Eligible

This seemed a rather presumptuous judgment from someone who herself had never been employed. “Don’t show that to anyone,” Liz said. “Even if it’s true, it’s irrelevant.”

Chapter 16 (#ulink_62fc48a2-3836-5024-993d-f770bd575658)

At five-thirty in the morning, Liz awoke to the rustling of Jane slipping into the twin bed across from hers.

“Yikes,” Liz mumbled. “I guess it was a successful date.”

“Oh, Lizzy,” Jane said. “Chip’s amazing.”

Chapter 17 (#ulink_47b3de7c-1379-5d96-bd6c-6b7d7161d06b)

After dinner at Orchids, Jane and Chip had moved on to Bakersfield for drinks. (Liz didn’t learn any of this until the afternoon, because Jane not only slept through their morning run but also skipped the eleven A.M. service at Knox Presbyterian Church that Mary and Mrs. Bennet attended every Sunday, Liz and Jane attended when in town, and all other Bennets eschewed except at Christmas.) Following drinks (“Did you actually drink or were you fostering a hospitable uterus again?” Liz asked, and Jane said she’d had one glass of wine at dinner and another at the bar), Jane and Chip had returned to his apartment in Oakley, where they’d taken the opportunity to discover that they were a couple truly compatible in all ways. “Do you think I’m slutty?” Jane asked.

“You’re thirty-nine years old,” Liz said. “You should do what you want. Was it weird with his sister there?”

Jane shook her head. “The room she’s staying in is at the opposite end of the apartment.” Jane was still lying in bed as she relayed these facts, and Liz sat on the other twin bed. “It wasn’t awkward with Chip at all, and neither of us was drunk,” Jane added. “I really like him. I just—I felt a way I hadn’t for so long. And it barely had to do with how good-looking he is. He is good-looking, but I was just so comfortable with him. He’s genuinely nice and not self-centered. I really don’t think he’s an aspiring actor. He told me the Eligible producers got in touch recently asking him to be on a reunion show, and he said no.”

“Then I stand corrected.”

“He also was mortified you’d overheard him and Darcy talking at the Lucases’. He wanted me to tell you how sorry he is, and how he doesn’t share Darcy’s view of Cincinnati at all.”

Liz smiled. “At least when it comes to the women here, I’d say that’s obvious.”

“Really, though.” Jane’s expression was serious. “Chip says Darcy can be kind of brusque, but he’s a really good person and a world-class surgeon.”

“With a world-class ego, apparently. Just to warn you, Mom’s downstairs practically salivating. She knows you were out late.”

“You didn’t tell her how late, did you?”

“No, but I can’t promise she wasn’t looking out the window when Chip dropped you off.”

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Jane said. “Because think how much trouble I’d have gotten in back in high school for coming home from a date at five in the morning. But I just had to wait twenty years, and now Mom’s probably thrilled.”

Chapter 18 (#ulink_1dc8085c-69f9-5484-8463-c69add1917f2)

“I’ve got a question that you need not repeat to any of your sisters,” Mr. Bennet said. He and Liz sat in an exam room at the orthopedist’s office, waiting for the removal of the cast on his arm, a duty Jane had told Liz she didn’t think she could sit through. “I’m afraid I’ll throw up,” Jane had said, and Liz had said, “Because of the saw?” Jane had shaken her head and said, “Because of the smell.”

“This business about Mary being homosexual,” Mr. Bennet continued. “Do you think there’s anything to it?”

Surprised, Liz said, “Why?”

“Your mother wouldn’t like it, of course. But what’s the old saying about people going about their business as long as they don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses?”

“Wow, Dad,” Liz said. “Have you become a Democrat?”

Her father shuddered. “Scarcely. But where does Mary goon Tuesday nights?”

“You could ask her. Where she goes, I mean, not if she’s gay. Well, you could ask her that, too, although I don’t know if I would.” Liz had concluded some years earlier that Mary wasn’t interesting enough to be gay. All the gay people Liz knew in New York, both men and women, were a little more something than average—a little more thoughtful or stylish or funny—though perhaps, Liz reflected, it was New York itself rather than gayness that accounted for their extra appeal.

“If Mary has a friend she doesn’t think she can bring to dinner, that’d be rather a shame,” Mr. Bennet said. “Her significant other deserves to suffer as much as the rest of us.” He was looking at Liz directly, and she tried not to squirm. Was he talking about Mary, or was he actually alluding to her and Jasper?

“She must have her reasons,” Liz said. “You did just say yourself that Mom would be horrified.”

“Your mother is horrified many times a day.”

“At least now Mom has Chip Bingley to pin her hopes on. Did you know he and Jane went out for the second time last night? They went to a movie.”

Before Mr. Bennet could answer, the door opened, and there appeared a male nurse in aqua-colored scrubs, carrying the plastic saw with its round blade at one end; the entire contraption wasn’t much larger than an electric toothbrush. “Fred!” the nurse said, though they had never met. “How are we today?”

Reading the nurse’s name tag, Mr. Bennet replied with fake enthusiasm, “Bernard! We’re mourning the death of manners and the rise of overly familiar discourse. How are you?”

Chapter 19 (#ulink_98904001-e105-5821-a7ed-09a3fc9a958a)

“Remember Allen Bausch?” Mrs. Bennet said as Liz sat by herself at the kitchen table eating lunch.

Liz looked at her mother with curiosity. “Mary’s prom date?”

“You should find him on the computer and send him a message from Mary. That’s something that happens a lot now. Couples find each other on their computer after losing touch, and then they get married.”

“He’s probably married to someone else.”

“He isn’t. His aunt is in the Women’s League.”

“Either way, why would I reach out to him? Shouldn’t Mary do it?”

“She can be so stubborn.”

“Were Mary and Allen even a couple? They might have just gone to prom as friends.”

“He’s a lawyer in Atlanta, and he’s very active in his church,” Mrs. Bennet said. “If that’s not the description of a man looking for a wife, I don’t know what is.”

Chapter 20 (#ulink_aeba2472-e4db-5ea4-8558-61bf27db0044)

Charlotte Lucas called Liz midweek. “I’m organizing a game night for Friday,” she said. “Can you come, and can you tell your sisters?”

“Do you remember that Lydia cheats?”

“Is it possible to cheat at Charades?”

“Oh, she’ll find a way,” Liz said. “I think Jane’s going out with Chip again Friday—for the third time, if you can believe it. But I’m definitely in, and I’ll try to round up Mary or Kitty.”

“Jane should bring Chip. Or should I invite him myself?”

Liz hesitated. On the one hand, the chance to observe her sister and Chip together was tempting. On the other hand, if Chip attended game night—and Liz nerdily, unabashedly adored game nights—he might bring his sister or, worse, Fitzwilliam Darcy. But who was she to exclude others? “Sure,” she said to Charlotte. “Call Chip.”

Chapter 21 (#ulink_ab5ecb19-bb2c-5773-81c6-0e62b9e410d9)

So depressing and uncomfortable had Liz found the update about Mervetta that in searching for new housecleaners, she sought agencies that would send rotating crews of three rather than an individual, with whom Mrs. Bennet might have a falling-out.