Something Borrowed - Emily Giffin [54]
There it is. The Question.
I have thought of it a hundred times, worded the inquiry exactly like that, with the same intonation, the same emphasis on the word "doing." But every time I answer it differently:
We are following our hearts.
We are taking a chance.
We are crazy.
We are self-destructive.
We are lustful.
We are confused.
We are rebelling.
He is afraid of marriage.
I am afraid of being alone.
We are falling in love.
We are already in love.
And the most common: we have no idea.
This is the one I offer up. "I don't know."
"Neither do I," he says softly. "Should we talk about it?"
"Do you want to?"
"Not really," he says.
I am relieved that he doesn't. Because I don't. I am too afraid of what we might decide. Either choice is scary. "Let's not, then. Not now."
"Then when?" he asks.
For some reason, I say, "After July Fourth."
It sounds arbitrary, but it has always been a benchmark of sorts, the summer midpoint. Even though more than half the summer is left after the Fourth of July, the part that follows is the faster half, the part that always flies by. June, although a day shorter, feels so much longer than August.
"Okay," he says.
"No examining anything until July Fourth." I state the rule clearly, as I would at the outset of a law-school exam. My voice is firm, even though I'm not sure what we've just decided. That we are finished as of July Fourth? Or maybe… no, he couldn't think that I meant that is when he would tell Darcy he can't go through with marrying her. No, that is not what we just decided. We simply decided to decide nothing. That is all.
Still, picking the date scares me. I picture a giant countdown of days, hours, minutes, seconds. Like the clocks set up in 1999 for the countdown to the new millennium. I remember watching the seconds roll off such a clock in the post office near Grand Central Station sometime in December. That clock made me nervous, frantic. I wanted to attack my to-do list, clear my desk of backed-up calls, finish it all immediately. At the same time, watching those numbers tick by paralyzed me. I had too much to do, so why do anything at all?
I try to calculate the number of hours left before July Fourth. How many nights we will have together. How many times we will make love.
My stomach growls. Or maybe it's his. I can't tell because I am flat against him. "Are you hungry? We can order food," I say, and kiss his chest. "Or I can make us something."
I imagine myself whipping up a tasty snack. I can't cook, but I would learn. I would make an excellent, nurturing wife.
He tells me that he doesn't want to waste time eating. He can get something on his way home. Or just go to bed hungry. He says he wants to feel me against him until it's time to leave.
The next day I ask Dex if there were any problems when he returned home. It is a vague question, but he knows what I am asking. He says that Darcy was not home when he got in, so he had time to shower, reluctantly wash me off him. He says that Darcy had left him a message: "It's eleven and you're not answering your cell or your phone at work. You're probably having an affair. I'm going out with Claire."
It is her usual tongue-in-cheek accusation when Dex works late. She asks him if he's having an affair, never believing that he would do such a thing. She changes the person every time, selecting a random female name from his office. The less attractive the woman, the more amused she is. "I know you're in love with Nina," she'll say, knowing that Nina is a chubby word processor from Staten Island with fake nails adorned with glitter art.
I think of Dex returning home last night. A whole scene unfurls in my mind—Dex stealing into his apartment, hurrying to shower and get in bed, waiting for the key to turn in the