Something Blue

'The tickets were nonrefundable, Darcy. Even the hotel was already paid for,' he said, looking guilty.

'How could you do that? How? And then I see you two in Crate and Barrel, shopping for couches. That's how I knew about Hawaii. You were all tan. Shopping for couches… All tan and happy and buying couches.' I was babbling now, a total mess. 'Are you moving in together?'

'Not yet…'

'Not yet?' I said. 'So you are eventually? Are you serious?'

'Darcy, please. Stop this. Rachel and I didn't do this to hurt you. Just like you didn't get pregnant to hurt me. Right?' he asked in his 'please be reasonable' tone.

I looked out the window again at a pile of trash on the curb. Then I returned my gaze to Dex. 'Please be with me again,' I said softly. 'Please. Give me another chance. We had seven good years together. Things were good. We'll forgive each other and move on.' I walked back over to him and tried to hug him. He stiffened and recoiled like a puppy resisting the grasp of an overzealous child.

'Dex? Please?'

'No, Darcy. We don't belong together. We aren't right for each other.'

'Do you love her?' I asked under my breath, truly expecting him to say no or that he didn't know or that he wouldn't answer the question.

But instead he said, 'Yes. I love her.' I could see in his eyes that he wasn't saying it to be mean; he was saying it out of a sense of loyalty to her. It was that committed, resolute look of his. It was Dex being a good person, being true to his new girlfriend. I marveled at how fast old loyalties, ones that took years to build, could be ripped apart and replaced. I knew I had lost him, but I felt desperate to recruit a small piece of his heart back to me. Make him feel even a sliver of what he used to feel for me. 'More than you ever loved me?' I asked, looking for one small scrap.

'Don't do this, Darcy.'

'I need to know, Dex. I really need to know the answer to that,' I said, thinking that he couldn't possibly love her more in a few weeks than he had loved me when he had proposed after years together. It just wasn't possible.

'Why do you need to know, Darce?'

'I just do. Tell me.'

He stared down at the coffee table for a long minute in that dazed way of his where he doesn't blink. Then he looked around the apartment, his eyes resting on an oil painting of a dilapidated, pillared house surrounded by terraced fields and a solitary oak. We had purchased the painting together in New Orleans right at the beginning of our relationship. We had spent nearly eight hundred dollars on it, which seemed like a huge sum of money at the time, as Dex was in law school and I had just begun to work. It was our first big purchase as a couple-an implicit acknowledgment of our commitment to each other. Sort of like buying a dog together. I remember standing in that gallery, admiring our painting, as Dex told me that he loved the way the early evening shadows fell across the front porch. I remember him saying that dusk was his favorite time of day. I remember we grinned at each other as the clerk bubble-wrapped our painting. Then we returned to the hotel, where we made love and ordered a banana split from the room service menu. Had he forgotten all of that?

I guess I had forgotten such moments when my affair began with Marcus. But I remembered every such occasion now. Regret surged through me. What I would have given to have a big ol' redo, take back everything with Marcus. I looked at Dex and asked the question again. 'Do you love her more than you ever loved me?'

I waited.

Then he nodded and said so softly that it was nearly a whisper, 'Yes. I do. I'm really sorry, Darcy.'

I stared at him incredulously, trying to process what he was saying, how it could be possible that he could love Rachel so much. She wasn't that pretty. She wasn't that fun. What did she have that I didn't have besides a few measly IQ points?

Dex spoke again. 'I can tell you're in a bad place right now, Darcy. Part of me would like to help you, but it just won't work. I can't be that person for you. You have friends and family you need to turn to… I really have to go now.' His voice was distant, his gaze detached. In a few seconds, he would walk out, hail a cab, and cross the park to see Rachel. She would greet him at her door, her brown eyes sympathetic, probing for details about our meeting. I could hear her asking, 'How did it go?' and stroking Dexter's hair as he told her everything. How I had lied about the baby, then begged, then cried. She would feel both pity and disdain for me.

'Fine. Get out. I don't want to talk to you or her ever again,' I said, realizing that I had said pretty much the same thing in Rachel's apartment. This time, my words had a watered-down, weak effect.

Dex bit his lower lip. 'Please be well,' he said, gathering up his briefcase and the shoebox of junk he didn't want any more than he wanted me. Then he stood and walked out of his old apartment, leaving me for good.

sixteen

It was incomprehensible. In my entire lifetime-throughout high school, college, and my twenties-I had never been dissed by a guy. Not dumped. Not stood up. Not even slighted. And there I was-a two-time loser all in a week's time. I was completely alone, didn't even have a prospect in sight.

I also didn't have Rachel, my steadfast source of comfort when other things, unrelated to romance, had unraveled in my life. Nor did I have my own mother-whom I refused to call back and hear some variation of 'I told you so.' That left Claire, who came to my apartment after I had called in sick to work for three straight days. I was surprised that it took her so long to rush to my aid, but I guess she had no way of suspecting my depth of despair. Up to that point in my life, my definition of down-and-out was a bad case of PMS.

'What has gotten into you?' Claire asked, glancing around my messier-than-usual apartment. 'I've been so worried about you. Why haven't you returned any of my calls?'

'Marcus dumped me,' I said mournfully. I had sunk too low to try to put a triumphant spin on the facts.

She raised the blinds in my living room. 'Marcus broke up with you?' she asked, appropriately shocked.

I sniffed and nodded.

'That's ridiculous! Has he taken a look in the mirror? What was he thinking?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'He just doesn't want to be with me.'

'Well, the whole world's gone mad. First Dex and Rachel and now this't I mean- come on! This is nuts. I just don't get it. It's like an episode of The Twilight Zone.'

I felt a tear roll down my cheek.

Claire rushed over to give me a hug and a 'buck up, little camper' smile. Then she said briskly, 'Well, it's a blessing in disguise. Marcus was so bush league. You're better off without him. And Rachel and Dex are dullsville.' She headed for my kitchen, holding up a plastic bag filled with all the fixings for margaritas. 'And believe me, this whole situation is nothing that a few drinks won't cure… Besides, I have a much finer man all cued up for you.'

I blew my nose and looked at her hopefully. 'Who?'

'You remember Josh Levine?'

I shook my head.

'Well, I have two words for you. Hot and loaded,' she said, rubbing her thumb against her fingers. 'His nose is rather large, but not offensively so. Your daughter might need a minor nose job, but that's the only issue,' she said brightly. She rolled up her sleeves and set about rinsing my dishes covered with day-old Kraft macaroni and cheese residue. 'You briefly met him at that house in the Hamptons with the eighteen-person hot tub? Remember? He's friends with Eric Kiefer and that whole crowd?'

'Oh, yeah,' I said, conjuring a well-dressed, thirty-something banker with wavy brown hair and big, square teeth. 'Doesn't he have a girlfriend who is a model or actress or something?'

'He did have a girlfriend. Amanda something or other. And yes, she's a model… but the low-rent catalog kind. I think she wore some pleated cords in Chadwick's of Boston or something. But Josh