Something Borrowed

Rachel wakes up to Darcy’s voice on her answering machine telling her to pick up because Dex never came home. While Dex gets up and starts to get dressed, Rachel can feel herself panicking and starts to cry. Dex tells her everything will be fine and composes a lie that he stayed out late and got breakfast with Marcus. He tells Rachel to be vague with Darcy about whether he was still at the party when she left. Rachel and Dex then apologize—although she’s not sure if it’s to each other or to Darcy—and he leaves.

Rachel calls Darcy back and tells her Dex wouldn’t cheat on her, amazed at how easily she is able to lie. She answers Darcy’s questions exactly as Dex instructed. Darcy tells Rachel that Dex is on the other line and hangs up. Rachel starts getting birthday wishes from friends and family but doesn’t hear back from Darcy. The silence scares her, and she worries that she and Dex somehow got caught. She is also surprised that the only guilt she feels is over her absence of remorse about the situation. When she can no longer take the suspense, Rachel calls Darcy, who is only upset that Dex didn’t call her. Darcy reminds Rachel they’re supposed to meet up later for her birthday dinner, but Rachel isn’t sure she can face Dex and Darcy. When they hang up, she is again surprised at her lack of guilt. She wonders if she’s a bad person who only plays “by the rules” because she’s “a cowardly pessimist” (18).

She remembers how close she and Darcy were when they became next-door-neighbors in elementary school, considering themselves to be sisters. She thinks back to her first crush in fifth grade—a boy named Ethan Ainsley—and Darcy’s confusion that Rachel didn’t have a crush on Doug Jackson like everyone else. On Halloween, Darcy told Rachel she liked Ethan. Soon after, they were a couple, although Darcy eventually went back to liking Doug. Rachel wonders if her night with Dex is Darcy’s “comeuppance” (21) for stealing Ethan, but the imaginary jury she pictures in her head isn’t swayed. She thinks back to how easily everything has always come to Darcy, who exudes confidence and “floated though” (24) high school—which was a constant struggle for Rachel. It feels to Rachel like life only gets “sweeter” (24) for Darcy. She decides to cancel on her birthday dinner and order in instead.

The next morning, Rachel realizes that sleeping with Dex was completely unjustified, and decides to act as though it never happened. She follows her usual Monday morning routine and gets to work early. She has a message on her work phone from Dex, who wants to talk about the situation between them. She remembers back to when she introduced Dex, whom she met at law school at NYU, to Darcy. He worked at Goldman Sachs rather than coming straight from undergrad and was attractive and confident. Rachel sat next to him in a difficult class, and they soon began spending time together, bonding over their professor.

Darcy moved to New York soon after, working as a bartender for a couple of weeks until a man offered her a high-powered job at a top PR firm. To keep up with Darcy’s glamorous life, Rachel bragged about Dex to Darcy, insisting she didn’t like him despite sometimes feeling “a flicker of interest” (33). Dex and Darcy finally met during a night out, but neither seemed particularly interested in one another. Dex asked Rachel for Darcy’s number a week later, and after a couple of dates, they were a couple. At first, their relationship was tumultuous, as Darcy picked fights with Dex and tried to make him jealous, but it eventually became more stable. Over the past winter, Dex proposed.

Rachel returns to thinking about the situation with Dex, telling herself she knew him first. She reasons that she had her chance with him and now, as the maid-of-honor in their wedding, she’s committed the ultimate betrayal. Later that night, she returns Dex’s call. After they both explain that they feel guilty about the situation, Dex changes course and says he doesn’t feel bad, and that this is his first time cheating on Darcy. He claims responsibility for the incident, insisting to Rachel that he wasn’t that drunk and maybe wanted it to happen. He tells Rachel that he’s thought about it before. He ends the conversation by insisting it can never happen again but restating that he has no regrets. After they hang up, Rachel feels even more uneasy and can’t put Dex out of her mind.

Darcy prepares for their annual summer trip to the Hamptons, which Rachel dreads because she will be in a house with Darcy and Dex, as well as their friends Marcus, Claire, and Hillary. Before the trip, Rachel meets Darcy to go bathing suit shopping—another task Rachel dreads. While they shop, Darcy complains she’s fat, even though she’s taller than Rachel and weighs less. Rachel immediately feels self-conscious when Darcy insists that they share a fitting room, comparing her “shorter, softer, whiter” (45) body to Darcy’s fit and tanned figure. She compliments Darcy, determining that Dex must have compared their bodies. She decides on a tankini that is passable, while Darcy opts for three bikinis, all of which look great on her.

As they check out, Darcy tells Rachel that Marcus likes her. She informs Rachel that after Marcus asked Dex for her number, Dex acted “Sort of protective” (46) about Rachel. He asked Darcy several questions about Rachel’s relationship status and whether Darcy thought Marcus was smart enough for her. Rachel isn’t sure how she feels about Marcus but is interested in Dex’s behavior about the situation. Rachel agrees to go on a date with Marcus after Darcy insists that Rachel can’t “afford to be all picky” (47), and because Dex bet Darcy that she wouldn’t go: She wants to prove him wrong. Before she goes on the date, she calls Dex to see if Marcus knows anything about her tryst with Dex. Dex insists Marcus doesn’t know anything, and Rachel admits to going on the date because of Dex’s bet with Darcy. The conversation shifts in tone, and they start flirting. When Dex asks Rachel what she’s thinking, she lies and tells him “Nothing” (49).

During Rachel’s phone conversation with Dex, he tells her he’s still trying to figure out what kind of guy she likes. Rachel subsequently starts wondering if she even has a type. She’s only had a few boyfriends, starting with Joey Merola during her first semester at Duke. He was boisterous and played sports—the opposite of her crush at the time, Hunter Bretz, who was shy and intellectual. While she was developing a friendship with Hunter, Joey “came in for the kill” (51). Rachel lost her virginity to Joey, but the relationship took a turn in the spring when Joey joined a fraternity and became obsessed with Duke basketball. Although the relationship survived until junior year, they broke up after a big fight in which it was clear they had grown tired of one another.

Rachel’s next relationship was in law school with Nate Menke, starting in her third year. Nate was passionate, smart, and driven. They bonded while studying for the bar together, but Rachel’s misery continued after graduation in her menial job as an associate at a law firm, while Nate landed an exciting job as an assistant district attorney in Queens. As she started relying solely on Nate for her happiness, Nate became interested in someone else, and they soon broke up. She wonders if she loved him or just needed him as an “escape” (56).

After going on some blind dates, Rachel met Alec Kaplan at a bar in Soho. He tried too hard to impress everyone, but Rachel felt he was good enough. She was often distracted in the relationship and thought about breaking it off, but Darcy kept convincing her to stay with him. One night, their friend Claire saw Alec cheating on Rachel. At Claire’s prompting, Alec confessed his infidelity to Rachel, and they broke up. She was indifferent about it, and they are still cordial when she runs into him at the gym. Ultimately, Rachel can’t find anything they all have in common, other than the fact that they all chose her and then dumped her. She realizes she is the passive one, always waiting for something else.

Rachel meets up with Marcus at a restaurant for their date. He immediately compliments her and tells her he’s wanted to ask her out since they first met, but he was still in a relationship at the time. He also says Dex tried to dissuade him since he and Rachel are in the same summer house in the Hamptons—a point she fixates on, wondering the real reason Dex wouldn’t want Marcus to ask her out. As they start drinking wine, Rachel tells Marcus about Dex’s bet with Darcy that she wouldn’t go on the date. They toast to not telling Dex and Darcy any details about the date regardless of how well it goes—although Marcus assures her that they’ll have a good time.

Rachel finds Marcus to be “disarming” (63) in his Midwestern charm. The fall into easy conversation after first discussing how Rachel knows Dex and Darcy. They finish dinner and move on to a bar, where they continue talking. Marcus tells her how he got into Georgetown but felt he had to maintain his cool-boy image from high school, since practically no one went to college. He started smoking weed and finished second-to-last in his college class. Marcus walks her home after the date and kisses her. Rachel feels content.

Darcy calls her the next morning trying to get information about the date. Rachel tells her it went well, but won’t reveal any details, which exasperates Darcy. At the end of the week, Rachel piles into Dex’s car with Marcus, Claire, and Darcy to head to the Hamptons. After several hours, they arrive at the house and unpack. Before they head out to meet up with Hillary, everyone changes clothes except for Dex and Rachel, who awkwardly sit across from each other in the den. Dex tells Rachel she and Marcus make a “swell couple,” (70), to which she replies that he and Darcy do as well. They share a prolonged look that’s loaded with meaning. At their favorite bar, Rachel starts watching Dex and Darcy interact with each other, noticing how they flirt and feeling something “related” (71) to jealousy. She proceeds to dance with Marcus and moves in close when he tells her Darcy and Dex are still trying to find out what happened on their date.

The next day, Hillary asks Rachel about her and Marcus. They share a room together, and Hillary tells Rachel that she and Marcus looked like a couple at the bar. Rachel only responds that they’re taking things slowly. Later at the beach, Claire criticizes Darcy’s use of coconut oil on her skin and the two bicker. Dex makes a face at Rachel over the exchange, grinning when she smiles back. She has a moment of longing for him and feels jealous when Darcy starts flirting with him. At a party later that night, Marcus rescues Rachel from an old colleague, commenting on how seriously everyone at the party takes themselves. Rachel agrees, thinking how foreign the environment is from her life back home in Indiana. When they return to the house, Dex and Darcy stay up talking with Rachel and Marcus. When Dex and Darcy go upstairs, Rachel feels “an unexpected pang for Dex” (81), but she and Marcus start kissing. Although she enjoys it, she doesn’t “see skyrockets” (82).

The next day, Rachel uses a work text as an excuse to leave. She’s exhausted from avoiding Dex and navigating the situation with Marcus. Dex volunteers to drive her to the bus. As they pull up, Dex tells her he wants to come over on Tuesday night to see her. She feels a “familiar ache” (84) in her stomach that she can’t quite explain and agrees to his request. She tells herself she’s doing it because she misses his friendship. She takes a seat on the bus and realizes the pain is a mixture of “genuine emotion” (84) and fear that she is risking everything.

Dex comes over on Tuesday night and reiterates to Rachel that he doesn’t feel guilty about their tryst. He tells Rachel to look at him and says they have a “major problem” (86) before he starts passionately kissing her. They kiss for a long time and Rachel feels “Fireworks” (86). She stops briefly to tell him they should stop, thinking she needs to be a good friend to Darcy, but Dex insists that they “have to” (87). By admitting their feelings for one another, she knows they have passed the point of no return.