce-you did the same thing. It might be a different story if you were deeply in love with Dex, if you hadn't cheated on him also."
"But they did it first!"
"That is beside the point," he said.
"How can you say that?"
"Because. Because, Darcy, you never examine your own behavior. You just look to blame everyone else."
He then proceeded to bring up this ancient history from high school. Like why I had applied to Notre Dame when I knew that it was Rachel's dream to go there, and how crushed she was when I got in and she didn't.
"I didn't know she owned Notre Dame!"
"It was her dream. Not yours."
"So let me get this straight, she can go after my fiance, but I don't have the right to apply to a stupid college?"
He ignored my question and said, "While we're on this topic, Darcy, why don't you tell me one thing… Did you really get in there?"
"Did I get in where?" I asked.
"Were you or were you not accepted at Notre Dame University?"
"Yes. I was," I said, almost believing the lie I had told all of my friends so many years ago. Notre Dame had been Rachel's first choice, but I had applied, too, thinking how great it would be if we could be roommates. I remember getting that rejection letter, feeling like a failure. So I told a harmless fib to my friends, and then covered by saying that I was going to Indiana anyway.
He shook his head. "I don't believe you," he said. "You did not get into Notre Dame."
I started to sweat. How did he know? Had he seen my letter? Had he hacked into the Notre Dame admissions office's computer system?
"Why is my choice of colleges relevant here?"
"I'll tell you why it's relevant, Darcy. I'll tell you exactly why. You have always competed with Rachel. From way back in the day until now. Everything has always been a contest with you. And part of what's eating you up inside is that Dex picked Rachel. He picked her over you."
I tried to speak but he kept going, his words cruel, stark, and loud. "Dex wanted to be with her and not you. Never mind that you didn't want to be with him either. Never mind that you cheated on him too. Never mind that clearly you and he weren't at all right for each other and you both saved yourselves a divorce by calling it quits. You can only focus on one thing: the fact that Rachel somehow beat you. And it kills you, Darce. I'm telling you, as your friend, that you need to let it go and move on," he finished in his debate-team tone.
I shook my head. I told him that he was wrong. I told him that nobody, nobody in my position, could be happy for Rachel. I felt myself getting shrill, desperate to make him see things my way, just as I had tried to do with Marcus.
"It's like this, Ethan… even if they hadn't done a thing behind my back, even if this relationship had begun after we broke up, it would still be… just wrong. You just don't go there with a friend's ex. Period. How is it that men have trouble seeing that? It's a basic life principle."
"She loves him, Darce. That is a basic life principle."
"Would you stop rubbing it in! I don't want to hear the word love again. Whether they love each other is totally beside the point… You don't understand anything about friendship."
"Darcy. No offense-and I'm not saying this to be mean, because I care about you, which is why you're here right now for this purported visit," he said, making quotation marks in the air as he said the word visit. "But-"
"But what?" I asked pitifully, afraid of what he would say next.
"But I think you're the one who doesn't understand friendship," he said, speaking fast and furiously. "Not at all. Which is why you're sitting here essentially friendless. At war with Rachel. At war with Claire. At war with the father of your child. At war with your own mother, who, as far as you know, has no clue where you are! And now you're mad at me too."
"It's not my fault that you all betrayed me."
"You need to take a long, hard look in the mirror, Darce. You need to realize that there are consequences to your basically shallow existence."
"I'm not shallow," I said, only half-believing it.
"You are shallow. You're utterly selfish and misguided, with totally screwed-up values."
He had gone too far. I might be a bit on the shallow side, but the rest of his accusations were ridiculous. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? Misguided?"
"It means that you're, what, five months pregnant now? And as far as I can tell, you're doing nothing to prepare for this child. Nothing. You come to London for this so-called visit, but I see no signs of you returning to New York-and meanwhile, you have made no effort to seek any prenatal care here in London. On top of that, you don't eat particularly well, probably in an effort to stay thin at the expense of your baby's growth. You had two glasses of wine tonight. And instead of saving for the child you have to raise alone, you are throwing money to the wind on positively frivolous purchases. It's simply staggering to watch how utterly irresponsible and totally self-absorbed you're being."
I sat there, completely speechless. I mean, what do you say when someone tells you, essentially, that you're a shit friend, a horrible, irresponsible mother-to-be, and an empty, self-absorbed woman? Unless I counted some of the accusations I'd received from scorned lovers (which don't have much credibility), this was an unprecedented attack. He had said so many mean things, come at me from so many angles, that I was unsure how to defend myself. "I am taking prenatal vitamins," I said meekly.
Ethan looked at me as if to say, If that's the best you can do here, I rest my case. Then he announced that he was going to bed. His expression told me not to follow him, that he did not want me in his room.
But just to be sure, after I sat in the l
iving room for a long while, licking my wounds and replaying his speech, I decided to go down the hall and check his door. Not that I would have opened it on a bet-I had some pride-I just had to know whether he had boxed me out for real. Did he regret his harsh words? Had he softened his opinion of me as his beer-buzz dissipated? I put my hand around the glass doorknob and turned. It didn't budge. Ethan had shut me out. There was something about that door, cold and unyielding, that made me feel angry and sad and determined all at once.
twenty-one
The next morning I awoke on my air mattress and felt my baby kick for the first time. There had been other times when I thought I felt her-only to realize that it was likely just indigestion, hunger pangs, or nerves. But there was no confusing that odd, unmistakable sensation of tiny feet moving inside me, churning up against my organs and bones. I put my hand on the spot, right under my rib cage, waiting to feel her again. Sure enough, there was another small but distinct nudge and twitch. I know it sounds crazy, especially considering that my stomach was quickly becoming the size of a basketball, but I think it took that flutter of baby feet for my pregnancy to move beyond the theoretical and feel real. I had a baby inside me, a little person who was going to be born in a few short months. I was going to be a mother. In a way, I already was.
I curled up in a fetal position and squeezed my eyes shut as I was bombarded by a riot of emotions. First I felt a burst of pure joy. It was an indescribable happiness, a kind that I'd never experienced before, a kind that can't be found by purchasing a Gucci bag or a pair of Manolo Blahniks. A smile spread across my face, and I almost laughed out loud.
But my happiness quickly commingled with an unsettling melancholy as I realized that I had no one to share my huge milestone with. I couldn't call my baby's father or her grandmother. I wasn't in the mood to talk to Ethan after all the mean things he had said to me. And most important, I couldn't call Rachel. For the first time since I found Dex in her closet, I really missed her. I still had Annalise, but she just wasn't the same. I thought of all the times in the past when I'd had good news, bad news, in-between news. How I could barely digest it before I was running next door or speed-dialing Rachel's number. When we were kids in Indiana, Annalise was always the runner-up, always the afterthought, always the second to know. With Rachel out of the picture, you'd think that Annalise would just replace her. But I was beginning to see that it didn't work like that. Rachel wasn't replaceable. Claire hadn't replaced her. Annalise couldn't either. I wondered why that was. After all, I knew Annalise would say all the right things, be as nice as she could be. But she would never be able to quench that deep-seated need to share.