Everything did somehow manage to get finished just in time for the wedding. He’d arranged a “bachelor party” of a private room with a big screen for the guys to watch the first game of the World Series, followed by the game of flag football Charlie insisted upon―why Charlie was willing to risk a bruised face from an accidental tackle, he had no idea―and considered that his contribution to the proceedings.
Apparently, there were some “best man” duties for the day itself, like the speech he’d have to give later. Right now, he was more concerned with if he should go find a trash can to put near Charlie just in case, as he was looking green standing in front of a mirror in the groom’s dressing room.
“I’m not nervous,” Charlie insisted, brushing Richard’s hands away and attempting to straighten his own tie with shaking hands. The mirror in the groom’s dressing room was full-length, putting Charlie’s anxious movements on full display.
Richard and Will exchanged a glance.
Charlie rolled his eyes at them. “Not nervous. I’m just scared to death.”
“It’s a big step . . .” Will started.
“Oh, shut it. I’m not scared about marrying Jane. Or marriage.”
“She is pretty amazing,” Richard said. “She’s probably the sweetest woman in existence. And hot, too. I could totally―”
“If you say ‘hit that,’ Richard, I’m going to hit you,” Charlie warned.
“―understand why you’d want to marry her!” Richard added hastily, giving Will a wicked grin.
“Anyway, I guess I’m just scared about messing up. Jane is the best thing that has ever happened to me. What if I do something wrong and ruin her wedding day? Or her life?”
“You will,” Dad said, closing the door silently behind him.
“Hey, Mr. Darcy,” Charlie said. “Thanks for your confidence.”
“Just came to see how you were doing. I remember how nervous I was before I married my Anne.” He put his free hand on Charlie’s shoulder.
“So you’re here for the pep talk? Because I have to tell you, I don’t think you’re doing it right.”
Dad gave a little laugh. “I heard what you said about ruining her life. The thing is, Charlie, you will make some major mistakes, and they will alter the course of your relationship and your lives together. Nobody can ever predict the twists and turns that life will take. But if you build a strong marriage, you’ll get through it together. Maybe in a few years, you’ll decide you hate being a businessman and want to go to art school.”
Richard snorted. “Not likely. Have you see him try to draw?”
“Hush, it’s a hypothetical scenario.” Dad teasingly slapped the back of Richard’s head. “Anyway, you might not be able to provide for Jane the way you intended. But that doesn’t mean you’re ruining her life, just that it’s taking a different shape than you envision it taking now. Maybe you have lots of kids and your life ends up being very different because you have a full house of them. Or maybe the two of you can’t have kids, and you have some hard decisions about whether you’ll foster, adopt, try IVF, or just remain childless.”
Will swallowed. He wondered suddenly what kind of life his parents had once imagined for themselves. A house full of children? Having children earlier, when they were younger and more energetic? He knew they’d been trying for many years before adopting him. But, of course, he’d been twelve when they took him in, so they might not have had kids any older than him anyway.
“Just make sure that you promise yourself, and her, that you’ll always be there for each other. That whether marriage is easy or hard, fun or boring, peaceful or stressful, you’ll stick it out together. Then instead of thinking of some mistake or some change in the path as ‘ruining’ your lives, just think of it as an unexpected twist.”
Dad looked at his watch. “Oh, and you’d better get out there. I was told to fetch you.”
“All finished putting on your makeup?” Richard asked playfully.
Charlie rolled his eyes and punched Richard’s shoulder as he passed on his way out the door.
The wedding was beautiful, and so was Jane. Simple, classy, elegant, nothing overstated.
Will stole a glance at Elizabeth. She was Jane’s bridesmaid and looked stunning in a bold blue dress with lacy sleeves. He had a hard time not staring at her chest, as the dramatic neckline made it hard to keep his eyes off. There was a great deal more creamy skin visible than in her usual t-shirts and cotton dresses. One of the times when he finally dragged his eyes up and away, he met Jane’s gaze. She was smirking. He could feel his ears grow hot as he tried hard to focus on the minister.
When the wedding was over, he offered Elizabeth his arm for the walk down the aisle. She hesitated before taking his arm, and his heart dropped. There had to be a way to talk things out. He needed a chance to explain. Just as they were nearing the front of the church and he thought to ask if they could talk, he recognized somebody on the groom’s side and hissed.
“What in the world is my aunt doing at Charlie’s wedding? She barely knows him!” he whispered.
Elizabeth glanced at him quickly, then away.
He couldn’t exactly pull Charlie aside to ask what was going on, because when they reached the vestibule, everybody was gathering for pictures and he and Elizabeth were swept up into wedding party shoots.
The first photos were of the bride and groom alone. Will stood next to Elizabeth, watching. He had to say something. What, he didn’t know. But he had to get her back. If only she’d talk to him!
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he whispered.
“How could you keep that from me?” she hissed back, somehow managing to convey her anger without raising her voice above a whisper. “You made a fool out of me! How long have you known?” She kept her focus on the bridal couple, not making eye contact with Will.
“Not long. I figured it out when I finally learned your name was Bennet, at that dinner. I . . . this sounds stupid now, but I was trying to make it a surprise.”
“A surprise?” Elizabeth said a bit too loudly. An older woman turned towards her, and she smiled at her relative, then ducked her head and lowered her voice. “A surprise? That’s rich.”
“I thought, well, that you had saved me once, and I was going to save you.” Saying it out loud made it sound stupid. After all, he knew what they said about good intentions.
“Saved you?”
“Yeah. Starting with the peanut butter sandwich. You saved my life that day, you know.”
“I did not. You were hungry, I could tell, but you weren’t starving.”
He shrugged, watching Charlie put his arm around Jane and hold her close, smiling for the camera. “You did save me. I think I was starving for something else, if not food. For a friend. For something to think about and do and dream. You gave me books.”
She sighed and gave him a look of aggravation. “It’s impossible to stay angry with you when you talk like that, especially about books. I wasn’t done being mad yet!”
He grinned, and she rolled her eyes.
“I’d probably still be furious if I could. But now, knowing you’re my George . . .” She blushed, probably realizing what she’d said. Will certainly had, and the relief he felt at her response threatened to make his face split in two from grinning.
She went on, “I wasn’t trying to save you. I just thought you looked like you could use a friend. And I needed one, too. Things with my parents were really bad. My mother has always been . . . difficult. Staying away from home seemed the best thing to do, and having a friend made it better.”
Now it was Jane’s turn to stand alone. The photographer had her hold her bouquet in different positions and took photos of each one.
“How were you trying to save me?” she asked softly.
“You were out of work, out of money, living with Jane when you’d been used to be independent. I thought that maybe I could pull some strings, make sure you got the job.”
“Only it backfired.�
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“Boy, did it,” he admitted. “Lizzy, I really am sorry that I lost you that job. I can only hope I haven’t destroyed every chance of you getting a job in publishing. It was stupid of me.”
“Colossally stupid,” she agreed.
“Yeah.”
“I think you get your way too often and are too used to people deferring to you. Like Charlie and Jane and the pre-nup.”
“Well, in my defense, there, I only said he should consider it. And you have to admit, a pre-nup is standard when somebody wealthy gets married.”
“To somebody who isn’t,” she added, sounding bitter.
He shook his head and reached out to touch her arm, then thought better of it. “To anybody, Lizzy. Whether she’s a schoolteacher or a rich socialite, it’s what is done. I had never even heard the arguments Jane made against getting one. Once I did, I was forced to reconsider.”
“So you were the one who told Charlie to go back to Jane? You do seem to tell people what to do a lot,” she said, looking full on at him finally.
“Lizzy!” Jane called. She held out her bouquet, and Lizzy stepped forward to take it, then returned to Will.
“I didn’t tell Charlie to go back to Jane,” he said. “I just asked him a question.”
She looked at him suspiciously. “And what was that?”
“Whether the pre-nup was worth losing Jane over.”
They watched Charlie and Jane as their parents joined them for some pictures, first Bingley’s parents individually, then Jane’s parents individually, then all of the parents together―the women on one side and the men on the other, so the divorced couples didn’t have to stand together. Charlie was right: divorce was messy.
“I have something for you,” Elizabeth said, but then before Will could ask what, they were called into the photos. There wasn’t another moment to talk. But Will felt as though he could breathe easier. They had broken the ice. He wasn’t sure things were resolved, but at least they were talking, and they’d addressed the very topics they’d fought over.
Things were looking up.
When they reached the reception hall, there was press outside the building again. Fortunately, Charlie had anticipated the problem and hired security, so they stayed outside.
Jane and Charlie had opted for a “sweetheart table,” so the two of them sat alone at a table near the front of the room. Will and Elizabeth were seated at a table nearby with Mrs. Bingley, Katie and Lydia Gardiner, Caroline Bingley, the Hursts, and . . . Mr. Bennet and Ms. Gardiner, Elizabeth’s estranged parents. Why in the world were they at the same table? Mr. Bingley had been separated from his ex-wife.
He looked around for his parents and saw them and Ana sitting with some of the board members from AirVA, Richard, and Charlie’s secretary and his wife.
Will went to pull a chair out for Elizabeth next to her father. At her quick head shake and nod towards the other chair, he pulled that one out instead, placing himself next to him instead. Mr. Bennet didn’t look happy, but he didn’t say anything.
“Lizzy, there you are,” Ms. Gardiner said impatiently. “Whatever took you so long? Sit, sit, they’re about to do the grand entrance.”
Will could have sworn that Lizzy took far longer than necessary to sit down. She carefully placed her purse and a wrap on the back of her chair before taking a seat. He glanced at Ms. Gardiner, whose lips were pursed.
Of course, there were still some ten minutes to wait before Charlie and Jane’s big entrance, minutes Will would have much preferred to spend anywhere but at the table. Conversation was stilted, with Ms. Gardiner speaking loudly and nobody else speaking much at all.
“My Jane looked so lovely!” Ms. Gardiner gushed to Mrs. Bingley. “Did you see? I thought her updo complemented her face just perfectly and showed off those beautiful cheekbones! It was my idea, you know. You don’t meet a beauty like Jane every day.”
Mrs. Bingley was seated next to Ms. Gardiner, and she replied quietly. But Ms. Gardiner’s voice carried.
“Now, Elizabeth, on the other hand. I can’t imagine why Jane would have chosen such a color for Elizabeth to wear. It doesn’t suit her at all. And for some reason, she insisted that Elizabeth be her only bridesmaid, so it isn’t as though she had to choose a color that worked for her sisters as well. I can’t imagine why she didn’t want to have her other sisters, oh, and Caroline and Lisa, too, of course,” she said, giving Caroline an angelic smile.
Caroline was speaking quietly with her sister but turned to give Ms. Gardiner a glare.
Mr. Bennet was leaning back in his chair, arms crossed on his chest, smirking at his ex-wife.
Will couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Did her mother always talk about her this way, right in front of her? How did she talk to her when nobody else was around? Furthermore, she was dead wrong. He couldn’t conceive of a more beautiful woman than Elizabeth Bennet, and the deep blue dress she was wearing had knocked his socks off the moment he’d first seen her. She’d entered the sanctuary and started down the aisle toward him, and he’d forgotten to breathe long enough that he’d gotten lightheaded. No, Ms. Gardiner had no idea what true beauty was.
Only Mrs. Bingley seemed to find Ms. Gardiner’s words the least bit surprising. She looked vaguely horrified and had angled her seat as far away from Ms. Gardiner as she could.
Katie and Lydia Gardiner had turned their chairs backwards at the table so that they could chat with two of Charlie’s cousins at the neighboring table. The talk was loud and raucous, and from the look of things, the cousins didn’t mind talking to the Bennet girls at all.
Mrs. Bingley spoke again, but Ms. Gardiner continued at a loud enough volume to be heard over her daughters’ noise. “Well, I suppose it is a pretty dress, although it would have looked far better on Jane or Lydia. But of course, Jane’s wedding gown is to die for! She bought it without even bringing me along. I was disappointed, of course, but then I found out that she did it to surprise me! She wanted my first view of it to be on her wedding day. Now isn’t that sweet?”
She looked at Elizabeth again and frowned. “Elizabeth, dear, that dress is quite long. I hope you know what you’re doing. I can’t imagine how you’ll dance in it. You know you’re so clumsy, dear. Perhaps you’d like to change into something a bit simpler for the dancing? I brought another dress along if you’d like. It’s in my car.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly. “No, Mother,” she said when she opened them. “I’ll be fine.”
Will was glad he was seated next to her, because he reached under the table to grab her hand. He wasn’t sure how she’d take the gesture, but she slipped her hand in his and gave him a quick grateful look before turning away.
Charlie and Jane’s entrance was appropriately dramatic, the deejay theatrically presenting them as “Mr. and Mrs. Bingley . . . for the very first time!” as they ducked under a trellis and emerged laughing.
Charlie and Jane took to the floor for their first dance as a married couple. Will and Elizabeth both turned in their chairs to watch them.
Halfway through the song, Will spoke softly to Elizabeth, “Who seated your parents at the same table? I can’t imagine Jane doing that.” He wondered if Caroline had gotten hold of the seating arrangements somehow and decided to go for some subtle sabotage in revenge for being evicted from Charlie’s social calendar. She hadn’t been invited to the bachelorette party and hadn’t been able to find out when and where it was to crash it. She still seemed bitter.
“No, Jane would never,” Elizabeth agreed. She gave a little gasp and then a laugh as Charlie suddenly spun Jane. “I hate to accuse Caroline with no proof, but it seems like the kind of thing she’d do. My parents seem to be tolerating each other well enough for now, though. And as long as there’s no fighting, Jane’s unlikely to rock the boat and move anybody.”
They watched the dance silently for a few moments, then he asked quietly, “Am I forgiven?”
She looked down and didn’t respond at first. Then as
the closing bars of the song played, she took a breath, looked up, and said, “Forgiven, yes. But . . . Will, I don’t know if I can handle being with somebody who always knows better than everybody else, who doesn’t trust the people he loves.”
The dance ended, and Charlie and Jane waved to their guests and walked over towards their table. Will swallowed. He wanted to say, “I’m not like that!” But was that true? There was, he had to admit, justice in her remark.
“I don’t want to be like that,” he said quietly.
She looked up at him. “Then don’t.”
He nodded. He needed to let Charlie, and Elizabeth, make their own decisions and choices and succeed on their own.
And Elizabeth . . . if he wanted a future with Elizabeth, he would have to learn when to sit back and let her do things on her own, even if he thought he could help. Or at least offer first, instead of just doing it. Couples helped each other, of course, and he wanted to be there for her and have her be there for him. But there was a limit to how much was helpful and supportive, and how much was suffocating and infantilizing.
A couple? Was it even possible that she might be willing to consider him in that way?
She leaned towards him and said softly, “Although I’ll admit that I have some better idea, now that I know you’re George, where you’re coming from.” She gave a wry laugh. “I can’t believe I chided you about not knowing what it was like to eat ramen for months on end. Now that I know more about your situation, I bet there were months when you would have loved to have ramen for every meal.”
He shrugged and gave a slight nod. It was true, after all.
The deejay suddenly materialized before Will and handed him the microphone, and Will realized that the spotlight and all eyes had been turned on him.
Oh, crap. The speech.
He fumbled in his pocket quickly and pulled out the notes he’d written for the speech. He’d become accustomed to speaking in front of large groups for work, but this kind of thing was a whole different ballgame.
A Good Name: A Modern Pride and Prejudice Variation Page 22