The only person in whom she could confide her growing unhappiness was Margie, who wasn't so much sympathetic as fatalistic.
"It's a trade-off," she said. "And it's been going on since the beginning of time. Or at least since the first rich man ever took himself a poor wife."
Rachel flinched at this. "I am not-"
"Oh honey."
"That's not why I married Mitch."
"No, of course it isn't. You'd be with him if he was ugly and poor and I'd be with Garrison if he was tap-dancing on a street corner in Soho."
"I love Mitch."
"Right now?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, sitting here right now, having said all the things you've just said about how he's neglectful, and doesn't want to talk about feelings, and so on, sitting right here right now, you love him?"
"Oh Lord…"
"Is that a maybe?"
There was a pause while they thought about what she was feeling at that moment. "I don't know what I feel," she admitted. "It's just that he's not…"
"The man you married?" Rachel nodded. Margie refilled her whiskey glass and leaned forward as though to whisper something, though they were the only people in the room. "Sweetheart, he never was the man you married. He was just giving you the Mitch you wanted to see." She leaned back, waving her free hand in the air as though to swat a swarm of phantom Gearys out of her sight. "They're all the same. Christ knows." She sipped her whiskey. "Believe it or not. Garrison can be charm personified when it suits him. They must get it from their grandfather."
Rachel pictured Cadmus the way he'd been at the wedding; sitting in his high-backed chair dispensing charm like a benediction.
"If it's all a performance," she said, "where's the real Mitch?"
"He doesn't know any more. If he ever did, which I doubt. It's sort of pitiful when you think about it. All that power, all that money, and there's nobody home to use it."
"They use it all the time," Rachel said.
"No," Margie replied. "It uses them. They're not living. None of us Gearys are. We're all just going through the motions." She peered at her glass. "I know I drink too much. It's rotting my liver and it'll probably kill me. But at least when I've got a few whiskeys inside me I'm not stuck being Mrs. Garrison Geary. When I'm drunk I give up being his wife, I'm somebody he wishes he didn't know. I like that."
Rachel shook her head in despair. "If it's so bad," she said, "why don't you just leave?"
"I've tried. I've left him three times. Once I stayed away for five months. But… you get into a certain way of being. You get comfortable." Rachel looked uneasy. "It doesn't take long. Look, I don't like living in Garrison's shadow, but I like living without his credit cards even less."
"You could divorce him and get a very nice settlement, Margie. You could live anywhere you wanted, anyway you wanted."
Now it was Margie who shook her head. "I know," she said softly. "I'm just making excuses." She picked up the whiskey bottle and poured herself another half tumbler. "The fact is, I'm not leaving because somewhere deep down I don't want to. I guess maybe what's left of my self-esteem's wrapped up in being part of the dynasty. Isn't that pathetic?" She sipped on her drink. "Don't look so appalled, honey. Just because I'm too screwed up to leave, doesn't mean you can't. How old are you now?"
"Twenty-seven."
"That's nothing. You've still got your life ahead of you. You know what you should do? Tell Mitch you want a trial separation. Get a few million in your pocket and go off to see the world."
"I don't think seeing the world's going to make me happy."
"All right. So what is going to make you happy?"
Rachel thought it over for a moment. "Being with Mitch the way he was before we got married," she finally replied.
"Oh Lord," Margie sighed. "Then you know what? You have a big'problem."
Some of Mitchell's old charm returned, albeit briefly, when he talked with Rachel about their having children. More than once he rhapsodized about how blessed their kids were going to be: the girls beautiful, the boys all studs. He was keen to start a family as soon as possible, ^nd he wanted the brood to be large. In fact, Rachel got the unwelcome impression that he wanted to make up for Garrison's relative lack of productivity (Margie having borne one child only: a girl, now eight, called Alexia).
But the act of love was welcome, even if it was in service of Geary productivity rather than pleasure. When Mitchell was close to her, his hands on her body, his lips against hers, she remembered how she'd felt when they'd first touched, first kissed. How special she'd felt; how rare.
He wasn't an inspired lover. In fact Rachel had been surprised at how gauche he was in bed; almost shy, in fact. He certainly didn't act like a man who'd reputedly bedded some of the most beautiful women of the day. She liked his lack of sexual sophistication. For one thing, it matched her own, and it was nice to be able to learn together how best to pleasure one another. But even at his best, he left her wanting more. He didn't seem to understand the rhythms of her body; how she wanted to be held tenderly sometimes, and sometimes fiercely. When she attempted to express those needs in words he made his discomfort clear.
"I don't like it when you talk dirty," he said to her after one of their lovemaking sessions had ended. "Maybe I'm just being old-fashioned, but I don't think women should talk that way. It's not…"
"Ladylike?" she said.
He was standing in the bathroom door, tying the belt of his robe. He made a little fussy business of it so as not to look at her. "Yeah," he said. "It's not ladylike."
"I just want to be able to say what I want, Mitch."
"You mean what you want when we're in bed?" he said.
"Isn't that allowed?"
He made an exasperated sigh. "Rachel…" he said, "I told you before. You can say whatever you want to say."
"No I can't," she replied. "You tell me that, but you don't mean it. You're ready to snap at me if I say anything critical."
"That's not true."
"You're doing it right now."
"I'm not. I'm just saying I've been brought up in a different way than you. When I'm in bed with somebody I don't want to be given orders."
Now he was beginning to annoy her, and she wasn't in the mood to keep her irritation out of sight. "If you think me asking you to fuck me a little harder-"
"There you go again."
"-is me giving you orders we've got a problem, because-"
"I don't want to hear this."
"-and that's part of the problem."
"No, the problem is you having a foul mouth."
She got up out of bed. She was still naked, still sweaty from their lovemaking (he was always the first to the shower, scrubbing himself clean). Her nakedness intimidated him. It was the same body he'd been coupling with ten minutes before; now he couldn't look at her below her neck. She'd, not thought of him as absurd until that moment. Arrogant sometimes, childish sometimes. But never, until now, absurd. There he was, a grown man, averting his eyes from her body like a nervous schoolboy. She would have laughed had it not been so pitiful.