Eligible (48 page)

“Only until they finish their classes and get jobs. I have one more thing to tell you about Lydia. She took Ham’s last name, so she’s Lydia Ryan now.”

“Hmm,” Jane said. “I guess she’s traditional after all.”

IT WASN’T UNEXPECTED
to run into Jasper; given the smallness of the Manhattan media world, the only question had been when the encounter would happen. The answer turned out to be a Wednesday evening publication party for a White House memoir by a former national security advisor also known for her magnificently toned calves.

The party occurred at an event space on the twenty-second floor of a building on Columbus Circle. Three other people entered the elevator in the lobby with Liz, and just before the doors closed, an arm shot through them, followed by a male voice saying, “Hold up!” Presently, the rest of Jasper appeared. He and Liz made eye contact, and he smiled. “Hey! It’s you.”

Guardedly, Liz said, “Hi.”

He had always been handsome and still was, but Liz noticed for the first time how old he looked: His curly blond hair was more silver, and the corners of his eyes were marked by crow’s-feet. When had this happened? She didn’t derive pleasure from her observations; instead, they made her sad.

Everyone disembarked on the twenty-second floor, and Jasper set a hand on the sleeve of her coat to hold her back. He said, “I’m trying to respect your wishes here, but do you really need to starve me out?”

“I’m not starving you out.”

“What, then—we’re just done? After everything?”

“You had your chance.”

“If you’re boning some other dude, just promise me it isn’t Darcy.” She said nothing, and as more guests spilled out of another elevator and passed them, Jasper added, “Can’t we at least grab coffee? I miss our conversations.”

She pulled her arm away from his grasp. “Then I guess you shouldn’t have treated me like you did.”

THE TEXT FROM
Kitty arrived while Liz was pulling laundry from the dryer in the basement of her building:
M & D took L & H out for dinner at country club last nite. Thot u want to know.

Liz called her sister immediately. “This is huge,” Liz said. “Don’t you think?”

“I guess.” Kitty’s voice sounded flat, possibly bored.

“Are you painting your nails right now?” Liz asked.

“If I was,” Kitty said, “how would I just have texted you?”

LIZ TELEPHONED HER
mother next. “I heard you and Dad had dinner last night with Lydia and Ham.”

“There’s a new shrimp pasta on the menu,” Mrs. Bennet said. “I wasn’t in a seafood mood, but I think I’ll get it next time. And Lydia had the filet mignon—the club always does a good job with that.”

Knowing she should leave well enough alone, Liz said, “Are you okay now with Ham being transgender?”

“Oh, that’s a birth defect,” Mrs. Bennet said quickly. “It’s like a cleft palate. It’s not for any of us to question God’s plan, but all you need to do is look around to know some people aren’t born the way they should have been.”

Was this a theory espoused in
Transgender 101: A Simple Guide to a Complex Issue
? Not having read the book, Liz couldn’t be sure.

“Ham is thinking of opening a second gym,” Mrs. Bennet was saying. “All his classes have wait lists, so expanding would make sense.” She sounded, Liz thought, uncannily like the version of herself she had always yearned to be: a mother-in-law bragging about the successful husband of her daughter. Then she added, “Lizzy, I can’t find a very nice throw pillow that I bought at the old house. It has a pineapple on it. Do you remember seeing it?”

For a few seconds, Liz froze. Then she said, “Maybe it got mixed up with the donation items for the auction.”

THE TEXT FROM
Darcy, which arrived just after ten o’clock on a Thursday night, read:
Hi, Liz, I’ll be in NYC next week, and I’d like to take you and Jane out for dinner. Are you free either Tues or Wed? I realize this is short notice.

How perplexing these few lines were! Why would Darcy wish to have dinner with her
and
Jane? Did he remember that Jane no longer lived in the city? Perhaps, Liz thought, he hoped to avoid issuing an invitation that might otherwise sound like a date.

And then, as sometimes happened, the memory of Darcy’s declaration (he’d been
in love
with her, he’d wanted to be her
boyfriend
) flew through Liz’s head, followed by that dreadful echo:
I’m sure you’ve heard from my brother about him and Caroline.

Yes, there’d been extenuating circumstances; but none, Liz thought with sorrow and regret, had been extenuating enough to absolve her.

LIZ’S PROFILE OF
Kathy de Bourgh appeared in the December issue of
Mascara,
and Jasper’s article about Cincinnati’s powerhouse squash tradition appeared in the December issue of
Sporty;
the two magazines hit newsstands within a day of each other in early November. By the afternoon, six people had texted or emailed Liz about Jasper’s article, four of whom knew she knew him and all of whom knew she was from Cincinnati. She read it that night.

Only after finishing it—the focus switched between the coach and the eleven-year-old boy with the intense father—did she realize that a part of her had expected Jasper’s article to morph from a straightforward sports feature into a breaking-the-fourth-wall direct address to Liz herself, a postmodern confession or self-exculpation on Jasper’s part. Yet it was none of these things; it was only about squash. Was she disappointed or relieved? She’d have expected the former but instead, without doubt, felt the latter.

The next morning, Liz discovered that after going to bed, she had received a two-sentence email from Kathy de Bourgh:
Dear Liz, Thank you for taking the time to depict me with respect and accuracy. I enjoyed meeting you and am most appreciative. Kathy

Liz hadn’t previously communicated directly with Kathy de Bourgh and was briefly unsure how to address her. Then, decisively, she typed,
Kathy, the pleasure was mine.
I’m delighted you enjoyed the article. Liz.
She forwarded Kathy de Bourgh’s email to her editor, Talia, prefacing it with the word
Nice
and three exclamation points.

THROUGH AN EXCHANGE
of texts with Darcy that didn’t veer in subject from logistics, Liz had agreed that she and Jane would meet him at seven o’clock at a bistro in lower Manhattan. Jane, who was reluctant but obviously sensed Liz’s wish for her attendance, arrived in New York via train in the afternoon.

Though Liz wished she could be as indifferent to Darcy as Jane was, an irresistible curiosity gripped her. The evening might leave her bruised or remorseful, but she was compelled to know why he wanted to see them. As they entered the restaurant, Liz’s heart pounded and her body pulsed with a jittery energy.

Following the maître d’, Liz made eye contact with Darcy from several feet away, and when he stood—without smiling, he held up his right hand—an odd happiness swelled within her.

“Oh my God, Chip’s here,” Jane said.

It was true—Liz had been so focused on Darcy that she’d failed to notice that Chip was also waiting at the table.

Liz glanced at her sister and said, “I had no idea, I swear.” Jane bit her lip, and Liz said, “Is this okay? We can leave.”

“It’s fine,” Jane said quietly.

Even before they reached the table, Liz felt herself oversmiling, talking too loudly and with excess enthusiasm. “Hi!” she said to Darcy and Chip. “Chip! What a surprise!” Chip was now standing, too, and the physical and symbolic intricacies of all of them greeting one another seemed nearly insurmountable. Thus, despite her misgivings, Liz threw her arms around Chip in the friendliest and most midwestern of hugs, and he half-hugged her back while kissing her right cheek. She then hugged Darcy. Had the two of them
ever
hugged? Not, she was pretty sure, while clothed. Even as this thought formed, the hug had concluded, and they were all sitting. She wondered if the men were shocked by the size of Jane’s belly.

“What are you doing here?” she said to Chip with great energy, and though she willed herself to turn down both the volume and the chumminess a notch, the strange and ambiguous situation was impelling her to take the reins of the conversation. “Are you in New York for long?”