SHANE HAD WARNED Liz that the inspection of the Tudor could take up to six hours, and it was after much deliberation and with much dread that, for the date on which it would occur, Liz had proposed to her parents a day trip to Berea, Kentucky. A town of fourteen thousand just under two hours from Cincinnati, Berea was known for a thriving artistic community that created and sold paintings, sculptures, jewelry, pottery, and weavings. For many reasons, a visit there seemed likely to be a terrible idea—Liz worried that its wares would be too homespun for her mother’s taste and that her mother would impulsively purchase, say, an enormous and expensive birdbath—but for the length of the inspection, the goal was to transport Mrs. Bennet out of Cincinnati and render her incapable of returning to the Tudor of her own accord.
When Liz broached the topic of Berea with her father, Mr. Bennet said, “I can scarcely imagine a less tempting invitation.”
“Right,” Liz said. “But your enjoyment is actually irrelevant.”
Mr. Bennet chuckled. “Tell me when we leave.”
Mrs. Bennet was only slightly more cooperative. “Deb Larsen commissioned a lady in Berea to make a hooked rug that looks like their house in Michigan,” she said. “The likeness is amazing.” But then a scowl came over her face. “Don’t think I don’t know exactly what you’re doing, Lizzy.”
Before departing, Liz emphasized to Kitty and Mary the importance of staying away from the Tudor until she told them that the inspection had concluded. “If you guys are still thinking of getting an apartment together, today would be a good time to look around,” Liz said, and Kitty said, “Maybe, but I’m going to a rowing class Ham teaches at eleven.”
Liz’s contingent used Mrs. Bennet’s car: Liz drove, her father rode in front, and her mother sat in back. It was a relief to Liz to take on the role of chauffeur, both because her parents were awful drivers and because Liz had always felt profoundly uncomfortable spending two-on-one time with them. So divided had their attention been for so many years that on the rare occasions when it wasn’t, something felt wrong; there was too much opportunity for scrutiny and uninterrupted conversation. In the interest of avoiding both, Liz had checked out of the Hyde Park Branch Library an audiobook she hoped would occupy the narrow overlap of her parents’ mutual interests—a nineteen-hour, thirteen-CD biography of a robber baron, published four years earlier and honored with many literary accolades.
The Bennets were approximately six minutes into the first CD when Mrs. Bennet began remarking on topics ranging from the temperature of the car (it was positively icy in the backseat) to the ongoing indignities of selling the Tudor (and besides, what guarantee did any of them have that Shane was trustworthy? Yes, he may have gone to Seven Hills, but there was something about him she didn’t care for. She couldn’t put her finger on what, but something) to the dullness of the audiobook (for heaven’s sake, did the author really expect people to keep track of all those names and who was related to whom and how?) to speculation about whether Ham would propose to Lydia by Christmas (Mrs. Bennet would have preferred Lydia’s husband to have a steadier source of income, God only knew if CrossFit was one of those fitness fads that would come and go, but he did seem to have enough of a head on his shoulders that if this business went under, he could find employment elsewhere).
An hour and fifteen minutes in, Mr. Bennet murmured to Liz, “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. When we get to Lexington, you’ll drop me off at the Art Museum at the University of Kentucky. You’ll pick me up three hours later. What you and your mother choose to do in the interregnum is up to you.”
Thus Liz and Mrs. Bennet ended up forgoing Berea for a leisurely lunch at a restaurant called Doodles, where Mrs. Bennet expanded upon several of the subjects she’d introduced in the car while also sharing, in depth, the progress of the item solicitation for the Women’s League auction. Though Mrs. Bennet conveyed her disappointment at not reaching Berea, her chagrin seemed expressed more than felt.
Liz’s phone pinged as she was standing outside the front of Doodles, waiting for her mother to use the restroom. Call me, read the text from Shane.
When she did so, he did not mince words. “Your parents have a spider infestation,” he said. “We need to get pest control to the house as soon as possible.”
Liz winced. “An infestation meaning, like…?” She trailed off. “Like, how is that quantified?”
“That’s what pest control will determine, but it doesn’t look good.”
“Are the buyers still interested?” Liz asked.
“No,” Shane said. “But that’s not our biggest problem now.”