her through the McDonald's drive-through. She leans over me and yells into the speaker that she 'would love a small diet Pepsi.' Now, I know that she knows that McDonald's has Coke, not Pepsi. She has told me before that she likes to test them, see if they'll ask. That the Pepsi people always ask if you order the Coke, but the Coke people don't always ask.
But it is an opportunity to make a stir, create an exchange. Pimply Suburbanite meets Big-City Supermodel.
'Is diet Coke awright?' the boy mumbles into his microphone.
'Guess it'll have to do,' she says with a good-natured chuckle.
She finishes her diet Coke as we pull up to Jessica's house. 'Well. Here goes nothing,' she says, fluffing her hair, as if this shower were all about her instead of Annalise and her unborn child.
The other guests have already assembled in Jessica's well-coordinated blue-and-yellow living room when we arrive. Annalise screams, waddles over to us, and gathers us in a group hug. Despite the uncommon ground, we are still her best friends. And it is clear that we are the honored invitees, a role that makes me somewhat uncomfortable and Darcy bask.
'It's so good to see you guys! Thank you so much for coming in!' Annalise says. 'You both look amazing. Amazing. You get more stylish every time you come home!'
'You look great too,' I say. 'Pregnancy agrees with you. You have that glow.'
Like my parents' house, Annalise resists change. She still has the same hairstyle-shoulder-length with curled-under bangs-that was great in the eighties, horrible in the mid-nineties, and through sheer luck, slightly less awful now. It passes as a nice motherly cut. And her face, always round as a persimmon, no longer looks chubby, but simply part of the cute, pregnant package. She is the sort of pregnant woman that people gladly relinquish their seats to on the subway.
Darcy rubs Annalise's stomach with her jeweled left hand. The diamond catches the light and flashes in my face. 'Oh my,' Darcy coos. 'There is a little naked person in there!'
Annalise laughs and says, 'Well yes, that is one way of looking at it!' She introduces us to some of the guests, fellow teachers and guidance counselors from the school where she teaches, and other neighborhood friends. 'And of course, you know everybody else!'
We exchange hugs with Jess and our other high school classmates. There is Brit Miller (who shamelessly worshiped and copied Darcy in high school). Tricia Salerno. Jennifer McGowan. Kim Frisby. With the possible exception of Kim, who was a bubbly cheerleader and, miraculously, also in the advanced science and math classes, none of the girls were particularly smart, interesting, or popular in high school. But as wives and mothers, their mediocrity matters no longer.
Kim slides down on the sofa and offers me a spot next to her. I ask her how Jeff (who also graduated in our class and played baseball with Brandon and Blaine) and her boys are doing. She says they are all doing great, that Jeff just got promoted, which was exciting, that they are buying a new house, that the boys are just perfect.
'What does Jeff do again?' I ask.
She says sales.
'And you have twins, right?'
Yes, boys. Stanley and Brick.
Now, I know Brick is her mother's maiden name, but I wonder again how she could have done that to a child. And Stanley? Who calls a baby Stanley, or even Stan? Stanley and Stan are man names. Nobody should have that name under the age of thirty-five. And even if the names were tolerable in their own right, they do not go together, my pet peeve in name selection. Not that you should choose rhyming names for twins, or even names beginning with the same letter, like Brick and Brock or Brick and Brack. Go with Stanley and Frederick-both old-man names. Or Brick and Tyler-both pretentious surnames. But Stanley and Brick? Please.
'Did you bring photos of the boys?' I ask the obligatory question.
'As a matter of fact I did,' Kim says, whipping out a small album with 'Brag Book' written on the cover in big, purple bubble letters. I smile, flipping through the pages, pausing for the requisite time before I go to the next. Brick in the tub. Stanley with a Wiffle ball. Brick with Grandma and Grandpa Brick.
'They're precious,' I say, closing the album and handing it back to her.
'We think so,' Kim says, nodding, smiling. 'I think we'll keep them.'
As she returns the album to her purse, I overhear Darcy telling her engagement story to Jennifer and Tricia.
Brit is egging her on. 'Tell her about the roses,' she prompts.
I had forgotten about the roses-perhaps blocked them out since the arrival of my own.
'Yes, a dozen red roses,' Darcy is saying. 'He had them waiting in the apartment for me after he proposed.'
Not two dozen.
'Where did he ask you?' Tricia wants to know.
'Well, we went out for a really nice lunch, and afterward he suggested that we take a walk in Central Park…'
'Did you suspect it?' two girls ask at once.
'Not at all…'
This is a lie. I remember her telling me two days before Dex asked that she knew it was coming. But to admit this would detract from the drama of her tale, as well as diminish her image as the one pursued.
'Then what did he say?' Brit asks.
'You already know the story!' Darcy laughs. She and Brit still keep in touch occasionally due to Brit's diligence; her fascination for her teen idol has never eroded.
'Tell it again!' Brit says. 'My engagement story is so lame-I picked out the ring myself at the mall! I have to live vicariously through you.'
Darcy puts on her pretend-modest face. 'He said, 'Darcy, I can't think of anything that would make me happier than having you as my wife.''
Except being with your best friend.
'Then he said, 'Please share your life with me.' '
And share your best friend with me.
A chorus of oohs and ahhs follow. I tell myself that she is embellishing the tale, that he really just uttered the standard 'Will you marry me?'
'Take off your ring,' Brit clamors. 'I want to try it on.'
Kim says that it is bad luck to remove your ring during the engagement.
Take it off!
Darcy shrugs to demonstrate that her free spirit is still very much intact. Or perhaps to point out that when you are Darcy Rhone, you don't need luck. She slips off her ring and passes it around the circle of eager women. It ends up in my hands.
'Try it on, Rach,' Brit says.
It is a married girl's fun trick. Make the single girl try on the diamond ring so she can, if only for a moment, get one step closer to the unknown euphoria of betrothal. I shake my head politely as though I'm declining a second helping of casserole. 'That's okay,' I say.
'Rachel, any prospects?' Tricia asks tentatively, as you would inquire about someone's CAT scan results.
I am ready to report a firm no, when Darcy answers for me. 'Tons,' she says. 'But no one special guy. Rachel is very picky.'
She is trying to help. But somehow it has the reverse effect, and I feel even more like an emerging old maid. Besides, I can't help but think that she is only being charitable because I so clearly look like the odd woman out, the loser in the group. If I were engaged to, say, Brad Pitt, there'd be no way that Darcy would brag on my behalf. She'd be sulking in the corner, her competitive juices flowing in full force, telling Brit in the bathroom that yes, Brad is Brad, but Dex is so much cuter-just a little less pretty. Of course, with that, I would actually agree.
'I wouldn't say I'm that picky,' I say matter-of-factly.
Just hopelessly alone and having an affair with Darcy's husband-to-be. But you all do realize that I graduated from a top-ten law school and make six figures? And that I don't need a man, dammit! But when I do find one and
