Читать книгу Eligible - Curtis Sittenfeld - Страница 15

Mrs. Bennet had not, as it turned out, needed to lean on Mrs. Lucas excessively in order to convince the latter to facilitate a meeting between the Bennet daughters and Chip Bingley. Upon receiving Mrs. Bennet’s phone call, Mrs. Lucas had declared that nothing could bring her greater pleasure, or reflect more flatteringly on Cincinnati, than the attendance of the beautiful Bennet girls and their parents at the barbecue that the Lucases were hosting for several recent arrivals to Christ Hospital, where Dr. Lucas was both a physician and a high-ranking executive.

Mrs. Lucas shared with Mrs. Bennet the affliction of an unmarried adult daughter, though in Mrs. Lucas’s case the disappointment was embodied just once rather than multiplied five-fold. Charlotte Lucas, who had been Liz’s classmate and closest friend at Seven Hills for fifteen years, was also single, a bright and poised human resources manager at Procter & Gamble who since graduating from college had been about seventy-five pounds overweight. To Mrs. Bennet’s mind, this fact placed Mrs. Lucas’s misfortune in a separate, albeit equally frustrating, category from the one in which her own daughters fell. Obviously, Charlotte wasn’t married because she was heavy; therefore, she simply needed to go on a diet. Mrs. Bennet’s own daughters, however, possessing no discernible physical or personal flaws (except for poor homely Mary), had no clear means of remediation.

Mrs. Bennet, who herself was not a stranger to rotundity, had wondered if Mrs. Lucas considered Charlotte a candidate for Chip’s affections, but Mrs. Lucas’s unhesitating inclusion of the Bennets at the barbecue reassured Mrs. Bennet that her friend harbored no unrealistic expectations where Charlotte was concerned. Thus, despite having failed to pair off any of her daughters in the two decades she’d been actively trying, Mrs. Bennet’s hopes for the barbecue were high indeed.

The Lucases lived in Indian Hill, a suburb fifteen miles from downtown and home to the sort of Cincinnatians who enjoyed owning horses or at least purebred dogs who could roam on multi-acre properties. The Lucases’ house was a vast brick colonial with a balcony over the front door and a slate roof. In the kitchen, various Bennets embraced various Lucases, Jane passed off her sponge cake, and Liz walked to the window to survey the dozen or so guests already chatting on the flagstone patio in the backyard. “Jane, come see your future husband,” she called merrily.

Jane joined her. “I take it Chip Bingley is the tall, dark, and handsome one?”

Charlotte Lucas said, “No, Chip is the guy in the seersucker shorts. The tall, dark, and handsome one is his friend Fitzwilliam Darcy, who joined the stroke center at the University of Cincinnati last year as a neurosurgeon. The rumor is he’s also single, but he’s kind of standoffish. He and Chip went to medical school together.” Charlotte turned to Jane. “Did you really never watch Eligible when Chip was on?”

“She’s never watched any of Eligible,” Liz said. “She’s like a unicorn.”

“Oh, Chip’s season was fantastic,” Charlotte said. “There was an actual physical fight involving ripped-out hair extensions.”

Mary, who had caught up to her mother’s car on the drive out, said, “I find Eligible degrading to women.”

“So you’ve mentioned.” Liz glanced at Charlotte. “Did you say Chip’s friend’s name is Fitzwilliam, and if so, did he just sail over on the Mayflower?”

“He goes by his last name.” Charlotte grinned. “Though I’m not sure Darcy is much better.”

In recent years, Charlotte and Liz hadn’t spent time together beyond Christmas parties or lunches scheduled during Liz’s trips home from New York, but they still took immense pleasure in each other’s company. Indeed, it had been one of the highlights of Liz’s longer-term return to Cincinnati to resume her friendship with Charlotte in a genuine fashion, as adults, and to find that her enjoyment of the woman was no less than it had been of the girl. They only half-jokingly speculated about whether they were the last two single people from their high school class, though Liz wondered if Charlotte suffered from this distinction more acutely—Charlotte lived in Cincinnati, where her mother could nag her at closer proximity; she didn’t have the buffer of an older sister who was, ostensibly, even more overdue to marry; she did wish to have children; and she didn’t have a secret boyfriend.

“Chip is shorter than he looks on TV, right?” Charlotte said. “But definitely cute. And that guy in the V-neck, Keith, is another new emergency doctor”—the man in question was black, the only non-white person at the party—“and the woman in the striped dress is an intern. The man next to her is her husband, and that toddler is theirs.” In addition to these guests were an attractive blond woman Liz didn’t recognize and two older couples Liz had previously met at the Lucases’ New Year’s Day open house; the men in both couples also worked as doctors at Christ Hospital.

“Is Keith single, too?” Liz asked. “Because if he is, Jane, there’s basically a man buffet for you to pick from.”

“I might remind you,” Mr. Bennet said as he blithely fixed himself a gin and tonic at the nearby wet bar, “that you’re not observing those gentlemen from behind a two-way mirror.” Mr. Bennet held up his hand, and Dr. Lucas waved back.

“I doubt they read lips,” Liz said.

Jane turned to Charlotte. “Is the blond woman a doctor?”

“That’s Caroline Bingley, Chip’s sister. She lives in LA, but she’s helping him get settled here.”

“Chip is handsome,” Jane said, and Liz and Charlotte exchanged an amused look.

“Then let’s go out and I’ll introduce you,” Charlotte said.