“I grew up outside San Francisco. Though again, you’re putting words in my mouth—I never said superior.”
“Close enough,” Liz said. “And, you know, just for the record, whatever it is you think about the people here, your opinion says more about you than the city. Because I’m not sure what you think other places have that we don’t, but fifteen-dollar cocktails made with locally grown ingredients? We’ve got them. Indie bands? Got them. Reiki healers? We’ve got those, too. Maybe you have to search a little harder, but all that’s here, and so is lots of other stuff, like beautiful old houses that are completely affordable and an awesome riverfront park and nationally ranked sports teams and easy commutes and a mix of races and ethnicities. You can have a really high quality of life in Cincinnati.”
This was without question the most passionate paean to her hometown Liz had ever delivered—in fact, she wasn’t certain she believed all of it—but Darcy simply said, “You’re lucky to be so enthusiastic about the place you live.”
“Oh, I don’t live here,” Liz said. “I live in New York.”
At this, Darcy did something she hadn’t previously seen: He smiled.
“It’s not that I wouldn’t live here,” she said quickly, though she wasn’t sure this was true, either. “It’s just that it doesn’t make sense with my job. I’m a writer for Mascara magazine, but I came back because my dad had heart surgery.”
“A bypass?”
Liz nodded. “He’s doing well.” Reflexively, she knocked on a wooden cabinet.
“Did he have it done at Christ?” Liz nodded again, and Darcy said, “Their cardiothoracic department is good.”
“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.