CONTRARY TO DARCY’S speculation, Liz didn’t merely read the letter; she reread it many times and with each round experienced fresh incertitude and distress. His comments about Jane were not particularly convincing. That he believed his own version of events was plausible, but she suspected that his antipathy to her family had contributed more to the part he’d played in disrupting Jane and Chip’s courtship than his doubts about Jane’s enthusiasm for his friend. She was unsurprised to learn that Caroline Bingley also had disapproved of the union.
It was Darcy’s description of Jasper Wick that gave Liz pause. Simultaneously so disturbing and so credible, it matched Jasper’s own account in many ways. And yet, was Liz really such a poor judge of character? Was Jasper not merely flawed but racist and truly reprobate? Just as their relationship had too closely and obviously resembled a cliché for her to believe it was one, Jasper had alluded too frequently to being a jerk for Liz to interpret his allusions as anything except jokes; wouldn’t a true jerk show less self-awareness?
As she’d read the letter for the first time, Liz’s stomach had tightened, and when she took her seat on the plane, she realized that the uncomfortable sensation was one of shame. The proof was plain that both her rudeness to Darcy on nearly every occasion and her faith in Jasper had been wrongly directed. Accompanying her shame was, on Jane’s behalf, a great regret, because it now seemed that misunderstanding rather than lack of affection from either party had been responsible for the collapse of Jane and Chip’s relationship. And yet, with Chip filming in Los Angeles and Jane ever more pregnant in upstate New York, a clarification that could have occurred over coffee in Cincinnati appeared logistically impossible.
That Liz herself had dismissed Darcy’s declaration of love was the one decision she didn’t regret, for she could no sooner have accepted his entreaty than she could have accepted Cousin Willie’s. She and Darcy scarcely knew each other; the entirety of their interactions had been spent either quarreling or having sex and, in one case, on the evening when they’d each wanted the other person to be on top, both. (He had acquiesced.) She wouldn’t deny that she’d had fun with Darcy, of a confined, antagonistic, and peculiar sort, but surely fun could not be the basis of a relationship. Could it?
The plane began to accelerate on the runway, and presently, they had lifted off. From her window seat, Liz watched the buildings and rolling hills shrink beneath her, the Ohio River go motionless, the cars on the highways slow to a crawl before vanishing from view. Cincinnati resembled in this moment a miniature model of the sort an architectural firm might create; it didn’t seem large enough to contain all the events of the past months. She had wondered, she now realized, if she’d make it out or end up staying forever, trapped by obligation and inertia; yet it was the very act of leaving that cast doubt on the desirability of escape. Or maybe it was nothing as symbolic as doubt, she thought as the pilot curved south; maybe all that was being cast was the shadow of her own plane over the dappled green midwestern afternoon.
Time seemed, as it always does in adulthood after a particular stretch has concluded, no matter how ponderous or unpleasant the stretch was to endure, to have passed quickly indeed.
RIDING IN A taxi from Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport to her downtown hotel, Liz called Jane’s cellphone. When her sister answered, Liz blurted out, “Jane, I had sex with Darcy four times, and this morning he came to Kitty and Mary’s apartment and said he’s in love with me.”
“Are you serious?”
“I was in my pajamas and didn’t even have a bra on.”
“What did you tell him?”
“What do you think I told him? He’s crazy.”
Jane was quiet before saying, “Maybe he’s not as bad as we thought, if he recognizes how special you are.”
“Actually, he told me I’m not beautiful, I’m not funny, I’m gossipy, and he can’t stand Mom—this is during his declaration of love. But I still don’t think he could imagine any woman, including me, turning down the chance to be his girlfriend.”
“Poor guy.”
“We’re talking about the person who came between you and Chip.”
“But think how infatuated with you he must be to swallow his pride, which we all know he has lots of.”
“Do you remember that conversation you and I had at Chip’s dinner party about how he’d bought a mountain bike for you and you didn’t know if you should accept it? Apparently, Darcy overheard us and took your hesitation about the bike as hesitation about Chip in general.”
“I can understand that.”