Something Borrowed - Emily Giffin [57]
Hillary suddenly appears beside us. "What's up?"
I am not sure if she heard any of our conversation.
"Nothing," Dex answers quickly. "Rachel's just mad at me for dropping her beer."
"You can have mine," Hillary says.
"No, take this one," I say, handing her the other beer.
She reluctantly takes it and asks where Darcy is.
"We were just looking for her," I say.
I glance at Dex. He is trying to cover up in front of Hillary, but he is not doing the best job of it. His eyes are wide with worry, his mouth stretched into an uneasy smile. I bet he didn't have that look on his face in the shower.
It is over, I say in my head, with the dramatic flourish of a woman wronged. Then I turn around to find Marcus. Sweet Marcus, who offered me his Coke on the beach and is not engaged to anyone.
* * *
Ahh. The bunny-in-the-pot routine," Ethan says when I give him the update on Monday morning.
"It was not a bunny-in-the-pot routine!" I protest, remembering that I saw Fatal Attraction with Darcy and Ethan. Darcy had major issues with the whole premise. She kept saying how unrealistic it was—no man would cheat on his wife with a much-less-attractive woman. I guess I am disproving her theory.
"Oh no?" Ethan deadpans. "Well, perhaps a variation on that theme. More subtle though. You just exerted slight pressure… and let him know that it is unacceptable to continue relations with his fiancée."
"Well, anyway… it's over," I say, realizing that those two words lump me right in with a hoard of naive women who say it's over while praying it's not, looking for any shred of hope, insisting that they only want closure when what they really want is that one last conversation disguised as seeking closure while they work to keep the door open for more. And the pathetic truth is I do want more. I wish I could undo the confrontation at the Talkhouse. I should not have said a word to Dex. I feel an ache of worry that he is going to stop seeing me altogether. He will probably decide that it's not worth it, the situation is just way too complicated.
"It's over, huh?" Ethan asks dubiously.
"Yes."
"Bravo," Ethan says in his finest English accent. "Way to take a stand."
"So, anyway," I say, as if it is easy for me to transition away from Dex.
"Yeah. So anyway. Are you coming to London the week of the Fourth?" he asks.
I had mentioned it as a possibility in a recent e-mail, before Dex and I had established our date. Now I don't want to leave. Just in case things aren't completely over. "Um, I doubt it. I already committed to the Hamptons," I say.
"Won't Dex be there?"
"Yes, but I still want to get my money's worth out of the share."
"Right. Uh-huh."
"Don't say it like that."
"Okay," he says, changing his tone. "But are you ever going to visit me? You blew me off after your bar exam too. Because of that Nate guy."
"I willVisit. I promise. Maybe in September."
"Okay… But the Fourth would have been fun."
"It's not even a holiday there," I say.
"Yeah. It's funny the way the Brits don't celebrate our independence from them… But it's a holiday in my heart, Rachel."
I laugh and tell him that I'll look into flights for the fall.
"All right. I'll e-mail you my free weekends—all my deets."
He knows I hate the word "deets." Just as I hate people who make a "rez" for dinner. Or ask you to get back to them "ASAP." And Ethan's favorite, designed especially to annoy me—"YOYO," i.e., "you're on your own."
I smile. "Sounds fab."
"Super then."
My phone rings as soon as I hang up with Ethan. Les's name shows up on my screen. I consider not picking up but have learned that avoidance techniques don't work well at a law firm. It only makes partners more irritable when you finally do talk.
"How did you serve the IXP papers?" he barks into the phone as soon as I say hello. Les always skips the pleasantries.
"What do you mean?"
"Your mode of service. By mail? By hand?"
I nailed it to his cottage door, jackass, I think, remembering the antiquated mode of service tested by the New York bar.