mean, feared variety) walked by us with her boyfriend, Paul Kinser. With her virtually nonexistent chin and way- too-thin lips, she really wasn't pretty at all, although at the time she somehow convinced a lot of people, including me, that she was. So when Paul and Becky passed us, I looked at them, because they were popular seniors, and I was impressed, or at the very least, curious. I'm sure I wanted to hear what they were talking about so that I could glean some insight into being eighteen (so old!) and cool. I think it was only a casual glance in their direction, but maybe it was a stare.
In any case, Becky gave me an exaggerated stare back, making her eyes pop out like a cartoon. She followed this with a hyenalike, lip-curling sneer and said, 'What're you lookin' at?'
Then Paul chimed in with 'Catching flies?' (I'm sure dating Becky made Paul meaner, or maybe he just figured out that being mean earned him action later.)
Sure enough, my mouth was wide open. I snapped it shut, mortified. Becky laughed, proud to have shamed a freshman. She then reapplied her pink frosted lipstick, inserted a fresh piece of Big Red into her mean little mouth, and made one final face at me for good measure.
Darcy had been shuffling through books in our locker but clearly caught the gist of the exchange. She spun and eyed the pair with revulsion, a look she had practiced and mastered. She then imitated Becky's shrill laughter, craning her neck unnaturally backward and rolling in her lips to make them invisible. She was hideous-and looked exactly like Becky in midchortle.
I stifled a smile while Becky looked momentarily stunned. She then gathered herself, took a step toward Darcy, and spat out the word 'bitch.' Darcy was unflinching as she stared right back at the senior duo and said, 'It's better than being an ugly bitch. Wouldn't you agree, Paul?'
It was Becky's turn to stare, mouth agape, at her newly discovered adversary. And before she could formulate a comeback, Darcy threw in another insult for good measure. 'And by the way, Becky, that lipstick you're wearing? It's so last year.'
Everything about that moment is suddenly in sharp focus. I can see our locker decorated with pictures of Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing. I can smell that distinct, starchy, meat-based odor of the nearby cafeteria. And I can hear Darcy's voice, forceful and confident. Of course, Paul had no response to Darcy's question, as it was clear to all four of us that Darcy was right-she was the prettier of the two. And in high school that sometimes gives you the last word, even if you are a freshman. Becky and
Paul scurried off and Darcy just kept talking to me about whatever it was we had been talking about, as if Becky and Paul were totally insignificant. Which they were. It just took a lot to realize that at fourteen.
I turn off the water, wrap a towel around my body and another over my head. I will call Dexter as soon as I get to work. I will tell him that it has to stop. This time I really mean it. He is marrying Darcy, and I am the maid of honor. We both love her. Yes, she has flaws. She can be spoiled, self-centered, and bossy, but she can also be loyal and kind and wildly fun. And she is the closest thing to a sister that I will ever have.
During my commute, I practice what I will say to Dex, even talking out loud at one point on the subway. When I finally arrive at work, I have my speech so memorized that it no longer sounds scripted. I've inserted the proper pauses into my Declaration of Mind-set and Future Intent. I am ready.
Just as I am about to make the phone call, I notice that I have an e-mail from Dex. I open it, expecting him to have reached the same conclusion. The subject line reads 'You.'
You are an amazing person, and I don't know where the feelings that you give me came from. What I do know is that I am completely and utterly into you and I want time to freeze so I can be with you all the time and not have to think of anything else at all. I like literally everything about you, including the way your face shows everything you're thinking and especially the way it looks when we are together and your hair is back and your eyes are closed and your lips are open just a little bit. Okay. That's all I wanted to say. Delete this.
I am breathless, dizzy. Nobody has ever written words like this to me. I read it again, absorbing every word. / like literally everything about you too, I think.
And just like that, my resolve is gone again. How can I end something that I have never experienced before? Something I have been waiting for my whole life? Nobody before Dex could make me feel this way, and what if I never find it again? What if this is it?
My phone rings. I answer it thinking it could be Dex, hoping it's not Darcy. I can't talk to her right now. I can't think about her right now. I am buzzing from my electronic love letter.
'Cheers, baby.'
It is Ethan, calling from England, where he has lived for the past two years. I am so happy to hear his voice. He has a smiling voice, always sounding like he's on the verge of laughter. Most things about Ethan are just as they were in the fifth grade. He is still compassionate, still has cherub cheeks that turn pink in the cold. But the voice is newer. It came in high school-with puberty-long after friendship had replaced my schoolgirl crush.
'Hi, Ethan!'
'What's the statute of limitations on wishing someone a happy birthday?' he asks. Ever since I went to law school, he loves throwing out legal terms, often with a twist. 'Strawberry tort' is his favorite.
I laugh. 'Don't worry about it. It was only my thirtieth.'
'Do you hate me? You should have called and reminded me. I feel like an absolute ass, after eighteen years of never forgetting. Shit. My mind is going and I'm still in my twenties-not to rub it in.'
'You forgot my twenty-seventh too,' I interrupt him.
'I did?'
'Yeah.'
'I don't think I did.'
'Yeah-you were with Bran-'
'Stop. Don't say that name. You're right. I forgot your twenty-seventh. That makes this infraction somehow less egregious, right? I didn't break a streak… So how is it?' He whistles. 'Can't believe you're thirty. You should still be fourteen. Do you feel older? Wiser? More worldly? What did you do on the big night?' He fires off his questions in his frenetic, attention-deficit-disorder way.
'It's the same. I'm the same,' I lie. 'Nothing's changed.'
'Really?' he says. It is like him to ask the follow-up. It's as if he knows that I am holding back.
I pause, my mind racing. Do I tell? Not tell? What will he think of me?
What will he say? Ethan and I have remained close since high school, although our contact is sporadic. But whenever we do talk, we pick up where we left off. He would make a good confidant in this emerging saga. Ethan knows all the major players. And more important, he knows what it's like to screw up.
Things started out right for him. He did well on the SATs, graduated as our salutatorian, and was voted most likely to succeed, picked over Amy Choi, our valedictorian, who was too quiet and mousy to win votes for anything. He went to Stanford, and after graduation took a job at an investment bank even though he majored in art history and had no interest in finance. He instantly despised everything about the banking culture. He said pulling all- nighters was unnatural, and realized that he preferred sleep to money. So he traded his suits in for fleece and spent the next several years drifting up and down the West Coast snapping pictures of lakes and trees, gathering friends along the way. He took writing classes, art classes, photography classes, funded by the odd bartending job and summers in Alaska's fisheries.
That's where he met Brandi-'Brandi with an /'' as I called her before I realized that he genuinely liked her, and that she wasn't just a fling. A few months into their romance, Brandi got pregnant (insisting she was part of that woefully unlucky.05 percent on birth-control pills, although I had my doubts). She said that abortion was out of the question, so Ethan did what he thought to be the right thing and married her at City Hall in downtown Seattle. They sent out homemade marriage announcements featuring a black-and-white photo of the two hiking. Darcy made fun of Brandi's way-too-short-and-tight jean shorts. 'Who the hell hikes in Daisy Dukes?' she said. But Ethan seemed happy enough.
And that summer, Brandi gave birth to a baby boy… an adorable, bouncing Eskimo baby boy with eyes that turned coal black almost immediately. Brandi, with blue eyes that matched Ethan's, begged for forgiveness. Ethan promptly had the marriage annulled, and Brandi moved back to Alaska, probably to track down her native lover.
I think Brandi soured Ethan on the whole fresh-air, live-off-the-land kind of life. Or maybe he just wanted
