Something Blue

'They'd be so sorry if I killed myself,' I said to Marcus. 'Think they'd come to my funeral? Would they apologize to my parents?'

'Yeah. Probably so. But people move on fast. In fact, sometimes they even forget about you at the funeral, depending on how good the food is.'

'But what about their guilt?' I asked. 'How could they live with themselves?'

He assured me that the initial guilt could be assuaged by any good therapist. So after a few weeknights on a leather couch, the person, once racked with what ifs, would come to understand that only a very troubled soul would take her own life, and that one, albeit significant, act of betrayal doesn't cause a healthy person to jump in front of the number 6 train.

I knew that Marcus was right, remembering that when Rachel and I were sophomores in high school, one of our classmates, Ben Murray, shot himself in the head with his father's revolver in his bedroom while his parents watched television downstairs. The stories varied-but, bottom line, we all knew that it had something to do with a fight he'd had with his girlfriend, Amber Lucetti, who had dumped him for a college guy she met while visiting her sister at Illinois State. None of us could forget the moment when a guidance counselor ushered Amber out of speech class to give her the horrific news. Nor could we forget the sound of Amber's wails echoing in the halls. We all imagined that she'd lose it altogether and end up in a mental ward somewhere.

Yet within a few days, Amber was back in class, giving a speech on the recent stock market crash. I had just given my speech on why grocery-store makeup was the way to go-over more expensive makeup-as it all comes from the same big vats of oils and powder. I marveled at Amber's ability to give such a substantive speech, barely glancing at her index cards, when her ex-boyfriend was in a coffin under the frozen ground. And her competent speech was nothing compared to the spectacle she created when making out with Alan Hysack at the Spring Dance, fewer than three months after Ben's funeral.

So if I were striving to destroy Rachel and Dex's world, suicide might not be the answer, either. Which left me with one option: stay on course with my charmed, perfect life. Don't they say that happiness is the best revenge? I'd marry Marcus, have his baby, and ride off into the sunset, never looking back.

'Hey. Give me a slice after all,' I said to Marcus. 'I'm eating for two now.'

That night I called my parents and broke the news. My father answered and I told him to put Mom on the other extension. 'Mom, Dad, the wedding is off. I'm so sorry,' I said stoically, perhaps too stoically because they instantly assumed that I was solely to blame for the breakup. Dear ol' Dex would never cancel a wedding the week before it was to take place. My mother turned on her sob switch, wailing about how much she loved Dexter, while my father shouted over her in his 'Now, Darcy. Don't be rash' tone. At which point, I dropped the closet-story bomb on them. A rare hush fell over the phone. They were so silent that I thought for a second that we had been disconnected. My father finally said there must be some mistake because Rachel would never do such a thing. I told them I never would have believed it either. But I saw it with my own two eyes-Dex in his boxers in Rachel's closet. Needless to say, I said nothing about Marcus or the baby to my parents. I wanted to have their full emotional and financial support. I wanted them to cast the blame on Rachel, the neighborhood girl who had duped them just as she had duped me. Perfect, trustworthy, good-hearted, loyal, reliable, predictable Rachel.

'What are we going to do, Hugh?' my mother asked my father in her little-girl tone.

'I'll take care of it,' he said. 'Everything will be fine. Darcy, don't you worry about a thing. We have the guest list. We'll call the family. We'll contact The Carlyle, the photographer. Everyone. You sit tight. Do you want us to come out on our same flight on Thursday or do you want a ticket to come home? You say the word, honey.'

My father was in full-on crisis mode, the way he got during a tornado watch or a snowstorm or anytime our declawed, half-blind indoor cat would escape out the back door and dart out into the street, while my mother and I freaked out, secretly delighting in the drama.

'I don't know, Daddy. I just can't even think straight right now.'

My dad sighed and then said, 'Do you want me to call Dex? Talk some sense into him?'

'No, Daddy. It won't do any good. It's over. Please don't. I have some pride.'

'That bastard' my mother chimed in. 'And Rachel! I just can't believe that little tramp.'

'Dee, that's not helping,' my father said.

'Well, I know,' my mother said. 'But I just can't believe that Rachel would do such a thing. And how in the world could Dex want to be with her?'

'I know!' I said. 'There's no way that they're actually together, right? He couldn't really like her?'

'No. No way,' my mother said.

'I'm sure Rachel is sorry,' my dad said. 'It was a very inappropriate thing to do.'

'Inappropriate isn't the word for it,' my mother said.

My father tried again. 'Treacherous? Opportunistic?'

My mother agreed with this assessment. 'She probably wanted him the whole time you were with him.'

'I know,' I said, feeling a fleeting sense of regret that I had let Dex go. Everyone viewed him as such a prize. I looked at Marcus to reassure myself I had done the right thing, but he was eyeing his PlayStation.

'Has Rachel called to explain or apologize?' my dad continued.

'Not yet,' I said.

'She will,' my mom said. 'And in the meantime, you stay strong, honey. Everything will be fine. You're a beautiful girl. You will find someone else. Someone better. Tell her, Hugh.'

'You're the most beautiful girl in the world,' he said. 'Everything's going to be just fine. I promise you.'

three

Ironically it was Rachel who had introduced Dex and me. They were both first-year law students at NYU, and because Rachel insisted that she wasn't in school to date, but rather to learn, she passed her friend Dex, the most eligible man on campus, along to me.

I remember the moment well. Rachel and I were at a bar in the Village, waiting for Dex to arrive. When he walked in, I instantly knew that he was special. He belonged in a Ralph Lauren ad-the man in the glossy ads squinting into the sunlight on a sailboat or bending thoughtfully over a chessboard with a fire roaring in the background. I was sure that he didn't get sloppy, fall-down drunk, that he would never swear in front of his mother, that he used expensive aftershave products-and perhaps a straight-edge razor on special occasions. I just knew that he could enjoy the opera, that he could solve any Times crossword, and that he ordered fine port after dinner. I swear I saw all of this in one glance. Saw that he was my ideal-the sophisticated East Coaster I needed in order to create a Manhattan version of my mother's life.

Dex and I had a nice conversation that evening, but it took him a few weeks to call and ask me out-which only made me want him more. As soon as he called, I dumped the guy I was seeing at the time, because I was that sure that something great was about to be launched. I was right. Dex and I fast became a couple, and things were perfect. He was perfect. So perfect that I felt a tiny bit unworthy of him. I knew I was gorgeous, but I sometimes worried that I wasn't quite smart enough or interesting enough for someone like Dex, and that once he discovered the truth about me, he might not want me anymore.

Rachel didn't help matters, because as usual, she seemed to have a way of highlighting my shortcomings, underscoring my apathy, my indifference to topics that she and Dex cared so much about: what was happening in third world countries, the economy, who stood for what in Congress. I mean, the two of them listened to NPR, for God's sake. Enough said. Even the sound of the voices on that station makes my eyes glaze over big time. Never mind the content. So after a few months of exhaustively feigning interest in stuff I cared little about, I decided to come clean with the real me. So one night, as Dex was engrossed in a documentary on some political happening in Chile, I grabbed the remote and switched the channel to a Gidget rerun on Nickelodeon.

'Hey! I was watching that!' Dex said.