Curtis Sittenfeld - Eligible

Lydia laughed. “I doubt they’ll have to look that hard.”

Liz sighed. “Fine,” she said. “Do what you want. But I warned you.”

IN HER PARENTS’ room, Liz found her mother bustling about and her father sitting in an armchair, an enormous hardcover book about the Renaissance open on his lap. The room contained just one king-sized bed; surely, Liz thought, it would be the first time in years her parents had slept beneath the same sheets.

From the bathroom, her mother said, “I can’t find the hair dryer. When I called the front desk, they said it’s here, but, Lizzy, they forgot to give us one.”

Liz entered the bathroom and pointed to the shelf below the sink. “It’s right there, Mom.”

Irritably, Mrs. Bennet said, “Well, it wasn’t there before.” As she picked it up, she added, “I think it’s much better if they say Jane’s baby is Chip’s. People who are watching will be confused otherwise.”

“Have you seen Jane yet?” Liz asked. “She looks good, doesn’t she?”

With great confidence, Mrs. Bennet said, “She’s carrying low. That means a boy.” In the hushed tone she used for delicate matters, Mrs. Bennet said, “Liz, I don’t know if Kitty and Shane are serious, but life can be very hard for mulatto children.”

Liz winced. “I wouldn’t say that to either of them.”

“Fitzwilliam Darcy is Chip’s best man.” Mrs. Bennet now sounded oddly approving, even before she added, “It speaks well of Chip that he has such high-quality friends. Is Fitzwilliam single?”

When, and why, had her mother developed a favorable opinion of Darcy? Back in July, at the Lucases’ party, Mrs. Bennet had been offended by him on Liz’s behalf. “He’s going out with Chip’s sister,” Liz said.

“What a shame.” Mrs. Bennet frowned. “Now we also need to make sure the Chinese girl knows to say on the show that Ham’s situation is a birth defect. People might think it’s disgusting otherwise, but if they know it’s a birth defect, they’ll understand.”

Her mother’s belief that she could, via Anne Lee, control the narrative of the Eligible special — it was, Liz thought, so utterly wrong that there was no point in trying to correct it. As if sensing Liz’s disloyal musings, Mrs. Bennet looked intently at her. “Don’t you think it’s confusing if they say Jane got pregnant from a man she doesn’t know?”

“Mom, that’s not the way anyone would describe donor insemination. And, no, I don’t think it’s a difficult concept to grasp.”

“I think it’s nicer if they say the baby is Chip’s.”

“But it’s not true.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Mrs. Bennet said. “That doesn’t matter.”

AS WHEN SHE’D returned to Cincinnati for the closing of the Tudor, Liz was constantly alert to the possibility of encountering Darcy. With the bachelor and bachelorette parties just hours away that evening, surely he’d arrived on the property, but even by standing on the balcony and surveying the grounds at regular intervals, she hadn’t spotted him. Though, she reflected, perhaps not seeing him at all was better than spying him and Caroline strolling arm in arm on the golf course.

The balcony did afford Liz a bird’s-eye view of the courtyard meeting between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and Mr. and Mrs. Bingley, which of course was also attended by Jane and Chip. This summit took place around a table on which was set a handsome flower arrangement, champagne flutes, and no food. Though Liz couldn’t hear the conversation, there was no doubt it would exist for posterity; a man held a boom mic a few feet above the heads of the family members, two more men with cameras on their shoulders stood just behind the families, and freestanding lights illuminated the proceedings as dusk fell.

Mrs. Bingley was a slim woman with a classic blond bob, wearing beige capri pants, a matching beige jacket, beige flats, a pale purple silk scarf, and no smile; she was recognizable to Liz as the sort of woman who played tennis at the Cincinnati Country Club, who was rather like certain friends of the plumper and frumpier Mrs. Bennet. Mr. Bingley looked like an older version of Chip, with gray hair parted on one side; he wore a dark blue suit, a white oxford cloth shirt, and a green bow tie. Liz felt too much anxiety on Jane’s behalf to observe the interaction in its entirety, and she soon went back inside to shower and dress for the evening.

Jane returned to the room an hour later, accompanied by Anne Lee, two makeup artists, and a wardrobe stylist. “How’d it go with the Bingleys?” Liz asked, and Jane said, “Great. His mom does a lot of yoga.” Jane was visibly mic’d — the mic pack was behind her back, and the actual mic was clipped to the inside collar of her shirt — but if there was some coded, contradictory message she wished to send Liz, Liz saw no evidence of it; Jane’s happiness seemed genuine.

While her sister’s makeup was retouched in the bedroom, Liz applied her own in the bathroom, with the door closed, before rejoining the others. Jane’s beautification process was still under way when, as scheduled, a production assistant and an audio guy knocked on the door. The audio guy mic’d Liz, and the assistant escorted her to the entrance of the lodge. Two film crews and a black limousine waited in the driveway, and when Liz entered the limo — she was purposely wearing fancy jeans rather than a skirt — she took care to angle herself into the car in the least buttocks-displaying manner possible. Inside the limo, she discovered yet another camera crew waiting, though she was the first guest. Addressing the man holding the camera — he was a forty-something guy with gray stubble and a baseball cap — she said, “Are we going to a restaurant tonight or more of a nightclub?”

After a pause, the guy said, “We’re not supposed to talk about the show with you. If you have questions, ask a producer.”

The production assistant who’d escorted Liz from her room had vanished. Glancing among the camera guy, a guy who wore thick black headphones, and a third guy whose role seemed to be related to lighting, Liz said, “Do you all work for Eligible full-time?”

“I do,” the camera guy said. He nodded toward the other men. “They don’t.”

“How long have you—” Liz began, but she didn’t finish the question because Caroline Bingley was climbing into the limo. In those first few seconds of their seeing each other, Liz could have sworn Caroline’s nostrils flared with distaste. “Hello, Liz,” she said in a cool tone.

“Hi, Caroline.” Liz was highly conscious of both the camera crew and her mic pack; she could feel the pack between her back and the seat. She said, “I guess none of us would have found ourselves here if you hadn’t nominated Chip to be on Eligible way back when, huh?”

“Your family must be thrilled,” Caroline said, and Liz tried to infuse her voice with extra friendliness as she replied, “And yours even more so.”

Liz’s acting experience had begun and ended with a chorus role in a Seven Hills Middle School production of Oliver! And yet as the evening proceeded, Liz had the odd sense of once again participating in a play, of being obliged above all not to break character, with her character in this case the kind and supportive sister of the bride. Caroline and Liz were next joined by Mary, then Kitty and Lydia appeared together, then Chip’s older sister, Brooke, whose existence Liz had been unaware of until the moment she entered the limousine. (She was the eldest of the three siblings, apparently, the married mother of an eight-year-old and a ten-year-old, all of whom lived near Mr. and Mrs. Bingley in the suburbs of Philadelphia.) At last Jane materialized, to applause that at least on Liz’s part was heartfelt. As the limousine pulled away from the lodge, the tinted window separating the driver from the passengers descended, and Anne Lee grinned and held up two bottles of champagne. (Of course Anne Lee was there, and of course she was holding up two bottles of champagne.) “Who’s ready for the best bachelorette party ever?” she called out.