“I do feel like I can see things more from Chip’s perspective than I could at first,” Jane said. “What if instead of me telling him I was pregnant, he’d told me that another woman was pregnant with his child? Or if—well, the way Amanda and Prisha had Gideon was using sperm from a friend of theirs, a straight friend. If Chip had donated his sperm to a lesbian couple he was close to, no matter how carefully he’d tried to explain it, it would have seemed weird.”
“Not really. This stuff happens now.”
“But if you’re just getting to know the other person?”
“You’re being too easy on him.” Liz was, however, unsure if she really thought this or merely wished to deflect attention from herself and what she’d almost disclosed. Then she said, “Kitty solved the mystery of Mary’s evening outings. Mary doesn’t know we know, but apparently she’s in a bowling league.”
“Really?” Jane sounded tickled. “That’s so cute.”
THE DOORBELL OF the apartment, a sound Liz hadn’t previously heard, woke her just before seven in the morning. In the boxer shorts and T-shirt she’d slept in—the shirt was one she’d excavated from her closet at the Tudor, and it read HARVEST FAIR 1991 across the front—she opened the door. Insofar as she was awake enough to have any such expectations, she assumed it would be the building’s superintendent, or perhaps the landlord; but to Liz’s astonishment, it was Fitzwilliam Darcy. Instinctively, she crossed her arms over her braless chest. “What are you doing here?” she said.
“You told me your sisters’ building was at the intersection of Millsbrae and Atlantic.” Darcy’s countenance was grim: His skin was unusually pale, and there were pronounced bags beneath his eyes. He wore green scrubs, and Liz suspected he’d driven directly from his overnight shift. They looked at each other—was she supposed to invite him in?—and somewhere nearby, an oriole trilled. Darcy said, “I take it you’re still planning to leave town this afternoon?”
“Yeah, after the epic fumigation. Or after it starts—it won’t be finished for three days.”
There was a pause. Then, in a severe voice and without preamble, Darcy said, “I’m in love with you.”
“Ha, ha,” Liz said.
“It’s probably an illusion caused by the release of oxytocin during sex,” Darcy continued, “but I feel as if I’m in love with you. You’re not beautiful, and you aren’t nearly as funny as you think you are. You’re a gossip fiend who tries to pass off your nosiness as anthropological interest in the human condition. And your family, obviously, is a disgrace. Yet in spite of all common sense, I can’t stop thinking about you. The time has come for us to abandon this ridiculous pretense of hate sex and admit that we’re a couple.” Darcy had delivered this monologue stiffly, while mostly avoiding eye contact, but when he was finished, he looked expectantly at Liz.
If she had ever been so bewildered, she could not recall when. And though she understood that his remarks contained some flattering essence, she had never been more insulted. For several seconds, she searched for words and finally said, “So this isn’t—you’re not joking? Or are you?”
“I’m not joking at all.”
“Darcy, how could we possibly be a couple? We don’t even like each other.”
“That was at first.”
“For you, maybe,” Liz said. “I mean, sorry, but I still consider you a jackass. Do you imagine you’re doing me some big favor by overlooking how unattractive I am and how much you hate my family and declaring your love anyway?”
Darcy’s surprise was apparent in his widened eyes, a surprise, Liz thought, that served as further evidence of his arrogance. Tightly, he said, “I was under the impression that you appreciated candor. It wasn’t my intent to offend you.”
“How could I possibly want to be with the person who pushed Chip and Jane apart? I know now that you told him to break up with her. And I know you were part of getting Jasper kicked out of Stanford. This idea you have that your judgment is better than everyone else’s, that you alone should decide the fates of other people—the only question is if being a surgeon gave you a god complex or if your god complex is what led to your being a surgeon.”
“I see,” Darcy said. “And you believe that I have not only the will to control people’s behavior but also the power?”
“The facts speak for themselves.”
“Let me assure you that the idea for Chip to leave medicine and go back on Eligible didn’t come from me.”
“You may not have bought his plane ticket to L.A., but I’m sure you influenced him.”
“And when you suggest that I got Jasper expelled from Stanford”—Darcy’s expression was haughty—“just so I fully comprehend, was it that he was innocent and I planted evidence on him, or was it that he was guilty but I should have unilaterally decided to let him off the hook?”
“There are worse crimes than writing an idiotic story.”