Something Borrowed - Emily Giffin [69]
Kim slides down on the sofa and offers me a spot next to her. I ask her how Jeff (who also graduated in our class and played baseball with Brandon and Blaine) and her boys are doing. She says they are all doing great, that Jeff just got promoted, which was exciting, that they are buying a new house, that the boys are just perfect.
"What does Jeff do again?" I ask.
She says sales.
"And you have twins, right?"
Yes, boys. Stanley and Brick.
Now, I know Brick is her mother's maiden name, but I wonder again how she could have done that to a child. And Stanley? Who calls a baby Stanley, or even Stan? Stanley and Stan are man names. Nobody should have that name under the age of thirty-five. And even if the names were tolerable in their own right, they do not go together, my pet peeve in name selection. Not that you should choose rhyming names for twins, or even names beginning with the same letter, like Brick and Brock or Brick and Brack. Go with Stanley and Frederick—both old-man names. Or Brick and Tyler—both pretentious surnames. But Stanley and Brick? Please.
"Did you bring photos of the boys?" I ask the obligatory question.
"As a matter of fact I did," Kim says, whipping out a small album with "Brag Book" written on the cover in big, purple bubble letters. I smile, flipping through the pages, pausing for the requisite time before I go to the next. Brick in the tub. Stanley with a Wiffle ball. Brick with Grandma and Grandpa Brick.
"They're precious," I say, closing the album and handing it back to her.
"We think so," Kim says, nodding, smiling. "I think we'll keep them."
As she returns the album to her purse, I overhear Darcy telling her engagement story to Jennifer and Tricia.
Brit is egging her on. "Tell her about the roses," she prompts.
I had forgotten about the roses—perhaps blocked them out since the arrival of my own.
"Yes, a dozen red roses," Darcy is saying. "He had them waiting in the apartment for me after he proposed."
Not two dozen.
"Where did he ask you?" Tricia wants to know.
"Well, we went out for a really nice lunch, and afterward he suggested that we take a walk in Central Park…"
"Did you suspect it?" two girls ask at once.
"Not at all…"
This is a lie. I remember her telling me two days before Dex asked that she knew it was coming. But to admit this would detract from the drama of her tale, as well as diminish her image as the one pursued.
"Then what did he say?" Brit asks.
"You already know the story!" Darcy laughs. She and Brit still keep in touch occasionally due to Brit's diligence; her fascination for her teen idol has never eroded.
"Tell it again!" Brit says. "My engagement story is so lame—I picked out the ring myself at the mall! I have to live vicariously through you."
Darcy puts on her pretend-modest face. "He said, 'Darcy, I can't think of anything that would make me happier than having you as my wife.'"
Except being with your best friend.
"Then he said, 'Please share your life with me.' "
And share your best friend with me.
A chorus of oohs and ahhs follow. I tell myself that she is embellishing the tale, that he really just uttered the standard "Will you marry me?"
"Take off your ring," Brit clamors. "I want to try it on."
Kim says that it is bad luck to remove your ring during the engagement.
Take it off!
Darcy shrugs to demonstrate that her free spirit is still very much intact. Or perhaps to point out that when you are Darcy Rhone, you don't need luck. She slips off her ring and passes it around the circle of eager women. It ends up in my hands.
"Try it on, Rach," Brit says.
It is a married girl's fun trick. Make the single