Curtis Sittenfeld - Eligible

That her mother devoted extensive attention to housewares was not news; the usual impetus for Mrs. Bennet to call Liz in New York was to ask whether she was in need of, say, a porcelain teapot with an ivy motif that normally cost $260 but was on sale for $230. Invariably, without broaching the topic of who might pay for the teapot in question, Liz ruefully declined; it sounded charming, but she had such limited space, and also, she’d remind her mother, she wasn’t a huge tea drinker. Once, years before, Liz had been talked into accepting as a gift a large gold-rimmed platter—“For your dinner parties!” Mrs. Bennet had said brightly — but upon learning eighteen months later that Liz had during that time held no dinner parties, Mrs. Bennet had insisted that Liz give the platter back. Shipping it had cost $55. So no, it wasn’t a secret that her mother fetishized all manner of domestic décor, but the sheer quantity in Jane’s former bedroom, plus the fact of so many boxes being unopened, raised for Liz the question of whether some type of pathology might be involved.

Meanwhile, on an almost daily basis, the Tudor revealed its failures: dripping faucets, splintering floorboards, obscurely sized sconce lightbulbs that had burned out. In many instances, it was unclear to Liz whether a particular predicament, such as the eight-foot-square water-stained patch on the eastern side of the living room wall, was new or whether her parents and sisters had simply been turning a blind eye to it for months or years.

The three acres of land surrounding the Tudor presented its own set of complications, including an extensive growth of poison ivy behind the house and a fungus on the large sycamore tree under which Liz had once held picnics for her dolls. As far as she could tell, her father had for quite some time done no more outside than mow the grass and, since getting sick, had not even done that. It occurred to Liz one day, as she waited on hold for an estimate from a yard service, that her parents’ home was like an extremely obese person who could no longer see, touch, or maintain jurisdiction over all of his body; there was simply too much of it, and he — they — had grown weary and inflexible.

During the hours she’d allotted each day for work, Liz would open her laptop on the pink Formica desk her parents had purchased for her in 1987 and respond to queries from Mascara editors about a recent article she’d turned in, schedule or conduct interviews, fend off or follow up with publicists. In addition to features on varying topics, Liz wrote three mini-profiles each month for Mascara ’s long-running “Women Who Dare” column — for example, a corporal in Iraq, a blind aerobics instructor, or a principal in Wichita who’d saved her students from a tornado. Although Liz privately thought of the subjects as “Attractive, Well-Groomed Women Who Dare,” finding and interviewing such individuals was her favorite part of her job.

Jane, by contrast, was not attempting to work from Cincinnati. A few times a week, she’d attend a yoga class at a studio in Clifton, but in the capacity of student rather than teacher. Yet still, for both women, the days passed surprisingly quickly, a cycle of morning runs, doctors’ appointments, errands, meal preparation, and family dinners. May had soon turned into June and June into July.

Jasper and Liz texted each other frequently, sometimes hourly. From him, accompanying a photo of the turbaned breakfast sandwich vendor at the corner of Fifty-fifth and Sixth: Pretty sure this guy misses u.

Liz had returned to New York for one night after her father was discharged from the hospital, a trip that allowed her to meet with her editor, collect additional clothes from her own and Jane’s apartments, discard the open containers of yogurt in their refrigerators, give away her bamboo plant, and provide copies of keys to an assistant in Barnard College’s Residential Life & Housing Office, a woman who had on late notice and with surprising good humor procured undergraduates who would until August 31 be Liz’s and Jane’s respective subletters. Once these tasks were accomplished but before riding back to the airport, Liz met Jasper at his apartment at eleven A.M. on a Tuesday; as she arrived, Susan and Aidan were leaving for a gymnastics class. Though they hadn’t seen one another since their encounter on the High Line two years before — in the interval, Aidan had transformed from an overgrown baby to a miniature person — Susan said in as ordinary a way as she might greet a neighbor, “Hey, Liz.”

But once Susan and Aidan were gone, as Liz and Jasper removed their own clothes in the bedroom — they didn’t have a great deal of time and, in any case, were well beyond the stage of effortful seduction — Liz experienced a disquiet that was both unanticipated and unsurprising. She said, “Do you and Susan still sleep in this bed together?”

“When we do, it’s like brother and sister,” Jasper said. “And it’s only because our couch is so uncomfortable. Don’t forget, she has a boyfriend.”

Naked, Jasper climbed onto the bed, which was unmade, its beige sheets and lavender-colored cotton blanket pushed toward the foot of the mattress. There was a moment when Liz almost couldn’t continue — the sight of Aidan, along with this setting of Jasper and Susan’s ongoing domesticity, no matter what their agreement, was just too awkward. But there Jasper was, the physiological evidence of his readiness already apparent; and he was a good-looking man; and she needed to get to the airport; and the reality was that she, too, wanted to have sex — it had been and would be a while. She unfastened and shrugged off her bra, which was her last remaining article of clothing, and joined him in the bed. Five hours later, her plane landed in Cincinnati.

MRS. BENNET HAD not, as it turned out, needed to lean on Mrs. Lucas excessively in order to convince the latter to facilitate a meeting between the Bennet daughters and Chip Bingley. Upon receiving Mrs. Bennet’s phone call, Mrs. Lucas had declared that nothing could bring her greater pleasure, or reflect more flatteringly on Cincinnati, than the attendance of the beautiful Bennet girls and their parents at the barbecue that the Lucases were hosting for several recent arrivals to Christ Hospital, where Dr. Lucas was both a physician and a high-ranking executive.

Mrs. Lucas shared with Mrs. Bennet the affliction of an unmarried adult daughter, though in Mrs. Lucas’s case the disappointment was embodied just once rather than multiplied five-fold. Charlotte Lucas, who had been Liz’s classmate and closest friend at Seven Hills for fifteen years, was also single, a bright and poised human resources manager at Procter & Gamble who since graduating from college had been about seventy-five pounds overweight. To Mrs. Bennet’s mind, this fact placed Mrs. Lucas’s misfortune in a separate, albeit equally frustrating, category from the one in which her own daughters fell. Obviously, Charlotte wasn’t married because she was heavy; therefore, she simply needed to go on a diet. Mrs. Bennet’s own daughters, however, possessing no discernible physical or personal flaws (except for poor homely Mary), had no clear means of remediation.

Mrs. Bennet, who herself was not a stranger to rotundity, had wondered if Mrs. Lucas considered Charlotte a candidate for Chip’s affections, but Mrs. Lucas’s unhesitating inclusion of the Bennets at the barbecue reassured Mrs. Bennet that her friend harbored no unrealistic expectations where Charlotte was concerned. Thus, despite having failed to pair off any of her daughters in the two decades she’d been actively trying, Mrs. Bennet’s hopes for the barbecue were high indeed.

The Lucases lived in Indian Hill, a suburb fifteen miles from downtown and home to the sort of Cincinnatians who enjoyed owning horses or at least purebred dogs who could roam on multi-acre properties. The Lucases’ house was a vast brick colonial with a balcony over the front door and a slate roof. In the kitchen, various Bennets embraced various Lucases, Jane passed off her sponge cake, and Liz walked to the window to survey the dozen or so guests already chatting on the flagstone patio in the backyard. “Jane, come see your future husband,” she called merrily.