Curtis Sittenfeld - Eligible

“I was empathizing with your plight — looking at the world from your perspective.”

“I see.” Everything about him — every inflection of his voice, every expression he made — oozed superciliousness.

“For what it’s worth, my sisters aren’t representative of all people from Cincinnati,” Liz said. “Lydia and Kitty happen to have exceptionally bad manners.”

“I’m well aware that your sisters have exceptionally bad manners,” Darcy said, and Liz immediately regretted her quasi-apology.

She said, “So where are you from that’s so superior to here?”

“I grew up outside San Francisco. Though again, you’re putting words in my mouth — I never said superior .”

“Close enough,” Liz said. “And, you know, just for the record, whatever it is you think about the people here, your opinion says more about you than the city. Because I’m not sure what you think other places have that we don’t, but fifteen-dollar cocktails made with locally grown ingredients? We’ve got them. Indie bands? Got them. Reiki healers? We’ve got those, too. Maybe you have to search a little harder, but all that’s here, and so is lots of other stuff, like beautiful old houses that are completely affordable and an awesome riverfront park and nationally ranked sports teams and easy commutes and a mix of races and ethnicities. You can have a really high quality of life in Cincinnati.”

This was without question the most passionate paean to her hometown Liz had ever delivered — in fact, she wasn’t certain she believed all of it — but Darcy simply said, “You’re lucky to be so enthusiastic about the place you live.”

“Oh, I don’t live here,” Liz said. “I live in New York.”

At this, Darcy did something she hadn’t previously seen: He smiled.

“It’s not that I wouldn’t live here,” she said quickly, though she wasn’t sure this was true, either. “It’s just that it doesn’t make sense with my job. I’m a writer for Mascara magazine, but I came back because my dad had heart surgery.”

“A bypass?”

Liz nodded. “He’s doing well.” Reflexively, she knocked on a wooden cabinet.

“Did he have it done at Christ?” Liz nodded again, and Darcy said, “Their cardiothoracic department is good.”

“Are you fermenting the grapes yourself?” someone said then, and both Liz and Darcy turned to see Caroline. “You’ve seriously been in here for twenty minutes,” Caroline said, and beneath her breezy tone, Liz heard an unmistakable territoriality. How convenient, Liz thought, that Caroline’s managerial obligations had brought her to Cincinnati.

“Liz was just telling me that she’s a writer for a magazine,” Darcy said. “ Mascara, you said?”

“Oh, that’s funny,” Caroline said. “Do you write articles like ‘Twenty Tips to Be a Tiger in the Sack’?”

“That’s not Mascara, ” Liz said.

“I’m over Charades,” Caroline said to Darcy. “Want to get out of here?”

More loudly, Liz said, “I know what magazine you’re thinking of, and it’s not Mascara. We write about sex, of course, but not in a cheesy way.”

Caroline glanced at Liz. “You what?”

“ Mascara focuses on serious issues,” Liz said. “I went to Saudi Arabia last year for a feature on gender relations in the Middle East.”

There was something challenging, or weirdly accusatory, in Caroline’s tone as she said, “Did you have to cover your hair?”

“I wore an abaya and a head scarf in public,” Liz said.

Caroline smiled faintly. “Aren’t you the world traveler.” Her focus reverted to Darcy as she said, “Charlotte is talking about ordering food, but I’d rather just leave.”

“We can go,” Darcy said.

Charades hadn’t concluded, Liz was pretty sure, though she wasn’t about to insist on extending the game.

Darcy turned toward her. “I’d suggest that the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce hire you, but I guess it’d be a long commute.”

He and Caroline were almost out of the kitchen when Liz said, “Did you just make a joke? I hadn’t realized you had a sense of humor.”

NEITHER MR. NOR Mrs. Bennet visited the third floor with any regularity, which was why Liz was mildly surprised, while working at her desk, to see her mother standing in the threshold of her room. Mrs. Bennet held out a small cardboard box, its top flaps sticking up. Her tone was unapologetic as she said, “I thought this was for me.”

Several times a day, the doorbell of the Tudor rang, and it was usually either a family friend bearing a casserole or baked goods intended to bring comfort during Mr. Bennet’s recovery or else a FedEx or UPS delivery. About three-quarters of the deliveries were intended for Mrs. Bennet — they accumulated, often unopened, in the front hall and the dining room — and the rest were assorted products and media kits sent to Liz at Mascara by publicists and forwarded by the magazine: diet protein powder and samples from celebrity sock lines, forthcoming tell-alls, new kinds of lip gloss.

“Thanks.” Liz stood and took the box.

With a certain ostentatiousness, Mrs. Bennet said, “I have no idea who it’s from.” As her mother turned and walked away, Liz saw that the label featured the logo of and address for Sporty, with Jasper’s first and last names above the logo in entirely legible handwriting. Reaching into the box, Liz pushed aside tissue paper to reveal a piece of stationery with the Sporty letterhead on which Jasper had scrawled THINKING OF YOU! Beneath the paper were a bright red sheer teddy and thong underwear in a matching hue. The items, which presumably would have been flimsy even if well-made, were clearly cheap, which didn’t preclude them from holding a semi-ridiculous allure offset by the humiliating possibility that they had been examined by her mother. Or, thought Liz, the humiliating certainty. But if Mrs. Bennet was not going to ask Liz about the gift, Liz would not offer any explanation.

She called Jasper on her cellphone, and when he answered, she said, “My mom opened your package. She said to compliment you on your discretion and elegant taste.”

Jasper laughed. “You think she knows that opening someone else’s mail is a federal offense? Hey, word on the street is that Noah Trager is being shit-canned later this week. Don’t you think I’d make a good editor in chief of Dude ?”

“Actually, you would.”

“Edward van Pallandt is co-hosting that benefit tonight for the Burmese dissident. The tickets are sold out, but I’ll bet I can get in. You think I’m jumping the gun if I go and mention my interest in Dude to van Pallandt?”

Noah Trager was the current editor in chief of Dude, a men’s magazine; Edward van Pallandt was its publisher’s creative director, a bon vivant who had, in one of the great moments of Liz’s entire life, complimented her shoes as they were riding the elevator together. (The shoes were beige suede caged booties, and, most gloriously of all, Liz had purchased them for thirty dollars at TJ Maxx in Cincinnati.) As for the Burmese dissident, Liz didn’t know who that was.

She said, “How certain is it that Noah is being fired? Who told you?”

“I’ve heard it from a couple people.”

“I think it’s fine to go to the benefit and talk to Edward van Pallandt, to remind him who you are, but I wouldn’t mention Dude specifically. That seems vulturish. Is your résumé updated?”

“I’ll send it to you, and you can take a gander. You know what you should send me? A picture of you in the lingerie.”

“With or without my mom in the background?”