Читать книгу Eligible - Curtis Sittenfeld - Страница 25

After dinner at Orchids, Jane and Chip had moved on to Bakersfield for drinks. (Liz didn’t learn any of this until the afternoon, because Jane not only slept through their morning run but also skipped the eleven A.M. service at Knox Presbyterian Church that Mary and Mrs. Bennet attended every Sunday, Liz and Jane attended when in town, and all other Bennets eschewed except at Christmas.) Following drinks (“Did you actually drink or were you fostering a hospitable uterus again?” Liz asked, and Jane said she’d had one glass of wine at dinner and another at the bar), Jane and Chip had returned to his apartment in Oakley, where they’d taken the opportunity to discover that they were a couple truly compatible in all ways. “Do you think I’m slutty?” Jane asked.

“You’re thirty-nine years old,” Liz said. “You should do what you want. Was it weird with his sister there?”

Jane shook her head. “The room she’s staying in is at the opposite end of the apartment.” Jane was still lying in bed as she relayed these facts, and Liz sat on the other twin bed. “It wasn’t awkward with Chip at all, and neither of us was drunk,” Jane added. “I really like him. I just—I felt a way I hadn’t for so long. And it barely had to do with how good-looking he is. He is good-looking, but I was just so comfortable with him. He’s genuinely nice and not self-centered. I really don’t think he’s an aspiring actor. He told me the Eligible producers got in touch recently asking him to be on a reunion show, and he said no.”

“Then I stand corrected.”

“He also was mortified you’d overheard him and Darcy talking at the Lucases’. He wanted me to tell you how sorry he is, and how he doesn’t share Darcy’s view of Cincinnati at all.”

Liz smiled. “At least when it comes to the women here, I’d say that’s obvious.”

“Really, though.” Jane’s expression was serious. “Chip says Darcy can be kind of brusque, but he’s a really good person and a world-class surgeon.”

“With a world-class ego, apparently. Just to warn you, Mom’s downstairs practically salivating. She knows you were out late.”

“You didn’t tell her how late, did you?”

“No, but I can’t promise she wasn’t looking out the window when Chip dropped you off.”

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Jane said. “Because think how much trouble I’d have gotten in back in high school for coming home from a date at five in the morning. But I just had to wait twenty years, and now Mom’s probably thrilled.”