Georgie looked both interested and confused. She said, “Did someone come and do it for you, or did she do it herself?”
“No, she did it. I can ask if she was following a script or just winging it.”
“If you want to learn about moving superstitions, you should talk to my Chinese grandma,” Georgie’s suitor said. He was still talking when suddenly Darcy was beside Liz; he touched her arm just above the elbow, and again, she felt she might swoon. Instead, in an impossibly normal voice, she said, “Hi.”
As Georgie and her suitor continued their conversation, Darcy said, “I wonder if you’re free to get breakfast tomorrow.”
“Oh,” Liz said. “Sure.”
“It would have to be early, because there’s a group hike planned. Of course, you and Charlotte are welcome to join that, too.”
Aware that her friend would probably contradict the statement, Liz said, “I need to give Charlotte some undivided attention, since she’s the reason I’m in California, but breakfast sounds great.”
“Is eight A.M. uncivilized?”
“It’s perfect.”
“If you text me Charlotte’s address, I’ll pick you up.”
So he felt it, too. Or he felt, at least, something. He wanted to be alone with her, even if, judging from his calmness, he didn’t want it as much as she wanted to be alone with him. She yearned to fling her body against his, to smash her face into his shirt, kiss his neck and face, and take him away to where she didn’t have to share him.
Blandly, she said, “Charlotte and Willie live in Palo Alto. Their house is really close to here.”
“MY BROTHER,” GEORGIE whispered, and she gripped Liz’s wrist. It was dusk, and Liz and Charlotte would be leaving momentarily, though Charlotte and the nephrologist were caught up in a heated discussion about earthquakes. “I think he likes you,” Georgie continued, still whispering. Liz’s buzz had worn off, but she wondered if the other woman was drunk; if so, Liz was surprised, given the caloric content of alcohol. “Seriously,” Georgie said. “And it’s perfect, because I’ve always been scared he’ll end up with Caroline Bingley, and she sucks.”
Yes, Georgie was definitely drunk, which did not mean she wasn’t to be trusted. In the fading light, Liz regarded the younger woman. “For what it’s worth, I agree with you,” she said. “Caroline does suck.”
“Do you like Fitzy?”
Liz hesitated only briefly. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”
“As in like him?”
Liz smiled. “I knew what you meant, and the answer is still yes.”
Georgie pulled her phone from her pocket. “Give me your number, and next time I’m in New York, you and Jillian Northcutt and I should have coffee.”
“Here.” Liz reached for the phone and typed the numbers in herself. She wondered if Georgie would recall their conversation in the morning and, if she did, whether she’d repeat it to her brother.
Passing back the phone, Liz said, “I can’t speak for Jillian Northcutt, but I’d be delighted to see you anytime.”
HE PICKED HER up on time, in a gray SUV with California license plates; the morning was sunny again but still cool, and Liz had slept even less the previous night than the night before that. Around four A.M., she had decided there was nothing to do but ask him for another chance. As geographically inconvenient and temperamentally implausible as a relationship between them seemed, she wanted it; she wanted it desperately, and she needed to know if he did, too.
Riding to the restaurant he’d selected—the Palo Alto Creamery, though the food was, of course, irrelevant—she felt them inhabiting some simulacrum of coupledom that was both torturous and enticing. His right hand resting on the gear shift near her left knee, his forearm with its brown hair, the almost imperceptible scent of whatever male shampoo or soap or aftershave he used—she could barely stand it. His handsomeness this early in the day was devastating and unmanageable, and so she reverted to small talk. She inquired whether everyone else in the house had been asleep when he’d left, and Darcy confirmed that they had; she asked if a late night had ensued after her and Charlotte’s departure, and he again answered in the affirmative; she noted that he must be exhausted, and he said he was accustomed to sleep deprivation.
Turning onto Emerson Street, Darcy said, “Georgie thinks you’re great.”
“Oh, it’s mutual,” Liz said. “She’s charming.”
“I wish you and my mom could have met. You would have gotten a kick out of each other.”
Liz’s heart squeezed. “I wish I could have met her, too. She sounds very cool.”
Darcy glanced across the front seat. “Seeing Georgie—did she look different from how you pictured? Or maybe you didn’t picture her a particular way.”
A certain giddiness drained out of Liz, which was okay; giddiness was, after all, difficult to sustain. Carefully, she said, “She’s very thin, obviously. Is that what you mean?”