Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star (46 page)

Caroline hadn’t been able to hear their brief conversation, but Jane’s body language made it clear. She was not willing to listen to anything Charles would tell her. She felt her twin’s pain as he couldn’t leave her yet couldn’t be with her, doomed to circle her like a planet orbiting the sun. Jane was politely talking to a writer and an actor Anne had introduced to her, and together they were discussing the possibility of LBS’s doing a theme song for an upcoming movie.

Caroline felt a certain boredom with it all. Slurry had done several soundtracks and the experience had only shown her that the movie industry was more shameless than the music industry. At moments like this, Caroline found she shared Darcy’s disgust with the whole business.

Caroline turned away and her eyes fell on Elizabeth Bennet. Elizabeth was talking politely with the people standing next to her, but Caroline knew her well enough to know she was bored.

Caroline made excuses and took Elizabeth away from the group and to the refreshment table. “I hope you don’t mind,” she told Elizabeth.

Elizabeth chuckled once. “No, I’m quite in your debt. I have never met such boring or fake people in my life.”

Caroline smiled in agreement. “Now you know why Darcy avoids these like the plague.”

“Is that why he’s not here?”

Caroline knew the curiosity in her voice was more than just idle conversation. “No, I don’t think so, but why don’t you tell me, Lizzy?”

Elizabeth’s eyes met hers, and Caroline waited while Elizabeth considered the offer. Finally Elizabeth said, “Could we find a quiet place to sit?”

Caroline nodded and led her to a private corner, near the windows. Elizabeth looked out into the darkness and tried to find a starting point.

“He loves you, you know,” Caroline said, relieving Elizabeth of the burden.

“I do now,” Elizabeth replied softly. “I know you all must think I’m really stupid, but for the longest time, I didn’t think he liked me at all.” Elizabeth gave a bitter huff. “Change that: I also think I’m stupid.”

“Lizzy,” Caroline said gently, “why did you think he didn’t like you?”

“Because he was so cold and abrupt when he spoke to me. And he said things that were very arrogant and hurtful.”

“He can be hard, Lizzy. No one knows that better than me. But believe me, he never meant to hurt you.”

“You mean before today.”

Caroline nodded and sighed. “Yes. What happened today? I’ve never seen him like this.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I guess everyone is going to know now.” She shrugged. “What the hell? It’s not like I don’t live in a damned fishbowl anyway.”

“Did you sleep with him?” Caroline asked her calmly.

Elizabeth nodded. “And in the morning, he told me he loved me.” She could hardly believe it had only been this morning.

“What happened?”

“I ran.”

Caroline had to laugh at the irony of it. “If it’s any comfort to you, Elizabeth, I think that you’re both stupid right now.”

“Thanks,” Elizabeth said sarcastically. “You know what, I actually agree with you.” She put her hand to her face and rubbed her forehead.

“So what comes next?” Caroline asked.

“I don’t really know. We tried to get kicked off the tour, and I’m told we fucked that up good, so frankly, I just don’t know.”

Caroline smiled. “The one time you are trying to not advance your career and you end up giving yourself a huge boost, right?”

Elizabeth nodded and held up her hands. “I don’t get it.”

“I’m sorry, Lizzy. You need to work this out for yourself, but I can tell you one thing: Don’t give up.”

“On what? The career or Darcy?”

“Both, actually, but I meant Darcy.” Caroline looked at Elizabeth, letting her true feelings rise. “He’s a good man. He’s one of the best men I know. He’s very hard, I know that, but he does love you, and he only wants to make you happy.”

“And this afternoon?”

“He was hurt, badly, and lashed out.”

Elizabeth nodded. She knew that, but it validated her feelings to hear it from someone else.

“I know he comes on strong, but that is his way. He doesn’t realize that other people can’t read his mind. He thought it was clear to you that he loved you.”

Elizabeth nodded, feeling very sad inside. “You love him, don’t you?”

Caroline smiled. “Of course I do.” To Elizabeth’s unasked question, she said, “I love him enough to want to see him happy. And that’s you, Lizzy.”

“Caro, I don’t think he will ever want to see me again after today.”

Caroline reached out and rubbed Elizabeth’s arm. “Of course he does. He loves you, and one little spat isn’t going to change that. Couldn’t you see it during ‘Feel Me’?”

Elizabeth nodded, her lips tightly pressed together, and Caroline took her into her arms and hugged her. “It’s okay, Lizzy. You go home, and take a couple of weeks to get your head together. Darcy will be waiting when you come back.”

Elizabeth blinked back her tears. “I will.”

Elizabeth walked to her sister, suddenly very tired. “Let’s go,” she told Jane. Jane nodded and found her eyes resting on Charles.

“Have Alex get the car, okay, Lizzy?” she told her as she stared at Charles.

Elizabeth nodded and stepped away, letting Jane have her needed privacy.

Jane signaled to Charles that he could come to her now. “Can I touch you?” he asked softly.

Jane shook her head no.

“What happened, Jane?”

Jane knew she owed him an explanation. “I realized some things this afternoon, that Slurry was hurting us all, and we needed to stop it. To pull away.”

Charles’s eyes revealed the pain he was feeling. “Why didn’t you talk to me?”

“I tried,” she said, her voice dropping to an intense whisper. “I tried to talk to you and all I got was ‘wait.’ And I waited, and what did I get? ‘It’s All a Joke’!” Jane stopped and visually struggled to regain her control.

“So you did hear that?”

Jane nodded, her eyes cast downward.

Charles pushed aside a surge of anger. “Jane, that was never about you. I don’t know how you could ever even think it was.”

“But I did!” she answered him, her voice full of wretchedness. “I did! I thought you were tired of me and I thought you wanted to break up with me. And frankly, now I don’t know what to think.”

Charles’s expression sobered. “My God, Jane, I love you!”

Jane looked like she had been struck. “Please. Don’t say that.”

“Jane?”

Jane took a deep breath. “I have to go.”

“But we need to talk.”

Jane shook her head. “Charles, I don’t trust you, so I don’t know what we have to talk about.” She turned and left the room, rushing so he wouldn’t see her tears.

***

The next morning, Jane took Elizabeth to the train station. Mechanically Elizabeth got a ticket and took the metro north to Grand Central Station. There she took a subway down to Greenwich Village.

As she rode, her mind traveled like a train on the same track. She remembered the events of yesterday, from waking up in Darcy’s arms, all the way to her talk with Caroline. She traveled the same route again and again, without finding any answers.

She was so deeply lost in her thoughts that she was only slightly surprised to find herself not at the lot where she had left her truck a lifetime ago but at Darcy’s building. She realized that her thoughts weren’t going to give her any peace, so she entered the building and asked the doorman to announce her.

The doorman was a kind man who had been in the Darcys’ employ since the late seventies. He recognized the young woman from her last visit. “I’m sorry, Miss Bennet. Mr. Darcy is away and won’t be returning for a few weeks.”

Elizabeth was shocked at the disappointment she felt. She thanked the man and left the building, feeling completely adrift. Numbly, she returned to her truck, paid the huge bill, and started her drive home.

Automatically, she turned her radio on. She smiled when she heard Jane’s voice singing to her.

Once I could believe

Everything you promised.

That pretty story you told me,

I held it close and loved it.

Now I’ve gotten smart.

Now I’ve learned some things.

Now I know that what once was a start

Is just an ending.

The longest good-bye

I ever knew

The longest good-bye

Was the day

I said hello to you.

With a deep breath, Elizabeth accepted that she was going down. She couldn’t avoid it. She didn’t know where he was and couldn’t contact him for at least two weeks.

Oh, she knew in an emergency she could reach him, through Caroline or something, but this was hardly an emergency.

No, she had to face her worst demon now: herself. She had two weeks to do what Caroline told her to do: pull herself together and figure out what she wanted. She laughed to herself. She didn’t need two weeks. All she needed was twenty minutes. She wanted him.

The song ended and the announcer came on. “That’s Long Bourne Suffering, who really stole the show at the MTV awards last night. And you can see LBS. They are touring with Slurry now and they have dates coming up at Madison Square Garden at the end of this month. I’ve got tickets for that show for caller number twelve…”

The words died away but not the impression. It was a surprise to Elizabeth to realize that she had reached one of her goals. Her band was being talked about on a major radio station. Somewhere, during the tour, she had become a hit. Oh, they still had a long way to go, but they had made it.

Elizabeth found the knowledge puzzling. She had dreamed of this for so long and she had expected that when she made it, she would feel different, be different. She looked in her rearview mirror at her reflection.

The face she found there was basically the same, but as she stared, she found tiny differences.
Mileage
, the voice in her head told her. She wasn’t the same Lizzy Bennet who had left on tour back in March. But she wasn’t quite finished either.

The other thing that surprised her was how little her success meant to her. She was surprised and certainly happy. But she certainly wasn’t fulfilled as she had always imagined she would be. Success had proven to be not a panacea but merely a job. She received satisfaction from her job well done, but that only went so far. She found that she still needed something. She needed Darcy.

He wasn’t perfect, that was for sure, but she needed to talk to him. She needed to find out what she felt for him, to figure out if he was right.

With a deep breath she realized her train of thought had finally stopped. She had the answer she needed. And now she needed to wait.

On Thursday Mrs. Bennet answered the phone at her home. “Oh hello, dear. No, I haven’t asked them yet.”

Elizabeth and Jane exchanged a look. They were enjoying a quiet dinner with their parents. Both of them could tell by their mother’s tone that Lydia, her baby, was on the phone and probably asking for a favor. Kitty and Lydia were working for their aunt and uncle as nannies over the summer.

“You know, dear, they don’t have much time off,” Mrs. Bennet spoke into the phone. “All right, all right, I’ll ask them.”

“That was Lydia,” Mrs. Bennet said, unnecessarily, as she hung up. “You know how they have been working so hard all summer, and their friends are going to the beach next week, and they wanted to know if one of you could fill in for them, so they could have a little vacation.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. Mary was away at the Tanglewood Music Center for an eight-week fellowship, which left her and Jane to cover for Kitty and Lydia. It was pointless for Elizabeth to remind her mother that she and Jane had been working hard for the past four months. She sighed and looked at Jane.

Jane’s expression surprised her. The deep sadness that had shadowed her since Tuesday lifted, and she smiled slightly. “Tell Lydia I’d be happy to go to Aunt Maddie’s.” Jane then looked to Elizabeth and winked.

Elizabeth considered her sister’s hint. She had to admit the idea had merit. Getting away from Mom and spending a week with her aunt would actually be more relaxing. Watching her young cousins would give her something to do besides thinking about Darcy and how she had screwed up with him. “I’ll come too,” she volunteered suddenly.

“Hey,” she said excitedly as a thought occurred to her, “we could go and stay with Aunt Maddie, and when Lydia and Kitty come back next weekend, we could go see Mary at Tanglewood.”