Eligible

by Curtis Sittenfeld

  He seemed to find the question funny. “They’re washable.”

  Thus, standing a few feet apart, they stripped. She avoided looking at him, except that she snuck a few glances. He was hairier than she’d have guessed, though not in a bad way, and while she’d known he was fit, he was practically sculpted; if she’d previously realized just how perfectly muscled he was, she might have been too intimidated to make this overture.

  Then his body was pressed up against hers, they were kissing—never having participated in hate sex, she was glad to learn kissing was part of it—and the naked standing-up kissing went on for a while, accompanied by roaming hands, and at some point, an air conditioner kicked on with a forceful whirring, and after another interval, a cacophony of car horns was audible through the apartment’s closed windows, out in the sunny evening populated by people who weren’t, for the most part, kissing each other while standing up naked. Then either he nudged her toward the bed or she pulled him, and soon after that he removed the condom from the drawer of his nightstand. All in all, the experience was highly satisfying, certainly for her, and judging by external clues, it seemed reasonable to conclude for him as well; without question, it was far more enjoyable than prom night with Phillip Haley or most other couplings she’d partaken of in the twenty years following. Indeed, one sign of just how agreeable she found the interaction was that she was only vaguely aware of the identity of the person with whom she was sharing it. At the beginning, the preposterousness of this proximity to Darcy—Fitzwilliam Darcy!—had distracted her and then again at the end, as she emerged from the delirious haze in which they’d mutually collapsed. It was as she returned to herself that it occurred to her to wonder whether what they were doing counted as cuddling; surely, even if hate sex permitted kissing, cuddling was a violation. She rolled away and sat up, reaching to find her clothes on the floor.

  She could feel his gaze but waited to look at him until she was fully dressed in her damp and reeking shirt and shorts. Finally making eye contact, she said, “I’ll let myself out.”

  As it happened, they had never made it under the bedspread but instead conducted their entire transaction atop it. In that moment, both his hands were set behind his head, and his long, hairy, muscular body was exposed. There was on his face an expression difficult to read, and she felt determined not to blush. “See you around,” she said.

  Was he amused? Perturbed? Bewildered? It was impossible to know. “Indeed,” he replied.

  LIZ WAS WRITING a check from her bank account to the contractor when she received the text from Jasper. The contractor had scraped away the bubbling, flaking paint from the water stain in the living room, then covered the wall with primer and a coat of mustard-colored paint from the can Liz had, to her surprise and delight, unearthed during her basement excavations. The source of the water stain, the contractor informed her with such reticence that it occurred to Liz he feared offending her by drawing attention to her stupidity, was that the roof gutters were all overflowing with leaves, which created flooding during rainstorms. “Keeping your gutters clean is a good thing to do,” he said gently.

  In its entirety, Jasper’s text said Awesome! and provided a link to an article about a man in Nebraska who had unsuccessfully tried to shoplift a snake from a pet store. Jasper was taking her temperature, Liz knew. He wanted to see where things stood between them. She didn’t respond.

  SHANE’S COLLEAGUE’S CLIENTS were scheduled to visit the Tudor between two and three on Monday afternoon, which meant the house’s inhabitants needed to be elsewhere. After arranging for Mary to take their father to the Mercantile Library (“I already did that last week,” Mary said, and Liz said, “Exactly. It’s called pulling your weight”), Liz had requested that Lydia, Kitty, and Mrs. Bennet accompany her to the Kenwood mall to help her select an outfit in which to interview Kathy de Bourgh. This seemed to Liz such a transparently obvious excuse that she was surprised by how readily they agreed to it.

  She was inside a dressing room, wearing a blue wraparound dress, when, at two twenty-five, which was far earlier than she’d expected, she received a call from Shane. “They love it,” he said. “They’re making an offer tonight, which obviously will be contingent on the inspection.”

  Looking at herself in the mirror—her dark hair, the expensive dress that didn’t belong to her, her bare legs and feet—Liz actually smiled. “Thank you, Shane,” she said. “This is such great news.”

  IT WASN’T THAT Liz had changed her mind about Darcy’s essentially disagreeable nature; rather, she had concluded that a romp or two in his bed would neither diminish nor exacerbate his disagreeability, especially if she discussed it with no one, even Jane.

  Twenty-four hours after their initial coital encounter, she went for another run fully prepared to see him; so prepared, in fact, that she was surprised not to see his imposing figure at Easthill Avenue, then surprised at Observatory Avenue, at Menlo Avenue, at Stettinius Avenue, and by Edwards, she had to admit to herself that the chances of crossing paths with him had grown slim. Really, she had little idea of either his work schedule or his exercise routine.

  The question then was how deliberate to be—whether to dispense altogether with pretenses of coincidence, track down his email or phone number, and arrange another meeting using the same specificity she’d employ to make a dentist appointment. The antipathy she and Darcy felt for each other meant the sacrifice of pride such a plan would entail was simultaneously more and less consequential than if they shared mutual fondness and respect.

  She returned to the Tudor without either laying eyes on him or coming to a conclusion about what her course of action ought to be; and thus, in more than one way, she was deeply frustrated.

  THE NAMES OF the prospective buyers were Jacqueline and Adam Whitman, and they offered the Bennets $915,000 for the Tudor, which offended Mrs. Bennet so keenly that she took to her bed immediately upon hearing the figure. Shane had emailed a scanned copy of the offer to Liz as dinner was concluding, and the amount had left Mrs. Bennet unable even to watch television in the den; she needed to manage her distress from a prone position.

  “You’ll end up meeting them somewhere in the middle,” Liz said from the doorway of her mother’s room. “This isn’t the last word.”

  “Leave me be,” her mother replied. “You’ve done enough damage.”

  AT MR. BENNET’S appointment with his orthopedist, Dr. Facciano said, “You seem to have regained a full range of motion. Any pain?”

  “Only the emotional kind, inflicted by my children,” Mr. Bennet said.

  “Does that mean he can drive again?” Liz asked.

  “I don’t see why not,” Dr. Facciano said.

  “Wow,” Liz said. “Aren’t you thrilled, Dad?”

  “I am,” Mr. Bennet said. “Because now your last excuse for not returning to New York has been obviated.”

  “I’m staying until Mom’s luncheon,” Liz said, and her father rolled his eyes.

  He said, “Then for that, you have no one to blame but yourself.”

  DURING HER EVENING run, which had replaced her morning run, just before Liz turned from Grandin Road onto Madison Road—which was to say not before she’d begun speculating about whether she’d see Darcy but before she’d reasonably expected that she would—there he was: tall and composed and minimally sweaty, presumably thinking supercilious thoughts but looking so unjustly handsome as he did that all her internal organs lurched a little. His real self, his actual physical body before her, as opposed to the tempting yet irritating idea of him, was somehow a surprise. In as blasé a tone as she could manage, she said, “How are people’s brains today?”

  “If I’m seeing them, not good.” He was running in place, waiting for Liz to catch up to him, and when she had, he began running next to her.

  She said, “You know how everyone says, ‘It’s not brain surgery’—do you and your colleagues say, ‘This is kind of hard, but, hey, it is brain surgery’?” The look on his face
prompted her to add, “Am I the millionth person to ask you that?”

  “You aren’t the first.” As they continued north on Madison Road, he added, “I’ve been meaning to tell you that my sister is a fan of yours. It turns out she’s subscribed to Mascara for years, and when I told her I’d met someone who works there, she knew immediately who you were.”

  “She must have excellent taste.”

  “Georgie is very intelligent. She’s a PhD student in history.”

  “Do you dare tell me where she goes to school, or will I faint?”

  “I knew you’d say something like that. She’s at Stanford.”

  Liz pressed the back of one hand to her forehead. “Get my smelling salts!” She glanced at him—he appeared to be only mildly amused, if that—and said, “Seriously, tell her thank you for me. We at Mascara love our smart readers. Is your sister planning to be a professor?”

  “If she can find a job out there. She’s a bit of a homebody.”

  “Is she younger than you?”

  “Significantly—she’s only twenty-six.”

  “And does she literally still live at home? Keep in mind that for once I can’t pass judgment, given my own sisters.”

  “My parents are deceased. Georgie lives in—”

  “I’m sorry,” Liz interrupted, and rather stiffly, Darcy said, “It’s all right.” As they crossed Bedford Avenue, he added, “My father was older than my mother and passed away when I was in high school and Georgie was three. Our mother passed away five years ago. Georgie went to Stanford for undergrad, too, and she was living on campus at that point, which she still is. But she’s never wanted to give up our parents’ house. I don’t think she goes there when I’m not in town, but she’s very attached to it.”

  “Do you want to sell it?”

  “It’s on twelve acres, and it’s just sitting there. Someone might as well enjoy it.”

  “You grew up in the Bay Area, right?” Liz tried to sound casual. Had he really just said twelve acres?

  Matter-of-factly, Darcy said, “In Atherton,” and Liz then understood what she previously hadn’t bothered to consider. It wasn’t astonishing that Darcy came from an affluent family—both his education and bearing had provided clues—but it hadn’t occurred to her that his affluence was so extreme. She could hardly guess, in this day and age, at the value of such a property in such a place: Thirty million dollars? Forty? Personality aside, he really was almost freakishly eligible.

  She said, “Is there still furniture in the house?”

  He nodded. “A couple lives on the grounds in their own cottage, our caretaker, Roger, and his wife. Georgie and I go back a few times a year. It’s really a house for entertaining, so unless we’re having a bunch of guests, it’s kind of depressing. I prefer to sleep on a futon in Georgie’s apartment.”

  How had Liz not googled Darcy prior to this moment? And no wonder Caroline Bingley was pursuing him. Not that his fortune made him more appealing to Liz—if it were only money she was after, she might have reciprocated her cousin’s interest. She thought of Darcy’s spare apartment, his fondness for seven-dollar meals at Skyline, and then she thought of having divulged to him her family’s financial troubles. If she’d known more about his background, she might not have; but since she already had, she said, “My parents got an offer on their house yesterday, from the first people who looked at it.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Well, it’s low. But my point is that if they had the choice of holding on to that house forever, they would and so would my sisters.”

  “You wouldn’t?”

  “No, but, as my dad told me, I’m cold-blooded.”

  “It sounds suspiciously like you’re bragging.”

  “Are you working tonight?” Liz asked.

  “I go in at eight.”

  “Then should I come back to your apartment now or what?”

  At this, Darcy actually laughed, which was a sound Liz had heard so few times that it was jarring. He said, “You certainly should.”

  IN THE DRIVEWAY of the Tudor, the back of Ham’s SUV was open, its interior stuffed with boxes topped by several dresses laid flat, still on their hangers. No one was outside, but as Liz stretched in the grass after her return from Darcy’s apartment, Lydia emerged carrying a stack of Seven Hills yearbooks and an earring rack, followed by Ham carrying a laundry basket full of folded clothes.

  “Are you moving out?” Liz asked Lydia.

  “Your ability to pick up on very subtle clues is impressive,” Lydia said. “Have you ever thought of being a detective?”

  “The way you two bicker,” Ham said. “I’m going out on a limb here, because I’ve never had a sister, but it’s got to be an expression of love.” Without waiting for Lydia or Liz to respond, Ham added, “Liz, once we get Lydia unpacked, we want to have you over to our place for dinner.”

  “Great,” Liz said. “And good luck with your new roommate, Ham.”

  Ham smiled. “I believe I’m up to the challenge.”

  A WOMEN’S LEAGUE meeting impelled Mrs. Bennet from her bed after a thirty-six-hour period, and while she was up and about, she grudgingly agreed to see a condominium in a twenty-story building that she began disparaging before climbing from the car. “I’d never live so close to the highway,” she told Mr. Bennet, Liz, and Shane. “I don’t know how anyone sleeps a wink with cars zooming by at all hours.”

  “The good news,” Shane said, “is that every place we see, even if you don’t like it, will help us narrow in on what you do want.”

  Thus, they still toured the unit, and while standing in the master bathroom with her mother, Liz said, “With the influx of money from selling your house, this seems like the perfect time to draw up a budget. You can decide, ‘Okay, I’m allotting X dollars per month for ordering stuff from catalogs, and if I exceed that amount before the month ends, I won’t buy anything else.’ ”

  Mrs. Bennet gave her daughter a withering look. “I know perfectly well what a budget is, Elizabeth.” While gazing at herself in the mirror, Mrs. Bennet added, “I hope Lydia’s not making a mistake moving in with Ham. You know what they say about when men get the milk for free.”

  “Except that he’s supporting her. She hasn’t even tried to get a job.”

  Liz’s comments seemed to please Mrs. Bennet. “Lydia’s such a pretty girl,” she said approvingly.

  FITZWILLIAM DARCY ATHERTON, CA, Liz typed into Google, and after reading through the results, she tried, sequentially, Fitzwilliam Darcy Harvard Medical School, Fitzwilliam Darcy University of Cincinnati Comprehensive Stroke Center, and, just for the hell of it, Fitzwilliam Darcy girlfriend. She determined that he used neither Facebook nor Twitter, and while he wasn’t entirely without an online presence, it was a mostly factual one: His bachelor’s degree from Stanford was in biochemical sciences and, also from Harvard, he held a PhD in neuroscience. (When had he had time to acquire a PhD?) He’d won a number of obscurely named awards (at the American College of Surgeons’ 44th Annual Meeting, the Rothman T. Barnett Resident Prize) and authored or co-authored several even more obscurely titled articles published in medical journals (“Modulation of Brain Stimulation on the Interaction Between Ventral and Dorsal Frontoparietal and Basal Ganglia-Cortical Networks During Expectation and Re-orienting”). In his photo on the stroke center website, he wore both a tie and a white coat.

  Rather more titillatingly: His family’s estate in Atherton was called Pemberley—it was located at 1813 Pemberley Lane, though Liz guessed the estate name to predate the street name—and its value was estimated at, variously, $55 million, $65 million, or $70 million.

  The search for Fitzwilliam Darcy girlfriend bore no fruit.

  ADJUSTING TO LIFE in Rhinebeck, Jane reported to Liz by phone, had been nearly seamless: Lydia’s assertion notwithstanding, Amanda and Prisha were treating her as a friend rather than an employee; their son, Gideon, was charming; and Jane had discovered a delicious vegan bakery, which, unconstrain
ed by worry about weight gain, she walked to each afternoon for muffins and slices of pie. She felt a lingering sadness about Chip, she conceded, but such melancholy would exist wherever she was and had, if anything, been diminished by the change of scenery. “And meanwhile, you’ve managed to sell the house in the blink of an eye,” she said. “You’re amazing.”

  “It’s Shane who sold it, and it’s not official until the closing,” Liz said.

  “Whatever,” Jane said. “It’s a fantastic house. Have you been in touch with Jasper?”

  “He’s texted me a few times, but I haven’t answered.”

  “Good for you, Lizzy.”

  Though it crossed Liz’s mind to mention cavorting with Darcy, Jane’s mood was too cheerful, and her faith in Liz’s strength of character too recently affirmed, to make the disclosure seem appropriate. Instead, Liz said, “Tell Amanda and Prisha hi from me.”

  KITTY WAS DOING push-ups on the floor of her room when Liz paused in the doorway. “You and Mary should start looking for an apartment,” Liz said. “The inspection of this house is tomorrow.”

  As Kitty silently continued her push-ups—her form was excellent—a framed photograph set on the mantel of Kitty’s fireplace caught Liz’s eye. Liz crossed the room to examine it and found that the photo, which was about two by three inches, was of Mervetta and Kitty. The older woman, who was seated, wore a yellow skirt suit and matching yellow straw hat, and Kitty was crouched next to her in a sleeveless dress, both of them smiling.