Curtis Sittenfeld - Eligible

Mr. and Mrs. Bennet called in the afternoon to sing “Happy Birthday”—this was the only duet Liz had ever known her parents to perform — and the guests arrived around seven: friends of Amanda and Prisha’s whom Jane had recently come to know, a Barnard classmate and her husband living in nearby Kingston, a pair of yoga studio colleagues who, like Liz, had made the journey from the city. Though Jane didn’t drink, Amanda broke out several bottles of what Liz recognized as expensive wine. Liz had brought a cake from a Cobble Hill bakery — on the crowded train, she’d sat with the cake box on her lap like an obedient child, holding above it the book she was reading — and despite the filling meal, no one declined a slice.

Liz shared the double bed in the guest room with Jane and her body pillow, and on Sunday morning, while Amanda and Prisha were still asleep and their son was watching television, the sisters went for a stroll on the woodsy, sidewalkless roads around their hosts’ home.

“Does being forty feel fabulous and foxy?” Liz asked.

“More like fatigued and foolish,” Jane said, but she sounded cheerful. “Thanks for coming up to celebrate.”

“How are you doing on money?”

Jane shook her head. “Amanda won’t let me pay for anything, and their friends have been amazing with hand-me-downs. Now I just have to figure out how to break the news to Mom and Dad. Mom still hasn’t spoken to Lydia and Ham, has she?”

“I don’t think so. Did you hear that Lydia registered? Which, not to sound like Mom, but is that allowed if you elope?”

“I’ll have to order her something,” Jane said.

“How about dinner china that’s $240 a setting? Or perhaps you’d prefer the $650 juicer.”

“Are you making those up or are they real?”

“To be fair, the juicer also chops and purées.”

Jane laughed. “Maybe I can afford to buy her part of a fork. Lizzy, I don’t know what I imagined my financial situation would be when I was forty, but mooching off friends — it wasn’t this.”

The surprise, Liz thought, wasn’t that someone rich would swoop in to subsidize Jane’s pregnancy; the surprise was that Jane had arrived at a point where she needed subsidizing. So refined and delicate was Jane, so charming and beloved, that a certain inevitability had surrounded her courtship with Chip, and it was their breakup rather than their coupling that felt like a deviation from the script. Also, Liz wondered, was it indecorous of her to feel relieved that obscenely successful Amanda rather than middling Liz herself was supporting Jane — should Liz insist on taking responsibility, as a family member? Aloud, Liz said, “They seem fine with your so-called mooching.”

“ You would never do it. In fact, the opposite — aren’t you paying Kitty and Mary’s rent?”

“Only until they finish their classes and get jobs. I have one more thing to tell you about Lydia. She took Ham’s last name, so she’s Lydia Ryan now.”

“Hmm,” Jane said. “I guess she’s traditional after all.”

IT WASN’T UNEXPECTED to run into Jasper; given the smallness of the Manhattan media world, the only question had been when the encounter would happen. The answer turned out to be a Wednesday evening publication party for a White House memoir by a former national security advisor also known for her magnificently toned calves.

The party occurred at an event space on the twenty-second floor of a building on Columbus Circle. Three other people entered the elevator in the lobby with Liz, and just before the doors closed, an arm shot through them, followed by a male voice saying, “Hold up!” Presently, the rest of Jasper appeared. He and Liz made eye contact, and he smiled. “Hey! It’s you.”

Guardedly, Liz said, “Hi.”

He had always been handsome and still was, but Liz noticed for the first time how old he looked: His curly blond hair was more silver, and the corners of his eyes were marked by crow’s-feet. When had this happened? She didn’t derive pleasure from her observations; instead, they made her sad.

Everyone disembarked on the twenty-second floor, and Jasper set a hand on the sleeve of her coat to hold her back. He said, “I’m trying to respect your wishes here, but do you really need to starve me out?”

“I’m not starving you out.”

“What, then — we’re just done? After everything?”

“You had your chance.”

“If you’re boning some other dude, just promise me it isn’t Darcy.” She said nothing, and as more guests spilled out of another elevator and passed them, Jasper added, “Can’t we at least grab coffee? I miss our conversations.”

She pulled her arm away from his grasp. “Then I guess you shouldn’t have treated me like you did.”

THE TEXT FROM Kitty arrived while Liz was pulling laundry from the dryer in the basement of her building: M & D took L & H out for dinner at country club last nite. Thot u want to know.

Liz called her sister immediately. “This is huge,” Liz said. “Don’t you think?”

“I guess.” Kitty’s voice sounded flat, possibly bored.

“Are you painting your nails right now?” Liz asked.

“If I was,” Kitty said, “how would I just have texted you?”

LIZ TELEPHONED HER mother next. “I heard you and Dad had dinner last night with Lydia and Ham.”

“There’s a new shrimp pasta on the menu,” Mrs. Bennet said. “I wasn’t in a seafood mood, but I think I’ll get it next time. And Lydia had the filet mignon — the club always does a good job with that.”

Knowing she should leave well enough alone, Liz said, “Are you okay now with Ham being transgender?”

“Oh, that’s a birth defect,” Mrs. Bennet said quickly. “It’s like a cleft palate. It’s not for any of us to question God’s plan, but all you need to do is look around to know some people aren’t born the way they should have been.”

Was this a theory espoused in Transgender 101: A Simple Guide to a Complex Issue ? Not having read the book, Liz couldn’t be sure.

“Ham is thinking of opening a second gym,” Mrs. Bennet was saying. “All his classes have wait lists, so expanding would make sense.” She sounded, Liz thought, uncannily like the version of herself she had always yearned to be: a mother-in-law bragging about the successful husband of her daughter. Then she added, “Lizzy, I can’t find a very nice throw pillow that I bought at the old house. It has a pineapple on it. Do you remember seeing it?”

For a few seconds, Liz froze. Then she said, “Maybe it got mixed up with the donation items for the auction.”

THE TEXT FROM Darcy, which arrived just after ten o’clock on a Thursday night, read: Hi, Liz, I’ll be in NYC next week, and I’d like to take you and Jane out for dinner. Are you free either Tues or Wed? I realize this is short notice.

How perplexing these few lines were! Why would Darcy wish to have dinner with her and Jane? Did he remember that Jane no longer lived in the city? Perhaps, Liz thought, he hoped to avoid issuing an invitation that might otherwise sound like a date.

And then, as sometimes happened, the memory of Darcy’s declaration (he’d been in love with her, he’d wanted to be her boyfriend ) flew through Liz’s head, followed by that dreadful echo: I’m sure you’ve heard from my brother about him and Caroline.

Yes, there’d been extenuating circumstances; but none, Liz thought with sorrow and regret, had been extenuating enough to absolve her.