Something Borrowed - Emily Giffin [114]
"It's eleven in the morning!" I laugh at his exuberance.
"So? You got a better idea?" He crosses his arms across his narrow chest. "You want to sightsee? Think Big Ben's going to do you any good right now?"
"No," I say. Big Ben would only remind me of the minutes ticking down to what will be the most horrible day of my life.
"So c'mon then," he says.
I follow Ethan over to a pub called the Brittania. It is exactly how I expect an English pub to be—musty and full of old men smoking and reading the paper. The walls and carpet are dark red, and bad oil paintings of foxes and deer and Victorian women cover the walls. It could be 1955. One man wearing a little cap and smoking a pipe even resembles Winston Churchill.
"What's your pleasure?" Ethan asks me.
Dex, I think, but tell him a beer would be great. I am beginning to think that the boozing idea is a pretty good one.
"What kind? Guinness? Kronenbourg? Carling?"
"Whatever," I say. "Anything but Newcastle."
Ethan orders two beers, his several shades darker than mine. We sit down at a corner table. I trace the grain in the wood of the table and ask him how long it took for him to get over Brandi.
"Not long," he says. "Once I knew what she did, I realized that she wasn't what I thought. There was nothing to miss. That's what you have to think. He wasn't right for you. Let Darcy have him…"
"Why does she always win?" I sound like a five-year-old, but it helps to hear my misery simplified: Darcy beat me. Again.
Ethan laughs, flashing his dimple. "Win what?"
"Well, Dex for one." Self-pity envelops me as I picture him with Darcy. It is morning in New York. They are likely still in bed together.
"Okay. What else?"
"Everything." I gulp my beer as quickly as I can. I feel it hit my empty stomach.
"Like?"
How do I explain to a guy what I mean? It sounds so shallow: she's prettier, her clothes are better, she's thinner. But that is the least of it. She is happier too. She gets what she wants, whatever that happens to be. I try to articulate this with real examples. "Well, she has that great job making tons of money, when all she has to do is plan parties and look pretty."
"That schmoozing job of hers? Please."
"It's better than mine."
"Better than being a lawyer? I don't think so."
"More fun."
"You'd hate it."
"That's not the point. She loves her job." I know I am not doing a good job of showing how Darcy is always victorious.
"Then find one you love. Although that's another issue altogether. One that we will address later… But, okay, what else does she win?"
"Well… she got into Notre Dame," I say, knowing that I sound ridiculous.
"Oh, she did not!"
"Yes she did."
"No. She said she got into Notre Dame. Who picks IU over Notre Dame?"
"Plenty of people. Why do you always dump on IU?"
"Okay. Look. I hate Notre Dame more. I'm just saying if you apply to those two schools and get into both, presumably you want to go to both. So you'd pick Notre Dame. It's a better school, right?"
I nod. "I guess."
"But she didn't get in there. Nor did she get a, what did she say, thirteen hundred five and a half or something on her SATs? Remember that shit?"
"Yeah. She lied about her score."
"And she lied about Notre Dame too. Trust me… Did you ever see the acceptance letter?"
"No. But… well, maybe she didn't."
"God, you're so naive," he says, mispronouncing it "nave" on purpose. "I assumed we were on the same page there."
"It was a sensitive topic. Remember?"
"Oh yeah. I remember. You were so sad," he says. "You should have been celebrating your escape from the Midwest. Of course, then you pick the second most obnoxious school in the country, and go to Duke… You know my theory about Duke and Notre Dame, right?"
I smile and tell Ethan that I have trouble keeping all of his theories straight. "What is it again?"
"Well, aside from you, and a few other exceptions, those two schools are filled to the brim with obnoxious people. Perhaps only obnoxious people apply there or perhaps the schools attract obnoxious people. Probably a combination, a mutually