Something Borrowed

Chapter 6

So what's the deal with you and Sean?" Dianna asks me the next morning as she picks through the pile of clothes that have already accumulated beside her bed. I resist the urge to fold them for her.

"No deal, really." I get out of bed and promptly start to make it.

"Potential?" She pulls on a pair of sweats and ties the drawstring, cinching them at hip level.

"Maybe."

Last year Dianna broke up with Dylan, her boyfriend of four years, a nice, smart, all-around great guy. But Dianna was convinced that as good as the relationship was, it wasn't good enough. "He's not the one," she kept saying. 1 remember Naya informing her that she might revise that opinion in her mid-thirties, a statement Dianna and I both rehashed at length later. A classic, tactless Nayaism. Yet, as time passes, I can't help wondering if Dianna made a mistake. Here she is, one year later, embroiled in the fruitless blind-dating scene while, rumor has it, her ex has moved into a Tribeca loft with a twenty-three-year-old med student who is a dead ringer for Anna Kendrick. Dianna claims that it doesn't bother her. I find that very hard to believe, even for someone with her moxie. In any case, she doesn't seem to be in a hurry to find a Dylan replacement.

"Summer potential or long-term potential?" she asks me, running her hands through her shoulder length, blonde hair.

"I don't know. Maybe long-term potential."

"Well, you looked like a total couple last night," she says. "Out there dancing."

"We did?" I ask, thinking that if we looked like a couple, Trey must know that I'm not dwelling on him.

She nods, finds her "Corporate Challenge" T-shirt, and sniffs the armpits before tossing it over to me. "Is this clean? Smell it."

"I'm not gonna smell your shirt," I say, throwing it back. "You're gross."

She laughs and puts on her obviously clean enough shirt. "Yeah... You two were out there whispering and laughing. I thought for sure you were going to hook up last night, and that I would get the room to myself."

I laugh. "Sorry to disappoint."

"You disappointed him more."

"Nah. He just said good night when we got home. Not even a kiss."

Dianna knows about the first kiss. "Why not?"

"I don't know. I think we're both proceeding with caution. We'll have a lot of contact between now and September... You know, he's in the wedding party too. If things blow up, it could be bad."

She looks as if she is considering my point. For one second I am tempted to tell Dianna everything about Trey. I trust her. But I don't share, reasoning that I can always tell her, but I can't untell her and erase the knowledge from her mind. When we are all together, I would feel even more awkward, constantly thinking that she's thinking about it. And anyway... it is over. There is really nothing to talk about.

We go downstairs. Our housemates have already assembled around the kitchen table.

"It's amazing outside," Naya says, standing, stretching, and showing off her flat stomach under a cropped T-shirt. She sits back down at the table, returning to her game of solitaire.

Kate looks up from her phone. "Perfect beach weather."

"Perfect golf weather," Dianna says, looking at Trey and Sean. "Any interest?"

"Urn, maybe," Trey says, glancing up from the sports page. "Want me to call and see if we can get a tee time?"

Naya slams her cards onto the table and looks around defiantly.