Something Borrowed

Chapter 3

When I wake up the next morning, the cavalier girl sucking down a milk shake is gone, caved to guilt and 27 years of rule-following. I can no longer rationalize what I did. I committed an unspeakable act against a friend, violated a central tenet of sisterhood. There is no justification.

So on to Plan B: I will pretend that nothing happened. My transgression was so great that I have no choice but simply to will the whole thing to go away. And by proceeding with business as usual, embracing my Monday morning routine, this is what I seek to accomplish.

I shower, dry my hair, put on my most comfortable black suit and low heels, take the subway to Grand Central, get my coffee at Starbucks, pick up The New York Times at my newsstand, and ride two escalators and one elevator up to my office in the MetLife Building. Each part of my routine represents one step further from Trey and the incident.

I arrive at my office at eight-twenty, way early by law firm standards. The halls are quiet. Not even the secretaries are in yet. I am turning to the Metro section of the paper, sipping my coffee, when I notice the blinking red message light on my phone. Usually a warning that more work awaits me. Some jackass partner must have called me on the one weekend in recent memory when I failed to check my messages. My money is on Dan, the dominant man in my life and the biggest jackass partner amid six floors of them. I enter my password, wait . . .

"You have one new message from an outside caller. Received today at seven-forty-two a.m. . . ." the recording tells me. What is it this time? I think, as I hit play.

"Hi, Demi . . . It's me . . . Trey . . . I wanted to call you yesterday to talk about Saturday night but I just couldn't. I think we should talk about it, don't you? Call me when you can. I should be around all day."

My heart sinks. Why can't he adopt some good old fashioned avoidance techniques and ignore it, never speak of it again? That was my game plan. No wonder I hate my job; I am a litigator who hates confrontation. I pick up a pen and tap it against the edge of my desk.

What does he want to talk about? What is there to say? I replay, expecting the answers to come to me in the sound of his voice, his cadence. But he gives nothing away.

I listen to Trey one final time before I delete him. His voice definitely sounds different. This makes sense because in some ways, he is different. We both are. Because even if I try to block out what happened, even if Trey drops the incident after a brief, awkward telephone call, we will forever be on one another's list. That list every person has, whether recorded in a secret spiral notebook or memorized in the back of the mind. Whether short or long. Whether ranked in order of performance or importance or chronology. Whether complete with first, middle, and last names or mere physical descriptions, like Naya's List: "Delta Sig with killer delts . . ."

Trey is on my list for good. Without wanting to, I suddenly think of us in bed together. For those brief moments, he was just Trey. Separate from Naya. Something he hadn't been in a very long time. Something he hadn't been since the day I introduced the two.

I met Trey during our first year of law school at NYU. Unlike most law students, who come straight from college when they can think of nothing better to do with their stellar undergrad transcripts, Trey was older, with real life experience. He had worked as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, which blew away my nine-to- five summer internships and office jobs filing and answering phones. He was confident, relaxed, and so gorgeous that it was hard not to stare at him. I was positive that he would become the Doug Jackson and Blaine Conner of law school. Sure enough, we were barely into our first week of class when the buzz over Tremaine began, women speculating about his status, noting either that his left ring finger was unadorned or, alternatively, worrying that he was too well dressed and handsome to be straight.