3
First things first. I had to call Morgan—it was outrageous that I’d been engaged for almost 24 hours and she didn’t know.
In high school, Morgan Russell and I were the quintessential loser odd couple—she, tall and freckly and skinny; me, dumpy and short and dark. By the time she came back from Berkeley, though, she was a bombshell. I, on the other hand, have remained vaguely potato-shaped over the years, although my skin has cleared up some. But Morgan is the kind of person who makes you not hate beautiful people. She’s just like that—smart, bitchy, funny, but still with enough hang-ups that it just gives you faith. She’s definitely no fun to shop with, though, not just because everything looks good on her, but because she hates it. She lets salesgirls dress her, and says things like, “Just give me what that mannequin in the window is wearing, in a size four.”
“Hello?” her husky voice whispered on the other end.
“Morgan? Wake up. It’s me.”
“What time is it? Did I oversleep?”
“No, no. It’s almost eleven. I just wanted to talk to you,” I said. “What did you do last night?” I asked, not really caring.
“I’m going back to sleep,” she said, and hung up.
I called her back.
“What do you want, Evie? I didn’t get to bed till seven.”
“You’re already up, or else you wouldn’t have answered the phone.”
“Your logic astounds me,” she said. I could hear her lighting a cigarette.
“So what did you do?”
“I went out with Billy, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. Did you have fun?” Billy is Morgan’s latest fling—thirty-seven years old, an architect, Ivy League, the whole deal. I get the sense that he’s a bit less uptight than her usual assortment of asshole Wall-Street types. She met him a few months ago at Lemon Bar, which to me sounds more like a dessert than a suitable place to meet men, but Morgan isn’t interested in finding Mr. Right. She gave up on that urban legend a long time ago.
“We met up with some of his college friends. Dreadful bunch. They’ve all got debating trophies stuck up their asses. It makes you wonder, you know? How a person you like can like people you hate?”
“I thought you didn’t like Billy, either,” I reminded her. Because of her bad instincts, Morgan had sworn off dating anyone she liked. After college, she had a string of bad luck with men she all thought were The One. The first guy, Tom, turned out to be gay, and was only dating her, he eventually realized, because something about her reminded him of Joan Crawford. Morgan didn’t find out her next boyfriend, Ryan, was married until after they’d been together for six months, and Matthew, the last guy, whom she was with for almost three years, was the most damaging of all of them—emotionally unavailable. After him, she decided it was best to stick with guys she was sure weren’t The One.
“I don’t like Billy. Not really, I guess. I mean, he’s okay. More fun than his friends, anyway. I think it’s because he’s from Detroit.”
“Detroit? How can being from Detroit make somebody fun?”
“He sort of has that sexy working man thing going on,” she said sulkily.
“Morgan, he’s not exactly blue-collar, he’s an architect for chrissake,” I said. “You’re talking like he wears overalls to work.”
“He actually did work at GM one summer,” she added.
“Oh, well there you go—you don’t like his personality or his friends, but he worked on an assembly line for one month and that makes him somehow more noble than the spoiled overachievers you usually date.”
“Now you get it!” she laughed. “Evie, it’s not that I don’t like him, I do—he’s just not someone I plan to get all crazy about.”
“Just because his friends aren’t your thing doesn’t mean he’s not a nice guy,” I said, trying to get back to the point. “I hate Bruce’s friends, and look at us.”
“I know, but I don’t really give a shit about Billy’s friends anyway. Come to think of it, I don’t really care if he’s a nice guy or not. If he can get me to forget about work and take me out for a few drinks and a good meal, and then not want to spend the whole night cuddling, that’s all I want. I don’t give a good goddamn about anything else right now.”
“Are we still talking about Billy?” I asked. “He’d want to cuddle with you if you had leprosy.” The guy is so bloody crazy about her that he turned down a better job in Philadelphia to wait around for her scraps of affection. And he is a nice guy, no matter how hard she tries to pretend he isn’t. I suddenly realized how much fun it would be if Morgan and I were engaged at the same time. If I could get her to see what a good idea marriage is, and if Billy didn’t scare her off too soon…
“He told me that he wants me to stop seeing other guys,” she sighed. So much for picking out wedding dresses together.
“Gee, what a surprise. What did you say?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“I told him to piss off and then let his best friend do body shots off my stomach.”
“Seriously, Morgan.”
“I said that he knew what I was all about when we got into this thing, and that I wasn’t really willing to date one guy exclusively—take it or leave it.”
“But you have been dating him exclusively. It’s not like you have someone else waiting in the wings,” I pointed out, pouring my third cup of coffee.
“I know, but he’s definitely not someone I want to get tied down to.”
“Why not?” Did she think getting tied down was a bad idea in general? Would she think I was making a bad choice?
Morgan sighed. “Evie, I’m sick of having this conversation with you. Why are you pushing me so hard about this?”
“Bruce asked me to marry him,” I blurted out.
Silence.
“And I threw up.”
More silence.
“Morgan?”
“We’ve been talking about Billy for ten minutes and now you tell me this? What the hell’s the matter with you?” she shrieked. “So old Brucie finally got around to it! I knew he would, you know. I knew it! I just had this feeling. I really did. Last week when you were talking about how you wanted to take a leave of absence in June as soon as Bruce finishes school and go trekking through South America for the summer and he just didn’t say anything. Aw, I knew it! It was either that or he was dumping you!”
I guess she realized then there might be a little more to the story. “You said yes, right?” she asked, in a much smaller voice.
“Of course I said yes. Why didn’t you tell me you suspected?” I snapped, relieved. It sounded like she thought it was a good idea. Morgan has always believed that I was meant for monogamy. She doesn’t think I have the emotional fortitude to handle dating more than one person. Know thyself, she says.
“Oh, come on. I can’t believe the thought hadn’t occurred to you. Tell me everything! Did you really throw up?”
“I did,” I said proudly, and told her the whole story. She particularly liked the part about me falling down on the train.
“It’s incredibly important to me that you think this is okay,” I admitted. The truth was, if