Eligible (52 page)

“I’ve never heard that term.” Anne was still smiling. “You’re funny, though. Okay, to get us going, how about if you tell me your name, your relationship to Jane, your age, and where you’re from?”

Bullshit,
Liz thought.
Bullshit you’ve never heard it.
Aloud, she said, “I’m Liz Bennet. I’m Jane’s sister, the sister closest in age to her. I’m thirty-eight years old, and I live in New York.”

The interview lasted for an hour, and Anne was, Liz had to admit, highly competent—she asked all the questions Liz herself would have—and also skilled at disguising her attempts to look for points of tension or vulnerability. The bulk of the questions were about Jane—her “journey” as a single woman, her “love story” with Chip—though Anne also inquired about alliances and discord within the Bennet family and about Liz’s own love life. (On this front, Liz was graciously tight-lipped.) Liz learned with relief that Anne was aware of Ham’s transgender status, and thus it was not up to Liz to divulge or conceal it; but on one topic, Liz was unhappy with her own lack of discretion.

“You know Chip’s sister Caroline, don’t you?” Anne asked near the end of the hour, and Liz said, “Yes, I know Caroline Bingley.”

“What’s your opinion of her?”

Liz was tired, both from traveling—it was midnight Eastern time—and from answering Anne’s questions.

“She’s fine,” Liz said.

“You sound kind of tepid,” Anne said, and, as ever, her tone was friendly. “Are you sure that’s how you feel?”

“Caroline Bingley is
charming,
” Liz said in a jokingly posh voice. “She’s
delightful.
” Then she looked directly at the camera guy and said, “Don’t use that.”

“Why don’t you want him to use it?” Anne asked. “Are you being sarcastic?”

Simultaneously, Liz felt regret surge through her, and she felt a desire to speak candidly to Anne—to say,
I’m exhausted. I need to go back to my room and sleep. I don’t like Caroline Bingley, but surely you can understand how publicly disparaging my sister’s new sister-in-law will only create problems that will long outlast your television special. As one professional woman to another, let’s strike that from the record.

“Did something happen between you and Caroline?” Anne said.

Liz shook her head. “I do like Caroline,” she said. “I’m kidding around.”

“Do you find her bitchy?” Anne asked. “I’ve heard that some people find her bitchy.”

Liz laughed. She couldn’t help it. She said, “Which people?”

“It’s just the word on the street.”

Again, Liz was tempted to acknowledge the preposterousness of the conversation, to say,
I understand exactly what you’re trying to do.
Instead, firmly, she said, “Well,
I’ve
always gotten along well with Caroline.”

On returning to her room, Liz looked up Frankenbiting online. There were many search results, they went back as far as 2004, and the term meant exactly what she’d thought it did.

“LIZZY, I DON’T
know why you never got married,” Lydia said. “It’s really fun. I make steak for Ham when he’s finished teaching at night and I totally feel like a grown-up.”

Shortly after the Cincinnati contingent’s arrival at the Hermoso Desert Lodge—they were a party of seven, counting not only the Bennets but also Ham and Shane—Lydia and Kitty had come to inspect their sisters’ quarters. On the same hall, Lydia and Ham were sharing a room, as were Kitty and Shane; Mary had been assigned her own room, which made Liz wonder why she herself hadn’t, until she recalled Anne Lee’s remark about the Pelco camera capturing her and Jane’s “fun, casual” conversations. Liz was newly determined to provide no such thing.

Jane was away, but Lydia and Kitty had made themselves at home on her bed, in spite of the fact that Liz was sitting at the desk, laptop open, trying to finish writing the toast she would deliver at the reception.

Without looking up, Liz said, “When I started working full-time and paying my rent is when I felt like a grown-up. And that was, hmm…” She pretended to calculate “Sixteen years ago.”

“Don’t you want someone to come home to at night?” Lydia said. “I’d be so bored living alone.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing you don’t.”

“If Jane’s baby turns out cute,” Lydia said, “maybe Ham and I will use the same sperm donor she did.”

“Your kids will be doubly related,” Kitty said. “That’s weird.”

“It’s just some dude’s jizz,” Lydia said. “He won’t be part of their lives. Anyway, sometimes two brothers marry two sisters, and their kids are double cousins. Jessica and Rachel Finholt married brothers.”

“I hate Jessica Finholt,” Kitty said. “In kindergarten, she stole my Raggedy Ann out of my cubby.” Kitty was paging through a brochure that had been lying on the nightstand. “Do we have to pay for spa services here?”

Liz glanced over her shoulder. “I’m sure.”

“It’s such a waste that Jane is getting married on
Eligible
when she doesn’t even watch it,” Lydia said. “Don’t you think Ham and I would make a good reality-TV show?”

She wasn’t wrong, which wasn’t the same as the idea being a wise one. Mildly, so as not to encourage Lydia, Liz said, “I bet living with all those cameras would annoy you guys.” She stood. “Both of you follow me.” She walked into the bathroom, and Lydia and Kitty looked quizzically at each other. Lydia said, “Are you going to teach us how to do monthly self-exams of our boobs?”

“Just come here,” Liz said.

When they’d joined her, she closed the door and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Did you notice that camera hanging in the corner of the room?” she said. “Don’t say anything the whole time you’re here that you don’t want to be on TV. I’m serious.”

“Like what?” Lydia asked.

The lecture was probably, at best, useless; at worst, it could promote the opposite of the behavior Liz hoped to encourage.

“The producers don’t care if we look good or bad,” Liz said. “All they’re trying to do is create TV that people want to watch. Just don’t say anything nasty about anyone else, and don’t pick fights.” It was hard not to think of the intemperate remarks she herself had made the night before about Caroline Bingley. “They’ll be looking for conflict.”

Lydia laughed. “I doubt they’ll have to look that hard.”

Liz sighed. “Fine,” she said. “Do what you want. But I warned you.”

IN HER PARENTS’
room, Liz found her mother bustling about and her father sitting in an armchair, an enormous hardcover book about the Renaissance open on his lap. The room contained just one king-sized bed; surely, Liz thought, it would be the first time in years her parents had slept beneath the same sheets.

From the bathroom, her mother said, “I can’t find the hair dryer. When I called the front desk, they said it’s here, but, Lizzy, they forgot to give us one.”

Liz entered the bathroom and pointed to the shelf below the sink. “It’s right there, Mom.”

Irritably, Mrs. Bennet said, “Well, it wasn’t there before.” As she picked it up, she added, “I think it’s much better if they say Jane’s baby is Chip’s. People who are watching will be confused otherwise.”

“Have you seen Jane yet?” Liz asked. “She looks good, doesn’t she?”

With great confidence, Mrs. Bennet said, “She’s carrying low. That means a boy.” In the hushed tone she used for delicate matters, Mrs. Bennet said, “Liz, I don’t know if Kitty and Shane are serious, but life can be very hard for mulatto children.”

Liz winced. “I wouldn’t say that to either of them.”

“Fitzwilliam Darcy is Chip’s best man.” Mrs. Bennet now sounded oddly approving, even before she added, “It speaks well of Chip that he has such high-quality friends. Is Fitzwilliam single?”

When, and why, had her mother developed a favorable opinion of Darcy? Back in July, at the Lucases’ party, Mrs. Bennet had been offended by him on Liz’s behalf. “He’s going out with Chip’s sister,” Liz said.

“What a shame.” Mrs. Bennet frowned. “Now we also need to make sure the Chinese girl knows to say on the show that Ham’s situation is a birth defect. People might think it’s disgusting otherwise, but if they know it’s a birth defect, they’ll understand.”

Her mother’s belief that she could, via Anne Lee, control the narrative of the
Eligible
special—it was, Liz thought, so utterly wrong that there was no point in trying to correct it. As if sensing Liz’s disloyal musings, Mrs. Bennet looked intently at her. “Don’t
you
think it’s confusing if they say Jane got pregnant from a man she doesn’t know?”

“Mom, that’s not the way anyone would describe donor insemination. And, no, I don’t think it’s a difficult concept to grasp.”

“I think it’s nicer if they say the baby is Chip’s.”

“But it’s not true.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Mrs. Bennet said. “That doesn’t matter.”

AS WHEN SHE’D
returned to Cincinnati for the closing of the Tudor, Liz was constantly alert to the possibility of encountering Darcy. With the bachelor and bachelorette parties just hours away that evening, surely he’d arrived on the property, but even by standing on the balcony and surveying the grounds at regular intervals, she hadn’t spotted him. Though, she reflected, perhaps not seeing him at all was better than spying him and Caroline strolling arm in arm on the golf course.

The balcony did afford Liz a bird’s-eye view of the courtyard meeting between Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and Mr. and Mrs. Bingley, which of course was also attended by Jane and Chip. This summit took place around a table on which was set a handsome flower arrangement, champagne flutes, and no food. Though Liz couldn’t hear the conversation, there was no doubt it would exist for posterity; a man held a boom mic a few feet above the heads of the family members, two more men with cameras on their shoulders stood just behind the families, and freestanding lights illuminated the proceedings as dusk fell.

Mrs. Bingley was a slim woman with a classic blond bob, wearing beige capri pants, a matching beige jacket, beige flats, a pale purple silk scarf, and no smile; she was recognizable to Liz as the sort of woman who played tennis at the Cincinnati Country Club, who was rather like certain friends of the plumper and frumpier Mrs. Bennet. Mr. Bingley looked like an older version of Chip, with gray hair parted on one side; he wore a dark blue suit, a white oxford cloth shirt, and a green bow tie. Liz felt too much anxiety on Jane’s behalf to observe the interaction in its entirety, and she soon went back inside to shower and dress for the evening.

Jane returned to the room an hour later, accompanied by Anne Lee, two makeup artists, and a wardrobe stylist. “How’d it go with the Bingleys?” Liz asked, and Jane said, “Great. His mom does a lot of yoga.” Jane was visibly mic’d—the mic pack was behind her back, and the actual mic was clipped to the inside collar of her shirt—but if there was some coded, contradictory message she wished to send Liz, Liz saw no evidence of it; Jane’s happiness seemed genuine.

While her sister’s makeup was retouched in the bedroom, Liz applied her own in the bathroom, with the door closed, before rejoining the others. Jane’s beautification process was still under way when, as scheduled, a production assistant and an audio guy knocked on the door. The audio guy mic’d Liz, and the assistant escorted her to the entrance of the lodge. Two film crews and a black limousine waited in the driveway, and when Liz entered the limo—she was purposely wearing fancy jeans rather than a skirt—she took care to angle herself into the car in the least buttocks-displaying manner possible. Inside the limo, she discovered yet another camera crew waiting, though she was the first guest. Addressing the man holding the camera—he was a forty-something guy with gray stubble and a baseball cap—she said, “Are we going to a restaurant tonight or more of a nightclub?”