Something Blue

'Should I ask her now?' Lauren looked eagerly at Jeremy.

'Go ahead.' Jeremy beamed.

'Ask me what?'

'We want you to be a bridesmaid,' Lauren chirped. 'Because you've always been like a big sister to me.' She looked at Marcus and explained further, 'Darcy used to babysit for me.'

'I never babysat for you. Rachel did,' I said.

'Well, true,' Lauren said, her smile fading slightly. Mention of Rachel sombered up the room. I liked the effect-liked reminding everyone of my suffering. But the result was short-lived. Lauren's grin quickly returned in full force. 'But you were always there helping her. You were so fun.'

'Thanks,' I said. 'I try.'

'So will you?'

'Will I what?' I asked, pretending to be puzzled.

'Be a bridesmaid?'

'Oh. Yeah. Sure thing.'

Lauren clapped and squealed. 'Goody! And I want your help. I need your help.'

She could say that again, I thought. And sure enough, she did. 'I need you to help because you're so good at this stuff.'

'Why? Because I'm the wedding expert now that I just spent almost a year planning one?' Another reminder of my pain.

Lauren flinched, but then recovered. 'No. Not that. Just because you have the most excellent taste.' She turned to Marcus again. 'Incredible taste. Nobody has taste like Darcy.'

This much was true.

Marcus nodded and then took another swallow of beer.

'So I need your help,' she continued excitedly.

Okay. Let's start with those jeans. And the Keds. And your bangs.

I looked at my mother, hoping she was thinking the same thing. She was usually right on board with the Lauren criticism, recently ranting about her application of blush: two round circles of pink missing her cheekbones altogether. Not that Lauren had much in the way of cheekbones. She wasn't bringing the best genes to the table. But clearly my mother was not in her usual critical mode; she was hypnotized by the rosy glow of a new wedding to plan. She looked at Jeremy and Lauren adoringly. 'Lauren has been dying to call you. But Jeremy and I convinced her to wait to tell you in person.'

'I'm so glad you did,' I said flatly.

'You were right, Mom,' Lauren said.

Mom? Had I heard that right? I looked at Lauren. 'So you're calling her 'Mom' now?' Pretty soon she was going to lay claim to my mother's jewelry and china.

Lauren giggled, pressed Jeremy's hand to her cheek in a nauseating display of affection. It looked like a bad Kodak commercial, the kind that's supposed to make you cry. 'Yeah. I've felt that way about her for a long time, but now it feels right to call her that.'

'I see,' I said, with what I hoped was maximum disapproval. Then I glanced over at Marcus, who was finishing his beer.

'You want another?' I asked, standing for the kitchen.

'Sure,' he said.

I gave him a look. 'Come with me.'

Marcus followed me into the kitchen, where I went off on my family. 'How could they go on and on about this wedding after what I just went through? Can you believe how insensitive they're all being? I wanted to tell them about us getting married. Now it just doesn't feel right. Probably because I don't even have a ring,' I said. I shouldn't have shifted the blame to Marcus like that, but I couldn't help it. Casting the blame net wide is just my natural instinct when I'm upset.

Marcus just looked at me, and then said, 'Can I get another beer?'

I opened the refrigerator with such force that a bottle of Heinz ketchup flew from the side shelf onto the floor.

'Everything all right in there?' my mother asked from the living room.

'Just dandy!' I said, as Marcus replaced the ketchup and grabbed another beer.

I took a deep breath, and we returned to the living room, where my mother and Lauren were talking about the guest list.

'Two hundred seems just about right,' Lauren said.

'I think you're going to realize that two hundred is the bare minimum. It adds up fast. If your parents invite twenty couples, and we invite twenty couples, that's eighty guests right there,' my mother said.

'True,' Lauren said. 'And I'm going to want to invite a lot of people from Good Haven.'

'Well, that should cut down on the liquor bill,' Marcus joked.

Lauren shook her head and tittered. 'You'd be surprised how much they can put away. Every year at the Christmas party, they get lousy drunk.'

'Sounds like a wild and crazy time,' I said.

'Do they ever… you know… hook up?' Marcus asked. His first substantive contribution to the conversation was about geriatric sex. Lovely.

Lauren giggled and then launched into a story about Walter and Myrtle and their recent escapades in Myrtle's room. After she exhausted the nursing-home romance tales, my mother finally turned to my boyfriend and said, 'So, Marcus. Tell us a little about yourself.'

'What would you like to know?' he asked. Dex would have posed the same question, but with a completely different tone.

'Anything. Everything. We want to get to know you.'

'Well. I'm from Montana. I went to Georgetown. Now I work at a pointless marketing job. That's about it.'

My mom raised her eyebrows and recrossed her ankles. 'Marketing? How interesting.'

'Not really,' Marcus said. 'But it pays the bills. Barely.'

'I've never been to Montana,' Jeremy remarked.

'Neither have I,' Lauren said.

'Have you ever been out of the state?' I muttered under my breath. Then, before she could tell us about her childhood trip to the Grand Canyon, I said, 'So what's for dinner?'

'Lasagna. Mom and I made it together,' Lauren said.

'You and Mom, huh?'

Lauren was unfazed. 'Yeah! And you'll be my sister! Like the sister I never had! It's just too, too wonderful.'

'Uh-huh,' I said.

'So Marcus, do you have brothers and sisters?' my mother asked.

'Yeah,' he said. 'One brother.'

'Older or younger?'

'Four years older.'

'How nice.'

Marcus gave her a stiff smile, took another sip of beer. I suddenly remembered how much I wanted to kiss him the night of Rachel's birthday as I watched him drinking a beer at the bar. Where had those feelings gone?

The cocktail hour mercifully ended, and the six of us made our way into my mom's Ethan Allen dining room. Her china cabinet was polished to a high gloss and filled with her Lenox china and crystal.

'Take your seats, everyone. Marcus, you may sit there.' She pointed at Dexter's old chair. I saw a pained look flash in my mother's eyes. She missed Dex. Then another look crossed her face-one of determination.

But despite her efforts, dinner was painful. There were stilted questions from my parents and terse answers coupled with more beer-guzzling from Marcus. Then he made the comment that will go down in history.

It started with Jeremy talking about one of his patients, an older man who had just left his wife for a much