So about two weeks after what would have been my wedding day, I dragged Marcus on a furniture-shopping expedition. We took the subway uptown to Fifty-ninth and Lex and walked over to Crate and Barrel on Madison Avenue. As we pushed open the glass doors, I felt a surprising wave of sadness, remembering my last visit to the store, when Dex and I had registered for wedding gifts. I shared the memory with Marcus, who had developed a pat response to such recollections.
"Ahh. The good ol' days," he said, as he followed me to the second floor. At the top of the stairs, I admired an oblong cherry table with tapered legs. It was exactly what I had in mind for our table, but never imagined I would find it so easily. I swept my hand across the smooth surface. "This is perfect. Do you like it? What do you think? Picture it with upholstered chairs. Something in lime green, perhaps?"
Marcus shrugged. "Sure. Sounds good." He was staring at something behind me. "Um, Darcy… Rachel and Dex are here," he said in a tone that made me know it was not a joke.
"What?" I froze, and my heart stopped for several seconds. Then it began to race, beating faster than it does after a spinning class. "Where?" I whispered.
"At your nine o'clock. Over by that brown couch."
I turned around slowly, cautiously. Sure enough, there to my left, less than thirty feet away, was the enemy, scrutinizing a chenille couch the color of baby poo. They both had the whole casual Saturday look going—jeans and tennis shoes. Dex had his standard Saturday gray Georgetown sweatshirt, and Rachel was wearing a navy blue BCBG sweater that I helped her pick out at Bloomingdale's last year. The weekend before Dex had proposed, to be exact. A lifetime ago.
"Oh shit! How do I look?" I fumbled for the compact tucked into the side pocket of my Prada bag, and remembered that at the last minute I had removed it to add more blush and left it on Marcus's coffee table. I had no mirror. Instead I had to rely on Marcus. "How's my face?"
"You look fine," Marcus said. His eyes darted back to Rachel and Dex.
"What do we do? Should we get out of here?" I said. My knees felt weak as I leaned on my prospective table. "I think I'm gonna be sick."
"Maybe we should go have a chat," Marcus deadpanned. "It'd be the well-adjusted, mature thing to do."
"Are you crazy? I don't want to have a chat!"
Marcus shrugged. Dex had called Marcus a couple of days earlier to say "no hard feelings and congratulations on the baby." They had both glossed over the details, neither of them uttering my name or Rachel's. Marcus said the conversation was awkward, but had lasted fewer than three minutes. He said there was a tacit understanding that the friendship was over; even for guys, our situation was too much to get past.
"Okay, Darce. Let's get outta here," Marcus said. "I'm not in the mood for a reunion either." He pointed behind me at the staircase leading to the ground floor. We had an easy escape route. Clearly, we hadn't been spotted yet. Dex and Rachel were cheerfully chatting away, completely oblivious to the furniture-shopping coincidence of the century.
I wanted to turn and walk down the stairs, but I couldn't make myself go. It was like watching a gruesome scene in a scary movie. You don't want to see the girl get decapitated, but somehow, you always part your fingers to sneak a peek. I hid behind a bookcase and pulled Marcus down next to me. We watched Rachel and Dex stand and wander over to another couch, slightly closer to us. This one was boxier than the first, and as far as I was concerned, the better choice. Dex studied it and then made a face. It was too modern for him. I translated what had just transpired for Marcus. "See, he doesn't like clean lines. See?"
"Darcy, I don't give a shit about the couch they buy."
"They buy?You mean you think it's a joint purchase?"
"They buy. He buys. She buys," Marcus said, as if conjugating a verb in French class.
"Does she look good? Do they look happy?"
"Come on, Darce. Let's just go," he said.
I kept staring at them, my insides churning.
"Tell me," I demanded. "Does she look prettier than usual? Thinner maybe?" We watched Rachel and Dex return to their boring, brown couch. She sat and reclined smugly. Then she looked up at Dex and said something. His back was to us, but I could see him nod, run his fingers along the back of the couch. Then he stooped to flip through a book of color swatches on a coffee table next to the couch.
"Do you think they're moving in together?" I asked.
"How the hell should I know?"
"Did he say anything about that when you talked?"
He sighed. "I told you ten times every word of that conversation."
"He's just replacing our couch then, right? She's just helping him, right?"
He sighed harder this time. "I don't know, Darcy. Probably. Who cares?"
"Look. Don't lose your patience with me, mister," I said. "This is major." I thrust a finger toward them and then studied Dex and Rachel more, taking in every little detail. Three weeks ago, they were the people that I knew the best. My best friend and my fiance. Now they seemed like strangers or estranged loved ones whom I hadn't heard from in years. As Rachel turned her head, I noticed that her hair was layered a bit at the bottom, a radical departure from her usual blunt ends.
"Do you like her hair like that?" I asked Marcus.
"Sure. It's great," he said dismissively.
I gave him a look that said, Wrong answer.