Eligible (9 page)

“If Mary has a friend she doesn’t think she can bring to dinner, that’d be rather a shame,” Mr. Bennet said. “Her significant other deserves to suffer as much as the rest of us.” He was looking at Liz directly, and she tried not to squirm. Was he talking about Mary, or was he actually alluding to her and Jasper?

“She must have her reasons,” Liz said. “You did just say yourself that Mom would be horrified.”

“Your mother is horrified many times a day.”

“At least now Mom has Chip Bingley to pin her hopes on. Did you know he and Jane went out for the second time last night? They went to a movie.”

Before Mr. Bennet could answer, the door opened, and there appeared a male nurse in aqua-colored scrubs, carrying the plastic saw with its round blade at one end; the entire contraption wasn’t much larger than an electric toothbrush. “Fred!” the nurse said, though they had never met. “How are we today?”

Reading the nurse’s name tag, Mr. Bennet replied with fake enthusiasm, “Bernard! We’re mourning the death of manners and the rise of overly familiar discourse. How are you?”

“REMEMBER ALLEN BAUSCH?”
Mrs. Bennet said as Liz sat by herself at the kitchen table eating lunch.

Liz looked at her mother with curiosity. “Mary’s prom date?”

“You should find him on the computer and send him a message from Mary. That’s something that happens a lot now. Couples find each other on their computer after losing touch, and then they get married.”

“He’s probably married to someone else.”

“He isn’t. His aunt is in the Women’s League.”

“Either way, why would I reach out to him? Shouldn’t Mary do it?”

“She can be so stubborn.”

“Were Mary and Allen even a couple? They might have just gone to prom as friends.”

“He’s a lawyer in Atlanta, and he’s very active in his church,” Mrs. Bennet said. “If that’s not the description of a man looking for a wife, I don’t know what is.”

CHARLOTTE LUCAS CALLED
Liz midweek. “I’m organizing a game night for Friday,” she said. “Can you come, and can you tell your sisters?”

“Do you remember that Lydia cheats?”

“Is it possible to cheat at Charades?”

“Oh, she’ll find a way,” Liz said. “I think Jane’s going out with Chip again Friday—for the third time, if you can believe it. But I’m definitely in, and I’ll try to round up Mary or Kitty.”

“Jane should bring Chip. Or should I invite him myself?”

Liz hesitated. On the one hand, the chance to observe her sister and Chip together was tempting. On the other hand, if Chip attended game night—and Liz nerdily, unabashedly adored game nights—he might bring his sister or, worse, Fitzwilliam Darcy. But who was she to exclude others? “Sure,” she said to Charlotte. “Call Chip.”

SO DEPRESSING AND
uncomfortable had Liz found the update about Mervetta that in searching for new housecleaners, she sought agencies that would send rotating crews of three rather than an individual, with whom Mrs. Bennet might have a falling-out.

With estimates in hand for both cleaning and yard services, Liz knocked on the door of her father’s study. When he called, “There’s no one home,” she pushed the door open.

Mr. Bennet’s desk, which he sat behind, faced into the room, so that Liz saw the back rather than the front of his computer. Aside from this computer, her father’s study looked as it had when his parents had sold the house to him in 1982 for the sum of one dollar, the same year they sold their summer home in Petoskey, Michigan, to his sister, Margo, for the same price. Indeed, it was quite possible that Mr. Bennet’s study, with its sleigh bed, brown velvet curtains, leather-topped writing desk (the leather was burnt red and had a border of gold-leaf embossing), and porcelain desk lamp with fringed shade, was unchanged since Liz’s grandparents had first moved into the Tudor in 1927.

In her youth, Liz had understood her father to be an important businessman, an investor—he had driven each morning to a two-room office on Hyde Park Square, where he’d employed a secretary named Mrs. Lupshaw—and it was only with the passage of time that Liz realized that the investments he oversaw were solely those belonging to his immediate family and that, further, their oversight accounted for the entirety of his job. This realization had been so gradual that it was not until her junior year of college, when a friend of Liz’s said of the wealthy older guy the friend was dating, “He pretends to work, but I think he’s one of those men who push around piles of his family’s money,” that Liz felt an unwelcome sense of recognition. A decade earlier, when her father had “retired,” Liz had wished she did not have the cruel thought
From what?

Liz entered the study. “I’ve found people to clean up the house and the yard,” she said. She glanced at the reporter’s notebook in her hand. “I’m thinking I’ll have them both come every two weeks, though obviously you’ll need the yard people less after the summer. When Mrs. Bildeier dropped off banana bread, she gave me the name of the cleaning service she uses, and she said they’re great.”

Her father’s eyes were focused on the computer screen as he said, “Your mother cleans the house, and I mow the lawn.”

“In theory, maybe. But you still don’t have full mobility, and Mom is so focused on her Women’s League luncheon.” Following the removal of his cast the day before, Mr. Bennet’s right arm was pale, shrunken, scabby, and, even after a shower, not entirely free of the rotten odor Jane had predicted; when Liz had asked Dr. Facciano how long it would be before her father could drive, the doctor had said four to six weeks.

“Nor is Nancy Bildeier’s house an advertisement for anything,” Mr. Bennet said. “If she owns a piece of furniture not covered by dog hair, I’ve never noticed it.”

Liz hadn’t expected resistance. Uncertainly, she said, “What if I pay for the first visits?” At present, she had $13,000 in her savings account, an amount that reassured her in comparison to the nonexistent nest eggs of her sisters but that also appeared inexplicably low given that her annual income was $105,000, she had no dependents, and, apart from living in New York, she wasn’t profligate.

“That’s not a good use of your money,” Mr. Bennet said. “Nor of mine. The answer is no.”

“But don’t you think the house is kind of a mess? And the yard, too?”

Mr. Bennet sounded untroubled as he said, “Everything tends toward entropy, my dear. It’s the second law of thermodynamics.”

TO LIZ’S SURPRISE,
both Lydia and Kitty exclaimed with delight on hearing at dinner of Charlotte’s Charades invitation. “I hope you know I’ll kick your asses,” Lydia said, and Mary said, “By cheating, you mean?”

“What if we’re on the same team?” Liz asked. “Is your ass kicking restricted to your opponents or is it indiscriminate?”

“Do you ever pass up a chance to use a big word?” Lydia replied. “Or do you find that circumlocution always magnifies life’s conviviality?”

“That wasn’t bad,” Liz said. “Especially for someone who scored as low as you did on the verbal part of the SATs.”

“Stop quarreling, girls,” Mrs. Bennet said. “It’s unbecoming.”

“They’d never speak to one another otherwise,” Mr. Bennet said.

“Chip and I are going out Friday,” Jane said. “But if we weren’t, I’d love to come.”

“Charlotte’s inviting him, too,” Liz said, and Mrs. Bennet said, “I’m sure Chip would rather spend time alone with Jane. A new couple needs space.”

Lydia turned to her eldest sister, her voice merry. “Jane, do you think Chip will be the one you lose your virginity to?”

Mr. Bennet stood, dropping his napkin on the table. “As interesting as I find this conversation, an urgent matter has come up. I need a hamburger.”

Simultaneously, Liz said, “Dad, you can’t drive,” and Jane said, “Dad, you can’t eat red meat.”

Mr. Bennet gestured toward his plate, atop which sat moderate portions of lentil stew prepared by Jane and salad prepared by Liz. “This is unacceptable,” he said. “I’m not a small woodland creature. Lizzy, we’re going to Zip’s.”

“Dad, Dr. Morelock is the one who recommended a plant-based diet,” Jane said. “It wasn’t us.”

“The iron in a hamburger will
help
Dad,” Kitty said. “Just don’t eat the bun.”

“That’d be like watching a burlesque show with one’s eyes closed,” Mr. Bennet said.

“Yuck,” Mary said.

Mr. Bennet pointed toward the back door. “Hop to, Lizzy.”

Liz glanced at Jane, who sighed audibly. This Liz took as tacit permission, and she, too, stood; the truth, unfortunately, was that the lentils
were
almost flavorless. “Does anyone else want anything?” she asked.

Everyone did except for Jane—they requested hamburgers and cheeseburgers and french fries—though at the last minute, just before Mr. Bennet and Liz walked out the back door, Jane called after them, “Fine. I’ll take an order of onion rings.”

“ARE YOU STILL
planning to stay in Cincy until September?” Jasper said to Liz over the phone. “Because I don’t know if I can wait that long for you to get back.”

“I was thinking we should meet somewhere for a weekend in August,” Liz said. “Maybe Cape Cod?”

“Here’s my question,” Jasper said. “I realize your mom’s shindig is the biggest thing ever to happen in her life. But when she claims to be spending her days on nonstop planning, what’s she literally doing? Isn’t the event at a hotel that’s making the food and taking care of the setup?”