Something Borrowed - Emily Giffin [68]
"Right," I mumble.
"So that's all I meant," she says innocently. "And deep down inside, they are so jealous of you. You're a big-time lawyer at a big-city firm."
I tell her that is crazy—not one of those girls longs for a career like mine. Most don't work at all, in fact.
"Well, it's not only the career. You are free and single. I mean, they watch Sex and the City. They know what your life's all about. It's glamorous, full of fun, hot guys, cosmopolitans, excitement! But they won't let you see their insecure side. Because it would make their own lives that much more pathetic, you know?" She smiles, pleased with her pep talk. "Yeah. Your life is totally Sex and the City, "
"Yes. I am a lot like Carrie Bradshaw," I say flatly.
Minus the fabulous shoes, incredible figure, and empathetic best friend.
"Exactly!" she says. "Now you're talking."
"Look. I don't really care what they're thinking," I say, knowing it is only half true. 1 only care to the extent that I agree. And part of me believes that being thirty and alone is sad. Even with a good job. Even in Manhattan.
"Good," she says, slapping her thighs with encouragement. "Good. That's the spirit."
We arrive at Jessica Pell's—a fringe friend of ours from high schoolexactly on time. Darcy consults her watch and insists on driving around for a few minutes, to be fashionably late.
I tell her it's not necessary to be fashionably late to a baby shower, but I oblige, and at her request, I take her through the McDonald's drive-through. She leans over me and yells into the speaker that she "would love a small diet Pepsi." Now, I know that she knows that McDonald's has Coke, not Pepsi. She has told me before that she likes to test them, see if they'll ask. That the Pepsi people always ask if you order the Coke, but the Coke people don't always ask.
But it is an opportunity to make a stir, create an exchange. Pimply Suburbanite meets Big-City Supermodel.
"Is diet Coke awright?" the boy mumbles into his microphone.
"Guess it'll have to do," she says with a good-natured chuckle.
She finishes her diet Coke as we pull up to Jessica's house. "Well. Here goes nothing," she says, fluffing her hair, as if this shower were all about her instead of Annalise and her unborn child.
The other guests have already assembled in Jessica's well-coordinated blue-and-yellow living room when we arrive. Annalise screams, waddles over to us, and gathers us in a group hug. Despite the uncommon ground, we are still her best friends. And it is clear that we are the honored invitees, a role that makes me somewhat uncomfortable and Darcy bask.
"It's so good to see you guys! Thank you so much for coming in!" Annalise says. "You both look amazing. Amazing. You get more stylish every time you come home!"
"You look great too,' I say. "Pregnancy agrees with you. You have that glow."
Like my parents' house, Annalise resists change. She still has the same hairstyle—shoulder-length with curled-under bangs—that was great in the eighties, horrible in the mid-nineties, and through sheer luck, slightly less awful now. It passes as a nice motherly cut. And her face, always round as a persimmon, no longer looks chubby, but simply part of the cute, pregnant package. She is the sort of pregnant woman that people gladly relinquish their seats to on the subway.
Darcy rubs Annalise's stomach with her jeweled left hand. The diamond catches the light and flashes in my face. "Oh my," Darcy coos. "There is a little naked person in there!"
Annalise laughs and says, "Well yes, that is one way of looking at it!" She introduces us to some of the guests, fellow teachers and guidance counselors from the school where she teaches, and other neighborhood friends. "And of course, you know everybody else!"
We exchange hugs with Jess