From Pemberley to Manhattan

by Laís Rodrigues

  “I am waiting for breakfast to be served.” He took an impatient glance at the antique clock with a pendulum on the back corner of the room to indicate he didn’t appreciate the wait.

  The guy never left his part, which was fine for me, because he was funny. Chuckling uncontrollably, I walked to the kitchen, “Come on, sir. Let’s find you some breakfast.”

  Our kitchen was almost as spacious as our living room, which was considered enormous by city standards. We lived in a building inherited by our Grandfather decades ago. Its three floors were divided into three very comfortable apartments. He used to rent the two first floors, living with Grandma and Mom in the penthouse.

  A few months after he passed away, Grandma decided it was time for a change. She’d always wanted to have a restaurant with Dad, who cooked at her favorite diner in town. That and the dream to own a bookstore that only sold rare books made her renovate completely the ground floor of the building so she could turn it into those two businesses.

  When my parents married, they moved into the second floor apartment. They renovated it as well, making it a reflex of their personality. The kitchen, however, was only Dad.

  On our left, there was a massive, rectangular window, which overlooked our garden and had a window box filled with herb plants, the cause of the never-ending fresh aroma of the room. In the center of it, there was a white island, with marble top and five wooden stools on one side. Opposite to the door, there were the white inset cabinets and many-shades-of-green tiles covering that wall.

  Finally, on the back wall of the long room was located what my brothers and I called The Room of Sin. It was where all the food was kept, of course. You people have such dirty minds…

  Fortunately, I wouldn’t need to go into the deposit to find what I needed; I could still smell the pancakes Dad had cooked earlier. Remembering it was a Sunday, the day all mortals could take a time out on their diets, I decided to top our pancakes with Nutella and strawberries.

  “Don’t you have a cook who could do that?”, he inquired as I placed the empty plates and forks in front of him.

  “Well, all of our servants are on their day off”, I countered sarcastically, turning to the stove to prepare the pancakes.

  “Day off? Why should they have the day off when neither you nor your family do?” He’d initially tried to sit up straight on the stool, but now he wore a more relaxed posture, one of his elbows resting on the island.

  As I didn’t get – nor liked – this particular joke, I thought it sensible to simply change the subject. “So, have you read anything interesting in the paper?”

  “I believe I could never discuss the atrocities I have just read with a delicate lady.” I couldn’t stop myself from snorting. That joke I liked. After all, who’d be crazy enough to call me a delicate lady? Only a guy pretending to be from the nineteenth century, of course. “The world has become extremely violent and nonsensical, even worse than our times of war.”

  “With that I agree, sir!”, I teased him with a smile. “Have you tried to watch something fun on TV?”

  “If you are referring to the diabolical, rectangular device, then yes, I did try this morning. Your brother insisted.”

  This time, I let myself laugh. “Considering your tone, I believe you didn’t enjoy that experience neither.”

  “It was quite… Traumatizing, I must admit.” His tone was serious, which made everything funnier. I loved his humour; so sarcastic, so acid, so aristocratically pompous! If he was capable of that in his free time, I couldn’t even begin to fathom how great he must be on stage.

  “Why’s that, Darcy?”, I gave him incentive to go on. This was way too good to stop.

  “First of all, I couldn’t understand how people could be imprisoned in that small device. And how flat they seemed, poor souls! Your brother assured me they were all right. He explained the device was created by a witch (apparently, those do exist), and a good one. You must have heard of her; she is named Glinda, the Good Witch of the South.”

  “Seriously, where do you get these ideas from?”, I chuckled again. Apparently, it was all I could do near this guy. Only Darcy could joke about the Wizard of Oz at this hour.

  “As I said, from your brother!”, he replied, sounding excited to tell me more about his adventure at TV land. “So, he advised me to watch material about what has occurred since 1811, for…Theatrical purposes, of course. He chose this – I believe you call it TV show – about a period in England known as the Victorian Era. In a matter of minutes, I understood why we failed to be the most important nation in the world.”

  I had so many remarks to make on his little speech, but this conversation was too insanely funny to interrupt. So I just finished our pancakes and served them for us both. I motioned so he could explain what he’d meant. “Our country was invaded by… Oddities.”

  “Oddities?”, I asked, then took a bite. Wow, that was good.

  “I am afraid yes. Oh, Miss Brown, it was horrible. There was a woman who was actually possessed by the devil, and a young man who turned into a rabid wolf, and a gentleman whose daughter had turned into a cannibal, and a physician who created a monstrosity, and… Oh, I see I have disgusted you. I beg your pardon. One shouldn’t speak of such matters at the table.”

  It took me a few seconds to find my voice again. “Are you speaking of… Penny Dreadful?”

  “Indeed! That was the name of the horrible– What is wrong? Are you crying? I do beg you to forgive me, Madam. I never wished to cause you any harm.”

  I couldn’t breathe. I was laughing so hard, and Darcy was making things even worse for me. I must admit at first I thought his I’m-all-about-my-character thing really weird, yet now I didn’t want him to stop. The man had made me cry over my laughter, the son of a bleach!

  “I’m all right, Darcy. You’re impossible, you know that?”

  “Yes, I am quite aware of it”, he said, his lips curving up slowly, as if the Penny Dreadful episode had evaporated from his mind.

  “Just eat before your food gets cold”, I ordered. Nicely, okay? I wasn’t bossy. Well, I wasn’t too bossy.

  He took a bite, chewed a couple of times and froze. He closed his eyes, savoring the taste of the pancake. It looked like he was having a lot of pleasure eating my pancake.

  Holy frock! Even the guy’s eating was adorably sexy! Why were you doing it to me, my Lord? Why?! Couldn’t Ethan’s mysterious friend have been a baldy and fatty idiot?

  “This is… indescribable. It is marvelous. What is it?”, he demanded, his eyes still closed.

  “Nutella”, I returned to my own pancakes, and finished them as quickly as I could. I had to get out of here.

  “Why did you eat with such haste?”, he was still in the middle of his first pancake, while I was already standing up after having finished two. What can I say? Mom was right; I was in serious need of good manners. And distance from Darcy.

  “I’m late, Darcy.”

  Considering the matter over, I put my plate in the sink, grabbed a cup of coffee and was ready to leave him safely alone in the kitchen, when he asked, “Please, do excuse me for my intrusion, but your brother told me your family doesn’t attend mass on Sundays. What are you late for?”

  I wasn’t expecting that. Honestly, Darcy was the kind of guy who did the most unexpected things, this being one more on the pile. Normally, when you said you were late, people just understood what you meant, since they were probably late for something, too. Everyone was always late, especially in New York.

  “Huh… Well…” Such a simple question, yet I fought with myself for a plausible answer. “I’ve got a lot of work!” I stated, matter-of-factly, again considering my answer sufficed.

  Once more, I’d been mistaken.

  “I beg you not to take offense, but you people seem to spend a considerable amount of time working. From what your brother has told m
e, you must work to sustain a good living. But when are you supposed to be living if you are always working?”

  “I…” I had no idea. In my country (and I thought in the capitalist world as well), working was considered a good thing. Sure, working too much could be perceived as prejudicial to your health, but only if it caused you to be obese, or an alcoholic, or insomniac. Not my case. Still, he had a point. We were supposed to work for a living, not living for work.

  “Perhaps, you should try living a little today.” He was half-smiling, his voice very low. It was the first time I heard a trace of insecurity in his tone. Was he… flirting with me? Oh, I should definitely say no.

  “You’re right.” I had absolutely no control of myself. I was smiling! Broadly! I was flirting back! “But, if I won’t work today, so won’t you. No acting today. How’s that?”

  “I believe you are imposing this as a condition to our daytrip. Therefore, I must oblige to your request, Miss Brow– Uh… Nathalie.”

  I could feel him taste my name in his mouth as he pronounced it. He wasn’t faking that: he actually enjoyed calling me by my first name. It was very uncommon to meet someone who valued so highly these little things.

  Perhaps he was right. I should try to do that, too. Just live the moment. Just live. “You’ve got yourself a deal, then. What would you like to do?”

  ♥

  It was a hot and humid day, so Mr. Carlos Estevez had left some shorts and a light T-shirt for Darcy to wear that day. Refusing to wear anything that undignified, the gentleman wore a pair of pants he’d found in Ethan’s closet. He believed it beneath him to borrow someone’s clothes without their explicit consent, but he concluded it would be the lesser of two evils.

  Besides, he reminded himself, Ethan was in no time condition to offer his consent.

  As Mr. Darcy left the room, he was astonished by the sight of Miss Brown in her undergarments. She had her back on him, so his arrival hadn’t been perceived. He should have left quietly, or have his presence known. It was the honorable thing to do.

  In his defense, he did consider leaving, or at least closing his eyes. Nevertheless, his legs remained paralyzed, and his eyes refused to shut. Without any other option left, he proceeded to observe every inch of her.

  Women’s intimate clothes had changed considerably in the twenty-first century, he noticed. Miss Brown was wearing a cream lace, sleeveless kind of gown (but many inches shorter), which fit her perfectly around her chest, and was loose from her waist down.

  Mr. Darcy wasn’t even close to finishing his shameless inspection, but he had to move his eyes back to her head as she faced him. He was in shock for a moment, trying to find a way to excuse himself for his ungentlemanly manner without offending her beyond repair.

  Until she offered him a shy smile. “Are you ready?”

  “Are you ready?” He was astonished. Was she leaving the house in her undergarments?

  She checked herself up before saying, “Yes. What’s wrong? Is there something on my face?” He was too shocked to answer, so she continued, “What about you? Are you wearing jeans? It’s really hot today…”

  “I… I am fine, thank you.” He was now processing the fact he’d take a walk in a public park with one of the handsomest ladies he’d ever beheld in her undergarments. Fortunately, he’d been quite good at fencing.

  “So, let’s go upstairs get Toto at Grandma’s and we’ll be on our way.”

  “Naturally. However, if I might ask… What is a toto?”

  “Come on, Darcy! I told you, no acting today.” As the confusion didn’t leave his features, she decided to explain the obvious, just in case. “Toto is Grandma’s dog. You know, like from the Wizard of Oz.”

  “This animal belongs to a wizard?” Darcy was suddenly serious, his blue eyes darkening. “Shall we be safe near it?”

  Nathalie wanted to remind him – yet again – of their deal, which he’d just broken a second time. Instead, she laughed. This guy had made her laugh in the last twelve hours more than she had the past month, and that made him deserve a break from his promise.

  What made her heart speed up, however, was the fact she had no idea how many other exceptions she was willing make for Darcy.

  ♥

  Chapter 6

  Nat

  Toto couldn’t look any less like the dog from the 1939 movie. He actually looked a lot more like another famous dog; the one from Men in Black. And, that morning, I could swear he was singing “Who let the dogs out?”, like the alien from the blockbuster when he saw me.

  “Poor baby. No one’s walked you since before the party?” I carried him out of Grandma’s apartment, and met Darcy back in the stairs. Toto began sniffing him immediately; and I must admit I was a little jealous, having wanted to sniff him like that myself…

  We went down the stairs and reached the left side of the garden, where a side passage enabled us to reach the street without going all the way through the restaurant and the bookstore. While Darcy fought to put the leash on Toto, I took a few moments to admire the house I’d been raised in. One of the enjoy-the-little-things moments. I was going to try to have many of those today.

  We lived on 90th Street, between Madison and Museum Mile, in a three-story brownstone, with three huge, rectangular, white framed windows on each floor of its façade. The front door was red, with a white, small column on each side of it. Had someone described it, I’d imagined it was corny, but in reality it was adorably perfect.

  I threw my head back and my chest was tight as I saw Grandma’s balcony. I really missed her. She’d be glad I was taking a day off, being a fervor defendant of carpe diem. The woman was a pro at enjoying the small pleasures of life. The big ones as well. Right now, she was probably getting tanned on some beach at Côte D’Azur with her new hubby, Mike, who was, by the way, fifteen years her junior. You go, Grandma!

  After securing Toto, Darcy offered me his other arm, in his theatrical nineteenth century manner. But his eyes were so bright, and his smile so full of excitement, I didn’t find it in me to scorn him.

  I had a gut feeling this would be a perfect day of nothingness.

  ♥

  They weren’t even in Central Park yet, but Toto had already elected his toilet. They waited patiently for him to finish his business, and then… Darcy just walked away with the dog.

  Oh, no he won’t, Nathalie thought, as she took a waste bag and a plastic scoop from her backpack. “You’re seriously not helping me?”, she demanded, stunned. Maybe it would’ve been better if he were still playing his part as a gentleman from the nineteenth century.

  Darcy looked back at her with a quizzical brow (his trademark), then glanced at the objects in her hands and the dog’s droppings and finally understood her meaning.

  “A gentleman could never touch dog’s excrement”, he stated arrogantly.

  She took a few steps in his direction, until her body was less than an inch from his. She had to look up to stare in his deep blue eyes, her own green ones serious, her mouth a thin line. She noticed he was holding back his breath. “I thought we’d agreed you wouldn’t act today.”

  He was dead silent, completely unmoving. After a few tense moments between them, a corner of his mouth moved slightly up, so little she wouldn’t have seen it hadn’t she been that close. “What gave you have the impression I am acting?”

  They both burst out laughing, while Toto wagged his tail nervously, anxious for his adventure in Central Park to begin.

  ♥

  Nat

  Darcy thought himself a funny guy. It would’ve annoyed me to admit he actually was, if I were not having so much fun in his company. Still, he was a smartash.

  So could I be, if I wished to. And I most certainly did.

  After walking for over an hour under the cloudless sky, we decided it was time to buy something to eat and rest for a while under
a tree. We got ourselves tuna sandwiches and orange juice and chose a spot with a view to the calm waters of the reservoir, between the running track and Bridle Path, a few feet from the playground.

  Children’s laughs were one of my favorite sounds in the world, which was one of the main reasons to choose this precise location. I grabbed the picnic towel in my as-impossibly-deep-as-Mary-Poppins’ backpack and placed it over the grassy ground.

  Toto slept through our snack time, only waking now and then as another dog passed by to greet him. People who say animals don’t talk believe that simply because they can’t understand them. I, for instance, could translate everything Toto said to his dog fellows.

  To a poodle with a pink loop he said, “How are you doing?”, à la Joey Tribbiani. To a happy golden retriever running with his athletic owner he said, “Good running, dude!” To a Chihuahua wearing a dress with floral printing (you read it right: a dog was wearing a dress in Central Park, in the summer. Some people didn’t deserve having a pet…), he tried to say “Hello, gorgeous!” but was completely ignored. As she moved away, he said, “I didn’t like you anyway, bitch!”

  I told you I could be funny, not tasteful. He-he-he.

  Providentially, Darcy brought me back from my reverie. “I could read for us, if you feel inclined.”

  “Read for us? Like, out loud?” As he nodded, an evil idea crossed my mind. I’d found the moment to get back at him for all the previous jokes. Especially the one about gentlemen not picking up dog’s droppings.

  I turned my Kindle on and selected the e-book I wished him to read for us. I had bought it after many of my friends insisted I just had to read it; Fanny had been quite excited about it, so I’d had a hunch it was full of scenes inappropriate for minors and I’d been right. The book was capable of making even my grandma blush. I searched for a particular chapter, and offered it to him.