The Flight Path Less Traveled

by Leigh Dreyer

  “I guess I’ll keep living so you can kill me with them another day.”

  “Very funny.”

  “No, I’m serious. You are allowed to kill me with delicious food any day of the week. Of course, at Pemberley, you’ll have Mrs. Reynolds’ jealousy to contend with. She’s been sneaking me treats since I was four, and I don’t know how well she’ll take another competitor for affection.”

  “She seems too nice to be jealous.”

  “That she is—destined for sainthood that one.”

  “I suppose her first miracle is putting up with you?”

  “That’s what got her started on her road to beautification—quite impressive for a Methodist.”

  Darcy handed a bowl of yogurt and spoon to Elizabeth.

  “Good morning,” sang Bingley as he walked through the door, Jane just behind him.

  “Morning,” chorused Elizabeth and Darcy.

  Jane opened the cabinet, pulled out the cereal and walked to the table.

  “Should you be doing that, honey?” asked Charles, quickly moving to pull a chair out for Jane.

  “I’m not made of glass, Charles,” said Jane, rolling her eyes. “Have you told Darcy yet, Lizzy?”

  “I didn’t think it was my news to tell,” said Elizabeth, looking between her sister and brother-in-law.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Bingley threw up his hands. “I thought we weren’t telling anyone until twelve weeks.”

  “Congratulations,” exclaimed Darcy, slapping Bingley on the shoulder.

  “We have to tell Will. He lives here. Besides, shouldn’t we go ahead and tell the family while everyone is here?”

  “You want to tell them…today?” Charles sat back and looked at the ceiling.

  “If you’re saying a prayer for help with my mother, you should just give up on that now,” said Elizabeth. “You might as well give her more time to space out her excitement. Maybe she’ll wear herself out before the baby actually comes.”

  “When are you due?” asked Darcy.

  “Well, considering I still need to talk to a doctor and get an ultrasound and everything, it might change, but, a due date calculator online said sometime around August sixth.”

  “Okay, if, and I am not convinced we should, but if we tell everyone at dinner…I don’t know how my parents will take it, and yours, well, I feel like we all know how that will go.”

  “Mom will go ballistic,” said Elizabeth, scooping another spoonful of granola into her bowl.

  The table nodded in agreement.

  “I hope it’s a boy,” Elizabeth continued. “We have too many women in this family.”

  “I would love either as long as everyone is healthy,” said Jane, beaming. “I like the name Adam for a boy and Harper for a girl.”

  “No, I don’t like Harper. In second grade there was a girl named Harper and she was awful,” said Charles.

  “What about Ashley,” said Elizabeth, pulling up popular names on her phone. “It’s in the top ten this year.”

  “Ashley Bingley?” Darcy said the name slowly, exaggerating the odd combination.

  “You’re right. It’s awful.”

  The four continued speaking enthusiastically about names until Jane looked at the clock on the kitchen wall.

  “Is it already nine thirty? We have to start cooking! The turkey will need at least four hours. Will, Charles, I need you to pick up the living room. Charles—you left your Friday patch1 on the mantle last week, make sure you grab that.” Jane stood up, flanked by the two men and went to the living room to give more instructions.

  Elizabeth cleared the table and finished up the dishes while Jane returned to the kitchen, stuffed and coerced the turkey into its roasting bag, and placed it into the hot oven. Jane looked over her lists to double check that she had the ingredients. “Potatoes, sweet potatoes, marshmallows, olives, cranberry sauce—Elizabeth do you have the fresh cranberries over there?”

  “They’re on the table.”

  “Orange Jell-O, cool whip—do you think the Bingleys like ambrosia?”

  “Who doesn’t like ambrosia? Besides, Charles said his mom would basically sip white wine the whole time so my guess is once she’s hammered, she won’t care about what she’s eating.”

  “That wasn’t very comforting, Lizzy. Do you see the bacon for the green beans?”

  “You’re going to have bacon with Darcy in the house? I put it in the fridge earlier.”

  “He said it was fine. He doesn’t like green beans anyway.”

  “He doesn’t like green beans? He’s a monster. Remind me why I’m in whatever relationship I’m in with him?”

  “He’s hot in a flight suit and saved your life,” Jane said distractedly while moving food around the fridge shelves. “Okay, Mom said she wanted to make the gravy—”

  “She thinks yours is lumpy.”

  “Mine isn’t lumpy. She just never lets me do it.”

  “Don’t get offended, that’s just what she said. What do you want me to do?”

  Jane crossed the last item off of one list, threw it away, and grabbed another. “I need you to manage the men.”

  “What is Caroline doing? And how long is she staying?”

  “She says a couple weeks.” Jane shrugged. “To answer your other question, she will be taking care of Louisa.”

  “Is Louisa very judgmental?”

  “Elizabeth—these are my in-laws. Louisa and Mark weren’t even here for the wedding. I need them to like me.”

  “Everybody likes you.”

  “Caroline tolerates me at best.”

  Elizabeth cupped her mouth with her hands then stage-whispered, “I don’t know that Caroline is human.”

  “Good morning,” Caroline said as she walked into the kitchen, her face covered in a mask of green goop. Elizabeth looked meaningfully at Jane as if to say, “See?”

  “Good morning, Caroline,” Jane said.

  “Louisa said they would get in at two-ish, so I am going to get a mani-pedi after I finish my mask so I look fresh.”

  “Is anything even open?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Of course not. I called Julia on her cell and she said she would open the salon for me.”

  “Shouldn’t she be spending time with her family?”

  “Who likes being with their family? Elizabeth, I swear, sometimes you are positively medieval.”

  It took all of Elizabeth’s strength not to roll her eyes at Caroline’s complete lack of care for her nail lady. Instead, she pressed her lips into a grimace-like smile and said, “I’ll go hang up my armor plating later. I promise to have it in my room by one thirty so you won’t have to worry about the rust.”

  “Jane,” Caroline said a little louder, leaning around Elizabeth. “Do you need me to grab anything from the store?”

  “I just checked my list, and it looks like I have everything. You have fun though.” Elizabeth applauded Jane’s innate ability to be pleasant. It was a gift.

  “Say ‘hi’ to Julia for me,” Elizabeth said, waving goodbye to Caroline as she and her steaming coffee left the room without another word. As soon as the door clicked closed, she said, “God, could she be any more awful?”

  “I can’t kvetch with you today, Lizzy. I have too much to do. Could you start peeling those sweet potatoes?”

  “Sure, where are the marshmallows?”

  “Charles told me his family always did it with brown sugar, so I thought I would do the casserole that way so he would feel more comfortable for our first Thanksgiving together.”

  Elizabeth stopped looking through the kitchen drawer for the peeler, one potato in hand and looked aghast at her sister.

  “No marshmallows?”

  Jane shook her head.

  “What kind of horrible family did you marry into?”

  Jane laughed and shook her head.

  “They aren’t horrible, they just…aren’t from around here.”

  “Clearly. What kind of sweet potato casse
role doesn’t have marshmallows? They’re the only good part of the casserole.”

  “Well, I guess that’s how his mom made it.”

  “Do you mean her cook?”

  “Probably.”

  The girls giggled as they began their meal preparation. Darcy and Bingley followed directions stuffing, cutting, dicing, boiling, baking, and mixing, and hours later, the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it,” said Elizabeth. She could hear the chatter from the other side of the door before she reached it and knew without glancing through the peep hole that her family had arrived. She took one last breath in the peaceful, quiet foyer before swinging the door open and exclaiming, “Happy Thanksgiving!”

  Her mother swooped inside and began taking off her coat while the other girls and Mr. Bennet shuffled slowly past her. “I am so excited to be at Netherfield for the holidays. You know I told Rachel Lucas just last week that there is something magical about this house during this season. Lizzy, why haven’t you strung lights yet? You know that tomorrow is the proper day to turn them on for Christmas.”

  “Probably has to do with not being able to be on a ladder, Mom,” Elizabeth said quietly to know one in particular. Only Mary appeared to hear her and mumbled about “honoring your father and mother” while hanging her own coat and moving to the living room. Elizabeth rolled her eyes as Kitty and Lydia complimented Jane’s decorations.

  Her dad was last to hang his coat. “Hey, kid.”

  “Hey, Dad.” His eyes looked brighter with a somehow hopeful glint.

  “Dad?” Elizabeth stopped Mr. Bennet as he hung his coat on the overladen hallway hook, placing her hand on top of his.

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks for coming.”

  Thanksgiving dinner had been wrought with danger. After their arrival, the elder Mr. and Mrs. Bingley looked down their noses at Netherfield. The couch was too old, that framed art too gauche, and the drapery was all wrong. Susan Bingley had promptly called her interior designer and set up an online meeting for Jane the next day. Does she not comprehend that her son is only leasing the house?

  David Bingley had immediately pressed for the liquor cabinet and bemoaned the lack of Cambridge Distillery vodka for five minutes before mixing himself a dry Beefeater gin martini and loudly elucidating the floral hints of his drink which Elizabeth suspected was in fact gin with an olive.

  “Have you had the bespoke small batch Cambridge?” David asked Thomas who had found amusement observing the ridiculous complaints of his posh counterpart.

  “Always been more of an Oxford man myself.”

  David looked confused but pressed forward, despite the strange comment.

  “I have a few bottles of the anty gin, you know,” said David in between drinks. “They distill the essence of ants to achieve the taste. Phenomenal.”

  “Ants?” Lydia crinkled her face in disgust. “And you drink it?”

  “Of course, it has interesting citrus notes. Truly unexplainable without tasting it yourself—almost like lemon.” David stood wistfully swirling his glass. “You would drink lemonade, wouldn’t you?”

  “Without bugs in it.”

  David laughed. “I’ll admit I thought it was a little strange at first. My prize though are two bottles of the Watenshi. Do you know very much about Japanese alcohol, Tom?”

  Thomas Bennet, who had never been called Tom in his life, smiled widely. “Not since an unfortunate sake incident in college. I believed a waitress infatuated with me until I was informed that I was quite mistaken. Fortunately, I had the rest of the bottle to help me forget her with only a headache the next morning.”

  “That reminds me of a couple glasses of Tanqueray in my twenties…” David continued in his attempts to discuss the finer points of his experiences with various London based gins; Mr. Bennet kept up his part of the conversation, but David needed little encouragement to continue. After several minutes, Mark Hurst joined his father-in-law at the cabinet, poured himself a rum and Coke, and nodded his agreement while blandly evaluating the glassware.

  Caroline and Louisa, meanwhile, had stationed themselves in Caroline’s room where they likely gossiped cruelly about the Bennets in the hour before dinner. Luckily for Jane, the Bennets were on their best behavior. Even Lydia, who in past years was sent on last-minute shopping trips for “necessary” ingredients to get her out of the house and decrease the inhabitants’ headaches, was pleasant.

  The sisters talked about the high school’s Turkey Bowl, how Kitty had found a new job, and Mary’s newest attempts to bring Longbourn into the technological age.

  “I heard about the new website,” said Darcy while walking through the living room on an errand from Jane.

  Mary sat up straighter on the couch. “It’s not only a website. It’s an app, a booking system, and guest survey. It will not only bring us into the modern era, a feat which rivals David battling Goliath, but it will make us actually competitive with nearby bed and breakfasts. You would be shocked by the systems some of the inns near San Antonio have and they are charging three to four times more per night than we are for inferior quality rooms, staff, and food.”

  “Mary is very passionate about our work, Captain Darcy. I’m sure you can understand that yourself coming from a farm turned into another enterprise,” said Fanny Bennet.

  On the other side of the kitchen door, Elizabeth finished slicing the bread and raised her eyebrows at the thought of the Pemberley she had visited being compared in any way to Longbourn; Darcy was much pleasanter than Elizabeth could have ever imagined when he responded.

  “I know you’re younger than Elizabeth, but how much longer do you have in your program? I assume you’re doing business online?”

  “I want to go to school, of course, but with Jane and Elizabeth in college and Lydia in high school, Kitty and I needed to work the Inn for a little while…” her voice trailed off. She bit her lip and shook her head, her eyes avoiding Darcy’s.

  “Mary, I’m sure with your expertise, Longbourn will see increased profits and better-quality bookings. I’m sure you are one hundred percent comfortable with whatever software system you have chosen, but if you have any questions, I have a cousin in the tech field who would love to talk to someone as passionate as you are about this subject. I’ll put you in touch with him.”

  Elizabeth could hear him leave the room and the door closing behind him while the hum of her family talking in the living room buzzed as a background noise to her work. Bread done, she moved on to sorting through Jane’s china and the china her mother had brought from Longbourn.

  After getting through seven place settings, Darcy returned to the kitchen and stood next to Elizabeth.

  “You are probably being marked down as beatified in the Vatican right now for your kindness to Mary. Do you think they’ll make you into one of those little votive candles,” she said, cracking a lazy smile while she nudged his shoulder gently with her own.

  “As long as they set mine right next to Mrs. Reynolds’.” He kissed her cheek before sitting across from her and taking her hand. “Mary is much more pleasant to speak to than half of my investors and seems to actually know what she is talking about. It’s refreshing, to be honest.”

  “When you say investors, how many do you interact with? I thought Pemberley was fairly small as far as wineries go.”

  “The Pemberley label is fairly small as far as American vintners go, but Pemberley’s holdings also operate as a négociant which buys up grapes from other vineyards. Ours come predominantly from smaller vineyards in Napa, and then we produce it under other labels within the Pemberley organization. When you toured with Gardiner, you didn’t get to see the vineyard portion. Our wine label hosts very specific and relatively expensive wines which aren’t consumable by the average consumer, so we use other, cheaper grapes to bottle less expensive varieties for sale through Costco and a few other national vendors.”

  “National? Aren’t those for major brands? I don’t think Costco would just
take anyone.”

  “Well, it’s a bit less impressive of an accomplishment when you consider that Costco is the number one wine seller in the world, but we do okay.”

  “What does okay mean?”

  “We haven’t cracked the top ten, but for this last year we were able to push about a hundred million in sales. We’re hoping to top that number by at least two percent next year.”

  Elizabeth blinked at him. Her mind could not compute a hundred million dollars. That was an inconceivable amount when she was happy with the three thousand a month she received as a lieutenant.

  “Maybe we can go over some of my holdings a little later? You look frightened.”

  “I knew you were rich—I mean I don’t know any other captains with their own planes but”—Elizabeth struggled for the right words—“that is a lot more than I expected.”

  “I probably should have told you sooner. I honestly assumed Bingley had told your sister.”

  Elizabeth suddenly remembered the guests at Netherfield and looked over her shoulder to see if Jane was immediately behind her. Seeing Jane turn into the living room, Elizabeth lowered her voice, then spoke barely above a whisper. “Do you think things are going well with the Bingleys?”

  “I’ve known Charles a long time and I’d say this is fairly typical. I should have remembered about his dad and the gin thing. At home, he tends to go for the most expensive bottles he can find. Out and about, he’s a little particular.”

  Elizabeth raised an eyebrow and Darcy shrugged. They worked together in companionable silence, listening to the sounds of china tapping as they neatly placed them on the table and the chink of silverware clinking against the plates.

  “How’s Georgiana?”

  “She’s doing well. I talked to her this morning—she’s at Richard’s parents—and she seemed happy. I know she misses having dinners at Pemberley, but I’m hopeful that maybe next year I can be up there with her.” Darcy pulled out a chair from the table and sat down, looking at a blank wall almost hopefully before smiling and looking back at Elizabeth. “I’d love it if you joined me, of course.”

  “We’ll have to see. I don’t know where I will be stationed then.” Elizabeth wanted badly to go to Europe; it was half the reason she had joined the Air Force in the first place. She wanted to serve her country and she wanted to fly, of course, but seeing the world seemed like the icing on the cake. Being initially stationed in Meryton had been a stiff disappointment that she had been weathering, but she could not stop herself from continuing to hope for a miracle.