Eligible (44 page)

“He must take testosterone,” Liz said, and thought of Darcy.

“What I wonder is,” Jane said, “if Ham was choosing from all the male names in the world, why did he pick Ham? I know it’s short for Hamilton, but that’s still kind of odd. Do you know what his name was when he was female?”

“No,” Liz said.

“I wish I knew him better,” Jane said. “I guess now I’ll get to.”

“I shouldn’t even tell you this,” Liz said, “but there were new unopened Horchow boxes in the front hall when I got home last night, and there’s a bunch of raw steak in the refrigerator. Oh, and doughnuts on the counter. Apparently, Mom and Dad are very receptive to our concerns about their physical and financial well-being.”

“All we can do is encourage them when they make good choices,” Jane said. “We can’t micromanage their behavior. So, Lizzy, I think I felt the baby kick.”

“Wait, really?”

“It was this flutter that didn’t come from my own body.”

“That’s so exciting.”

“I know.” Then Jane said, “Promise to call me the minute you hear anything from Chicago.”

ALTHOUGH SHE KNEW
she was supposed to be concerned about Lydia, Liz felt more preoccupied with whether she’d hear from Darcy. As she had previously planned to do, he was taking a red-eye, though having seen Pemberley, she suspected he’d be flying first-class. As Labor Day proceeded in a decidedly un-Labor-Day-ish fashion—Mrs. Bennet continued to weep and brood in her bedroom, Mary hadn’t yet come to the Tudor, and Liz wasn’t sure whether to resent Mary for staying away or be relieved by her absence—Liz imagined Darcy’s activities. He wouldn’t, presumably, leave for the San Francisco airport until around midnight in Cincinnati, so she pictured him packing his suitcase in the Pemberley guesthouse, perhaps going for a run or playing Scrabble with Georgie. (Liz had no idea if Darcy and Georgie played Scrabble.) Had Caroline Bingley returned yet to Los Angeles? Liz certainly hoped so.

Intermittently, her mother would summon her to unhappily speculate about Ham, sometimes from a new angle and sometimes from angles previously explored just a short time earlier. Otherwise, Liz busied herself with tidying the Tudor, as well as with aggressive sniffing in cabinets and the corners of rooms for lingering traces of sulfuryl fluoride, Ken Weinrich’s reassurances notwithstanding.

While she wished that her impatience as she waited to hear from Darcy would cancel out her impatience as she waited to hear from Lydia, the opposite proved true; doubly restless, Liz kept experiencing phantom buzzes in her pocket, incoming texts that turned out not to exist. She began composing in her head the pseudo-off-the-cuff missive she’d send when Darcy returned to Cincinnati:
Hey there, wondering if you’re free to get coffee/dinner/whatever before I go back to New York?
Having already changed her plane reservations twice since leaving Cincinnati for Houston, she no longer had a ticket to New York, but she figured the implication of urgency couldn’t hurt.

In the early afternoon, Liz was driving home from the Smoothie King in Hyde Park Plaza when her phone buzzed with a real and actual text; it was not, however, from Darcy or Lydia. It was from Georgie.

Liz,
the text read,
it was SO great to meet you. I’m sure you’ve heard from my brother about him and Caroline and now I feel very awkward about the conversation you and I had. I really wish I’d bitten my tongue. I can’t wait to read your article about Kathy de Bourgh and I hope we cross paths again soon!

Liz’s heartbeat sped up unpleasantly, and continued to do so as she read the text a second time, searching for the part where Georgie specified
what
Liz might have heard about Darcy and Caroline. Really, though, was specification necessary? Still, it was shocking that exactly what Liz had feared might happen had happened. Hadn’t she been devoting enough anxious attention to this eventuality to preclude it? Had discussing the subject with Charlotte not been a sufficient method of warding it off?

There was nothing to do but change clothes and go for another run. Although thirty-two ounces of pureed raspberry and mango were sloshing in her stomach, she couldn’t just sit inside the Tudor, knowing that Darcy and Caroline were together. (How could they be together? Was it possible that Liz had imagined all the fraught energy between herself and Darcy in Atherton, his solicitousness, that moment when they’d almost kissed? Had he invited her to breakfast to tell her that he and Caroline were a couple? To officially retract his affection and establish a more friendly and informal mode, should he and Liz encounter each other in the future?)

Her hands shook as she tied her sneakers. In the second-floor hall, she called, “Mom, I’m going for a run” and left without either waiting for a response or taking a key. Once outside again, she didn’t bother stretching in the driveway but simply sprinted off.

For half a mile, adrenaline and bewilderment spurred her on, and her pace was far faster than usual. But sorrow and smoothie gas soon triumphed; she decreased her speed, and tears welled in her eyes. She had been prepared to admit her mistakes to Darcy, to make amends and humble herself. Now Caroline had robbed her of the opportunity, and even worse, Darcy had let Caroline do so.

As Liz reached Madison Road, tears fell down her cheeks, and an undeniable cramp took hold on the right side of her abdomen. And then she was sobbing, she was full-on heaving, in the middle of the day, on a busy street, and instead of making a right, she crossed Torrence Parkway, took a seat on a public bench, and gave in to a combination of regret and sadness that caused her to gasp and shake. She hunched over, her elbows pressed against her thighs, her hands covering her face, and tears and mucus cascaded down as she wept and wept and wept. After an indeterminate amount of time, a tentative voice said, “Honey?” Liz looked up.

It was a slim, middle-aged black woman who also appeared to be exercising; she wore sturdy white walking shoes, shorts, and a T-shirt featuring the University of Cincinnati Bearcat. “Are you okay, honey?”

Liz ran her palm upward over her nostrils. “I’m heartbroken,” she said, because it seemed the most succinct way of conveying the facts.

“Oh, honey.” The woman shook her head. “Aren’t we all?”

I KNOW U
have your phone,
Liz typed in a text to Lydia.
I’m not telling u not to marry ham but why don’t u reach out to m & d and tell them you’re fine?

No reply was immediately forthcoming. Although she suspected it would achieve little, Liz also looked up the number for Ham’s gym and left a message.

She was lying in bed in the dark when, she was almost certain, Darcy’s plane took off from San Francisco; there was only one direct red-eye from SFO to Cincinnati. She no longer was waiting to hear from him, but the desolation inflicted by Georgie’s text had scarcely decreased. This new development had to be more than just a few stolen, wine-facilitated kisses between Darcy and Caroline, didn’t it? Or else Georgie wouldn’t have referred to them in such an official way. They, too, wouldn’t have eloped, would they? The thought was truly sickening.

During the many years of romantic torment meted out by Jasper Wick, Liz had routinely cried herself to sleep. But that had been a while ago, and the nocturnal weeping Liz was gripped by in her childhood bed in the Tudor didn’t have a recent precedent; it was almost—almost—unfamiliar.

SEVENTY-TWO HOURS PASSED
before Liz received acknowledgment of the text she’d sent Lydia, and when it came, Lydia’s response contained no words. It was a photo of herself and Ham standing in front of a white wall, a round blue Cook County seal partially visible behind them. Ham was dapper in a button-down shirt and sport coat, a red rose on his lapel, and Lydia was unforgivably young and stunning in a sleeveless white dress; behind her right ear was tucked a red rose that matched Ham’s. Together, the two held out a light blue piece of paper covered with writing too small for Liz to decipher, except that at the top, in capital letters, it said
CERTIFICATION OF
MARRIAGE.
They both were beaming.

Congratulations!
Liz texted back.
U guys look great!
And then:
When u coming home???

Again, there was no answer.

MR. BENNET AND
Kitty returned to Cincinnati on Thursday evening, four days after they’d departed and just a few hours after Liz had received the photograph from Lydia; her father and sister had never encountered the newlyweds.

Mrs. Bennet was, as usual, in her bed—the demands of the Women’s League luncheon, pressing as they were, had been set aside all week in order for her to devote herself full-time to her shame and distress—and Mr. Bennet and Kitty entered the room to deliver a report devoid of news to her, Liz, and Mary.

“Did you really find out nothing in all that time?” Mrs. Bennet asked her husband.

“I learned that it costs forty-seven dollars a day to park a car at the Hilton.” Mr. Bennet seemed extremely weary. “Anything else, Kitty?”

“The Bean is cool.”

“I always knew there was something off about Ham,” Mrs. Bennet said. “He had a funny look in his eyes, and I didn’t trust him.”

“They’re probably on their honeymoon by now,” Mary said with malicious delight.

“Kitty, what do you think?” Liz said. Surely, if Liz had been in touch with Lydia, Kitty had, too. But Kitty merely shrugged.

“We should hire a detective,” Mrs. Bennet said. “Fred, remember when the Hoessles were getting divorced and Marilyn hired someone to follow Buddy?”

“Actually,” Liz said, “I’ve heard from Lydia.”

“You didn’t think to tell us?” Mr. Bennet said.

“It wasn’t very long ago, and she didn’t say anything. It’s a picture.” Liz tapped on the message icon on her phone’s screen, then on the photo itself: Ham and Lydia in their dressy clothes, holding their marriage certificate, looking jubilant. She showed it to her father first, and his expression seemed to be one of muted amusement.

Kitty said, “Wow, she looks fierce,” and Mary said, “Then I guess it’s a done deal.”

When finally Liz brought the phone to her mother, Mrs. Bennet peered at it with pursed lips and burst once more into tears. “If that’s how Lydia wants it, then fine,” Mrs. Bennet said. “Fine. But I’ll have nothing more to do with either of them.”