Something Blue aod-2

by Emily Giffin

  It was an idea whose time had come. I only had to convince Ethan to let me stay with him.

  I had known Ethan since the fourth grade, when he moved to our town in the middle of the school year. There was always a flurry of intrigue when a new kid arrived, with everyone excited at the thought of fresh blood. I remembered Ethan's first day well. I could still see our teacher, Mrs. Billone, resting her hand on his scrawny shoulder and announcing, "This is Ethan Ainsley. He comes to us from Long Island. Please join me in welcoming him."

  As we all muttered, "Welcome, Ethan," I found myself wondering where this island of his was located-in the Atlantic or Pacific?-and how a boy from the tropics could have such fair skin and light hair. I pictured Ethan running around half-naked, shimmying up trees to collect coconuts for all of his meals. Had he been rescued by a search team? Sent to foster parents in Indiana? Perhaps this was his first day in proper clothes. I suspected that it was torture for him to feel so restricted.

  At recess that day, Ethan sat alone on the curb near the monkey bars, writing in the dirt with a twig as we all cast curious glances his way. Everyone else was too shy to talk to him, but I summoned Rachel and Annalise and the three of us approached him. "Hi, Ethan. I'm Darcy. This is Rachel, and this is Annalise," I said boldly, pointing to my timid sidekicks.

  "Hi," Ethan said, squinting up at us over his oversized, round glasses.

  "So how far away is your homeland?" I asked him, cutting right to the chase. I wanted the full scoop on his exotic childhood.

  "New York is about eight hundred miles from here." He enunciated every word, making him sound very smart. It wasn't the voice I expected from a native islander.

  "New York?" I was confused. "But Mrs. Billone said you're from an island?"

  He and Rachel exchanged an amused glance-their first of many superior moments.

  "What's so funny?" I asked indignantly. "She did so say you're from an island. Didn't she, Annalise?"

  Annalise nodded somberly.

  "Long Island," Ethan and Rachel said in unison, with matching smirks.

  So it was a long island as opposed to a short one? That didn't clear anything up.

  "Long Island is part of New York," Rachel said in her know-it-all voice.

  "Oh. Yeah. Right. I knew that. I just didn't hear her say long," I lied. "Did you, Annalise?"

  "No," Annalise said, "I didn't hear that part either."

  Annalise never made you feel dumb. It was one of her best qualities. That and the fact that she was always willing to share anything. In fact, I was wearing her pale pink Jellies on that very day.

  "Long Island is the eastern part of New York State," Ethan continued. His condescending tutorial made it clear that he didn't believe me about not hearing the word long. That really got my fur up, and I instantly regretted any attempt to be nice to the new kid.

  "So why'd you move here?" I asked abruptly, thinking that he should have stayed back on his faux island.

  He reported that his parents had just divorced, and that his mother, originally from Indiana, moved back to be closer to her parents, his grandparents. It was hardly a glamorous tale. Annalise, whose own parents were divorced, asked him if his father still lived in New York.

  "Yes. He does," Ethan said, his eyes returning to his dirt doodling. "I'll see him on alternating holidays and during the summers."

  I would have felt sorry for him-divorce seemed just about the worst thing that could happen to a kid-right up there with having to wear a wig after leukemia radiation treatments. But it's hard to feel sorry for someone who makes you feel stupid for not knowing some insignificant geographical fact.

  Rachel changed the subject from divorce and asked Ethan questions about New York, as if it were her idea to talk to him in the first place. The two rattled on about the Empire State Building and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the World Trade Center, all places Ethan had visited and Rachel had read about.

  "We have big buildings and museums in Indianapolis too," I said defensively, pegging Ethan as one of those annoying people who always say, "Back where I come from." Then I steered Annalise away from their big-shot conversation over to a game of four square.

  After that day, I didn't give Ethan much thought until he and Rachel were placed in the academically gifted program called "T.G." for "talented and gifted" at the start of the following school year. I hated the T.G. program, hated the feeling of being excluded, of not making the cut. I couldn't stand the smugness of the T.G.ers, and resented them with a burning in my chest every time they trotted merrily down the hall to their mystery room and then returned, buzzing about their dumb experiments-like constructing clay boats in an attempt to hold the maximum number of tacks. Incidentally, Ethan won that contest, engineering a vessel that held nineteen tacks before sinking. "Big deal," I remember telling Rachel. "I stopped playing with Play-Doh and clay when I was four." I always sought to burst her bubble, insisted that T.G. really stood for "totally geeky." And just in case it looked like sour grapes, I reminded Rachel often that I had only missed the T.G. test score cutoff by one point and that was only because I had strep throat the day of the test and couldn't concentrate on anything other than my inability to swallow. (The part about strep throat was the truth; the part about one point was probably not-although I never knew for sure how far I had missed the mark, because my mother had told me that it wasn't important what my score was, that I didn't need the T.G. program to be special.)

  So in light of my irritation over Ethan's superiority, it was surprising when he turned out to be my first real boyfriend. It was also surprising because Rachel had had a crush on him since the day he arrived, while I was firmly in the Doug Jackson camp. Doug was the most popular boy in our class, and I was sure that he and I were going to become a hot-and-heavy item, until he taped a picture of Heather Locklear to his Trapper Keeper, announcing that he preferred blondes to brunettes. The sentiment put me in a huff and I decided to look for another candidate, perhaps even a sixth-grader. Skinny, pale Ethan was the farthest thing from my mind.

  But one day, as I watched him search the card catalogue for Peru, I suddenly saw in Ethan what Rachel was always carrying on about. He was pretty cute. So I waltzed over and bumped into him on purpose under the pretense of trying to find a card on Paraguay, one drawer over. He gave me a funny look, smiled, and flashed his dimples. I decided right then and there that I would like Ethan.

  When I delivered the news to Rachel later that week, I assumed she'd be pleased, happy that I was finally agreeing with her and that we'd have one more thing in common. After all, best friends should agree on all topics, certainly ones as major as who to have a crush on. But Rachel was not happy at all. In fact, she was furious, becoming strangely territorial, like she owned Ethan. Annalise pointed out that she and I had shared our crush on Doug for months, but Rachel wasn't persuaded. She just kept saying that Doug was somehow a different case, and she stayed huffy and self-righteous, muttering about how she had liked Ethan first.

  That was true enough; she did like Ethan first. But the way I saw it was this-if she liked him so darn much, she should have done something about it. Taken some real action. And by action, I didn't mean writing his initials in the condensation on her mother's car window. But Rachel was never one for action. That was my department.

  So a few days later, I wrote Ethan a note, asking if he wanted to go out with me, with instructions to check a box next to yes, no, or maybe. To be fair, I included Rachel's name as a fourth option. But at the last minute, I tore off that part of the note, reasoning that she shouldn't be the benefactor of my get-up-and-go. Besides, I didn't want to lose to Rachel when she was already beating me in so many other arenas. She was in T.G. after all. So I passed the note, and Ethan said yes, and just like that we were a couple. We talked on the phone and flirted during recess and it was all a tingly thrill for a few weeks.

  But then Doug changed his mind, announcing that he liked brunettes better than blondes after all. So I dumped E
than and put myself back on the fifth-grade market. Luckily, our breakup coincided with Ethan's Loch Ness Monster obsession; it was all he talked about for weeks, even planning a summer trip to Scotland or Switzerland or wherever the thing supposedly lived. So he had another focus and got over me relatively quickly. A short time later, Rachel got over Ethan too. She said she was no longer interested in boys, a convenient decision because she wasn't exactly being pursued by any.

  So we all forged our way into junior high and high school. Annalise, Ethan, Rachel, and I formed a little clique (although I ran in more popular circles too) and none of us ever mentioned the fifth-grade love-triangle saga again. After high school graduation, I continued to keep in touch with Ethan, but mostly I did so through Rachel. Those two stayed very close, particularly during his divorce. Ethan came to New York often during his crisis, so much so that I wondered if he and Rachel might get together. But Rachel insisted that there was nothing romantic between them.

  "Do you think he could be gay?" I'd ask her, referencing his close female friendships, his sensitivity, and his love of classical music. She'd say that she was sure he was straight, simply explaining that they were strictly friends.

  So as I dialed up Ethan in London, I worried that he'd turn me down out of loyalty to Rachel, a sense that he had to take her side. Annalise loved us both equally, but Ethan clearly favored Rachel. Sure enough, when he finally called me back more than a week later, after I had left him two phone messages and sent him a well-crafted, slightly desperate e-mail, his hello was tight and tentative.

  I worked up a stirring preemptive strike. "Ethan, I can't take it if you're going to shoot me down. I just can't take it. You gotta help me out. I know you're better friends with Rachel-I know you're on her side…" I hesitated, waiting for him to say he wasn't on anyone's side. When he didn't, I kept going. "But I'm begging you, Ethan. I have to get away from here. I'm pregnant. My boyfriend dumped me. I took a leave of absence from work. I can't go home, Ethan. It would be way too humiliating. Way." I said it all, knowing the risk-that he would call Rachel and tell her what a loser I was. But it was a chance I had to take. I said one final please and then waited.

  "Darce, it has nothing to do with Rachel. It's just that I like living alone. I don't want a roommate."

  "Ethan, please. Just for a few weeks. Just for a visit. I have nowhere else to go."

  "What about Indy? You could stay with your folks."

  "You know I can't do that. Could you have crawled back to Indy after you divorced Brandi?"

  He sighed, but I could tell that I had hit an empathetic chord. "A few weeks? Like how many?"

  "Three? Four? Six tops?" I said and held my breath, waiting.

  "All right, Darce," he finally said. "You can stay here. But only temporarily. My place is really small… and as I said, I really relish solitude."

  "Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you!" I said, feeling like my old victorious self. I just knew that my problems were solved and that his saying yes was the equivalent of bestowing me with a chance to fix my life, infuse it with European glamour. "You won't be sorry, Ethan. I'll be the perfect guest," I said.

  "Just remember-a short visit."

  "A short visit," I echoed. "I got it."

  I hung up and envisioned my new life…

  Strolling around cobblestone streets in Notting Hill, through the mist and fog, my basketball of a stomach peeking out between a cropped, cowl-neck sweater and chic, low-slung pants. A plaid Burberry cap is perched on my head, cocked slightly to the side. Beautifully tousled hair with chestnut highlights, compliments of the finest London salon, spills down around my shoulders. I stop by a charming patisserie, where I carefully select a pumpkin mousse tart. As I pay at the counter, I spot my future beau. As he glances up at me from his paper, his face lights up in a sexy smile. He is outlandishly handsome, with Dexter's strong features and Lair's light eyes and cute body. (His father is from Northern Italy-hence the blue eyes; his mother, British-hence the impeccable grooming, fine manners, and Oxford education.) His name is Alistair, and he is wickedly smart and sophisticated and ultra-wealthy. He might even be a duke or earl. He will top Dex in all categories. And he'll be sexier than Marcus. Of course, he'll fall madly in love with me at first sight. My pregnancy won't deter him in the slightest. In fact, it will turn him on-as I have heard is the case with some highly evolved men. Within weeks of our first meeting, Alistair will ask for my hand in marriage. L will move out of Ethan's charming flat into Alistair's enormous and perfectly appointed home, complete with a maid, cook, butler, the works.

  And then, one night in late April, when spring has come to London, as we sleep naked in his canopied, carved-wood bed handed down through four generations, on his eleven-hundred-thread-count sheets, I will feel the first gentle stirrings of labor. "I think it's time," I will whisper, gently jostling Alistair. He will bolt out of bed, help me dress in my cashmere pajamas, run a silver brush through my hair, and summon his driver before we whisk off into the London night. Then he will hover by my hospital bed, stroking my brow and planting tiny kisses along my hairline, while murmuring, "Push, dahling. Push, my treasure."

  It will be love at first sight all over again when he sees my daughter, who will look exactly like me. The daughter he will want to adopt. "Our daughter," he will tell people. By the time her first tooth appears, we will have both forgotten that a boorish American is the biological father. And by that time, I surely will have forgotten all about Rachel and Dex. I will be too caught up in my happily-ever-after to give them even a cursory thought.

  eighteen

  For the next two weeks, I was all about preparation and action, single-minded in my quest to shut down my New York affairs and get myself to London. I placed a classified ad and found a young couple to sublet my apartment. Then I sold my tainted engagement ring in the diamond district and my wedding gown on eBay. When I combined the proceeds with the balance in my checking account, I calculated that I had enough money to get through my pregnancy in London without a day's work.

  Finally, I was all ready, my bags packed full of my finest belongings, on the way to JFK for my red-eye flight to London. As I boarded the plane, I felt a sense of absolute satisfaction, knowing that I was leaving the city without a word to the people who had betrayed me. I hunkered down in my business class seat, slipped on a pair of cashmere slippers, and fell into a deep and peaceful sleep.

  Seven hours later, I awoke as the plane hovered over green meadows and a winding ribbon of blue that had to be the Thames. My heart galloped with the realization that my new life had begun. I only grew more excited as I made my way through passport control (fibbing about the length of my stay just as I had to Ethan), withdrew British money from an ATM machine, and took a black cab from Heathrow to Ethan's apartment.

  I was invigorated on our drive into London, feeling more worldly already. I sat up straighter, speaking properly to my cabbie, and injecting plenty of niceties into our chitchat, instead of barking my usual yellow-cab orders. This was a civilized land, and in it I was going to find the good life. A more cultured existence. People like Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow, who could live anywhere in the world, chose to live in London, instead of tired old New York City and Los Angeles. I had some significant things in common with these women. Style. Beauty. A certain je ne sais quoi. Maybe I'd even befriend Madge and Gwynnie. Along with Kate Moss, Hugh Grant, and Ralph Fiennes.

  Forty minutes of polite conversation later, I arrived on Ethan's street. My cabbie got out of the car, came around to the passenger side, and helped me with my bags, lining my Louis Vuitton luggage up on the curb. I handed him two purple twenties and a pretty green five-all oversized, colorful bills adorned with a young Queen Elizabeth. Even the money was more interesting and lovely in England. "Here you go, sir. Please keep the change. Thank you kindly for your help," I said, curtsying ever so slightly. It seemed a very British thing to do.

  My cabbie smiled and winked at me.

  I was off to a go
od start. I took a deep breath and exhaled, watching my breath fog up in the chilly November morning. Then I marched up the six weathered marble steps to Ethan's building, located his flat number, and pushed the bronze button next to it. I heard an anemic buzzer followed by a "Yes?" over the intercom.

  "Ethan! I'm here! Hurry! I'm freezing!"

  Seconds later Ethan grinned at me through the beveled pane in the front door. He swung the door open and gave me a big hug. "Darcy! How are you?"

  "Wonderful!" I said, doling out a double Euro-kiss, planting one on each of his pink cheeks. I ran my hand through his honey-colored hair. It was longer than usual, his curls loopy like a lion's mane. "Love the 'do, Ethan."

  He thanked me, said he hadn't had time for a cut. Then he smiled and said in what seemed to be a sincere tone, "It's good to see you, Darce."

  "It's great to see you, Ethan."

  "How do you feel?" His hand moved in a comforting circle on my back.

  I told him I'd be fine as soon as I got in out of the cold and cleaned my pores. "You know how flights wreak havoc on your skin. All of that nasty, recirculated air," I said. "But at least I wasn't stuck back in the cattle car. It's disgusting back there with the common folk."

  "You're far from a common folk," he said, his smile fading as he looked beyond me and spotted my bags on the curb. "You gotta be kidding me. All of that for a few weeks?"

  I had yet to tell him that my plan far exceeded a few weeks, and that I was thinking more along the lines of a few months, perhaps a permanent change. I'd ease him into that, though. By the time I told him the truth, our friendship would have supplanted his bond with Rachel. Besides, I'd be finding my Alistair in no time.

  Ethan rolled his eyes. Then he heaved my two largest suitcases up his front steps. "Damn, Darce. You have a body in this bag?"

  "Yes. Rachel is in this one," I said proudly, pointing to one bag. "And Dex is in that one."