Eligible

  “Liz.” He touched her elbow. “Paying for sex—I had never done anything like that. But I just—I’m not very experienced. I’m not still a virgin, but I was till I was twenty-three.”

  “You don’t owe me an explanation. Seriously.”

  “Please don’t mention this to Margo.”

  “Of course not,” Liz said. “Let’s never speak of it again.”

  THE OAKLEY SKYLINE Chili wasn’t the closest one to the Freedom Center, but it was Liz’s favorite, the location the Bennets had frequented during her childhood, long before she’d realized the famous combination of spaghetti, cinnamon-and-cocoa-infused ground beef, shredded cheddar cheese, and crumbled oyster crackers was actually fast food. It was after two o’clock and the restaurant was mostly empty when Liz and Willie entered. Right away, Liz noticed him: Sitting at the counter, apparently alone, was Fitzwilliam Darcy. He wore a navy polo shirt and seemed to be eating a three-way, so named for its noodles, chili, and cheese; a four-way would include either beans or raw onions as a topping, and a five-way would include both.

  She pretended not to see him. Willie ordered two cheese coneys and Liz a four-way with beans, and as Willie commenced a lengthy analysis of Bitcoin, Liz was grateful to remember that among Skyline’s attractions was the efficiency of its service; no more than five minutes had passed when the waitress delivered their loaded-up oval plates.

  “Admittedly, the client isn’t where it needs to be vis-à-vis user-interface,” Willie was saying as Liz crushed oyster crackers and sprinkled the crumbs over her chili. “But it’s not that far away. Why are you doing that?”

  “You just do. It’s part of Skyline.”

  “Is it mandatory?”

  “Yes, and the chili police will arrest you if you fail to comply.” Willie looked confused, and Liz said, “I’m teasing, Willie. Do whatever you want.”

  He took an individual cracker and pinched it between his thumb and forefinger.

  “Go like this.” Liz scooped up a handful, smashed them in her fist, and dropped the cracker dust onto his chili. “Don’t overthink it.”

  “I had no idea that you offer private tutorials,” a voice said, and Liz knew without looking up, though she did look, that it was Darcy.

  Gesturing across the table, Liz said, “My cousin Willie is in from out of town.”

  “Fitzwilliam Darcy,” Darcy said, and extended his hand.

  Willie stood and, as they shook, said, “Will Collins.”

  Semi-sarcastically, Liz asked Darcy, “Are you a regular here?”

  “I try not to come more than once a week.” He patted his abdominal region, which was flat. “Everything in moderation.”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed you for a Skyline fan,” Liz said. “We have to make sure visitors try it, but usually people who didn’t grow up in Cincinnati don’t like it.”

  Darcy’s expression was haughty. “I believe we’ve established that there’s a lot you don’t know about me.” Nodding once at Willie, Darcy said, “Enjoy.” A moment later, he was gone.

  ON MOST NIGHTS after dinner, Mrs. Bennet and varying combinations of her daughters gathered in the den behind the first-floor staircase to watch television. On this particular night, the family matriarch was joined by Liz, Mary, and also Aunt Margo; Jane had gone to Chip’s apartment, and Kitty and Lydia were at a birthday party for one of the members of their gym. (The cake—Liz had not been able to resist asking—would be made with almond flour and coconut oil frosting.)

  Just as some people enjoy knitting in front of the television, Mrs. Bennet was fond of perusing housewares catalogs; indeed, the sound of pages turning, that quick flap when no item caught her eye and the pauses when something did, the occasional businesslike lick of the index finger, was one of the essential sounds of Liz’s childhood. This habit was also, apparently, what allowed Mrs. Bennet to maintain a belief that she had not actually “watched” a wide variety of shows even though she had been in the room for the duration of entire episodes and, in some cases, entire seasons.

  They were midway through a reality cooking show when Willie popped his head into the room. He said, “I was wondering, Liz, if you’d like to go for a walk.”

  “Me?”

  “It seems like a nice night.”

  Liz was slouched on the floor, her back against an ottoman, and she glanced over her shoulder, first at her mother, then at Aunt Margo. How irritating, Liz thought, that rather than fulfilling her obligation to Willie, giving him a tour had instead made him see her as his special pal.

  “Liz and Jane run in the morning,” Mrs. Bennet said. “You should go with them tomorrow, Willie.”

  “Running with three people is kind of awkward,” Liz said, then immediately felt mean. “But we can go for a quick walk. Want to come, Mary?”

  Unapologetically, Mary shook her head.

  Liz feared that Willie wanted to bring up the conversation they’d had about the prostitute—perhaps he wished for further reassurance that she wouldn’t repeat it—but once they got outside, he seemed to have no particular agenda.

  “I hope you’re not bored being here,” she said as they turned left on Grandin Road. “I’m afraid Cincinnati is better to live in than visit.”

  “I can see that,” Willie said, and since he was simply agreeing with her, Liz tried not to again feel offended. “I need to do some work tomorrow, and I wonder if there’s a café you recommend. Your parents’ bandwidth is a joke.”

  “There’s a place called Awakenings on Hyde Park Square.” The heat of the day had dissipated, and it was actually pleasant to be outside; around them, invisibly, cicadas buzzed. She said, “The summer I graduated from college, I was back here for a few months before I moved in with Jane in New York. Mary and I played Twenty Questions one time when we were waiting for takeout at a Chinese restaurant. This was before any of us had cellphones. Anyway, I was guessing, and it was a person who lived in Cincinnati. I got to the twentieth question and still didn’t know who it was. And I’m good at Twenty Questions.” Liz laughed a little at her own impulse to brag about something unimpressive, and Willie didn’t. “Mary told me it was me,” Liz continued. “I was the person she was thinking of, but I hadn’t guessed myself. And I was all outraged, like, ‘I don’t live in Cincinnati! I live in New York.’ She said, ‘You could have fooled me.’ ” Liz and Willie were passing a miniature château—even in its modified version, it was seven or eight thousand square feet—and Liz said, “I guess I’m a Cincinnati opportunist. In New York, I play the wholesome-midwesterner card, but when I’m back here, I consider myself to be a chic outsider.” Even before Willie replied, Liz felt the loneliness of having confided something true in a person who didn’t care. Still, when he spoke, it was more disappointing than she’d expected.

  He said, “That chili we had—I liked it okay, but I keep burping up the taste of it.”

  “That happens to everyone,” Liz said. “It’s called repeating on you.”

  NEITHER LIZ NOR Jane carried their phones on their morning run, so Liz didn’t receive the texts from Jasper until after she’d eaten breakfast and gone upstairs to shower. I had a great idea call me, read the first, followed by a second: Don’t u want to know why I’m a genius? She walked into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub, still in her perspiration-ridden tank top and shorts.

  Jasper answered on the second ring. “Cincinnati is like the world headquarters of squash, right?” he said without prior greeting. “The sport, not the food.”

  “Yep, I was with you.”

  “They send an insane number of kids to play in Ivy League schools every year. But why Cincinnati?”

  “Good question,” Liz said.

  “Don’t you think it’s crying out for an article?”

  In under two seconds, Liz thought, But I need to write the next “Women Who Dare” as soon as I finish my asking-for-a-raise piece, then thought, But it would be fun and random to report an article in Cincinnati, then thought, And since I’
ve barely written about sports, that could be a cool challenge. Growing up, she hadn’t played squash herself but had known kids at Seven Hills who did.

  Jasper said, “Mainly, though, it’ll give me an excuse to come out there and bang you in a hotel room that I get to expense. Win-win-win, right?”

  “Oh,” Liz said. “Right.” Already it seemed a bit embarrassing that she’d imagined he wanted to assign the piece to her rather than himself.

  “Plus I can drop by for one of the famous Bennet family dinners,” Jasper said. “And see your ancestral home.”

  Years earlier, Jasper had met Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and an adolescent Kitty and Lydia on a trip they’d made to New York for the lighting of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. To Liz’s alarm, fourteen-year-old Kitty had seemed more interested in finding out from her older sisters how one procured a prescription for the Pill than in seeing the Rockettes; Lydia, who was still comparatively innocent, was focused on acquiring underwear from Bloomingdale’s that said BLOOMIE’S across the back. As had happened often with Jasper over the years, the experience of introducing him to her family at brunch had felt to Liz like an enticing yet unsatisfactory facsimile: Here’s the guy who’s almost my boyfriend. That hadn’t been what she’d said, of course, and to her mother’s prying questions, she’d insisted that Jasper was simply a friend.

  On the phone, she said, “Well, you could have dropped in for a family dinner before sending me skanky lingerie.”

  “You gotta get over that, Nin,” Jasper said. “Have you ever heard of a kid named Cheng Zhou?”

  “No.”

  “He’s a prodigy. This eleven-year-old kid of Chinese immigrants who’s racking up insane squash titles.”

  “Interesting—I mainly associate the sport with rich white people.”

  “See?” Jasper said. “I already know more about your hometown than you do.”

  LIZ ENTERED HER father’s study. “Do you think Mom has a shopping addiction?”

  “Without question.” From behind his desk, her father’s tone was equanimous.

  “I’m not kidding,” Liz said.

  “Nor am I.”

  “Do you think anything should be done about it?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Like having her see a shrink.”

  “Do you imagine your mother would consent to such a thing?”

  Liz sighed and folded her arms. Years before Jane’s embrace of yoga, had her father quietly achieved some Zen state that buffered him from the disturbances of daily life? Or was it just that he couldn’t be bothered to exert himself, so bored was he by his family members’ shortcomings?

  Aunt Margo’s voice became audible from the first floor. “Fred, what happened to the mirror of Mummy’s that used to hang in the dining room?”

  “Leave and shut the door behind you,” Mr. Bennet hissed. “Quick. Tell her you don’t know where I am.”

  AT THE LAST minute, Jane had asked Chip if Cousin Willie could be included in his dinner party. Willie and Aunt Margo were returning to California the next morning, and Liz suspected that Jane felt guilty for hardly having spent time with him.

  Chip lived on the eighth floor of a recently completed building in Oakley, not far from Skyline Chili; its décor, Liz thought upon entry, was so much like that of an upscale airport hotel—geometric-patterned carpet, inoffensive prints hanging from the wall, sleek and not particularly comfortable-looking sofas and chairs—that she wondered if he had rented it furnished.

  “Come in, come in,” Chip said as he greeted Liz by kissing her cheek, and there was something downright brother-in-lawish about the gesture. Then he heartily shook Willie’s hand. “Thrilled you could make it,” Chip said to Willie, and Liz liked Chip in this moment the most she ever had. “Can I get you drinks?” Chip said. “Caroline made some of her signature sangria, and don’t be deceived by the sweetness. It’s lethal.”

  “Some people say the same about Caroline herself,” Liz murmured to Jane. Noting Jane’s perturbed expression, Liz added, “Sorry.”

  In the dining room, a glass table was set for nine—two places shared the head, presumably reflecting the addition of Willie—and from a bar assembled atop a credenza, Caroline was handing drinks to Charlotte Lucas, as well as to Keith, the other new emergency room doctor Liz had met at the Lucases’ barbecue, and to an attractive woman, also black, whom Liz guessed to be Keith’s San Diego–dwelling fiancée. This supposition was confirmed with introductions, during which, through a closed sliding glass door that led to a small concrete balcony, Liz made unexpected and forceful eye contact with Fitzwilliam Darcy.

  Darcy’s back was to the street below, his elbows balanced on the balcony railing and a glass of sangria in his right hand. He looked, Liz thought, like a model in a local department store newspaper insert: handsome, yes, but moody in a rather preposterous and unnecessary way. Neither of them smiled, nor did either of them immediately look away. She realized he was on the balcony alone. What a strange man he was.

  Something, though she couldn’t have said whether it was a compassionate impulse to rescue a person standing by himself at a party or an urge with a more antagonistic origin, impelled her toward him; she opened the sliding door and stepped outside. The balcony’s only furniture consisted of two slender, black wrought iron chairs.

  “Are you enjoying the refreshing summer evening?” she asked. Though it was after seven o’clock, it was still thickly humid. Darcy blinked at her, and she added, “Believe it or not, there’s something I’ve always liked about summer in the Midwest. I even like the sound of the cicadas.”

  Darcy took a sip of sangria. “Of course you do.”

  “Here’s a nugget about Cincinnati for you,” Liz said. “We produce a weirdly disproportionate number of champion squash players. Did you know that?”

  “Yes,” Darcy said. “I did.”

  “Really?” She looked at him quizzically.

  “I played squash at boarding school.”

  Unable to restrain a smirk, Liz said, “Of course you did. What boarding school did you go to?”

  “It’s called Exeter.”

  With some pique, Liz said, “Yes, I’ve heard of it. And then where’d you go to college?”

  After a pause, he said, “I went to college back in the Bay Area.”

  “Berkeley? Stanford.”

  “Stanford.”

  “I’ve never understood why people do that,” Liz said. “Like, ‘I went to college in New Haven,’ or, ‘I went to college in Boston.’ Do you think if you reveal your elite education, I’ll be so intimidated that I’ll faint?”

  Darcy shrugged. “It seems less pretentious.”

  “It’s more pretentious! You know what? I can handle your Stanford degree. I went to Barnard. And you know what else? I’ve lived for the last twenty years in New York, and so has Jane.”

  “Yes, you mentioned that at Charlotte’s,” Darcy said calmly. “During the same conversation when we discussed Mascara sending you to Saudi Arabia, where you wore an abaya and a head scarf.”

  His recall was somewhat unsettling. “Oh,” Liz said. “I guess we did talk about it.”

  “Perhaps you didn’t realize I was paying attention.”

  “You know,” Liz said, “what year did you graduate? I’ll bet we’re close in age.”

  “I graduated from college in ninety-seven.”

  “Then you were in the same class as a good friend of mine. Did you know Jasper Wick?”

  “Yes.” Darcy seemed unimpressed by the coincidence.

  “You don’t think that’s noteworthy?” Liz said.

  “Not especially.”

  “Really? That here we are in Cincinnati in 2013, and you went to college in California in the mid-nineties with basically my closest friend?”

  “That’s how socioeconomic stratification works. I’m sure you and I know other people in common, too, though personally, I find the name game tedious.”

  “Well,” Liz
said, “my apologies for boring you.”

  Darcy didn’t say she hadn’t bored him; he said nothing.

  “Jasper’s coming to Cincinnati soon to write an article about squash players,” Liz said. “Maybe you two should have a reunion.”

  “I doubt my schedule will allow it.”

  “Do you not like him or something?”

  “We weren’t friends.” Darcy’s disinclination to elaborate, his apparent belief that he needn’t explain or excuse himself, was enormously irritating. And his eschewal of convention was even more bothersome than it would have been if he were unaware of etiquette, which, obviously, he was not.

  “Were you both in love with the same girl?” Liz asked.

  “Caroline mentioned your fondness for interrogation.”

  “Some people think asking questions is friendly and polite. Plus, I’m a journalist.”

  “Maybe the reason you’re a journalist is that it gives you a professional justification for being nosy.” Darcy took another sip of sangria, and very briefly, before he licked it off, a trace of purple liquid clung to his lips. Then he said, “Excuse me,” bowed his head, and walked inside, leaving Liz alone on the balcony.

  DINNER WAS TO be individual pizzas that the guests would prepare to their own liking, with an array of thoughtfully selected toppings: sun-dried tomatoes, fresh basil, artisanal salami. While Liz appreciated the casually festive menu, it soon became clear that Chip had, by the time of his guests’ arrival, not yet made the dough, apparently unaware that it would need to sit for an hour after he’d mixed the ingredients. In addition, his oven could fit no more than four pizzas at a time. Thus, it was ten o’clock when they sat to eat, and half the pizzas were cool.

  Liz ended up between Willie and Jane; somehow, on Jane’s other side, sat Darcy rather than Chip. It was not clear to Liz that she had, in her earlier exchange with Darcy, embarrassed herself, but it also wasn’t clear that she hadn’t. Thus, she decided to abstain from initiating further conversation with him.