Something Borrowed - Emily Giffin [31]
I am just out of the shower, dripping wet. "Where are you?"
"In the car with Dex. We're on our way back to the city," she says. "We went antiquing. Remember?"
"Yes," I say. "I remember."
"How did it go?" she asks again, smacking her gum. She can't even wait until she gets home to get the scoop on my date.
I don't answer.
"Well?"
"We have a bad connection. Your cell is breaking up," I say. "I can't hear you."
"Nice try. Give me the goods."
"What goods?"
"Rachel! Don't play dumb with me. Tell me about your date! We're dying to know."
I hear Dex echo her in the background. "Just dying!"
"It was a lovely evening," I say, trying to wrap a towel around my head without dropping the phone.
She squeals. "Yes! I knew it. So details! Details!"
I tell her that we went to Gotham Bar and Grill, I ordered the tuna, he had lamb.
"Rachel! Get to the good stuff! Did you hook up?"
"I can't tell you that."
"Why not?"
"I have my reasons."
"That means you did," she says. "Otherwise you'd just say no."
"Think what you want."
"C'mon, Rachel!"
I tell her no way, I am not going to be her car-ride entertainment. She reports my words to Dex and I hear him say, "Bruce is our car-ride entertainment. Tell her that."
Tunnel of Love is playing in the background.
"Tell Dexter that's Bruce's worst album."
"They're all bad albums. Springsteen sucks," Darcy says.
"Did she just say this album is bad?" I hear Dex ask Darcy.
Darcy says yeah and a few seconds later "Thunder Road" is blaring. Darcy shouts at him to turn it down. I smile.
"So?" Darcy asks. "Are you going to tell us or not?"
"Not."
"If I promise not to tell Dex?"
"Still not."
Darcy makes an exasperated sound. Then she tells me that she will find out one way or another and hangs up.
The next I hear from Dex is on Thursday night, the day before we are scheduled to leave for the Hamptons.
"Do you want a ride? We have room for one more," he says. "Claire's coming with us. And your boyfriend's in."
"Well, in that case, I'd love a ride," I say, trying to sound breezy and casual. I need to show him that I've moved on. I have moved on.
At five o'clock the next day, we are assembled in Dexter's car, hoping to get ahead of the traffic. But the roads are already clogged. It takes us an hour to get through the Midtown Tunnel and nearly four hours to make the 110-mile drive to East Hampton. I sit in the backseat between Claire and Marcus. Darcy is in a giddy, hyper mood. She spends most of the car ride facing the three of us in the backseat, raising various topics, asking questions, and generally carrying the conversation. She makes things feel celebratory; her good moods are as infectious as her bad ones are contaminating. Marcus is the second most talkative in our group. For a thirty-mile stretch, he and Darcy are a running comedy routine, making fun of each other. She calls him lazy, he calls her high maintenance. Claire and I chime in occasionally. Dex says virtually nothing. He is so quiet that at one point Darcy yells at him to stop being such a bore.
"I'm driving," he says. "I need to concentrate."
Then he looks at me in the rearview mirror. I wonder what he's thinking. His eyes give nothing away.
It is getting dark when we stop for snacks and beers at a gas station on Route 27. Claire sidles up to me in front of the chips, loops her arm through mine, and says, "I can tell he really likes you." For a second I am startled, thinking that she means Dex. Then I realize she is talking about Marcus.
"Marcus and I are just friends," I say, selecting a can of Pringles Light.
"Oh, c'mon now. Darcy told me about your date," she says.
Claire is always in the know about everything—the latest trend, the hot new bar opening, the next big party. She has her manicured fingers on the pulse of the city. And knowing the details of Manhattan's singles is part of her bag too.
"It was just one date," I say, happy that Darcy has not determined what happened with Marcus, despite a barrage of questioning. She even probed him with an e-mail; he forwarded me the message with his