singing a song I have never heard by some boy band. She knows every word. I watch her, marveling at her sudden transformation. I wait for her to bring up Dex again, but she does not.
I blew my chance to tell her to call the whole thing off, that Dex is all wrong for her. Why didn't I steer her in that direction, water the seed of discontent? I never play my hand right. Then again, I don't think Darcy really wants my advice. Other than to tell her that everything will be all right, that she should marry Dexter. And if I won't say what she wants to hear, she will find a video to cheer her up instead.
'That song's the bomb,' Darcy says, tossing aside the blanket. She gets up and shuffles across my apartment. She surveys my bookshelf where I recently put the Altoids tin and dice.
'What are you doing?'
'Looking for your high school yearbook. Where is it?'
'Bottom shelf.'
She squats and runs her fingers over the spines, stopping at the Husky Howler. 'Oh yeah. Here it is.' She stands back up and notices the tin, placed foolishly at eye level. 'Can I have one?'
'It's empty,' I say, but she has already deposited the yearbook onto the foot of my bed. Her long, sculpted arm darts toward the tin. She opens the lid. 'Why do you have dice in here?'
'Um, I don't know,' I stumble, remembering how Darcy used to tell me that I should never go on a timed quiz show. She used to lord it over me, saying that if she ever got picked to be on The Family Feud (never mind that we aren't in the same family) she'd have to think twice before selecting me to be on her team. And no way would I get to do the bonus round at the end.
'You don't know?' she asks.
'No reason, I guess.'
She stares at me as one might look at a babbling schizophrenic on the subway. 'You don't know why you put dice in an Altoids tin? Okay. Whatever, weirdo.'
She removes the dice from the tin, shaking them as if she is about to roll them.
'Don't,' I say loudly. 'Put them back.'
It is not a good idea to tell her what to do. She is a child. She will want to know why she can't roll them. She will want to roll them just because I told her not to.
Sure enough: 'What are they for? I don't get it.'
'Nothing. They are just my lucky dice.'
'Lucky dice? Since when do you have lucky dice?'
'Since always.'
'Well, why do you have them in an Altoids container? You don't like cinnamon Altoids.'
'Yes I do.'
She shrugs. 'Oh.'
I study her face. She is not suspicious, but she is still holding my dice. I will run across the apartment, tackle her, and wrestle them from her before I let her reroll them. But she just looks at them one more time and replaces them in the tin. I am not sure if they still have sixes facing up. I will check later. As long as they are not rolled again, I am okay.
She picks up my yearbook and carries it back over to the couch, flipping to the sports and intramural pages in the back. This will keep her busy for hours. She will find a thousand things to comment upon: remember this, remember that? She never tires of our high school yearbook, discussing the past and speculating about what has become of so-and-so who didn't show up at the reunion because either (a) he has now become a total loser or (b) the opposite phenomenon has occurred and he is so spectacularly successful that he doesn't have time to return to Indiana for a weekend (the category Darcy says I am in because, of course, I had to work that weekend and missed it). Or she plays one of her favorite games where she opens the book to a page, closes her eyes, scribbles her index finger over the page until I say stop, and whichever guy is closest to her finger will be the one I must have sex with. Those are classic Darcy games, and when our senior yearbook first came out twelve years ago, they were grand fun.
'Oh, my goodness. Look at her hair! Have you ever seen such poofy bangs?' Darcy gasps as she scrutinizes Laura Lindell's photo. 'She looks so ridiculous. They must be a foot high!'
I nod in agreement and wait for her next prey: Richard Meek. Only she decides to give him more credit than she gave him in the twelfth grade. 'Not bad. He's sort of cute, isn't he?'
'Sort of. He has a nice smile. But remember how he spit all over you when he talked?'
'Yeah. Good point.'
Darcy flips the pages until she finally grows tired of it, casts it aside, and resumes control of the remote. She finds When Harry Met Sally and squeals. 'It's just starting! Yes!'
We both recline on my couch, feet to head, and watch the movie we have seen together countless times. Darcy talks out loud constantly, quoting the parts she knows. I don't shush her once. Because even though she says talking during movies irritates Dex, I don't mind. Not even when she gets the line slightly wrong, so that I can't tell what Meg Ryan is really saying. It's just Darcy. This is what she does.
And like a favorite old movie, sometimes the sameness in a friend is what you like the most about her.
Chapter 18
The next evening Darcy calls me just as I am returning home from work. She is hysterical. A cold, calm feeling overcomes me. Could this be it? Has Dex told her that the wedding is off?
'What's wrong, Darcy?' I ask. My voice sounds tight and unnatural, my heart filled with conflict-love for Dex versus friendship with Darcy. I brace myself for the worst, although I'm not sure what the worst would be-losing my best friend or the love of my life. I can't fathom either.
Darcy says something that I can't understand, something about her ring.
'What is it, Darce? Slow down… What about your ring?'
'It's gone!' she sobs.
It doesn't seem possible that your heart can sink just as you feel tremendous relief, yet that is what happens as I register that this conversation is only about a missing piece of jewelry. 'Where did you lose it? It's insured, right?'
I am asking the responsible-friend questions. I am being helpful. But I sound rote. If she were any less hysterical, she might be able to tell that I don't care a lick that her ring has been misplaced. I tell her that she is a slob, that she probably just put it somewhere and forgot. 'Remember the time you thought it was gone and then found it in one of your slippers? You're always misplacing things, Darce.'
'No, it's different this time! This time it's gone! It's gone! Dex is going to kill me!' Her voice is trembling.
Maybe not, I think. Maybe this will be the opening he has been waiting for. And then I hate myself for thinking such a thing. 'Have you told him?'
'No. Not yet. He's still at work… What am I going to do?'
'Well, where did you lose it?'
She doesn't answer me, just keeps crying.
I repeat the question.
'I don't know.'
'Where did you see it last?' I ask. 'Did you have it at work today? Did you take it off to wash your hands?'
'No, I never take it off to wash my hands! What kind of dumbass would do that?'
I want to tell her not to snap at me, that she is the dumbass who lost her engagement ring. But I stay sympathetic, tell her that I'm sure it will turn up.
'No, it won't turn up.' More loud sobs.
'How do you know?'
' 'Cause I just know.'
I have run out of suggestions.
