Eligible Read online

  Eligible is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Curtis Sittenfeld

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  RANDOM HOUSE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Sittenfeld, Curtis.

  Eligible: a novel / Curtis Sittenfeld.

  pages ; cm

  ISBN 978-1-4000-6832-6

  International edition ISBN 978-0-3995-8952-2

  ebook ISBN 978-0-8129-9761-3

  1. Sisters—Fiction. 2. Families—Fiction. I. Austen, Jane, 1775–1817. Pride and prejudice. II. Title.

  PS3619.I94E45 2016

  813'.6—dc23

  2015027778

  eBook ISBN 9780812997613

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Elizabeth A. D. Eno, adapted for eBook

  Cover design: Gabrielle Bordwin

  Cover illustration: Chuhail/Shutterstock

  v4.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Part Two

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Chapter 128

  Chapter 129

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131

  Chapter 132

  Chapter 133

  Chapter 134

  Chapter 135

  Chapter 136

  Chapter 137

  Chapter 138

  Chapter 139

  Chapter 140

  Chapter 141

  Chapter 142

  Chapter 143

  Chapter 144

  Chapter 145

  Chapter 146

  Part Three

  Chapter 147

  Chapter 148

  Chapter 149

  Chapter 150

  Chapter 151

  Chapter 152

  Chapter 153

  Chapter 154

  Chapter 155

  Chapter 156

  Chapter 157

  Chapter 158

  Chapter 159

  Chapter 160

  Chapter 161

  Chapter 162

  Chapter 163

  Chapter 164

  Chapter 165

  Chapter 166

  Chapter 167

  Chapter 168

  Chapter 169

  Chapter 170

  Chapter 171

  Chapter 172

  Chapter 173

  Chapter 174

  Chapter 175

  Chapter 176

  Chapter 177

  Four Months Later

  Chapter 178

  Chapter 179

  Two Weeks Later

  Chapter 180

  Chapter 181

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Curtis Sittenfeld

  About the Author

  When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it’s always twenty years behind the times.

  —Mark Twain

  WELL BEFORE HIS arrival in Cincinnati, everyone knew that Chip Bingley was looking for a wife. Two years earlier, Chip—graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Medical School, scion of the Pennsylvania Bingleys, who in the twentieth century had made their fortune in plumbing fixtures—had, ostensibly with some reluctance, appeared on the juggernaut reality-television show Eligible. Over the course of eight weeks in the fall of 2011, twenty-five single women had lived together in a mansion in Rancho Cucamonga, California, and vied for Chip’s heart: accompanying him on dates to play blackjack in Las Vegas and taste wine at vineyards in Napa Valley, fighting with and besmirching one another in and out of his presence. At the end of each episode, every woman received either a kiss on the lips from him, which meant she would continue to compete, or a kiss on the cheek, which meant she had to return home immediately. In the final episode, with only two women remaining—Kara, a wide-eyed, blond-ringleted twenty-three-year-old former college cheerleader turned second-grade teacher from Jackson, Mississippi, and Marcy, a duplicitous yet alluring brunette twenty-eight-year-old
dental hygienist from Morristown, New Jersey—Chip wept profusely and declined to propose marriage to either. They both were extraordinary, he declared, stunning and intelligent and sophisticated, but toward neither did he feel what he termed “a soul connection.” In compliance with FCC regulations, Marcy’s subsequent tirade consisted primarily of bleeped-out words that nevertheless did little to conceal her rage.

  “It’s not because he was on that silly show that I want him to meet our girls,” Mrs. Bennet told her husband over breakfast on a morning in late June. The Bennets lived on Grandin Road, in a sprawling eight-bedroom Tudor in Cincinnati’s Hyde Park neighborhood. “I never even saw it. But he went to Harvard Medical School, you know.”

  “So you’ve mentioned,” said Mr. Bennet.

  “After all we’ve been through, I wouldn’t mind a doctor in the family,” Mrs. Bennet said. “Call that self-serving if you like, but I’d say it’s smart.”

  “Self-serving?” Mr. Bennet repeated. “You?”

  Five weeks prior, Mr. Bennet had undergone emergency coronary artery bypass surgery; after a not inconsiderable recuperation, it was just in the last few days that his typically sardonic affect had returned.

  “Chip Bingley didn’t even want to be on Eligible, but his sister nominated him,” Mrs. Bennet said.

  “A reality show isn’t unlike the Nobel Peace Prize, then,” Mr. Bennet said. “In that they both require nominations.”

  “I wonder if Chip’s renting or has bought a place,” Mrs. Bennet said. “That would tell us something about how long he plans to stay in Cincinnati.”

  Mr. Bennet set down his slice of toast. “Given that this man is a stranger to us, you seem inordinately interested in the details of his life.”

  “I’d scarcely say stranger. He’s in the ER at Christ Hospital, which means Dick Lucas must know him. Chip’s very well-spoken, not like those trashy young people who are usually on TV. And very handsome, too.”

  “I thought you’d never seen the show.”

  “I only caught a few minutes of it, when the girls were watching.” Mrs. Bennet looked peevishly at her husband. “You shouldn’t quarrel with me. It’s bad for your recovery. Anyway, Chip could have had a whole career on TV but chose to return to medicine. And you can tell that he’s from a nice family. Fred, I really believe his moving here right when Jane and Liz are home is the silver lining to our troubles.” The eldest and second eldest of the five Bennet sisters had lived in New York for the last decade and a half; it was due to their father’s health scare that they had abruptly, if temporarily, returned to Cincinnati.

  “My dear,” said Mr. Bennet, “if a sock puppet with a trust fund and a Harvard medical degree moved here, you’d think he was meant to marry one of our girls.”

  “Tease me all you like, but the clock is ticking. No, Jane doesn’t look like she’ll be forty in November, but any man who knows her age will think long and hard about what that means. And Liz isn’t far behind her.”

  “Plenty of men don’t want children.” Mr. Bennet took a sip of coffee. “I’m still not sure that I do.”

  “A woman in her forties can give birth,” Mrs. Bennet said, “but it isn’t as easy as the media would have you believe. Phyllis and Bob’s daughter had all sorts of procedures, and what did she end up with but little Ying from Shanghai.” As she stood, Mrs. Bennet glanced at her gold oval-faced watch. “I’m going to phone Helen Lucas and see if she can arrange an introduction to Chip.”

  MRS. BENNET WAS always the one to say grace at family dinners—she was fond of the Anglican meal prayer—and hardly had the word amen passed her lips that evening when, with uncontainable enthusiasm, she announced, “The Lucases have invited us for a Fourth of July barbecue!”

  “What time?” asked Lydia, who at twenty-three was the youngest Bennet. “Because Kitty and I have plans.”

  Mary, who was thirty, said, “No fireworks start before dark.”

  “We’re invited to a pre-party in Mount Adams,” Kitty said. Kitty was twenty-six, the closest in both age and temperament to Lydia, yet contrary to typical sibling patterns, she both tagged after and was led astray by her younger sister.

  “But I haven’t told you who’ll be at the barbecue.” From her end of the long oak kitchen table, Mrs. Bennet beamed. “Chip Bingley!”

  “The Eligible crybaby?” Lydia said, and Kitty giggled as Lydia added, “I’ve never seen a woman cry as hard as he did in the season finale.”

  “What’s an eligible crybaby?” Jane asked.

  “Oh, Jane,” Liz said. “So innocent and unspoiled. You’ve heard of the reality show Eligible, right?”

  Jane squinted. “I think so.”

  “He was on it a couple years ago. He was the guy being lusted after by twenty-five women.”

  “I don’t suppose that any of you can appreciate the terror a man might feel being so outnumbered,” Mr. Bennet said. “I often weep, and there are only six of you.”

  “Eligible is degrading to women,” Mary said, and Lydia said, “Of course that’s what you think.”

  “But every other season is one woman and twenty-five guys,” Kitty said. “That’s equality.”

  “The women humiliate themselves in a way the men don’t,” Mary said. “They’re so desperate.”

  “Chip Bingley went to Harvard Medical School,” Mrs. Bennet said. “He’s not one of those vulgar Hollywood types.”

  “Mom, his Hollywood vulgarity is the only reason anyone in Cincinnati cares about him,” Liz said.

  Jane turned to her sister. “You knew he was here?”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Which of us are you hoping he’ll go for, Mom?” Lydia asked. “He’s old, right? So I assume Jane.”

  “Thanks, Lydia,” Jane said.

  “He’s thirty-six,” Mrs. Bennet said. “That would make him suitable for Jane or Liz.”

  “Why not for Mary?” Kitty asked.

  “He doesn’t seem like Mary’s type,” Mrs. Bennet said.

  “Because she’s gay,” Lydia said. “And he’s not a woman.”

  Mary glared at Lydia. “First of all, I’m not gay. And even if I were, I’d rather be a lesbian than a sociopath.”

  Lydia smirked. “You don’t have to choose.”

  “Is everyone listening to this?” Mary turned to her mother, at the foot of the table, then her father, at the head. “There’s something seriously wrong with Lydia.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with any of you,” Mrs. Bennet said. “Jane, what’s this vegetable called? It has an unusual flavor.”

  “It’s spinach,” Jane said. “I braised it.”

  “In point of fact,” Mr. Bennet said, “there’s something wrong with all of you. You’re adults, and you ought to be living on your own.”

  “Dad, we came home to take care of you,” Jane said.

  “I’m well now. Go back to New York. You too, Lizzy. As the only one who refuses to take a dime and, not coincidentally, the only one with a real job, you’re supposed to be setting an example for your sisters. Instead, they’re pulling you down with them.”

  “Jane and Lizzy know how important my luncheon is,” Mrs. Bennet said. “That’s why they’re still here.” The event to which Mrs. Bennet was referring was the annual fundraising luncheon for the Cincinnati Women’s League, scheduled this year for the second Thursday in September. A member of the league since her twenties, Mrs. Bennet was for the first time the luncheon’s planning chair, and, as she often reminded her family members, the enormous pressure and responsibility of the role left her, however lamentably, unavailable to tend to her husband’s recovery. “Now, the Lucases’ barbecue is called for four,” Mrs. Bennet continued. “Lydia and Kitty, that’s plenty of time for you to join us and still get to your party before the fireworks. Helen Lucas is inviting some young people from the hospital besides Chip Bingley, so it’d be a shame for you to miss meeting them.”

  “Mom, unlike our sisters, Kitty and I are capable of getting boyfri
ends on our own,” Lydia said.