Dex watches me intently, waiting for my answer.
“Yes,” I finally say, somewhat apologetically. “I miss her. I can’t help it.”
He nods as though he understands. I wonder why I miss her and Dex does not. Perhaps it is because I’ve known her so much longer. Or maybe it’s the very nature of a friendship versus an intimate relationship. When you are in a relationship, you are aware that it might end. You might grow apart, find someone else, simply fall out of love. But a friendship isn’t a zero-sum game, and as such, you assume that it will last forever, especially an old friendship. You take its permanence for granted, which might be the very thing so dear about it. Even as Dex rolled those double sixes, I never imagined the end of Darcy and me.
I picture her now, wondering what she is feeling at this very moment. Is she as melancholy as I am? Or just angry? Is she with Marcus or Claire? Or is she alone, flipping sorrowfully through our high school yearbook and old pictures of Dex? Does she miss me too? Will we ever be friends again, tentatively agreeing to meet for lunch or coffee, rebuilding one small step at a time? Maybe she and I will laugh about that crazy summer when one of us was still twenty-something. But I doubt it. This one can’t be bridged, particularly if Dex and I stay together. Our friendship is likely over forever, and maybe that is for the best. Maybe Ethan was right, and the time has come to stop using Darcy as a measuring stick for my own life.
I run my hands along my glass, marveling at how much has changed in such a short time. How much I have changed. I was a parent-pleaser, a dutiful friend. I made safe, careful choices and hoped that things would fall into place for me. Then I fell in love with Dex and still viewed it as something happening to me. I hoped that he would make things right, or that fate would intervene. But I have learned that you make your own happiness, that part of going for what you want means losing something else. And when the stakes are high, the losses can be that much greater.
Dex and I talk for a long time, covering virtually every moment of our summer, chronicling it all—the good and the gory. Mostly we laugh, and only once do I get teary, when we get to the part where he told me he was going to marry Darcy. I tell him how I rolled our dice after he left my apartment. He says he is sorry. I say that he has no reason to be sorry, that he didn’t at the time, and certainly doesn’t now.
And then, just before midnight, comes that sweet sound of the harmonica, playing slowly at first and then building momentum before Bruce sings, The screen door slams, Mary’s dress waves.
A smile spreads across Dex’s face, his eyes are bright and especially green. He pulls me against his chest and says into my ear, “I’m glad we’re not eating cake right now.”
“Me too,” I whisper.
Dex holds me as we listen to Bruce, the words rich with our meaning:
Hey what else can we do now
Except roll down the windows and let the wind blow back your hair
Well the night’s busting open
These two lanes will take us anywhere
It occurs to me that tonight is an ending and a beginning. But for once, I embrace both. The last line of “Thunder Road” fills the bar: And I’m pulling out of here to win.
“You want to go now?” I ask Dex.
He nods. “I do.”
We stand and walk through the smoky bar, leaving 7B before the next song begins to play. It is a beautiful, clear night with a faint chill in the air. Fall is coming. I take Dexter’s hand as we stroll up Avenue B, looking for a yellow cab headed in the right direction.
Reading Group Guide
What do you think was the real impetus behind Rachel’s decision to sleep with Dex after her birthday party? Was it about her desire to break out of her good girl persona? Was it about a long-standing resentment toward Darcy? Or was it both?
How do you view Dex? How would you describe Dex and Rachel’s relationship? What drew them together? Did you root for them to be together? Do you think they have true love?
Is anything about Rachel and Darcy’s friendship genuine? Do you believe it has changed over time? Why does Rachel defend Darcy against attacks from Ethan and Hillary? Compare and contrast Rachel’s friendship with Hillary and Ethan to her friendship with Darcy.
Do you think Dex and Darcy would have married if it weren’t for Dex’s affair with Rachel? Why did he stay with Darcy for so long?
How did Rachel’s flawed self-image contribute to the dilemma that she faces? What do you see as her greatest weakness?
Was Rachel’s moral dilemma made easier because of Darcy’s personality? Would she have acted on her attraction to Dex if Darcy were a different kind of person and friend? If Rachel had fallen in love with Julian, would she have pursued the same course of action? How does Rachel rationalize her affair with Dex?
What risks does Rachel take when she pursues her relationship with Dex? What is the biggest moment of risk for her? How does Rachel grow and change in the novel?
Disloyalty is a major theme in this novel. How differently do men and women view cheating on a friend? Why is Darcy so indignant when she catches Dex and Rachel together when she has been having an affair of her own?
Under what circumstances is it justified to choose love over friendship? How important is it for women to stick together? Have you ever been in a friendship like Darcy and Rachel’s?
This novel is told from Rachel’s perspective. How do you think Darcy would tell the same story? How do you think she would describe Rachel? How do you think she views their friendship?
For more reading group suggestions visit www.readinggroupgold.com
Also by Emily Giffin
Something Blue
Baby Proof
Love the One You’re With
Heart of the Matter
Enjoy a sneak peek into the novels of Emily Giffin, and discover why millions of readers all over the world have fallen in love with them…
Prologue
I was born beautiful. A C-section baby, I started life out right by avoiding the misshapen head and battle scars that come with being forced through a birth canal. Instead, I emerged with a dainty nose, bow-shaped lips, and distinctive eyebrows. I had just the right amount of fuzz covering my crown in exactly the right places, promising a fine crop of hair and an exceptional hairline.
Sure enough, my hair grew in thick and silky, the color of coffee beans. Every morning I would sit cooperatively while my mother wrapped my hair around fat, hot rollers or twisted it into intricate braids. When I went to nursery school, the other little girls—many with unsightly bowl cuts—clamored to put their mat near mine during naptime, their fingers darting over to touch my ponytail. They happily shared their Play-Doh or surrendered their turn on the slide. Anything to be my friend. It was then I discovered that there is a pecking order in life, and appearances play a role in that hierarchy. In other words, I understood at the tender age of three that with beauty come perks and power.
This lesson was only reinforced as I grew older and continued my reign as the prettiest girl in increasingly larger pools of competition. The cream of the crop in junior high and then high school. But unlike the characters in my favorite John Hughes films, my popularity and beauty never made me mean. I ruled as a benevolent dictator, playing watchdog over other popular girls who tried to abuse their power. I defied cliques, remaining true to my brainy best friend, Rachel. I was popular enough to make my own rules.
Of course, I had my moments of uncertainty. I remember one such occasion in the sixth grade when Rachel and I were playing “psychiatrist,” one of our favorite games. I’d usually play the role of patient, saying things like, “I am so scared of spiders, Doctor, that I can’t leave my house all summer long.”
“Well,” Rachel would respond, pushing her glasses up on the bridge of her nose and scribbling notes on a tablet. “I recommend that you watch Charlotte’s Web…. Or move to Siberia, where there are no spiders. And take these.” She’d hand me two Flintstones vitamins and nod encouragingly.
r /> That was the way it usually went. But on this particular afternoon, Rachel suggested that instead of being a pretend patient, I should be myself, come up with a problem of my own. So I thought of how my little brother, Jeremy, hogged the dinner conversation every night, spouting off original knockknock jokes and obscure animal kingdom facts. I confided that my parents seemed to favor Jeremy—or at least they listened to him more than they listened to me.
Rachel cleared her throat, thought for a second, and then shared some theory about how little boys are encouraged to be smart and funny while little girls are praised for being cute. She called this a “dangerous trap” for girls and said it can lead to “empty women.”
“Where’d you hear that?” I asked her, wondering exactly what she meant by empty.
“Nowhere. It’s just what I think,” Rachel said, proving that she was in no danger of falling into the pretty-little-girl trap. In fact, her theory applied perfectly to us. I was the beautiful one with average grades, Rachel was the smart one with average looks. I suddenly felt a surge of envy, wishing that I, too, were full of big ideas and important words.
But I quickly assessed the haphazard waves in Rachel’s mousy brown hair and reassured myself that I had been dealt a good hand. I couldn’t find countries like Pakistan or Peru on a map or convert fractions into percentages, but my beauty was going to catapult me into a world of Jaguars and big houses and dinners with three forks to the left of my bone-china plate. All I had to do was marry well, as my mother had. She was no genius and hadn’t finished more than three semesters at a community college, but her pretty face, petite frame, and impeccable taste had won over my smart father, a dentist, and now she lived the good life. I thought her life was an excellent blueprint for my own.
So I cruised through my teenage years and entered Indiana University with a “just get by” mentality. I pledged the best sorority, dated the hottest guys, and was featured in the Hoosier Dream Girls calendar four years straight. After graduating with a 2.9, I followed Rachel, who was still my best friend, to New York City, where she was attending law school. While she slogged it out in the library and then went to work for a big firm, I continued my pursuit of glamour and good times, quickly learning that the finer things were even finer in Manhattan. I discovered the city’s hippest clubs, best restaurants, and most eligible men. And I still had the best hair in town.
Throughout our twenties, as Rachel and I continued along our different paths, she would often pose the judgmental question, “Aren’t you worried about karma?” (Incidentally, she first mentioned karma in junior high after I had cheated on a math test. I remember trying to decipher the word’s meaning using the song “Karma Chameleon,” which, of course, didn’t work.) Later, I understood her point: that hard work, honesty, and integrity always paid off in the end, while skating by on your looks was somehow an offense. And like that day playing psychiatrist, I occasionally worried that she was right.
But I told myself that I didn’t have to be a nose-to-the-grindstone soup-kitchen volunteer to have good karma. I might not have followed a traditional route to success, but I had earned my glamorous PR job, my fabulous crowd of friends, and my amazing fiance, Dex Thaler. I deserved my apartment with a terrace on Central Park West and the substantial, colorless diamond on my left hand.
That was back in the days when I thought I had it all figured out. I just didn’t understand why people, particularly Rachel, insisted on making things so much more difficult than they had to be. She may have followed all the rules, but there she was, single and thirty, pulling all-nighters at a law firm she despised. Meanwhile, I was the happy one, just as I had been throughout our whole childhood. I remember trying to coach her, telling her to inject a little fun into her glum, disciplined life. I would say things like, “For starters, you should give your bland shoes to Goodwill and buy a few pairs of Blahniks. You’ll feel better, for sure.”
I know now how shallow that sounds. I realize that I made everything about appearances. But at the time, I honestly didn’t think I was hurting anyone, not even myself. I didn’t think much at all, in fact. Yes, I was gorgeous and lucky in love, but I truly believed that I was also a decent person who deserved her good fortune. And I saw no reason why the rest of my life should be any less charmed than my first three decades.
Then, something happened that made me question everything I thought I knew about the world: Rachel, my plain, do-gooding maid of honor with frizzy hair the color of wheat germ, swooped in and stole my fiancé.
One
Sucker punch.
It was one of my little brother Jeremy’s pet expressions when we were kids. He used it when regaling the scuffles that would break out at the bus stop or in the halls of our junior high, his voice high and excited, his lips shiny with spittle: WHAM! POW! Total sucker punch, man! He’d then eagerly sock one fist into his other cupped palm, exceedingly pleased with himself. But that was years ago. Jeremy was a dentist now, in practice with my father, and I’m sure he hadn’t witnessed, received, or rehashed a sucker punch in over a decade.
I hadn’t thought of those words in just as long—until that memorable cab ride. I had just left Rachel’s place and was telling my driver about my horrifying discovery.
“Wow,” he said in a heavy Queens accent. “Your girlfriend really sucker punched you good, huh?”
“Yes,” I cried, all but licking my wounds. “She certainly did.”
Loyal, reliable Rachel, my best friend of twenty-five years, who always had my interests ahead of, or at least tied with, her own, had—WHAM! POW!—sucker punched me. Blindsided me. The surprise element of her betrayal was what burned me the most. The fact that I never saw it coming. It was as unexpected as a seeing-eye dog willfully leading his blind, trusting owner into the path of a Mack truck.
Truth be told, things weren’t quite as simple as I made them out to be to my cab driver. But I didn’t want him to lose sight of the main issue—the issue of what Rachel had done to me. I had made some mistakes, but I hadn’t betrayed our friendship.
It was the week before what would have been my wedding day, and I had gone over to Rachel’s to tell her that my wedding was called off. My fiancé, Dex, had been the first to say the difficult words—that perhaps we shouldn’t get married—but I had quickly agreed because I’d been having an affair with Marcus, one of Dexter’s friends. One thing had led to another, and after one particular steamy night, I had become pregnant. It was all hugely difficult to absorb, and I knew the hardest part would be confessing everything to Rachel, who, at the start of the summer, had been mildly interested in Marcus. The two had gone on a few dates, but the romance had petered out when, unbeknownst to her, my relationship with Marcus began. I felt terrible the entire time—for cheating on Dex, but even more for lying to Rachel. Still, I was ready to come clean to my best friend. I was sure that she would understand. She always did.
So I stoically arrived at Rachel’s apartment on the Upper East Side.
“What’s the matter?” she asked as she answered the door.
I felt a wave of comfort as I thought to myself how soothing and familiar those words were. Rachel was a maternal best friend, more maternal than my own mother. I thought of all the times my friend had asked me this question over the years: such as the time I left my father’s sunroof down during a thunderstorm, or the day I got my period all over my white Guess jeans. She was always there with her “What’s the matter?” followed by her “It’s going to be all right,” delivered in a competent tone that made me feel sure that she was right. Rachel could fix anything. Make me feel better when nobody else could. Even at that moment, when she might have felt disappointed that Marcus had chosen me over her, I was sure she’d rise to the occasion and reassure me that I had chosen the right path, that things happened for a reason, that I wasn’t a villain, that I was right to follow my heart, that she completely understood, and that eventually Dex would too.
I took a deep breath and glided into her orderly s
tudio apartment as she rattled on about the wedding, how she was at my service, ready to help with any last-minute details.
“There isn’t going to be a wedding,” I blurted out.
“What?” she asked. Her lips blended right in with the rest of her pale face. I watched her turn and sit on her bed. Then she asked me who called it off.
I had a flashback to high school. After a breakup, which was always a very public happening in high school, guys and girls alike would ask, “Who did it?” Everyone wanted to know who was the dumper and who the dumpee so that they could properly assign blame and dole out pity.
I said what I could never say in high school because, to be frank, I was never the dumpee. “It was mutual…. Well, technically Dexter was the one. He told me this morning that he couldn’t go through with it. He doesn’t think that he loves me.” I rolled my eyes. At that point, I didn’t believe that such a thing was possible. I thought the only reason Dex wanted out was because he could sense my growing indifference. The drifting that comes when you fall for someone else.
“You’re kidding me. This is crazy. How do you feel?”
I studied my pink-striped jeweled Prada sandals and matching pink toenail polish and took a deep breath. Then I confessed that I had been having an affair with Marcus, dismissing a pang of guilt. Sure, Rachel had had a small summer crush on Marcus, but she had never slept with him, and it had been weeks since she had even kissed him. She just couldn’t be that upset by the news.