'Do you think they're moving in together?' I asked.
'How the hell should I know?'
'Did he say anything about that when you talked?'
He sighed. 'I told you ten times every word of that conversation.'
'He's just replacing our couch then, right? She's just helping him, right?'
He sighed harder this time. 'I don't know, Darcy. Probably. Who cares?'
'Look. Don't lose your patience with me, mister,' I said. 'This is
'Do you like her hair like that?' I asked Marcus.
'Sure. It's great,' he said dismissively.
I gave him a look that said,
'Okay. It sucks. It's hideous.'
'Come on. Look at it! Tell me your honest opinion!' I was feeling frantic, wishing that Claire were with me. She'd find
Marcus thrust his hands in his pockets and glanced over at Rachel. 'She looks the same to me.'
I shook my head. 'No. They both look better than usual,' I said. 'What is it? Is it just that some time has passed?'
Then, just as Dex sat down beside Rachel, it hit me. Dex was tanned. Even Rachel didn't have her usual white glow. The realization slashed through my heart. They had gone to Hawaii together! I gasped. 'Omigod. They're tan. She went on
Marcus grabbed my arm. 'Darce-do
'He told me he was going to eat those tickets! How
'You told me he offered them to you,' Marcus said.
'That is totally beside the point! I wouldn't have taken you to Hawaii!'
Marcus raised his eyebrows as if to consider this. 'Yeah-that is kind of fucked up,' he conceded. 'You have a point.'
'She went on my honeymoon! What kind of a psycho bitch goes on her friend's honeymoon?' My voice was louder now.
'I'm leaving. Now.' He took the stairs, two at a time, and as I turned to follow him, I got one more sickening visual: Dex leaning down to kiss Rachel. On her lips. Tan, happy, smitten, kissing couch consumers.
My eyes filled with tears as I rushed down the stairs, past Marcus, past the barware, out the door to Madison Avenue.
'I know, honey,' Marcus said, when he caught up to me. For the first time, he seemed to have genuine empathy for my ordeal. 'This has gotta be hard for you.'
His kindness made me sob harder. 'I can't
'You don't mean that,' Marcus said.
'Fine. Maybe not death. But I want her to get a bad case of cystic acne that Accutane won't cure,' I said, thinking that incurable acne would actually be worse than death.
Marcus put his arm around me as we jaywalked across Sixtieth Street, narrowly escaping a delivery guy on a bike. 'Just forget about them, Darce. What does it matter what they do?'
'It
Marcus hailed a cab, and then helped me inside. I cried the whole way down Park Avenue, picturing Rachel and Dex in all of the scenes that I had studied from our honeymoon brochures: the two of them in a Jacuzzi sipping champagne… at a luau grinning over a roasted pig amid native dancers twirling flames… frolicking in turquoise water… having sex under a coconut tree.
I remembered saying to Dex that we were a better-looking couple than any of the featured honeymooners in those brochures. Dex had laughed and asked me how I got to be so modest.
'Can we go to Hawaii on our honeymoon?' I asked Marcus when we arrived back at his apartment.
'Whatever you want,' he said, sprawling on his bed. He motioned for me to join him.
'We should go somewhere even more exotic,' I said. 'Dex picked Hawaii, and if you ask me, Hawaii is a trite choice.'
'Yeah,' he said, wearing his 'I want sex' expression. 'Everyone goes to Hawaii. Now c'mere.'
'Where will we go, then?' I asked Marcus as I reluctantly lay down next to him.
'Turkey. Greece. Bali. Fiji. Wherever you want.' You promise?
'Yeah,' he said, pulling me on top of him.
'And can we get a new, big apartment?' I asked, looking around at his stark white walls, his overflowing closet, and his hulking stereo equipment belching wires all over the scratched parquet floors, 'Sure.'
I smiled a sad but hopeful smile.
'But in the meantime,' he said, 'I know how to make you feel better.'
'Just one sec,' I said, as I picked up the cordless phone next to his bed.
Marcus sighed and gave me an exasperated look. 'Who are you calling? Don't you call them!'
'I'm
Rachel may have stolen Dex and my trip to Hawaii, but I was sure as hell going to have a nicer table.
But even the table (which was in stock) and sex with Marcus (which was incredible) did nothing to repair my mood. I just couldn't believe that Rachel and Dex were actually together-that their relationship was real. Real enough to go shopping for couches together. Real enough to go to Hawaii.
And from that day forward, I was totally obsessed with Rachel and Dex. They were two people cut entirely from my life, yet from my perspective, the three of us had never been so inextricably and permanently bound together.
twelve
Things only got worse when I turned thirty. I woke up on the morning of my birthday to my first dose of morning sickness. I was in bed with Marcus, on the side farthest from the bathroom, and barely made it over him to the toilet before I puked up the fajitas I had eaten for dinner the night before at Rosa Mexicano. I flushed, rinsed my mouth with Listerine, and brushed my teeth. Another wave overcame me and more red and yellow bits of pepper descended. I flushed, rinsed, brushed again. Then I collapsed onto the floor and moaned loudly, hoping that Marcus would wake up and come to my rescue. He didn't.
I thought to myself that Dex would have heard me puking. He was a very light sleeper, but at the moment, I chalked it up to him having greater compassion. Maybe Marcus wasn't nurturing enough for me. I moaned again, louder this time. When Marcus still didn't stir, I picked myself up from the cold tile and returned to bed, whimpering, 'Hold me.'
Marcus snored in response.