Something Blue

'Darcy. We've heard so much about you,' she said, her voice loaded with sarcasm and innuendo.

My mind raced. What had Ethan told them that would cause Phoebe to smirk? I considered the possibilities: Pregnant and alone? No. That didn't warrant a smirk, especially from a hulking woman with orange hair whose best hope of offspring sat in a Petri dish at a sperm bank. Mooching roommate? No. I hadn't been in the country long enough to achieve that status. Besides, I was still (barely) self-sufficient. Shallow New Yorker? Perhaps that was it, but I wasn't about to feel ashamed for being well-groomed and wearing fine clothes.

Then it hit me. Phoebe was smirking about Rachel and Dex. Ethan must have told them the whole story. Sure enough, as I talked about how much I was enjoying my visit to London, Phoebe's smile evolved into a full-on jackal grin, and I became convinced that she was amused by my plight, amused that my former best friend was shagging my former fiance.

'What's so funny here? Am I missing something?' I finally asked, glancing around the table.

Martin muttered that nothing was funny. Ethan shrugged, looking flustered and guilty. Phoebe hid her smile with her pint of frothy Guinness, a fitting drink for a beast of a woman. At least I don't have fat sausage limbs. At least I'm pretty and not wearing a nappy puce turtleneck. How could she not see that I had it all over her? As I watched Phoebe guffaw at her own bad jokes and order pint after pint to wash down her pork chops covered with thick, oniony sauce, I marveled at her abundance of misplaced confidence. To make my displeasure known to Ethan, I remained mostly silent.

Then, as we waited for our bill, Phoebe confirmed my hunch as she turned to me and slurred, 'I met your friend Rachel a few months back. She was lovely.'

I inhaled sharply and held her gaze, struggling to remain calm. 'Oh, you met Rachel? That is lovely… Ethan didn't mention that.' I glared at Ethan as he flinched, recrossed his arms, and averted his eyes to a nearby raucous table.

'Yeah,' he said. 'Martin and Phoebe met Rachel when she visited me…'

My heart pounded with indignation, and I could feel my face tighten and contort in an attempt not to cry. How dare Ethan bring me out with these people after introducing Rachel to them-and not give me any warning? And worse, from the way Phoebe was acting, I just knew that Rachel had had feelings for Dex during her visit to London, and that she had shared her thoughts with Ethan and his friends. Before tonight, I was sure that Rachel had not confessed much to Ethan. At least not anything too incriminating. I had assumed this because when we were kids Rachel once told me that she didn't divulge anything embarrassing or controversial even in her own diary because she feared an early demise from a fluke accident-something undignified like dropping her hair dryer in the bathtub or choking on a hot dog. And upon her death, she couldn't bear the thought of her parents reading an entry that might make them think less of her. 'But you'd be dead,' I remember saying to her. 'Even worse,' she'd say. 'Because if I were dead, I wouldn't be able to change my parents' opinion of me. That would be their final impression.'

So, because of Rachel's heretofore unflagging morality, coupled with her anxiety over what people might think of her character, I had assumed that if she had had feelings for Dex prior to our breakup, she surely hadn't shared them with anyone. I think I also wanted to believe that Ethan, although closer to Rachel, was my friend, too, and that he therefore wasn't holding out on me in any significant way. It was sickening to realize that not only did he likely know much more than he had let on-but that total strangers in London knew everything too. I felt like a fool-and feeling foolish is one of the all-time worst emotions. Suddenly I was burning up, fanning at my face with my small Chanel purse, panicking that perhaps Rachel and Dex had hooked up even before the day I caught them together.

In an attempt to ferret out the truth, I looked Phoebe straight in the eye and asked in a volume way louder than necessary, even in a noisy restaurant filled with a bunch of drunken Brits, 'When you met my friend Rachel, did she happen to mention that she wanted to fuck my fiance? Or had she already fucked him at that point?'

Martin looked pained as he intently studied our bill. Ethan shook his head. Phoebe let out a gleeful chortle.

'I'm glad that somebody here is amused,' I said, standing angrily from the table. My heel caught on the edge of my chair, causing it to crash to the ground. Everyone-including the two cute twenty-something guys who were now joined by two cute twenty-something girls-turned to stare, looking embarrassed for me. I fumbled in my purse for money, realizing that I had left my wallet on the floor next to my air mattress. This was unfortunate, because it would have been a way stronger statement to throw down a wad of bills before exiting. Instead I had to mumble to Ethan that I'd pay him back later. Then I stomped off, wondering if I could find my way home, and how much my feet were going to ache walking all that way in my new shoes. As I spilled onto the dark street, I realized that I had no idea where I was. I walked in one direction, then turned in the other, and was hugely relieved when Ethan appeared from the door of the restaurant.

'Darcy, just wait here. I have to pay our part of the bill,' he said, as if he were the one who had the right to be annoyed.

'You owe me an apology!' I shouted.

'Just wait here. I'll be right back. Okay?'

I crossed my arms, glared at him, and said fine, I'd wait. As if I had much of a choice. A minute later Ethan was back on the street, his lips set in an angry line. He hailed us a cab and opened the door roughly. How dare he be mad at me! I was the wronged party here. My instinct was to unleash, but I bit my lip, literally, waiting for him to talk first. He said nothing for several minutes and then spoke in a wry tone. 'So you and Phoebe got along brilliantly.'

'She's such a miserable cow, Ethan!'

'Calm down.'

'Don't tell me to calm down!' I shouted. 'How dare you bring me out with them when they know everything about me! You should have told me they had already met Rachel! I can't believe you all had a good laugh at my expense! I thought you were my friend!'

'I am your friend,' he said.

'Then tell me what you told them, Ethan! And while you're at it, tell me everything you know about Dex and Rachel!'

His neck muscles twitched. 'We'll talk about it at home, okay?'

'No. We'll talk about it now!' I shouted, but Ethan looked resolute, and I was afraid of pressing my luck. I wanted the truth too much to jeopardize pissing him off. It took all of my resolve, but I managed to keep my mouth shut the rest of the way home.

When Ethan and I arrived back at his flat, he disappeared to his bedroom, possibly to call Rachel and seek permission to divulge her dirty little secrets. I paced in the living room, wondering what he was going to tell me. How bad the truth was. After a few minutes, he returned to the living room and began rummaging through his CDs. I took off my jacket and heels and sat cross-legged on the floor, keeping my face placid, as I waited for the truth. The whole truth. Ethan calmly selected a Coldplay CD, turned the volume higher than I thought appropriate, and sank into his couch. He gave me a steely gaze. 'Okay. Look,' he said over the music. 'I'm really tired of this shit, Darcy. I am really, really sick of it.'

'So am I,' I said, reaching over to turn down his stereo.

He held up his hand as if to warn me that interrupting was not an option.

'So we're going to discuss this tonight and then never again, okay?'

'Fine,' I said. 'That's all I wanted in the first place.'

'Okay. When Rachel came here to visit me, she told me that she… that she had feelings for Dex.'

'I knew it!' I said, pointing at him.

'Are you going to listen or not?'

I swallowed hard and nodded.

'And she had been having those feelings for some time, but not that long a time.'

'How long?'

'A few weeks… maybe a few months.'

'A few months?' I shouted.

He gave me a look of warning, as if he were poised to exit the conversation. Sorry. Go on.