Curtis Sittenfeld - Eligible

Carefully, Liz said, “I don’t think she’s made a concrete plan for after the baby comes.”

“I’m glad she—” Chip began, at which point his phone rang. When he checked the screen, he said, “If you’ll forgive me, it’s Caroline.” He stepped away from the table, and Darcy and Liz were alone.

“Do you want to join the call?” The question came out as less joking and more bitter than Liz had been aiming for.

Darcy looked at her curiously.

Liz held up her own phone. “I just downloaded a solitaire app, so I can keep myself entertained.” When he still said nothing, she heard herself add, “That sounds like a euphemism for masturbation, doesn’t it?” In her head, she thought, Liz! Stop! I command you to stop at once! Aloud, she said, “Why are you in New York anyway?”

He nodded once toward the table. “This dinner.”

“No, seriously. Why?”

“I flew to New York this afternoon, and I fly back to Cincinnati at six A.M.”

A new confusion seized Liz.

“Does Chip leave tomorrow?” she asked.

Darcy shook his head. “He’s here for a few days.” Then he said, “It sounds like your parents are coming to terms with Lydia’s marriage.”

Liz squinted. “Who’d you hear that from?”

“It’s good news, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Liz said. “It is good news.”

“You also might be interested to know that Georgie has agreed to donate Pemberley as a historic landmark. She wants us to perform some type of ritual farewell before the handoff, and I understand I have you to thank for that.”

“Actually, that’s Jane’s bailiwick, not mine,” Liz said. “I did mention it to Georgie, though.” Liz wanted to inquire after Georgie’s health, but the enmity between herself and Darcy prevented her. She was grateful when Jane reappeared, and a minute later, so did Chip.

“I hope my manners won’t seem lacking if I suggest that just Jane and I go for a little stroll,” he said. “Jane, would you consider it?”

Jane flushed radiantly. She glanced at Liz. “Are we expected anywhere else tonight?” Which, Liz knew, her sister was fully aware they were not.

“Nope,” Liz said.

Turning back toward Chip, Jane said, “Then I’d love to.”

Liz and Chip embraced once more, and Jane somberly thanked Darcy for the meal (again Liz envied the way Jane was compelled to show Darcy neither phony friendliness nor conspicuous derision). Jane and Chip had scarcely left the table when Liz asked, “Is he trying to get back together with her?”

“That’s for him to answer,” Darcy said.

Liz rolled her eyes. “You put way too much stock in discretion.”

He smiled thinly. “Or maybe you put too little.”

A silence arose, a silence in which neither of them looked elsewhere or fiddled with their phones; he seemed to be scrutinizing her. If she wasn’t careful, Liz felt, she might blurt out, How could you have picked Caroline Bingley over me?

Surely, surely, he had to say something. But no. He said nothing at all, and when Liz could withstand it no longer, she said, “I guess you’ll be getting up at the crack of dawn, huh?”

“A car is coming to my hotel at four.”

“In that case, you shouldn’t even go to sleep. You should go on a bender.”

“I imagine my patients tomorrow would prefer I didn’t.”

Did he understand that she had, under the guise of a joke, been putting out a feeler about if he’d like to get an after-dinner drink? She scooted back from the table and reached for her coat. “Then I’ll let you get your rest.” She pulled her purse onto one shoulder. “Take care, Darcy.” It was borderline rude, she knew, not to wait for him and leave the restaurant together; it was borderline cold to wave with false jauntiness rather than exchanging either an Ohio hug or a New York kiss on the cheek. But he was welcome to complain about her manners to Caroline — what did it matter at this point? And anyway, when the tears burst over Liz’s eyelids and streamed down her cheeks, she wanted to be away from him, alone on the sidewalk in the cool night.

LIZ HAD FALLEN asleep on the couch in her living room while waiting for Jane. Thus the lights were on, and the novel Liz had been reading had dropped to the floor, when Jane knocked. Liz was still only partially alert as she opened the apartment door, saying, “I really had no idea Chip would be there. You believe me, right?”

Jane rested one hand atop her belly. “Lizzy, he proposed.”

“ What? Are you serious?”

Jane nodded.

“Holy shit,” Liz said. “What did you say?”

Jane was practically whispering. “I said yes.”

“Oh my God!” Liz embraced her sister. “This is insane. Start at the beginning.”

“Let me get some water. Want any?”

“No thanks.” Liz glanced at her watch and saw that it was three-thirty. “Did you guys have sex?” she asked.

Jane moved from the sink in Liz’s galley kitchen to the living room. As gracefully as was possible for a woman twenty-four weeks pregnant, she perched on the arm of the couch, to which Liz had returned. Jane’s expression was both bashful and joyous. She said, “I was worried he’d be”—she waved a hand over her midsection—“freaked out. And I think it was strange for him at first, but then it was really nice.”

“Was this before or after he’d proposed?”

“After. Lizzy, I know you think he acted flaky, but I was ambivalent, too. The situation was so confusing, and now we both know what we want.”

“I take it he didn’t have a ring?”

Jane shook her head. “He had no idea how I’d react.” Her brow furrowed. “There’s kind of a crazy part to all of this. The Eligible reunion will start airing in January, and, obviously, the network wants what happens to be a surprise. For all those shows, they make the contestants sign confidentiality agreements, and the agreements last until the whole season has aired. Even if a couple falls in love during the shoot, they’re not really supposed to see each other for months, until after the last episode. If they violate the contract, they’re liable for the entire budget of the show, which is something like five million dollars.”

Jane took a sip of water, then went on: “The reunion took place at this fancy compound by the ocean in Malibu, and Chip said from the minute he got there, he knew he’d made a mistake — not in leaving medicine but in leaving me. He’d let his doubts about being a doctor, which he’d had for years, cloud his judgment about our relationship, and after he found out about my pregnancy, he was overwhelmed. But when he got to California and was supposed to be in romantic settings with other women, all he could think about was me. He wants to raise my baby as his child. The catch is that because of the contract he signed, we can’t be together for at least four months — unless, and this is the crazy part, he thinks that if I’m willing to do it, we can get married now as part of an Eligible special. During the reunion, he talked a lot about me with a producer he’d known from his first season, and she tried to convince him to invite me on the show, to come out to Malibu, but he thought that wasn’t fair to me, because the whole thing would have been filmed. In fact, he wasn’t even planning to reach out to me at all until Darcy suggested it — Chip was worried I hated him. Anyway, he saw this producer last week, and she’s pretty sure that if we get married on the air, the network will pay for the wedding, and afterward, before the special runs, they’ll rent a house for us somewhere secluded while we wait for the baby.”

“That’s bonkers,” Liz said.