Something Blue Read online

  Praise for Something Blue

  “Giffin’s writing is warm and engaging; readers will find themselves cheering for Darcy as she proves people can change in this captivating tale.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “Witty and compelling, Something Blue reaffirms a lesson we all should have learned long ago: Love doesn’t need a fairy tale, fancy wrapping or a big price tag. Often, it’s better without.”

  —Charlotte Observer

  “Giffin’s plotting and prose are so engaging that she quickly becomes a fun, friendly presence in your reading life.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  “Highly entertaining... Despite a happy ending, Giffin raises thorny questions. A long friendship can (like marriage) turn claustrophobic or abusive. Is infidelity the solution? And why are pretty girls so easily taken in by scheming Plain Janes?”

  —Boston Globe

  “Darcy is Scarlett O’Hara set in modern [day]... Giffin orchestrates her gradual change ingeniously and successfully answers any Gone With the Wind fan who wondered if, after Rhett Butler decided he didn’t give a damn, Scarlett ever morphed into someone softer.”

  —Newark Star-Ledger

  “Smartly written. The dialogue is real with lightly rendered lessons about what really matters in life... Emily Giffin knows what she’s doing.”

  —Winston-Salem Journal

  “Emily Giffin’s sophomore effort is a joy to read from start to finish, taking the egotistical villainess of her first novel and turning her into an unlikely heroine. Any woman who carries the scars of a broken friendship will appreciate this literary gem, which covers every emotional battleground possible—from rejection and betrayal to self-discovery and pregnancy.”

  —CanWest

  “A touching depiction of one woman’s surprising discoveries about the true meaning of friendship and happily-ever-after. Sometimes you can lose it all, only to find everything in the end.”

  —The State (SC)

  “The author’s impressive knack for intimacy and insight sparkles in this delightful novel.”

  —Hamptons magazine

  For Buddy, always.

  And for Edward and George.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Two Years Later

  Preview

  Acknowledgments

  Coming Soon

  Prologue

  I was born beautiful. A C-section baby, I started life out right by avoiding the misshapen head and battle scars that come with being forced through a birth canal. Instead, I emerged with a dainty nose, bow-shaped lips, and distinctive eyebrows. I had just the right amount of fuzz covering my crown in exactly the right places, promising a fine crop of hair and an exceptional hairline.

  Sure enough, my hair grew in thick and silky, the color of coffee beans. Every morning I would sit cooperatively while my mother wrapped my hair around fat, hot rollers or twisted it into intricate braids. When I went to nursery school, the other little girls—many with unsightly bowl cuts—clamored to put their mat near mine during naptime, their fingers darting over to touch my ponytail. They happily shared their Play-Doh or surrendered their turn on the slide. Anything to be my friend. It was then I discovered that there is a pecking order in life, and appearances play a role in that hierarchy. In other words, I understood at the tender age of three that with beauty come perks and power.

  This lesson was only reinforced as I grew older and continued my reign as the prettiest girl in increasingly larger pools of competition. The cream of the crop in junior high and then high school. But unlike the characters in my favorite John Hughes films, my popularity and beauty never made me mean. I ruled as a benevolent dictator, playing watchdog over other popular girls who tried to abuse their power. I defied cliques, remaining true to my brainy best friend, Rachel. I was popular enough to make my own rules.

  Of course, I had my moments of uncertainty. I remember one such occasion in the sixth grade when Rachel and I were playing “psychiatrist,” one of our favorite games. I’d usually play the role of patient, saying things like, “I am so scared of spiders, Doctor, that I can’t leave my house all summer long.”

  “Well,” Rachel would respond, pushing her glasses up on the bridge of her nose and scribbling notes on a tablet. “I recommend that you watch Charlotte’s Web.…Or move to Siberia, where there are no spiders. And take these.” She’d hand me two Flintstones vitamins and nod encouragingly.

  That was the way it usually went. But on this particular afternoon, Rachel suggested that instead of being a pretend patient, I should be myself, come up with a problem of my own. So I thought of how my little brother, Jeremy, hogged the dinner conversation every night, spouting off original knock-knock jokes and obscure animal kingdom facts. I confided that my parents seemed to favor Jeremy—or at least they listened to him more than they listened to me.

  Rachel cleared her throat, thought for a second, and then shared some theory about how little boys are encouraged to be smart and funny while little girls are praised for being cute. She called this a “dangerous trap” for girls and said it can lead to “empty women.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” I asked her, wondering exactly what she meant by empty.

  “Nowhere. It’s just what I think,” Rachel said, proving that she was in no danger of falling into the pretty-little-girl trap. In fact, her theory applied perfectly to us. I was the beautiful one with average grades, Rachel was the smart one with average looks. I suddenly felt a surge of envy, wishing that I, too, were full of big ideas and important words.

  But I quickly assessed the haphazard waves in Rachel’s mousy brown hair and reassured myself that I had been dealt a good hand. I couldn’t find countries like Pakistan or Peru on a map or convert fractions into percentages, but my beauty was going to catapult me into a world of Jaguars and big houses and dinners with three forks to the left of my bone-china plate. All I had to do was marry well, as my mother had. She was no genius and hadn’t finished more than three semesters at a community college, but her pretty face, petite frame, and impeccable taste had won over my smart father, a dentist, and now she lived the good life. I thought her life was an excellent blueprint for my own.

  So I cruised through my teenage years and entered Indiana University with a “just get by” mentality. I pledged the best sorority, dated the hottest guys, and was featured in the Hoosier Dream Girls calendar four years straight. After graduating with a 2.9, I followed Rachel, who was still my best friend, to New York City, where she was attending law school. While she slogged it out in the library and then went to work for a big firm, I continued my pursuit of glamour and good times, quickly learning that the finer things were even finer in Manhattan. I discovered the city’s hippest clubs, b
est restaurants, and most eligible men. And I still had the best hair in town.

  Throughout our twenties, as Rachel and I continued along our different paths, she would often pose the judgmental question, “Aren’t you worried about karma?” (Incidentally, she first mentioned karma in junior high after I had cheated on a math test. I remember trying to decipher the word’s meaning using the song “Karma Chameleon,” which, of course, didn’t work.) Later, I understood her point: that hard work, honesty, and integrity always paid off in the end, while skating by on your looks was somehow an offense. And like that day playing psychiatrist, I occasionally worried that she was right.

  But I told myself that I didn’t have to be a nose-to-the-grindstone soup-kitchen volunteer to have good karma. I might not have followed a traditional route to success, but I had earned my glamorous PR job, my fabulous crowd of friends, and my amazing fiancé, Dex Thaler. I deserved my apartment with a terrace on Central Park West and the substantial, colorless diamond on my left hand.

  That was back in the days when I thought I had it all figured out. I just didn’t understand why people, particularly Rachel, insisted on making things so much more difficult than they had to be. She may have followed all the rules, but there she was, single and thirty, pulling all-nighters at a law firm she despised. Meanwhile, I was the happy one, just as I had been throughout our whole childhood. I remember trying to coach her, telling her to inject a little fun into her glum, disciplined life. I would say things like, “For starters, you should give your bland shoes to Goodwill and buy a few pairs of Blahniks. You’ll feel better, for sure.”

  I know now how shallow that sounds. I realize that I made everything about appearances. But at the time, I honestly didn’t think I was hurting anyone, not even myself. I didn’t think much at all, in fact. Yes, I was gorgeous and lucky in love, but I truly believed that I was also a decent person who deserved her good fortune. And I saw no reason why the rest of my life should be any less charmed than my first three decades.

  Then, something happened that made me question everything I thought I knew about the world: Rachel, my plain, do-gooding maid of honor with frizzy hair the color of wheat germ, swooped in and stole my fiancé.

  One

  Sucker punch.

  It was one of my little brother Jeremy’s pet expressions when we were kids. He used it when regaling the scuffles that would break out at the bus stop or in the halls of our junior high, his voice high and excited, his lips shiny with spittle: WHAM! POW! Total sucker punch, man! He’d then eagerly sock one fist into his other cupped palm, exceedingly pleased with himself. But that was years ago. Jeremy was a dentist now, in practice with my father, and I’m sure he hadn’t witnessed, received, or rehashed a sucker punch in over a decade.

  I hadn’t thought of those words in just as long—until that memorable cab ride. I had just left Rachel’s place and was telling my driver about my horrifying discovery.

  “Wow,” he said in a heavy Queens accent. “Your girlfriend really sucker punched you good, huh?”

  “Yes,” I cried, all but licking my wounds. “She certainly did.”

  Loyal, reliable Rachel, my best friend of twenty-five years, who always had my interests ahead of, or at least tied with, her own, had—WHAM! POW!—sucker punched me. Blindsided me. The surprise element of her betrayal was what burned me the most. The fact that I never saw it coming. It was as unexpected as a seeing-eye dog willfully leading his blind, trusting owner into the path of a Mack truck.

  Truth be told, things weren’t quite as simple as I made them out to be to my cab driver. But I didn’t want him to lose sight of the main issue—the issue of what Rachel had done to me. I had made some mistakes, but I hadn’t betrayed our friendship.

  It was the week before what would have been my wedding day, and I had gone over to Rachel’s to tell her that my wedding was called off. My fiancé, Dex, had been the first to say the difficult words—that perhaps we shouldn’t get married—but I had quickly agreed because I’d been having an affair with Marcus, one of Dexter’s friends. One thing had led to another, and after one particular steamy night, I had become pregnant. It was all hugely difficult to absorb, and I knew the hardest part would be confessing everything to Rachel, who, at the start of the summer, had been mildly interested in Marcus. The two had gone on a few dates, but the romance had petered out when, unbeknownst to her, my relationship with Marcus began. I felt terrible the entire time—for cheating on Dex, but even more for lying to Rachel. Still, I was ready to come clean to my best friend. I was sure that she would understand. She always did.

  So I stoically arrived at Rachel’s apartment on the Upper East Side.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked as she answered the door.

  I felt a wave of comfort as I thought to myself how soothing and familiar those words were. Rachel was a maternal best friend, more maternal than my own mother. I thought of all the times my friend had asked me this question over the years: such as the time I left my father’s sunroof down during a thunderstorm, or the day I got my period all over my white Guess jeans. She was always there with her “What’s the matter?” followed by her “It’s going to be all right,” delivered in a competent tone that made me feel sure that she was right. Rachel could fix anything. Make me feel better when nobody else could. Even at that moment, when she might have felt disappointed that Marcus had chosen me over her, I was sure she’d rise to the occasion and reassure me that I had chosen the right path, that things happened for a reason, that I wasn’t a villain, that I was right to follow my heart, that she completely understood, and that eventually Dex would too.

  I took a deep breath and glided into her orderly studio apartment as she rattled on about the wedding, how she was at my service, ready to help with any last-minute details.

  “There isn’t going to be a wedding,” I blurted out.

  “What?” she asked. Her lips blended right in with the rest of her pale face. I watched her turn and sit on her bed. Then she asked me who called it off.

  I had a flashback to high school. After a breakup, which was always a very public happening in high school, guys and girls alike would ask, “Who did it?” Everyone wanted to know who was the dumper and who the dumpee so that they could properly assign blame and dole out pity.

  I said what I could never say in high school because, to be frank, I was never the dumpee. “It was mutual…. Well, technically Dexter was the one. He told me this morning that he couldn’t go through with it. He doesn’t think that he loves me.” I rolled my eyes. At that point, I didn’t believe that such a thing was possible. I thought the only reason Dex wanted out was because he could sense my growing indifference. The drifting that comes when you fall for someone else.

  “You’re kidding me. This is crazy. How do you feel?”

  I studied my pink-striped jeweled Prada sandals and matching pink toenail polish and took a deep breath. Then I confessed that I had been having an affair with Marcus, dismissing a pang of guilt. Sure, Rachel had had a small summer crush on Marcus, but she had never slept with him, and it had been weeks since she had even kissed him. She just couldn’t be that upset by the news.

  “So you slept with him?” Rachel asked in a loud, strange voice. Her cheeks flushed pink—a sure sign that she was angry—but I plowed on, divulging full details, telling her how our affair had begun, how we tried to stop but couldn’t overcome the crazy pull toward each other. Then I took a deep breath and told her that I was pregnant with Marcus’s baby and that we planned on getting married. I braced myself for a few tears, but Rachel remained composed. She asked a few questions, which I answered honestly. Then I thanked her for not hating me, feeling incredibly relieved that despite the upheaval in my life, I still had my anchor, my best friend.

  “Yeah…I don’t hate you,” Rachel said, sweeping a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “I hope Dex takes it as well. At least as far as Marcus goes. He’s going to hate him for a while. But Dex is rational. No
body did this on purpose to hurt him. It just happened.”

  And then, just as I was about to ask her if she would still be my maid of honor when I married Marcus, my whole world collapsed around me. I knew that nothing would ever be the same again, nor had things ever been as I thought they were. That was the moment I saw Dexter’s watch on my best friend’s nightstand. An unmistakable vintage Rolex.

  “Why is Dexter’s watch on your nightstand?” I asked, silently praying that she would offer a logical and benign explanation.

  But instead, she shrugged and stammered that she didn’t know. Then she said that it was actually her watch, that she had one just like his. Which was not plausible because I had searched for months to find that watch and then bought a new crocodile band for it, making it a true original. Besides, even had it been a predictable, spanking-new Rolex Oyster Perpetual, her voice was shaking, her face even paler than usual. Rachel can do many things well, but lying isn’t one of them. So I knew. I knew that my best friend in the world had committed an unspeakable act of betrayal.

  The rest unfolded in slow motion. I could practically hear the sound effects that accompanied The Bionic Woman, one of my favorite shows. One of our favorite shows—I had watched every episode with Rachel. I stood up, grabbed the watch from her nightstand, flipped it over, and read the inscription aloud. “All my love, Darcy.” My words felt thick and heavy in my throat as I remembered the day I had his watch engraved. I had called Rachel on my cell and asked her about the wording. “All my love” had been her suggestion.