Curtis Sittenfeld - Eligible

Out Liz’s plane window, the mountains of northwest Utah were snow-peaked and lunar, even in August. Too preoccupied to read, Liz scrutinized them at length, but they offered no sagacity. At last, she leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes.

UPON LANDING IN San Francisco, Liz called Ken Weinrich to find out if the fumigation had concluded successfully, and he confirmed that the sulfuryl fluoride levels inside the house had measured at below five parts per million, he had seen no spiders, and his team had removed the tent and fans. Liz then called Mary’s cellphone, though it was difficult to hear Mary over the sound of their mother shouting in the background; apparently, they were back at the Tudor, in the kitchen.

“That food was all perfectly good!” Mrs. Bennet was declaring. “Why, I hadn’t even opened Bev Wattenberg’s peach marmalade!”

“Tell her I’m sure the Wattenbergs will give us more marmalade at Christmas,” Liz said, and Mary said, “There’s no point.”

“The house doesn’t smell weird at all?” Liz asked.

“It doesn’t smell like anything,” Mary said.

“I’ll tell you who won’t appreciate my tins of smoked trout,” Mrs. Bennet was shouting, “and that’s a hobo at a shelter.”

“I have to go,” Mary said.

“Hang in there,” Liz said, and Mary said in a churlish tone, “Thanks for the long-distance pep talk.”

OUTSIDE THE DELTA terminal at SFO, Charlotte appeared considerably more tranquil than Liz had expected; this tranquillity was reassuring while casting doubt on the necessity of Liz’s presence. But if now they were friends again, then what else mattered?

“Earplugs are the best invention ever,” Charlotte said as she merged into the left lane. “I slept for eleven hours last night.”

“Congratulations.”

“Want to go with me to Nordstrom to buy new work clothes?”

“Does that mean you accepted the job?”

“I called them right before I got in the car to pick you up. I start a week from Labor Day.”

“That’s great, Charlotte. And I’d be honored to go to Nordstrom with you.”

With traffic, it took them almost an hour to reach the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto; they ate lunch at a restaurant before entering the department store.

“Everyone says how casual it is out here, but that’s if you’re a twenty-five-year-old dude,” Charlotte said as she sorted through a rack of plus-size tops.

Inspecting a bra in the adjacent lingerie section, Liz thought, Would he like this or find it cheesy? With a jolt, she realized that the he in question, for the first time in a long while, was not Jasper.

“I’m trying these.” Charlotte held up three hangers, then nodded her chin toward the bra. “Va-va-va-voom.”

“It’s expensive.”

Charlotte looked skeptical. “For a New Yorker?”

Liz held out the price tag, which read $200.

“There’s no better investment than your cleavage.” Charlotte smirked. “I believe they teach that in business school.”

Seventy minutes later, they were in the mall parking lot, walking back toward Charlotte’s car with their respective purchases (Liz could not possibly justify buying the bra, and it was in her bag), when Liz said, “So I broke up with Jasper.”

“Are you bummed or relieved?”

“Somewhere in between. Mostly I feel stupid for not realizing until now how obnoxious he is, when other people have seen it all along.”

“You were really young when you met him,” Charlotte said. “That should give you some exemption.” As she pressed her key to unlock the car, she said, “This morning, Willie made an appointment with an ENT doctor. It turns out he had no idea that he snores. I guess if you’ve never had a girlfriend, no one’s ever told you.”

Whether or not it was completely true, Liz was compelled to say, “For the record, I like Willie. I think he’s a good guy.”

Wryly, but not angrily, Charlotte said, “Which is why you were disgusted when he tried to kiss you?” Liz was on the cusp of saying He’s my cousin, when Charlotte added, “And don’t say it’s because you’re cousins. We both know you’d have been disgusted no matter what. But that’s okay.”

“I just don’t think he and I had chemistry,” Liz said, and Charlotte smiled.

“I hope it’s all right that I invited your aunt and uncle for dinner tonight.”

“Perfect,” Liz said. She had arranged to stay in the Bay Area for three days, then fly to New York on a red-eye. She said to Charlotte, “If you want to take a nap this afternoon, I’m happy to go grocery shopping. Or whatever errands you need — my errand-running muscles have gotten pretty huge this summer.”

They had set their bags in the trunk of the car and climbed into the front seat, and Charlotte said, “It’s not that I haven’t had a bumpy adjustment out here, but I did call you at a low moment last night. Let’s do something fun. Have you ever seen the campus of Stanford?”

“Your life changed a lot all at once,” Liz said. “It would be weird if you didn’t have second thoughts. And, no, I’ve never seen Stanford, although—” How could touring the university make her think of anything except what Jasper had done to his creative writing instructor? “You know what else is around here is Darcy’s family’s estate.”

Charlotte laughed. “His estate? Who is he, the king of England?”

“It’s somewhere in Atherton,” Liz said. “Okay, don’t judge me, but Darcy and I slept together a few times.”

Charlotte made a joyous whoop. “I knew you two were flirting at Chip’s dinner party!”

“That’s right,” Liz said. “You did call that, didn’t you?”

“A few times? If you kept going back for more, I take it the sex was halfway decent.”

“Yes,” Liz said. “You could say so.”

“I don’t suppose you know the address of this estate?”

As Liz pulled out her phone, her heart thudded. She typed Darcy estate Atherton, and a few clicks later, she said, “1813 Pemberley Lane. You’d take Sand Hill Road to El Camino Real.”

In a phonily high voice, Charlotte said, “Um, I think Darcy grew up around here? What, go look at it? Now? Innocent little me? Why, I wouldn’t dream of it!”

Twelve minutes later, Charlotte was making a right from El Camino Real into a residential neighborhood blocked off from the more trafficked throughway by a tall ivy-covered wall. On either side of the entry to the quieter street hung signs that read NO TRESPASSING. RESIDENTS ONLY. “I’d rather not get arrested,” Liz said. “I realize we’re here because of me, but I’ll just put that out there.”

“Is the woman who went alone to Saudi Arabia chickening out?”

“I’m not pretending that I’m not interested,” Liz said. “It’s just that — holy shit, is that it?” A wrought-iron fence that was easily eight feet high enclosed a massive, verdant lawn on which trees and a combination of modern and older sculptures stood at intervals. As Charlotte continued driving, they reached the fence’s gate, which was closed. Beyond it, a long gravel driveway led to a brick mansion that in its grandness and symmetry evoked a southern plantation.

Charlotte pointed through the gate to a larger-than-life bronze statue of a nude male. “You think Darcy posed for that?”

“No one lives in the house,” Liz said. “Darcy’s parents have died, and his sister is a grad student at Stanford. But can you imagine how—” The thought went unexpressed; it was at this moment that a black van with tinted windows approached from the opposite direction and stopped next to them, its driver’s-side window descending. A middle-aged man with a crew cut said in a brisk tone, “Can I help you ladies?”