Curtis Sittenfeld - Eligible

The reception lasted until well past midnight, and during that time, she and Darcy were frequently near each other and rarely spoke, except to sometimes exchange banal pleasantries. “Are you having a good time?” he asked her at one point, with the utmost politeness, and she replied in kind, “I am. Are you?”

“I am, too,” he said. They danced just once — apparently, Darcy would only slow-dance, and even then he was a bit awkward, neither of which surprised her — and they hardly talked; but she rested her head against his chest, and the solidity of him felt like the promise of their future together.

As the various reception rituals were enacted and filmed, including Liz’s toast (ironically, her distraction seemed to make for a smoother delivery), Liz knew that the Eligible crew was only doing what they were supposed to do, what the Bennet and Bingley families had agreed to allow. But still, Liz was unwilling to grant them access to her new and wondrous romance; she loved Darcy too much to try to prove her love to anyone except him.

INCONCLUSIVE DISCUSSIONS HAD occurred about the circumstances under which the Bennets would watch the Eligible wedding special when it aired, and the likeliest option seemed to be that Ham and Lydia would host dinner and a viewing in their living room. Liz and Darcy were still sharing his Madison Road apartment — she had left New York in February, and they had purchased but not yet moved into a recently renovated loft in downtown’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood — and Liz was frankly wary of watching with her family members. The injuries to their vanity could, she worried, be so extensive as to require triage on her part.

As it turned out, all of the Cincinnati Bennets were caught by surprise when Jane’s first appearance came not on Eligible: Chip & Jane’s Road to the Altar but, rather, two weeks prior to the special’s debut, on Eligible: Fan Favorites’ Reunion. Though Liz had expected to need to avert her eyes as Chip kissed his way through the reunion season, he had thus far paired off only once. And while the heavy petting that had transpired in a hammock between him and Rachelle B. (not to be confused with Rachelle T.) had seemed in every way consensual, the next morning, Chip had with great sorrow told Rachelle B. that his heart was somewhere else. In the next episode, he mentioned Jane by name during a confessional, yet still neither Liz nor any other Bennets were prepared for Jane herself to show up onscreen the following week in the reunion’s penultimate episode.

In the hot tub at the Malibu compound, the contestants were recuperating from a nude obstacle-course competition when a phone rang audibly. A contestant named Lulu sprang from the hot tub and ran inside in her dripping bikini. From a table in the living room of the main house, she lifted the receiver of a black rotary phone that Liz felt confident was a prop; she was nearly certain that, up to that point, there had been no phone anywhere on the compound. “Chip,” Lulu called. “It’s for you!”

Chip answered, and then the screen split and Jane appeared. She lay in a bed recognizable to Liz from their room at the Hermoso Desert Lodge.

“It’s Jane,” Jane said. “I have some news. I know we broke up, but—” The shot widened to include her belly, which she patted. “I’m pregnant.” Chip’s jaw dropped in astonishment, and the show cut to a commercial.

Clearly, Jane and Chip were complicit in the charade, though Liz hesitated to call Jane and ask about it because Adelaide Bennet Bingley, born three weeks before at seven pounds, two ounces, was fussy in the early evenings, and it was presently six-thirty P.M. in Los Angeles. In additional scenes, Jane and Chip declared by phone their enduring affection for each other, and Chip embarked on a long walk on the beach, an excursion marked by either (to judge from his expression) moody contemplation or gastrointestinal distress. Liz’s phone was abuzz with texts from Lydia and Kitty, who were watching with their mother at the Grasmoor ( WTF! Did u know about this? Jane wasn’t really there for reunion right? ). At the next commercial break, Liz could resist no longer and texted Jane: Do u know you’re on Eligible reunion right now?

A moment later, Liz’s phone rang. “The producers wanted to introduce me during the reunion so the audience would get invested in Chip and me ending up together,” Jane said. “Are they making it convincing?

“Actually, yes.”

In the background, Liz could hear Adelaide’s bleat. Three days after her birth, Liz had journeyed to Los Angeles to meet her; she was a miraculous and tiny human whom Liz felt immediate devotion toward and was relieved not to be the mother of. Over the phone, Liz asked Jane, “How’s my niece?”

“She doesn’t want to sleep unless someone’s holding her, and maybe not even then.” Jane’s voice had gone high and singsongy; she sounded blissful. “Right, Addie?” she said. “Right, baby girl? Why would anyone want to close their eyes when there’s so much to learn about the world?”

“Here,” Liz heard Chip say. “Give her to me. And tell Liz I say hi.”

“Are you guys watching?” Liz said.

“We weren’t planning on it.” Jane laughed. “I mean, we already know what happens.”

“FRED, COME QUICK!” Mrs. Bennet had shouted when she spotted her eldest daughter onscreen. “Goodness gracious, Lydia, tell your father to come at once.”

“Dad!” Lydia shouted without rising from the sofa. “It’s an emergency.”

Mr. Bennet wandered out of his bedroom looking unconcerned.

“It’s Jane!” Mrs. Bennet pointed at the television. “Right there.”

Mrs. Bennet continued exclaiming through the commercial break and into the show’s resumption, at which point Kitty said, “Mom, I can’t hear if you’re talking.”

“I would never have left town if I’d known,” Chip was telling Jane over the phone. “Jane, I’m not the kind of man who abandons the mother of his child. I always loved you, and I always wanted to make it work.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Bennet clapped her hands. “They’re saying it’s his! I knew they would, I just knew it! It makes so much more sense this way!”

“It’s bullshit, though,” Kitty said, and Lydia said, “Kitty, it’s called reality TV. It’s not called true TV.”

Neither Ham nor Shane had accompanied the sisters to the Grasmoor; after bonding amid the strangeness of Palm Springs, Shane had joined Ham’s gym and the two men had taken to going out for Korean barbecue after the Thursday night class Ham taught.

“Isn’t it funny,” Mrs. Bennet said, “that the very first episode of Eligible I’ve ever seen has my own daughter in it?”

Mr. Bennet snorted. “It’s past time to lay that canard to rest, Sally.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Mom, you watch with us every week,” Kitty said.

“Well, I’ve seen bits here and there but not a whole show.” Kitty, Lydia, and Mr. Bennet exchanged glances, and Mrs. Bennet said, “I haven’t! You know me, always popping up and down.”

In fact, as usual, she had been seated for the entire episode, which was well into its second hour; she had been perusing her housewares catalogs but mostly during commercials.

“I’ve never really been a TV watcher,” Mrs. Bennet said, and whether or not anyone else believed her, it was abundantly clear that she believed herself; she spoke with confidence and pleasure. She said, “I’ve always far preferred a good book.”