Something Borrowed

Chapter 9

I can't stop thinking about Trey. I know that we won't end up together, that he will marry Naya in September. But I am content to live in the moment, and allow myself the daily pleasure of obsessing. Nothing lasts forever, I tell myself. Especially the good stuff. Although typically you aren't faced with a hard deadline. I think of a few other examples of concrete, predetermined endings. Take college, for example. I knew that I would go away for four years, accumulate friends and memories and knowledge, and that it would all come to an abrupt end on a set date. I knew that on this day, I would collect my diploma and pile my belongings into a U-Haul bound for home, and the Duke experience would be done. A chapter closed forever. But that awareness didn't stop me from enjoying myself, sucking all of the joy out of the deal.

So that is what I am doing with Trey. I am not going to dwell on the end at the expense of the here and now.

Tonight I am home when Trey calls from work to say a quick hello and tell me that he misses me. It is the sort of call a boyfriend makes to his girlfriend. Nothing covert or complicated about it. I pretend that we are together for real. The phone rings again a second after we hang up.

"Hey," I say, in the same hushed tone, thinking that it is only a follow-up call from Trey.

"What's that voice?" Naya asks, yanking me back to reality.

"What voice?" I ask. "I'm just tired. What's going on?"

She launches into the details of her latest work crisis, which typically amounts to no more than a paper jam at the copier. This one is no exception. A typo on a flyer for a club opening. I resist the urge to tell her that the target audience won't notice a misspelling, and instead ask her who is going to the Hamptons this weekend. I feel my senses heighten, anticipating Tremaine's name. He already told me that he was going, convincing me that I had to go too. It will be awkward, but worth it, he said. He has to see me.

"Not sure. Kate might be having friends in town. Trey is in."

"Oh, really? He doesn't have to work?" I ask, sounding a bit too surprised. I feel a stab of worry, but Naya doesn't notice my false tone.

"No, he just finished with some big deal," she says.

"Which deal?"

"I don't know. Some deal."

Tremaine's job bores Naya. I have observed the way she can shut him down, interrupting him in the middle of a story, transitioning back to her own petty concerns. Am I fat? Does this look good on me? Will you come there with me? Do that for me. Reassure me. Me. Me. Me.

As if on cue, she tells me that she is considering sending in a tape to Big Brother, that it would be fun to be on the show. Fun for an exhibitionist. I can think of few things more horrifying than being on national television, out there for the world to judge, assess, tear apart.

"Do you think I'd get picked?" she asks.

"You'd have a good chance."

She is pretty enough to get picked, and she has a vivid personality—exactly what they look for on reality television. I study my own face in the mirror, think of Trey telling me that I look like a J.Crew model. Maybe I am attractive. But I don't feel nearly as pretty as Naya, with her precise features and incredible cheekbones. My insecurities have always gotten the best of me.

Now she is laughing loudly into the phone, telling me another story about her day. She hurts my ears. The word "strident" comes to mind, and as I study my reflection again, I decide that even if I don't think I'm as beautiful as her, perhaps I have a softness that she lacks. One that Trey likes.

It is Thursday, the day before we leave for the Hamptons. Trey is over. We had planned on waiting until next week to see each other alone, but we both finished work early. And well, here we are, together again. We have already made love once. Now I am resting my head on his chest. As he breathes, his chest lifts my face slightly. Neither of us speaks for a long time, then he asks suddenly, "What are we doing?"