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 L.A., 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.
AFTER THE FLURRY of greetings, Liz found herself talking to Keith, who was congenial and, she quickly discovered, engaged to a woman finishing her medical residency in San Diego. By the time the chicken breasts had been grilled, and the potato salad, coleslaw, and rolls set out, Liz and Keith had covered the topics of San Diego’s climate, Cincinnati’s climate, and Cincinnati’s famous chili, which Keith had not yet sampled. As Liz and Keith moved on to Keith’s interest in golf, Liz was gratified to observe that Jane appeared to be deep in conversation with Chip Bingley; that conversation continued as Jane and Chip procured food and took seats side by side on a mortared stone retaining wall, soon joined by Chip’s sister Caroline.
When Liz had prepared her own plate of food, she walked to the four-person patio table where Fitzwilliam Darcy was sitting with the husband of the intern and one of the older doctors. The older doctor and the husband were discussing how the Reds were faring this season, and, addressing Fitzwilliam Darcy (or, Liz reminded herself, just Darcy), Liz pointed to the empty chair. “Is this seat taken?”
“It is,” Darcy said. He didn’t temper his rebuff with any apology, and Liz assumed he must have misheard her; he must have thought she’d asked if the seat was free.
She said, “It is taken?”
“Yes,” Darcy said, and he remained unapologetic. “It is.”