Something Borrowed

Something Borrowed

Emily Giffin

I thought about turning thirty. My best friend Darcy and I came

across a perpetual calendar in the back of the phone book, where

you could look up any date in the future, and by using this little

grid determine what the day of the week would be. So we located

our birthdays in the following year, mine in May and hers in

September. I got Wednesday, a school night. She got a Friday. A

small victory, but typical. Darcy was always the lucky one. Her

skin tanned more quickly, her hair feathered more easily, and she

didn't need braces. Her moonwalk was superior, as were her

cartwheels and her front handsprings (I couldn't do a handspring

at all). She had a better sticker collection. More Michael Jackson

pins. Forenza sweaters in turquoise, red, and peach (my mother

allowed me none said they were too trendy and expensive). And a

pair of fifty-dollar Guess jeans with zippers at the ankles (ditto).

Darcy had double-pierced ears and a sibling even if it was just a

brother, it was better than being an only child as I was.

But at least I was a few months older and she would never quite

catch up. That's when I decided to check out my thirtieth

birthday in a year so far away that it sounded like science fiction.

It fell on a Sunday, which meant that my dashing husband and I

would secure a responsible babysitter for our two (possibly three)

children on that Saturday evening, dine at a fancy French

restaurant with cloth napkins, and stay out past midnight, so

technically we would be celebrating on my actual birthday. I

would have just won a big case somehow proven that an innocent

man didn't do it. And my husband would toast me: "To Rachel,

my beautiful wife, the mother of my children, and the finest

lawyer in Indy." I shared my fantasy with Darcy as we discovered

that her thirtieth birthday fell on a Monday. Bummer for her. I

watched her purse her lips as she processed this information.

"You know, Rachel, who cares what day of the week we turn

thirty?" she said, shrugging a smooth, olive shoulder.

"We'll be old

by then. Birthdays don't matter when you get that old."

I thought of my parents, who were in their thirties, and their

lackluster approach to their own birthdays. My dad had just given

my mom a toaster for her birthday because ours broke the week

before. The new one toasted four slices at a time instead of just

two. It wasn't much of a gift. But my mom had seemed pleased

enough with her new appliance; nowhere did I detect the

disappointment that I felt when my Christmas stash didn't quite

meet expectations. So Darcy was probably right. Fun stuff like

birthdays wouldn't matter as much by the time we reached thirty.

The next time I really thought about being thirty was our senior

year in high school, when Darcy and I started watching the show

Thirtysomething together. It wasn't one of our favorites we

preferred cheerful sitcoms like Who's the Boss? and Growing

Pains but we watched it anyway. My big problem with Thirtysomething was the whiny characters and their depressing

issues that they seemed to bring upon themselves. I remember

thinking that they should grow up, suck it up. Stop pondering the

meaning of life and start making grocery lists. That was back

when I thought my teenage years were dragging and my twenties

would surely last forever.

Then I reached my twenties. And the early twenties did seem to

last forever. When I heard acquaintances a few years older lament

the end of their youth, I felt smug, not yet in the danger zone

myself. I had plenty of time. Until about age twentyseven, when

the days of being carded were long gone and I began to marvel at

the sudden acceleration of years (reminding myself of my

mother's annual monologue as she pulled out our Christmas

decorations) and the accompanying lines and stray gray hairs. At

twenty-nine the real dread set in, and I realized that in a lot of

ways I might as well be thirty. But not quite. Because I could still

say that I was in my twenties. I still had something in common

with college seniors.

I realize thirty is just a number, that you're only as old as you feel

and all of that. I also realize that in the grand scheme of things,

thirty is still young. But it's not that young. It is past the most ripe,

prime child-bearing years, for example. It is too old to, say, start

training for an Olympic medal. Even in the best die-of-old-age

scenario, you are still about one-third of the way to the finish line.

So I can't help feeling uneasy as I perch on an overstuffed maroon

couch in a dark lounge on the Upper West Side at my surprise

birthday party, organized by Darcy, who is still my best friend.

Tomorrow is the Sunday that I first contemplated as a fifth-grader

playing with our phone book. After tonight my twenties will be

over, a chapter closed forever. The feeling I have reminds me of

New Year's Eve, when the countdown is coming and I'm not quite

sure whether to grab my camera or just live in the moment.

Usually I grab the camera and later regret it when the picture

doesn't turn out. Then I feel enormously let down and think to

myself that the night would have been more fun if it didn't mean

quite so much, if I weren't forced to analyze where I've been and

where I'm going.

Like New Year's Eve, tonight is an ending and a beginning. I don't

like endings and beginnings. I would always prefer to churn about

in the middle. The worst thing about this particular end (of my

youth) and beginning (of middle age) is that for the first time in

my life, I realize that I don't know where I'm going. My wants are

simple: a job that I like and a guy whom I love. And on the eve of

my thirtieth, I must face that I am for 2.

First, I am an attorney at a large New York firm. By definition this

means that I am miserable. Being a lawyer just isn't what it's

cracked up to be it's nothing like L.A. Law, the show that caused

applications to law schools to skyrocket in the early nineties. I

work excruciating hours for a mean-spirited, anal-retentive

partner, doing mostly tedious tasks, and that sort of hatred for

what you do for a living begins to chip away at you. So I have

memorized the mantra of the law-firm associate: I hate my job

and will quit soon. Just as soon as I pay off my loans.

Just as soon

as I make next year's bonus. Just as soon as I think of something

else to do that will pay the rent. Or find someone who will pay it

for me.

Which brings me to my second point: I am alone in a city of

millions.

I have plenty of friends, as proven by the solid turnout tonight.

Friends to Rollerblade with. Friends to summer with in the

Hamptons. Friends to meet on a Thursday night after work for a

drink or two or three. And I have Darcy, my best friend from

home, who is all of the above. But everybody knows that friends

are not enough, although I often claim they are just to save face

around my married and engaged girlfriends. I did not plan on

being alone in my thirties, even my early thirties. I wanted a

husband by now; I wanted to be a bride in my twenties.

But I have

learned that you can't just create your own timetable and will it to

come true. So here I am on the brink of a new decade, realizing

that being alone makes my thirties daunting, and being thirty

makes me feel more alone.

The situation seems all the more dismal because my oldest and

best friend has a glamorous PR job and is freshly engaged. Darcy

is still the lucky one. I watch her now, telling a story to a group of

us, including her fiance. Dex and Darcy are an exquisite couple,

lean and tall with matching dark hair and green eyes.

They are

among New York's beautiful people. The well-groomed couple

registering for fine china and crystal on the sixth floor at

Bloomingdale's. You hate their smugness but can't resist staring at

them when you're on the same floor searching for a not-tooexpensive

gift for the umpteenth wedding you've been invited to without a date. You strain to glimpse her ring, and are instantly

sorry you did. She catches you staring and gives you a disdainful

once-over. You wish you hadn't worn your tennis shoes to

Bloomingdale's. She is probably thinking that the footwear may be

part of your problem. You buy your Waterford vase and get the

hell out of there.

"So the lesson here is: if you ask for a Brazilian bikini wax, make

sure you specify. Tell them to leave a landing strip or else you can

wind up hairless, like a ten-year-old!" Darcy finishes her bawdy

tale, and everybody laughs. Except Dex, who shakes his head, as if

to say, what a piece of work my fiancee is.

"Okay. I'll be right back," Darcy suddenly says.

"Tequila shots for

one and all!"

As she moves away from the group toward the bar, I think back to

all of the birthdays we have celebrated together, all of the

benchmarks we reached together, benchmarks that I always

reached first. I got my driver's license before she did, could drink

legally before she could. Being older, if only by a few months, used

to be a good thing. But now our fortunes have reversed.

Darcy has

an extra summer in her twenties a perk of being born in the fall.

Not that it matters as much for her: when you're engaged or

married, turning thirty just isn't the same thing.

Darcy is now leaning over the bar, flirting with the twenty something,

aspiring actor/bartender whom she has already told me she would "totally do" if she were single. As if Darcy would

ever be single. She said once in high school, "I don't break up, I

trade up." She kept her word on that, and she always did the

dumping. Throughout our teenage years, college, and every day of

our twenties, she has been attached to someone. Often she has

more than one guy hanging around, hoping.

It occurs to me that I could hook up with the bartender.

I am

totally unencumbered haven't even been on a date in nearly two

months. But it doesn't seem like something one should do at age

thirty. One-night stands are for girls in their twenties.

Not that I

would know. I have followed an orderly, Goody Two-shoes path

with no deviations. I got straight As in high school, went to

college, graduated magna cum laude, took the LSAT, went straight

to law school and to a big law firm after that. No backpacking in

Europe, no crazy stories, no unhealthy, lustful relationships. No

secrets. No intrigue. And now it seems too late for any of that.

Because that stuff would just further delay my goal of finding a

husband, settling down, having children and a happy home with

grass and a garage and a toaster that toasts four slices at once.

So I feel unsettled about my future and somewhat regretful about

my past. I tell myself that there will be time to ponder tomorrow.

Right now I will have fun. It is the sort of thing that a disciplined

person can simply decide. And I am exceedingly disciplined the

kind of child who did her homework on Friday afternoons right