Something Borrowed

Darcy Rhone is Rachel’s best friend since childhood. Dating back to their earliest years in Indiana, Darcy has always had “good looks,” a “perfect body,” and “confidence” (22). On the eve of her 30th birthday, Rachel feels, more than ever before, that Darcy has everything she doesn’t—a “glamorous” (4) job in PR and a handsome fiancé. Rachel envies that Darcy gets what she wants and always seems to be in control of everything and everyone around her. Once Rachel begins her tryst with Dex, she comes to see Darcy as “selfish, plain and simple” (145). Cast in a new light, Darcy appears manipulative, self-centered, and unremorseful about who she hurts. Rachel also finds Darcy’s constant need to outshine everyone else increasingly intolerable. While she once loved Darcy like a sister, Rachel ultimately feels the demise of their friendship “is for the best” (321).

Dexter (Dex) Thaler is Darcy’s fiancé. He is “lean and tall” with “dark hair and green eyes” (4) like Darcy. He is attractive, confident, and has a successful job in finance. Rachel met Dex when they attended law school together and she felt his “outward perfection” (28) made him unattainable to her. Because Rachel never felt good enough for Dex, she failed to see his feelings for her and pushed him towards Darcy. Dex serves as an essential part of Rachel’s journey towards gaining self-confidence by offering her his unconditional love and pushing her to take risks and break out of her comfort zone. Dex’s role in Rachel’s life is complicated—requiring Rachel to betray her best friend and faltering briefly when Dex encounters his own doubts and insecurities about leaving Darcy. When he chooses Rachel, Dex shows her that his love for her is genuine, and their affair was not just a fling.

Ethan is a friend of Rachel and Darcy’s since childhood and Rachel’s “first real crush” (19). After graduating from Stanford, he traded in his job in finance to travel around the West Coast taking pictures. He had a tumultuous affair with a girl named Brandi, whose claims that her pregnant child was Ethan’s turned out to be a lie. In the aftermath, Ethan moved to London to work at a magazine. He and Rachel remain close, and she confides in him about her affair with Dexter. Ethan is a crucial member of Rachel’s network of support, providing her with advice and support. He exposes some of Darcy’s past manipulative behavior towards Rachel, and admits he always favored Rachel over Darcy—which boosts Rachel’s self-confidence.

Hillary is one of Rachel’s coworkers at the law firm and considers herself to be Rachel’s best friend. She has a “laid-back” (69) attitude about her job, regularly arriving late or blowing it off altogether. She also has a similar attitude about her appearance, often wearing wrinkled clothes and no makeup—which Darcy finds unattractive, but Rachel defends as “pretty” (192). Like Ethan, Hillary is one of Rachel’s confidantes and main pillars of support. She approves of Rachel’s tryst with Dex, partly because she doesn’t like Darcy, but also because she cares about Rachel and wants her to be happy. She thinks Rachel and Dex make a better match than Dex and Darcy.

Annalise Giles is Rachel and Darcy’s other childhood best friend. She moved into their neighborhood in Indiana two years after Rachel and Darcy arrived, so she was never quite as close to them as they were with each other. The three did almost everything together, and Annalise is a key part of Rachel’s frequent reflections on her youth—about which she often has mixed feelings, particularly towards Darcy. When Rachel and Darcy visit Annalise in Indiana for her baby shower, Rachel warmly observes that she “resists change” (154). Annalise’s comforting familiarity serves as a reminder of the life Rachel left behind in Indiana, while also starkly contrasting the life she now leads in New York. Rachel fears being judged by Annalise’s friends, but she doesn’t hesitate to negatively judge them from her cosmopolitan vantage point.

Marcus is Dex’s friend from Georgetown and serves as Rachel’s pseudo-love interest whenever she faces turbulence in her situation with Dex. He’s from Montana, finished second-to-last in his class at Georgetown, and got high all the time instead of going to class. Before Rachel gets to know him, she’s unsure if he’s “a free spirit or simply a buffoon” (47). After Rachel goes on a date with him, she finds him trustworthy, his sense of humor to be “disarming,” (63), and his “Midwestern style” to be “easy” (63). Marcus is not unlike Rachel in that he’s willing to unapologetically betray his good friend to be with his romantic interest, and uses Rachel as a convenient distraction from Darcy as much as Rachel uses Marcus to distract her from Dex.