by Leigh Dreyer
“Lizzy, I haven’t seen you since last week. What are you doing?”
“Well, I was hoping I could visit you today, but I can’t drive.”
“Well, when can I come get you?”
“Anytime.”
“Give me twenty minutes.”
Elizabeth spent her time waiting by cleaning up the mess she had made of the kitchen and pondering what Jane had said. She knew Jane was probably right. She had been working incredibly hard and felt like all she had done was kick against the pricks. Honestly, at this point, she felt like it was only Dr. Willoughby who seemed sympathetic to what she was going through. She wondered at her sister’s lack of empathy at the possible loss of her dreams. Jane always seemed content to flow where the river of life wanted to take her but, for the first time, Elizabeth wondered if maybe life had not turned out just the way Jane had planned.
The doorbell chimed, and Elizabeth opened the door to find Madeline Gardiner standing elegantly on the porch in slacks and a blouse. It occurred to Elizabeth that Madeline seemed like a great lady from another era. She was always so gentle, polite, and put together. Elizabeth on the other hand, well, she was probably too independent for any time. They walked to the pearly-white car together. As the gravel ground beneath the moving tires, Madeline turned to the younger woman and looked her over.
“I’m fine,” Elizabeth said, defensively crossing her arms in front of her chest.
“I didn’t ask.” Madeline turned her attention back to the tree-lined avenue which led from Netherfield to the highway and back to town. “What are we doing today?”
“Tacos?”
“Yes! I was thinking taquitos or maybe nachos.”
“Ah, Jose’s?”
“Of course. Where else would you get good tapatio rancheros? Besides, it’s so much closer to Netherfield.”
“It is closer to breakfast than lunch. Are they even serving tapatios right now?”
“For me, they will. They know me too well.”
“Are we calling ahead?”
“No, I’ve got time. Rotary Club doesn’t have anything until this afternoon, and this morning I just have to stop by a few businesses to ask for donations for our Christmas event.”
“That’s a few months away.”
“That, dear girl, is why we have to do it now, before all the other organizations realize Christmas hasn’t changed dates from last year so we can get the best donations and raise the most money to help the most families.”
“You get ’em, Aunt Maddy.”
“You know it. Fly, fight, win, and all that.”
“Hear, hear!”
The two laughed and set a course for the best Mexican food in town. After a few minutes, when Elizabeth had relaxed, Madeline must have decided to strike while the iron was hot.
“Edward and I had an interesting visitor a few weeks or so ago.”
“Did Mom come over to tell you about Jane’s wedding? I keep telling her that everyone was there. No one needs to be regaled, again, with the flowers and the food and the guests. Her views obviously differ on the matter.”
“No, although the wedding was absolutely beautiful. I know you and your mother have a difficult relationship, but you have to admit, she has party planning and entertaining down to a science.”
“She should write a book. Or maybe go on one of those food TV shows.”
“She would be great in those. Plenty of dramatics for the producers and perfect recipes for the rest of us, but we’re drifting from the topic. In fact, the visitor was of the male variety.”
Swallowing, Elizabeth folded and released her hands several times before she forced them back to her sides.
“Uncle Gardiner pick up a new baby pilot to raise?” The Gardiners had a habit of picking new student pilots and giving them a place to call home while they were stationed at Meryton. Over the course of Elizabeth’s life, there had been Clint, Alisha, Paul, Tim, Andrew, and David along with another ten or so more that were no more than blurs in her memory. They came for holidays and ate with the Gardiners, they would come for games or all head out to the lake in the Gardiners’ boat. Elizabeth and her sisters were often invited on these outings and many of these “baby pilots”, as they called them, had become like cousins. She was friends with most of them on Facebook, and the Gardiners always posted their most recent Christmas cards on the refrigerator.
“Well, we certainly hope he will be close to the family, but we hear that he is having a bit of trouble on that front.”
“William did not come see you.”
“He certainly did. Poor man looked half out of his mind.”
“I’m sure he did.”
“Lizzy, I’ve known you your whole life. I love you as much as I would love a child of my own. That man is special.”
“I know.”
“Do you, Lizzy? From what I hear from Jane, and from Darcy himself, it sounds like you are dragging him along and more focused on your planes than you are on the man that cares for you.”
“I have to get back in the air. Aunt Maddy, you don’t understand; this is all I ever wanted. I just want to fly. I want to shoot through the skies like Chuck Yeager and rocket into space like Sally Ride. I want to feel the air beneath me and I want to—”
“All of that is great, but what will you be doing when you’re forty and already retired after twenty years?”
Elizabeth looked perplexed.
“Flying doesn’t last forever. You have twenty years if your career goes right. Twenty-five at the most and then what?”
“Fly commercial, I guess.”
“You want fighters; commercial likes the heavy guys.”
“Contract pilot?”
“Elizabeth.” Elizabeth cringed under the weight of her full name. “You’re not stupid. Surely you’ve thought this through.”
“I’d give up anything for twenty years of living my dream.”
“Anything? I guess I was wrong. I guess you are stupid.”
Elizabeth’s brow furrowed as hot tears sprung to her eyes. She did not want them and willed them back into her eyelids, even as they fell in hot, wet splashes down her cheeks. She furiously wiped the streaks with the back of her hands and looked out the window at the passing desert. It had been a wet year, but without rain in the last few weeks, the brown dirt and scraggly mesquite trees fairly summed up how she felt. Dead, disappointed, depressed.
A few minutes passed in the same attitude before the car pulled up to the parking lot of a red tin building. A decorative windmill spun lazily between the lot and the street, and a line of cars waited at the drive thru on the left of the building.
Madeline parked and the two sat in contemplative silence for a minute longer. Elizabeth reached for the door handle, and Madeline reached her hand out and touched Elizabeth’s arm, gesturing for her to wait.
“I’m going to give you a piece of unsolicited advice that I received when I was dating Edward. We dated a long time and Edward was a bit of a player. I know, I know, you could never tell from looking at him now, but back then, he wasn’t sure if settling down was what he wanted to do.
“I was going back and forth on whether I should just break up with him so that I had control over my own life or should I just focus on making ‘us’ work. I had some advice from a friend. She said, you’ll know when you don’t stop loving him. Your love will just continue to grow.
“I’ll tell you, I’ve never had a day where I loved Edward less than the day before, instead every day, even when he’s being an idiot or making a mistake, I fall more in love with him. We’ve had our fair share of trials. My dream was to stay home and be a mother. I wanted the crafts and the homemade meals and the cleaning. I wanted to be Suzy Homemaker with the dinner on the table at six and the pristine house. I wanted all of that and, instead, I had miscarriages and a house that is always clean, but also, always empty. Instead of changing diapers and wiping runny noses, I run Rotary and pour all my dreams into the families I volunteer for.
“Take it from someone who has lived the twenty years without the dream, William loves you. He loves you and wants you desperately to love him. You will never find a flight better than that in all the dreams you could ever dream. The only real nightmare is to never find your person and, honey, you’ve found him. You just have to open your eyes.”
Elizabeth sniffed and looked at the door handle, assiduously avoiding the other woman’s gaze. She had never thought that someone could understand. She had never even let herself imagine what she might be without being a pilot. She would not let herself imagine such a future now, but, for the first time since the blackness of the crash, a light seemed to open through the clouds that had surrounded her life. Maybe there could be something…more.
“Now, this has been a rough conversation, and I’m hungry and desperately need some tiny tacos drowned in sour cream, preferably with a large Diet Coke, so get out of the car.”
Elizabeth laughed pathetically and dried her tears. She climbed out of the car and looked across the top of it to see Madeline considering her. Elizabeth nodded at her and smiled.
“Thanks.”
“No thanks are necessary. All of us need someone to help us back up when we’re down.”
17
In an apparent moment of optimism, Jane had invited the Bennets and the Bingleys to Netherfield for Thanksgiving. Mrs. Bennet was thrilled. She could not wait to show off her daughter’s hostess skills. Despite being told she would not be cooking, she pestered Jane for more than two weeks about where to get the best groceries, who to call for the freshest turkey, and how important the entire basting process was to a moist bird. Jane, in her most gracious, peaceful attitude eventually declined all calls from her mother and blocked texts from every cell phone at Longbourn to avoid Mrs. Bennet’s scrutiny.
In addition, to her parents and four sisters, the Bingleys were coming. All of them. Jane was used to tolerating Caroline, but Mark and Louisa Hurst and David and Susan Bingley would be new challenges. According to Charles, Mark would be content to sip on a rum and Coke throughout the evening, so Jane had been sure to restock the alcohol cabinet. Louisa would be happy to gossip with Caroline so she had given the Hursts the room closest to her own.
Charles’s parents were her biggest concern. She had only spoken to David and Susan once on her wedding day for ten minutes while they were docked in Dubai. They had only just come home from their year-long cruise, and Charles had off-handedly mentioned that the exposure to the upper crust had only served to make his parents bigger snobs than they were before they left.
In order to impress her new family, Jane had developed an extensive list of culinary delights, crevices to clean, and décor to purchase. Charles had given her free rein and encouraged her to buy as many fall-themed wreaths as her heart desired. Manned with a honey-do list and endless patience, he had gone to work making sure Netherfield lived up to the image Jane wanted to portray. Jane had hired arborists to trim the trees along the avenue and a housekeeper to deep clean before the family’s arrival and to care for the house several times during their stay. She had planned a turkey hunt at a local wild game ranch for Mark, David, and Charles. Jane was exhausted, stressed.
“Something’s wrong with Jane!”
Elizabeth sat up, suddenly awake. She wiped her hair out of her eyes and the side of her mouth and very eloquently said, “Huh?”
Her brother in-law stood in her bedroom doorway. “Jane is crying. She’s hysterical. I’ve never seen her like this before.” Charles gestured with large “come here” motions.
Elizabeth shook her fuzzy head, yawning. “Jane doesn’t cry.”
“She is crying right now. I don’t know what to do, Lizzy. Come—I don’t know—fix her.”
Elizabeth hurried out of bed. She hurried down the hallway, and Charles left to say he would bring up coffee. Elizabeth gave him a thumbs up as she turned the knob on the master bedroom.
“Jane?”
“He got you?” Jane’s voice was shaking as she spoke, but then she dissolved into sobs and threw herself into a large, pink pillowcase.
“Jane, what on earth is the matter with you?”
“Mmm hmm-mmm mmmph?”
“I don’t speak dramatic teenage girl.”
Jane flopped onto her back. “What if they hate me?”
“No one could possibly hate you.”
“The Bingleys could. Caroline already hates me.”
“And Charles thinks you hung the moon. I don’t understand your point.”
“What if I’ve done all this work for nothing? Charles’s parents are multi-millionaires. I don’t mean they have like two. I mean they have enough to vacation on Cape Cod every year. Caroline is named after a Kennedy.”
Elizabeth shrugged.
“A Kennedy they actually know.”
“I guess you have a point.”
“You don’t know the half of it. They run around with the Darcys.”
“Jane—we run around with the Darcys. Well, one of them.”
“You don’t understand. Darcy’s aunt is a senator.”
“And crazy.”
“His other aunt, Lizzy. They own Fitzwilliam Electronics.”
“So?”
“They made our TV. Lizzy, you realize Darcy is worth several hundred million dollars, right?”
Elizabeth shook her head at her red-eyed sister, and Jane stared back at her expectantly.
“He does not. Jane, quit freaking out. You’re going to make a great turkey. Charles’s parents are going to love you, and that’s all there is to it.”
Jane wiped her eyes. “You clearly need to have a little chat with our favorite housemate.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Jane flopped back into her bed. “I have so much to do today. Nothing can go wrong. I’ve already spoken to Mom and Dad several times. Do you think they are going to actually control Lydia? I don’t know if I can handle it if she humiliates me.”
Elizabeth lay back on the bed next to her sister and joined her in looking unseeingly at the ceiling.
“I am here to help you with whatever you need.”
Jane sniffed. “Thanks.”
Elizabeth listened to Jane sniff once more before looking at her sister, eyes full of concern. “Okay, what is wrong with you? You never cry. You never get overwhelmed. This is not like you at all. You are acting crazy and hormonal. Are you PMSing? Should I get you some ice cream?”
Jane shook her head and wiped her eyes before stopping suddenly. She got up and felt around on her nightstand for her phone with one hand, counting with the other.
“What day is it?”
“Thanksgiving, why?”
“No, the date. What day is it?”
“The, uh, twenty-sixth, I think. Why?”
“Oh my god.”
“Oh my god, what?”
Jane left the bed, went into the bathroom, and Elizabeth heard the door lock.
“I thought—of course I couldn’t know for sure—I almost told you the other day at your doctor’s appointment….”
Elizabeth heard drawers opening and closing and scuffling in the bathroom.
“Jane?”
No answer. Elizabeth tried again. “Jane?” She got up, went to the closed door, and knocked. “Jane? Come on, let me in. You’re starting to freak me out. No wonder Charles came and got me. Seriously, are you okay?”
Elizabeth knocked and entreated her sister again before she heard the lock turn and the door swung open.
Jane stood, her blonde hair framing her face, eyes bright, and her smile beaming.
“Okay, now you’re definitely freaking me out.”
Jane held out a white stick with two pink lines. “Lizzy.”
“You’re pregnant?”
Jane nodded.
Elizabeth grabbed Jane into an embrace. “I’m so happy for you!”
“I brought some coffee up. Hazelnut. Just like you like with a little cream,” Charles said, putting a mug on Jane’s bedside table. He moved around the bed, straightening the covers and picking up pillows.
“Oh, Charles.” Jane let go of Elizabeth and ran to her husband. Elizabeth took the opportunity to sneak out of the room and closed the door behind her.
She padded down the hallway and, instead of going back to her room, decided to head downstairs and grab breakfast so she would be ready to help Jane before the families descended. The Bennets were expected around one thirty and the Bingleys would arrive at two, just before Thanksgiving dinner would be served.
When she arrived in the kitchen, she saw Darcy standing shirtless in front of the fridge and her mouth crooked up into a grin. Seeing him in a flight suit more often than not, Elizabeth sometimes forgot just how broad and muscular his shoulders were. She snuck behind him and slid her arms around his chest.
“Happy Thanksgiving.” She sighed.
“Well, now it is.” He took one of her hands in his own to pull her in for a close embrace.
Elizabeth leaned into the hug and relished the feel of his skin on hers.
“What are you getting for breakfast,” she said against his chest.
He kissed her hair lightly. “Probably just yogurt. I wanted to save room for dinner later. I figure between Jane’s desire to impress the Bingley’s and your mother’s desire to impress everyone, I’ll be stuffed. Thank god Caroline doesn’t cook or we’d be in real trouble.”
“I notice you left me out of your equation.”
“I figured you weren’t worried about impressing me, since you already have.” He winked at her and pulled the yogurt from the fridge. “Would you grab the granola over there?”
She nodded and picked up the container from the counter. “Jane told me she wanted to take care of Thanksgiving alone. Normally I make these little cranberry brie bites that are to die for.”