“Here,” she says, tossing the bird over the net. “By all means.”
Dex catches the bird and glares at her.
The game is cutthroat, at least every time Hillary and Dex have control. The bird is their ammunition and they smack it with full force, aiming at one another. Marcus does the color in a Howard Cosell voice. “And the mood is tense here in East Hampton as both sides strive for the championship.” Claire is cheering for everyone. I say nothing.
The score is 9–8, Hillary and Julian lead. Julian serves underhand. Darcy squeals and swats with her eyes closed and through sheer luck happens to make contact with the bird. She sends it back across the net to Hillary. Hillary lines up her shot and hits a vicious forearm that conjures Venus Williams. The bird sails through the air, whizzing just over the net toward Darcy. Darcy cowers, preparing to swat at the bird, as Dex yells, “It’s out! It’s out!” His face is red and covered with beads of sweat.
The bird lands squarely beside Claire’s flip-flop.
“Out!” Dexter yells, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm.
“Bullshit. The line is good!” Hillary shouts back. “That’s match!”
Marcus offers good-naturedly that he doesn’t think a badminton game should be called a match. Claire is up off the bench, trotting over to the bird to examine its alignment with her shoe. Hillary and Julian join her from their side of the net. There are five pairs of eyes peering down at the bird. Julian says that it is a tough call. Hillary glares at him before she and Dex resume their shouting of “out” and “in,” like a couple of playground enemies.
Claire announces a “do-over” in her best “let’s make peace” voice. But clearly she was not an outdoor girl growing up because declaring a do-over is one of the biggest causes of dissension in the neighborhood. Hillary proves this to be the case. “Bullshit,” she says. “No do-over. The line has been in all day.”
“All day? We’ve been playing for twenty minutes,” Dex says snidely.
“I don’t think it’s landed on the line yet,” Darcy offers. But not as if she cares. As competitive as she is in real-life matters, sports and games do not concern her. She bought properties in Monopoly based on color; she thought the little houses were so much cuter than the “big, nasty Red Roof Inns.”
“Fine. If you want to cheat your way through life,” Hillary says to Dex, disguising her true intent with a friendly smile, as though simply engaging in playful banter. Her eyes are wide, innocent.
I think I might faint.
“Okay, you win,” Dex says to Hillary, as if he could not care less. Let Hillary win her stupid game.
Hillary doesn’t want it this way. She looks disoriented, unsure whether to reargue the point or savor her victory. I am afraid of what she will say next.
Dex tosses his racquet in the grass under a tree. “I’m gonna take a shower,” he says, heading for the house.
“He’s pissed,” Darcy says, offering us a blinding glimpse of the obvious. Of course, she thinks it’s about the game. “Dex hates to lose.”
“Yeah, well he can be a big baby,” Hillary says with disgust.
I note (with satisfaction? hope? superiority?) that Darcy does not defend Dex. If he were mine, I’d say something. Of course, if he were mine, Hillary would not have been so merciless in the first place.
I give her a measured glance, as if to say, enough.
She shrugs, plops down in the grass, and scratches a mosquito bite on her ankle until it bleeds. She swipes at the blood with a blade of grass, then looks up at me again.
“Well?” she says defiantly.
That night, Dex is so quiet at dinner that he borders on surly. But I cannot tell if he is mad at Hillary, or at me for telling her. He ignores both of us. Hillary ignores him right back, except for an occasional barb, while I make feeble attempts to talk to him.
“What are you ordering?” I ask him as he scans his menu.
He refuses to look up. “I’m not sure.”
“Go figure,” Hillary mumbles. “Why don’t you order two meals?”
Julian squeezes her shoulder and shoots me an apologetic look.
Dex turns in his chair toward Marcus and manages to avoid all conversation and eye contact with me and Hillary for the rest of our dinner. I am seized by worry. Are you mad? Are you mad? Are you mad? I think as I struggle to eat my swordfish. Please don’t be mad. I am desperate, frantic to talk to Dex and clear the air for our remaining time together. I don’t want to end on such a sour note.
Later at the Talkhouse, Dex and I are finally alone. I am ready to apologize for Hillary when he turns on me, his green eyes flashing. “Why the hell did you tell her?” he hisses.
I am not well trained in conflict and feel startled by his hostility. I give him a blank look, pretending to be confused. Should I apologize? Offer an explanation? I know we had an unspoken vow of secrecy, but I had to tell someone.
“Hillary. You told her,” he says, brushing a piece of hair off his forehead. I note that he is even hotter when he’s angry—his jaw somehow more square.
I push this observation aside as something snaps inside me. How dare he be angry with me! I have done nothing to him! Why am I the one feeling frantic, desperate to be forgiven?
“I can tell anyone I want,” I say, surprised by the hardness in my voice.
“Tell her to stay outta this,” he says.
“Stay out of what, Dex? Our fucked-up relationship?”
He looks startled. And then hurt. Good.
“It’s not fucked up,” he says. “The situation is, but our relationship is not.”
“You’re engaged, Dexter.” My indignation boils into fury. “You can’t separate that from our relationship.”
“I know. I’m still engaged…but you hooked up with Marcus.”
“What?” I ask, incredulous.
“You kissed him at Aubette.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing—he is engaged and is finding fault with a nothing little kiss! I fleetingly wonder how long he has known and why he hasn’t said anything before now. I fight back the instinct to be contrite.
“Yeah, I kissed Marcus. Big deal.”
“It’s a big deal to me.” His face is so close to mine that I can smell the alcohol on his breath. “I hate it. Don’t do it again.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I whisper fiercely back. Angry tears sting my eyes. “I don’t tell you what to do…You know what? Maybe I should tell you what to do…How about this one: marry Darcy. I don’t care.”
I walk away from Dex, almost believing it. It is my first free moment of the summer. Perhaps the freest moment of my life. I am the one in control. I am the one deciding. I find a space on the back patio, alone in a massive crowd, my heart pounding. Minutes later, Dex finds me, grips my elbow.
“You don’t mean what you said…about not caring.” Now it is his turn to be anxious. It never ceases to amaze me how foolproof the rule is: the person who cares the least (or pretends to) holds the power. I have proven it true once more. I shake his hand off my arm and just look at him coldly. He moves closer to me, takes my arm again.
“I’m sorry, Rachel,” he whispers, bending down toward my face.
I do not soften. I will not. “I’m tired of the warring emotions, Dex. The endless cycle of hope and guilt and resentment. I’m tired of wondering what will happen with us. I’m tired of waiting for you.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” he says. “I love you, Rachel.”
I feel myself weakening. Despite my tough-girl façade I am buzzing from being this near him, from his words. I look into his eyes. All of my instincts and desires—everything tells me to make peace, to tell him that I love him too. But I fight against them like a drowning person in a rip-tide. I know what I have to say. I think of Hillary’s advice, how she has been telling me to say something all along. But I am not doing this for her. This is for me. I formulate the sentences, words that have been ringing in my head all summer.
“I want to be with you, Dex,” I say steadily. “Cancel the wedding. Be with me.”
There it is. After two months of waiting, a lifetime of passivity, everything is on the line. I feel relieved and liberated and changed. I am a woman who expects happiness. I deserve happiness. Surely he will make me happy.
Dex inhales, on the verge of responding.
“Don’t,” I say, shaking my head. “Please don’t talk to me again unless it’s to tell me that the wedding is off. We have nothing more to discuss until then.”
Our eyes lock. Neither of us blinks for a minute or more. And then, for the first time, I beat Dex in a staring contest.
Twenty
It is two days after I delivered my ultimatum and one month before the wedding. I am still invigorated by my stand and filled with a soaring, positive feeling, stronger than hope. I have faith in Dex, faith in us. He will cancel. We will live happily ever after. Or something close to that.
Of course I worry about Darcy. I even worry that she might do something crazy when faced with her first dose of rejection. I have visions of her languishing in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV, dark circles under her eyes, her hair stringy, her skin gray. In these scenes, I am there by her side, bringing her magazines and black licorice, telling her that everything is going to be okay, that everything happens for a reason.
But even if these scenes play out, I will never regret telling Dex the truth about what I want. I will never be sorry for going for it. For once, I did not put Darcy above myself.
As the days tick by, I go to work, come home, go back to work, waiting for the bomb to drop. I am sure that Dex will call at any moment with news. Good news. In the meantime, I steel myself, refusing to give in to my temptation to call him first. But after a full week passes, I start to worry and feel the shift back to my former self. I tell Hillary that I want to call him, knowing that she will talk me out of it. I remind myself of a woman on the wagon, dragging herself to an AA meeting in a last-ditch effort to resist her urges.
“No way,” she says. “Don’t do it. Don’t contact him.”
“What if he was drunk and doesn’t remember our conversation?” I ask her, grasping at straws.
“His tough luck.”
“Do you think he remembers?”
“He remembers.”
“Well. I wish I hadn’t said anything.”
“Why? So you could have a few more nights with him?”
“No,” I say defensively.
Even though that is exactly the reason.
After another few days of torture, of being unable to eat or work or sleep, I decide that I must get away. I have to be somewhere else, away from Dex. Leaving town is the only way that I will keep myself from calling him, retracting everything for one more night, one more minute with him. I consider going to Indiana, but that is not far enough. Besides, home will only remind me of Darcy and the wedding.
I call Ethan and ask if I can visit. He is thrilled, says come anytime. So I call United and book a flight to London. It is only five days away, so I must pay full fare—eight hundred and ninety dollars—but it’s worth every penny.
After I type my vacation memo, I go to drop it off at Les’s office. Mercifully, he is away from his desk.
“He’s at an out-of-the-office meeting. Thank gawd,” his secretary, Cheryl, says to me. She is my ally, often warning me when Les is in a particularly foul mood.
“Just have a few things for him,” I tell her, heading into his den of horrors.
I put a draft of our reply papers on his chair, the vacation memo under them. Then I change my mind and move the memo to the top of the pile. He will be so pissed. This makes me smile.
“What’s that smirk for?” Cheryl asks as I leave his office.
“Vacation memo,” I say. “Let me know how much he curses me.”
She lifts her eyebrows and says, “Uh-oh,” without losing her place on the document she is typing. “Someone’s gonna be in trou-ble.”
Les calls me that evening when he returns to the office. “What’s the big idea?”
“Excuse me?” I ask, knowing that my calm will nettle him further.
“You didn’t tell me you were going on vacation!”
“Oh. I thought I did,” I lie.
“When was that?”
“I don’t know exactly…Weeks ago. I’m going to a wedding.” Two lies.
“Christ.” He breathes into the phone, waiting for me to offer to cancel my trip. In the old days, back when I was a first-year, the passive-aggressive trick might have worked. But now I say nothing. I outwait him.
“Is it a family wedding?” he finally asks. This is where he draws the line. Family funerals and family weddings. Likely only immediate family. So I tell him that it’s my sister’s wedding. Three lies.
“Sorry,” I say flippantly. “Maid of honor, you know.”
I let him rant for a few seconds and make an idle threat about getting another associate to take over the case. As if everyone is chomping at the bit to work with him. As if I would care if he replaced me. Then he announces with pleasure that this means no life outside the office for me until Friday. I think to myself that that won’t be a problem.
Darcy calls minutes later. She is just as understanding. “How can you book a trip so close to my wedding?”
“I promised Ethan I’d visit him this summer. And the summer is almost over.”
“What’s wrong with the fall? I’m sure London is even more beautiful in the fall.”
“I need a vacation. Now.”
“Why now?”
“I just need to get out of here.”
“Why?…Does it have anything to do with Marcus?”
“No.”
“Have you seen him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Okay. Maybe it does have something to do with Marcus…” I say, just wanting her to shut up. “I don’t think it’s going to work out with him. And maybe I’m a little bummed. Okay?”
“Oh,” she says. “I’m really sorry it didn’t work out.”
The last thing I want is Darcy’s sympathy. I tell her that it really has more to do with work. “I need a break from Les.”
“But I need you here,” she whimpers. Apparently her ten seconds of sympathy have expired.
“Claire will be here.”
“It’s not the same. You’re my maid of honor!”
“Darcy. I need a vacation. Okay?”
“I guess it’ll have to be.” I see her pouting face. “Right?” She adds this with a note of hope.
“Right.”
She sighs loudly and tries another tactic. “Can’t you go the week I’m in Hawaii on my honeymoon?”
“I could,” I say, picturing Darcy in her new lingerie. “If my world revolved around you…but I’m sorry. It doesn’t.”
I never say things like this to Darcy. But times have changed.
“Okay. Fine. But meet me at the Bridal Party tomorrow at noon to pick up your bridesmaid dress…Unless you have plans to go to Venice or something.”
“Very funny,” I say, and hang up.
So now Dex will know that I am going to London. I wonder how he will feel when he hears this news. Maybe it will make him decide more quickly. Tell me something good before I fly far away.
I keep waiting, feeling increasingly tortured with every passing hour. No word from him. No call. No e-mail. I constantly check my messages, looking for the blinking red light. Nothing. I start to dial his phone number countless times, compose long e-mails that I never send. Somehow I stay strong.
Then, on the night before my flight, José buzzes me. “Dex is here to see you.”
A flood of emotion rushes over me. The wedding is off! For once, my glass is not only half full, but it runneth over. My joy is temporarily clouded as my thoughts turn to Darcy—what will happen to our friendship? Does she know of my involvement? I push thoughts of her away, focus on my feelings for Dex. He is more important
now.
But when I open the door, his face is all wrong.
“Can we talk?” he asks.
“Yes.” My voice comes out in a whisper.
I sit stiffly as if I’m about to be told that someone very close to me has died. He might as well be a police officer, coming to my door with hat in hand.
He sits beside me and the words come. This has been a really hard decision…I really do love you…I just can’t…I’ve given it a lot of thought…feel guilty…didn’t mean to lead you on…our friendship…incredibly difficult…I care too much about Darcy…can’t do it to her…owe it to her family…seven years…summer has been intense…meant what I said…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m truly sorry…always, always will love you…
Dex covers his face with his hands, and I have a flashback to my birthday, how much I admired his hands while we were riding in the cab up First Avenue. Right before he kissed me. And now, here we are. At the very end. And I will never kiss him again.
“Say something,” Dex says. His eyes are glassy, his lashes wet and jet black. “Please say something.”
I hear myself say that I understand, that I will be fine. I do not cry. Instead I concentrate on breathing. In and out. In and out. More silence. There is nothing more to say.
“You should go now,” I tell him.
As Dex stands up and walks to the door, I consider screaming, begging. Don’t go! Please! I love you! Change your mind! She cheated on you! But instead I watch him leave, not hesitating or turning back for one final look at me.
I stare at the door for a long time, listening to the loud silence. I want to cry, so that something will fill the scary blank space, but I can’t. The silence grows louder as I consider what to do next. Pack? Go to sleep? Call Ethan or Hillary? For one irrational second, I have those thoughts that most people don’t admit to having—swallowing a dozen Tylenol PM, chasing them with vodka. I could really punish Dex, ruin their wedding, end my own misery.
Don’t be crazy. It’s just a little heartbreak. You will get over this. I think of all the hearts breaking at this moment, in Manhattan, all over the world. All of the overwhelming grief. It makes me feel less alone to think that other people are getting their insides torn to tiny bits. Husbands leaving wives after twenty years of marriage. Children crying out, “Don’t leave me, Daddy! Please stay!” Surely what I feel doesn’t compare to that kind of pain. It was only a summer romance, I think. Never meant to last beyond August.