Rachel needed money, too. What a joke, being married to a rich man and being so poor. It would be one thing if Marc’s family were cheap across the board. But Marc’s parents were exceedingly generous with themselves and their children. They were stingy only with those who had the bad judgment to marry into the family. Sometimes, Rachel would find herself staring mutely, pleadingly, at her brother-in-law, wishing he were the kind of person who would go outside and smoke a cigarette with her so they could share their mutual pain. But that tall drink of water, that stupid shaygetz, was so naïve he didn’t even know they called him the stupid shaygetz behind his back. Which was odd, because the Singers pretended they didn’t know Yiddish most of the time. They were too grand, too many generations removed. Oh, how Rachel wished her father had been there the night of the engagement dinner, if only for his commentary on the finger bowls. At least Bambi had been able to humble them a little, through her sheer beauty and poise. But the money in that house-that evening, Rachel had watched her mother’s hand go to her necklace, her favorite diamond earrings. A stranger couldn’t tell, but Rachel knew that Bambi was unnerved by her new in-laws.
She wouldn’t have been if Felix were still around.
Ten years. Ten years. Rachel missed her father every day. Not consciously, but his absence was a part of her, like a vine that wraps around a structure, sustains it even as it weakens it. She assumed Linda and her mother felt the same way, but they seldom spoke of him. They allowed themselves a handful of nice stories-“Remember the time at Gino’s?” “Remember the bumper cars?” “Remember the time at the Prime Rib?”-and that was all.
Rachel had avoided Marc at Brown because he knew her story. Rachel had fallen so hard for him because she didn’t have to tell him her story. Upon arriving at college, she was determined not to lie about her father, yet also intent on avoiding the emotional promiscuity that dorm life seemed to bring out in people. Sex was one thing, but why were girls so slutty with their life stories? But Marc knew. Knew her and didn’t pity her.
“So here you are,” Linda said, coming through the swinging door. “Marc looks unhappy.”
“It’s a pose he affects,” Rachel said. “He’s more handsome when he’s brooding.”
“What’s going on with you two?”
“We had a fight.” Not quite true, but they were going to have one, tomorrow.
“Oh, you two are always fighting.”
“Not always. But it’s normal to fight sometimes,” Rachel said, hoping this was true. “You just think everyone should be like you and Henry in the Peaceable Kingdom.”
“We fight,” Linda said with a self-satisfaction that belied her words. She sat down carefully on one of the tufted stools. Although hugely pregnant, Linda moved with her usual grace.
“You yell at Henry as though he were a bad dog and he hangs his head and asks for your forgiveness. Or laughs at you. Either way, it’s not real fighting.”
“We happen to agree on most things. What do you and Marc have to fight about, anyway? Everything is going great for you.”
Did it really look like that? Even to her sister? Rachel tried to stand outside her own life and see what others saw. The nice town house, a gift from Marc’s parents, although in a rather sterile development. She would have liked to live in one of the old neighborhoods near downtown, but when someone else is paying, choice is curtailed. Marc worked for his family’s real estate company, on the commercial side. Big deals, big money, he liked to say. Marc would rather sell one warehouse than five homes, whereas Rachel thought the only lure in real estate was the opportunity to make people happy. Rachel was a copywriter at a Baltimore ad agency, but the job was a favor called in by her father-in-law, and she wrote about things so boring that she literally fell asleep at her desk, which did not impress her boss or coworkers.
“Marc’s parents couldn’t even be bothered to attend the service this morning. Didn’t you notice? His father claimed he had an important golf game. There has never, in the history of time, been a truly important golf game.”
“The only thing I noticed was how everyone turned around when the door slammed at the exact moment Michelle got up to give her haftorah. But I’m looking at the bright side-now everyone will think she was rattled, and that’s why she did such a shitty job.”
“Linda!” But she was right about Michelle’s abominable Hebrew.
“Is it too much to ask that she make even a halfhearted attempt to do a good job after all the expense and time Mother put in? She had her own tutor, Rachel, spent countless hours with him. And it wasn’t just the Hebrew. Her speech was ridiculous.”
“I didn’t think it was that bad.”
“Rachel-she incorporated the lyrics of a Wham! song into the story of the Exodus. It was borderline sacrilegious. Make the bread before you go-go?”
“ ‘Lose the yeast or it will be too slow-slow.’ I thought it was funny.”
“Rachel, our semiotician. How’s that working out for you as a career?” But Linda, while frequently furious, was not cruel. She put her hand on her sister’s arm by way of apology. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I feel like I’ve been pregnant for three years. And I’m just so pissed that Mother spent all this money she doesn’t have.”
“She told me it would be okay. She swore. She said she had a little windfall.”
“From what? Aunt Harriet is still alive and kicking, with no signs of letting go. She’s out there right now, stuffing rolls in her purse.”
“She wouldn’t say. But she said there’s even enough left over to give her a little cushion.”
But not enough cushion, Rachel thought, to bail Rachel out. If she left Marc, she would have nothing. She had no savings and quite a bit of college debt. The job, provided as a favor to his father, would disappear. The car, too, would be taken back; the title was in his parents’ name. And there was the prenup. Technically a postnup, presented to the happy couple when they had returned from their Las Vegas elopement. How Rachel and Marc had laughed at his silly parents. Why not sign a document that had no meaning, they agreed. They would be together forever.
Rachel believed Marc had been sincere in that moment. He loved her and they were kindred spirits. He even wrote poetry and-knife to her heart-his was good. Second knife to her heart, he abandoned it. “I don’t want to get an MFA and teach and be poor,” he told her. “I grew up with money. I like it.” How could Rachel argue? She had known life with and without it, and there was no contest: money was better.
But if she had Marc’s gift for writing and if her father were still around-she didn’t doubt that he would encourage her, support her. Your family should be your Medicis. Maybe if she found a real job, on her own-
“Do you believe it?” Linda asked.