Eligible Page 8

  “Are you fermenting the grapes yourself?” someone said then, and both Liz and Darcy turned to see Caroline. “You’ve seriously been in here for twenty minutes,” Caroline said, and beneath her breezy tone, Liz heard an unmistakable territoriality. How convenient, Liz thought, that Caroline’s managerial obligations had brought her to Cincinnati.

  “Liz was just telling me that she’s a writer for a magazine,” Darcy said. “Mascara, you said?”

  “Oh, that’s funny,” Caroline said. “Do you write articles like ‘Twenty Tips to Be a Tiger in the Sack’?”

  “That’s not Mascara,” Liz said.

  “I’m over Charades,” Caroline said to Darcy. “Want to get out of here?”

  More loudly, Liz said, “I know what magazine you’re thinking of, and it’s not Mascara. We write about sex, of course, but not in a cheesy way.”

  Caroline glanced at Liz. “You what?”

  “Mascara focuses on serious issues,” Liz said. “I went to Saudi Arabia last year for a feature on gender relations in the Middle East.”

  There was something challenging, or weirdly accusatory, in Caroline’s tone as she said, “Did you have to cover your hair?”

  “I wore an abaya and a head scarf in public,” Liz said.

  Caroline smiled faintly. “Aren’t you the world traveler.” Her focus reverted to Darcy as she said, “Charlotte is talking about ordering food, but I’d rather just leave.”

  “We can go,” Darcy said.

  Charades hadn’t concluded, Liz was pretty sure, though she wasn’t about to insist on extending the game.

  Darcy turned toward her. “I’d suggest that the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce hire you, but I guess it’d be a long commute.”

  He and Caroline were almost out of the kitchen when Liz said, “Did you just make a joke? I hadn’t realized you had a sense of humor.”

  NEITHER MR. NOR Mrs. Bennet visited the third floor with any regularity, which was why Liz was mildly surprised, while working at her desk, to see her mother standing in the threshold of her room. Mrs. Bennet held out a small cardboard box, its top flaps sticking up. Her tone was unapologetic as she said, “I thought this was for me.”

  Several times a day, the doorbell of the Tudor rang, and it was usually either a family friend bearing a casserole or baked goods intended to bring comfort during Mr. Bennet’s recovery or else a FedEx or UPS delivery. About three-quarters of the deliveries were intended for Mrs. Bennet—they accumulated, often unopened, in the front hall and the dining room—and the rest were assorted products and media kits sent to Liz at Mascara by publicists and forwarded by the magazine: diet protein powder and samples from celebrity sock lines, forthcoming tell-alls, new kinds of lip gloss.

  “Thanks.” Liz stood and took the box.

  With a certain ostentatiousness, Mrs. Bennet said, “I have no idea who it’s from.” As her mother turned and walked away, Liz saw that the label featured the logo of and address for Sporty, with Jasper’s first and last names above the logo in entirely legible handwriting. Reaching into the box, Liz pushed aside tissue paper to reveal a piece of stationery with the Sporty letterhead on which Jasper had scrawled THINKING OF YOU! Beneath the paper were a bright red sheer teddy and thong underwear in a matching hue. The items, which presumably would have been flimsy even if well-made, were clearly cheap, which didn’t preclude them from holding a semi-ridiculous allure offset by the humiliating possibility that they had been examined by her mother. Or, thought Liz, the humiliating certainty. But if Mrs. Bennet was not going to ask Liz about the gift, Liz would not offer any explanation.

  She called Jasper on her cellphone, and when he answered, she said, “My mom opened your package. She said to compliment you on your discretion and elegant taste.”

  Jasper laughed. “You think she knows that opening someone else’s mail is a federal offense? Hey, word on the street is that Noah Trager is being shit-canned later this week. Don’t you think I’d make a good editor in chief of Dude?”

  “Actually, you would.”

  “Edward van Pallandt is co-hosting that benefit tonight for the Burmese dissident. The tickets are sold out, but I’ll bet I can get in. You think I’m jumping the gun if I go and mention my interest in Dude to van Pallandt?”

  Noah Trager was the current editor in chief of Dude, a men’s magazine; Edward van Pallandt was its publisher’s creative director, a bon vivant who had, in one of the great moments of Liz’s entire life, complimented her shoes as they were riding the elevator together. (The shoes were beige suede caged booties, and, most gloriously of all, Liz had purchased them for thirty dollars at TJ Maxx in Cincinnati.) As for the Burmese dissident, Liz didn’t know who that was.

  She said, “How certain is it that Noah is being fired? Who told you?”

  “I’ve heard it from a couple people.”

  “I think it’s fine to go to the benefit and talk to Edward van Pallandt, to remind him who you are, but I wouldn’t mention Dude specifically. That seems vulturish. Is your résumé updated?”

  “I’ll send it to you, and you can take a gander. You know what you should send me? A picture of you in the lingerie.”

  “With or without my mom in the background?”

  Jasper chuckled. “She knows you’re an adult, Nin.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure.” Liz propped her feet on her desk and leaned her chair back on two legs. “Who’s the Burmese dissident?” she asked. “An artist?”

  “Hmm,” Jasper said. “Maybe I should learn the answer to that question before I go tonight.”

  AUNT MARGO AND Cousin Willie arrived at the Tudor in time for cocktails on Tuesday; also, unprecedentedly, Chip Bingley would be joining the Bennets for dinner. “I think it’s good Aunt Margo and Willie are here, because they’ll distract Mom,” Liz said to Jane in the kitchen as she poured almonds into a bowl. “Maybe she won’t get in Chip’s face as much.”

  “Shouldn’t it take the pressure off that Dad and Mom both met him at the Lucases’?” Jane said. “That’s what I’ve been telling myself.”

  “Oh, the question isn’t whether they’ll approve of him. But if he wasn’t scared off by Lydia and Kitty at Charades, then I bet you’re in the clear.” Liz folded over the top of the almond bag and clipped it shut. “By the way, I feel like Willie has hired a stylist. He looks a lot better.”

  Jane smiled. “You don’t think he could have spruced up on his own?”

  “Not to be uncharitable, but no. Those are extremely trendy pants he has on.” And yet—even more uncharitably—from the moment of their clumsy hug outside the airport terminal, where she’d picked up the visitors, Liz had also been sure that, wardrobe notwithstanding, Willie’s essential awkwardness remained intact. In her head, Liz thought of him as either the most confident awkward person she’d ever known or the awkwardest confident person. Of medium height, with a chubby build and puffy red hair, he continued to show a fondness for speaking at length about his professional pursuits that was tempered only slightly by his listeners’ inability to follow.

  When Liz and Jane entered the living room where their sisters, parents, aunt, and cousin were gathered, Willie appeared to be in mid-monologue. “We get thirty million unique visitors per month,” he was saying, and as Liz made eye contact with her father, who was seated just a few feet from Willie, Mr. Bennet let his eyelids droop. Liz looked away. “If you want to compare that to the competition, it’s not even close,” Willie said. “Jig-Jig gets ten million, maybe twelve. Once the kinks are worked out, we’ll leave everyone else in the dust.”

  “I don’t suppose you have cheese and crackers,” Aunt Margo said.

  Simultaneously, Mrs. Bennet said, “Mary, put out the Vermont cheddar,” and Lydia said, “The casomorphins in cheese are as addictive as opium.”

  In a peevish tone, Mrs. Bennet said, “Everyone has very strong opinions about what we eat these days.”

  “Lizzy,” Willie said, “I saw in the airport that they’re still printin
g dead-tree issues of your magazine.”

  “That’s how some people prefer to read,” Liz said. “I realize you’re not one of them.”

  Mrs. Bennet said, “Willie, if there’s anything special you’d like to do in Cincinnati, Liz has the most open schedule. Jane is tied up now with her new beau, who’ll be joining us for dinner.” Mrs. Bennet turned to her sister-in-law. “His name is Chip Bingley, and he moved here to work at Christ Hospital. He went to Harvard Medical School.”

  “Bingley, did you say?” Willie squinted. “That name sounds familiar.”

  With pleasure, Mrs. Bennet said, “It was his great-great-grandfather who started Bingley Manufacturing, which of course has made sinks and such for years and years.”

  “And by sinks, Mom means toilets,” Lydia said. “We’re all crossing our fingers that Jane becomes the crapper queen.”

  Mildly, Jane said, “Chip and I have only gone out a few times.”

  “He’s very serious about you,” Mrs. Bennet said. “Now, does his family still own Bingley Manufacturing or did they sell it?”

  “That hasn’t come up,” Jane said.

  “If only there were a global computer network where you could find that kind of information,” Willie said, and he chuckled as he pulled out his phone.

  Liz said, “Willie, do you watch Eligible? Because Chip was on it a couple years ago.”

  “That was just a little silliness,” Mrs. Bennet said. “Just blowing off steam after his residency.”

  But Willie looked up from his phone with recognition. “He was the one who cried in the finale!” Willie said. “I knew I’d heard his name.”

  “I didn’t know you watch Eligible,” Aunt Margo said to Willie, and Liz said, “Don’t we all? Besides Jane.”

  “He was under a lot of pressure.” Jane cleared her throat, then spoke more loudly. “The crying thing—a producer had told him that one of the women was suicidal because he didn’t propose to her, and he felt awful. It’s not like he cries more than the average man.”

  It wasn’t so much the content of Jane’s comments as their knowing and protective tone that caught Liz’s attention. Maybe, as improbable as it seemed, Chip Bingley really was Jane’s happy ending. How wonderful this would be, and how deserving Jane was.

  Cousin Willie scrolled down the screen of his phone. “In 1986, the Bingley family sold Bingley Manufacturing to multinational industrial company L. M. Clarkson. Doesn’t say for how much, but, Jane, it’s safe to assume your guy has a nice cushion under him if he ever gets sued for malpractice.” Willie glanced up. “Lizzy, I’d love a tour of the city. Margo and I figured out on the plane that I haven’t been here since I was fourteen. All these years, Dad and I were planning to come back when one of you got married.” He spoke warmly, without apparent awareness of the topic’s sensitivity, then added, “According to the Twitter hive, the zoo and the Underground Railroad museum are Cincinnati’s must-see destinations.”

  Mr. Bennet said, “Or if you’d like a recommendation, you could ask someone who’s lived here for sixty-four years.”

  “Dad, you’ve never been to the Freedom Center,” Kitty said.

  “No, but I did used to date Harriet Tubman.”

  Liz said, “Dad, I’m taking you to physical therapy tomorrow at nine, right? Then I have to do a phone interview at eleven. But, Willie, I could give you a tour after that. Or, I don’t know, Mary, would you want to?”

  “I have too much work.” As Mary shook her head without even feigning regret, Liz was reminded of her theory that, because Mary wasn’t very pretty, she received credit for being intelligent or virtuous in ways that, as far as Liz could discern, her sister was not. In fact, Liz disliked Mary more than she disliked Lydia, and certainly more than Kitty, all of whom, of course, out of obligation and habit, she loved. But if you assumed that accompanying Mary’s supposedly scholarly interests was an open-minded acceptance of others, or that accompanying her homeliness was compassion, you’d be wrong; Mary was proof, Liz had concluded, of how easy it was to be unattractive and unpleasant.

  “I have loads of meetings tomorrow for my Women’s League luncheon,” Mrs. Bennet was saying to Aunt Margo and Willie. “The girls will tell you I’ve been working myself to the bone. But we’ll all have dinner at the country club.” She leaned forward, as if to divulge a bit of confidential information, and whispered, “Margo, I’m sure you remember how delicious their Caesar salad is.”

  “Is that water damage on the wall?” Aunt Margo stood and crossed the living room. “My God, Fred, you’re lucky the house hasn’t crumbled around you.”

  “I’m still hoping it might,” Mr. Bennet replied.

  “That happened during a rainstorm last week,” Mrs. Bennet said, and though Liz didn’t consider her mother a particularly faithful adherent to the truth, the fib, occurring in front of no fewer than six people who could have contradicted it, was unusually bold. “But now that you’ve reminded me, Margo,” Mrs. Bennet added cheerfully, “I’ll be sure to call the handyman.”

  THEY ATE IN the dining room instead of the kitchen. Prior to Willie and Aunt Margo’s arrival, Lydia and Kitty had been tasked with moving boxes from the front hall and the dining room table to Jane’s old room (CrossFit notwithstanding, this was the first time since Liz’s return home that she had seen her youngest sisters exert themselves), and, along with her most elegant china, Mrs. Bennet had put out place cards, presumably to ensure that Chip Bingley sat next to her. He had arrived bearing both a bottle of wine and a bouquet of flowers, and though a vase of purple hydrangea had already occupied the table’s center, Mrs. Bennet had instructed Liz to whisk them away and display Chip’s arrangement instead, as if he’d interpret the existence of another bouquet as a personal affront.

  After much discussion between Jane and Mrs. Bennet, the menu consisted of cold poached salmon, roasted potatoes, a green salad, and a berry tart. Because of the supreme importance of the evening, Mrs. Bennet had set aside her Women’s League responsibilities, and mother and daughter had spent the entire day tidying the first floor and preparing the meal.

  It was only a minute or two after they’d all sat down that Kitty asked, “Chip, did they pay you to be on Eligible?”

  “I was wondering the same thing,” Cousin Willie said, and Mrs. Bennet said, “Goodness gracious, Chip doesn’t want to talk about that. Tell me, Chip, is it Philadelphia where your parents live?”

  Chip, who had recently taken a bite, chewed, then patted his mouth with a white linen napkin. “They live on the Main Line,” he said. “So the suburbs, though I’ve tried to talk them into buying an apartment downtown. Center City has really experienced a renaissance in recent years.” He glanced at Kitty, who was across the table from him. “I don’t mind talking about the show.” He turned back toward Mrs. Bennet. “If you don’t mind, that is. I wouldn’t want to offend your sense of propriety.”

  Had sweeter words ever been spoken to Mrs. Bennet? And by a wealthy suitor courting her eldest daughter, no less! Practically purring, Mrs. Bennet set her hand on Chip’s forearm and said, “Go right ahead.”

  Looking around the table, Chip said, “I trust that this conversation is off the record. But, yes, the star of each season gets paid. I think the amount varies based on negotiations by one’s lawyer or agent—in my case, it was an entertainment lawyer, because I didn’t have an agent—but it’s a respectable amount.”

  “Six figures?” Lydia asked, and Mrs. Bennet said, “Heavens, Lydia, where are your manners?”

  Chip smiled gamely. “Let’s leave it at respectable.”

  “Are you saying you got paid and the women didn’t?” Mary asked.

  “I fear that might be the case,” Chip said, “though it’s not because of sexism. The same is true when the star of the cast is female and the contestants are men. Either way, I think everyone at least gets a per diem.”

  “How long was the shoot?” Liz asked. She was at the far end of the table from Chip, between Cousin Willie an
d her father.

  “Shorter than you’d think,” Chip said. “Eight weeks.”

  “It’s all scripted, right?” Mary said. “Everyone knows it is.”

  “Yes and no,” Chip said. “Sure, the producers nudge you in certain directions. Or something happens spontaneously, but the cameras didn’t catch it just right, or maybe somebody was sneezing in the background, so they do three more takes. And obviously the great majority of footage never makes it on the air. They have a few hundred hours to whittle down for each eighty-minute episode. But I still think people’s essential personalities come through. A lot of those girls were a bit outrageous to begin with.” He glanced around the table. “Have I put you to sleep yet, Mr. Bennet?”

  “No more so than our dinners usually do. Carry on.”

  Chip grinned. “The other reason things could get dramatic was that the alcohol was flowing, and not just at night. They’d serve booze from lunch on, and if there was a justifiable way of offering it earlier, like a Bloody Mary at brunch, they’d do that.”

  “Now it’s actually starting to sound civilized,” Mr. Bennet said.

  “Too bad you’re married, huh, Dad?” Kitty said.

  “You’re being filmed, and you’re mic’d, from the time you wake up in the morning until you go to sleep at night.” Chip was still holding his fork above his plate, not biting. “They’ve taken away your cellphone and forbidden computers, music, even books and magazines—partly to avoid copyright issues, but also because none of that makes for good television. Who wants to watch people read? Or if you were listening to music, it’d be hard for the editor to cut the scene. But that means you’re bored, you have no privacy, and you’re separated from your normal support system. It’s a perfect storm for acting out. I guess I’d say people are themselves, but they’re also not themselves, if that makes sense.”

  “Are you mic’d when you’re taking a dump?” Lydia asked.