Eligible. Curtis Sittenfeld

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       Chapter 25

      After Charlotte had distributed paper and pens, the newly assembled teams retreated to separate corners of the living room to generate their phrases in hushed tones.

      “Eligible,” Kitty suggested immediately, and Liz shook her head. “Too easy. Tom Cruise?”

      This time it was Lydia who gave Liz a withering look. “Tom Cruise is old and creepy.”

      “Frida Kahlo?” Mary said.

      Lydia said, “Is that a lesbian?”

      “Maybe we should do a movie,” Jane said.

      “Dirty Dancing,” Kitty said, and Liz said, “Definitely.” It would be truly gratifying, she thought, if Darcy was the person forced to act it out. After Jane ripped the place where she’d written Dirty Dancing from the larger sheet of paper, they were able to decide on additional phrases with less dispute.

      The other team wasn’t as efficient, though as Darcy had pointed out, they did not all know one another well. In addition to Darcy himself, the team was composed of Caroline, Chip, Charlotte, Nathan, and Stephen.

      When the teams convened around the living room table, they determined through a coin flipped by Chip that Team Bennet would go first. Mary selected a scrap of folded paper from the pile on the table, read it, and frowned. “I barely know what this is.”

      “No talking,” Caroline said, and Liz said, “Just start, Mary. The clock’s ticking.”

      Mary held up one palm and with the other fist mimed cranking a silent-film camera.

      “Movie!” Kitty and Lydia shouted together.

      Mary held up four fingers.

      “Four words,” Jane said. “You’re doing great.”

      Mary paused and thought.

      “For God’s sake, Mary,” Lydia said. “Get over yourself.”

      Mary held up four fingers again, and Liz said, “Fourth word.”

      Mary flung her hands out from her waist as if shooing away a swarm of insects. “A grass skirt?” Liz ventured. “Elvis Presley? Blue Hawaii?”

      Mary shook her head and repeated the gesture.

      “Going pee!” Kitty shouted. “Peeing everywhere! Shitting in your pants!”

      “Exploding with diarrhea!” Lydia cried. “Pepto-Bismol! Having your period!” As Mary shook her head sternly and the two youngest sisters giggled, Liz abruptly understood the nature of the discomfort that had been thrumming within her since Caroline Bingley and Fitzwilliam Darcy had entered Charlotte’s apartment: What would have been a night of inconsequential silliness was now unfolding before the judgmental gaze of outsiders. Thus, the game resembled an audition in which Darcy and Caroline’s negative impressions of Cincinnati would either be confirmed or contradicted. But why did the duo deserve, simply by reason of their imperiousness, for everyone present to strive to win their favorable opinion? Or no, not everyone—certainly not Lydia and Kitty—and if the youngest sisters’ indifference to the outsiders humiliated Liz, it was her own humiliation that she found infuriating. Let Caroline and Darcy think badly of Cincinnati and its inhabitants! Why should she care? But, unaccountably, she did.

      Mary waved one hand back and forth, as if attempting to erase the previous gestures, then held up a finger.

      “First word,” Jane said.

      Mary held up two fingers.

      “Two syllables,” Liz said.

      Mary again held up one finger.

      “First syllable,” Liz said.

      Mary cupped her hand around her right ear.

      “Sounds like,” Jane and Liz both said.

      Mary tapped her knee. “Bee’s knees,” Jane said at the same time Liz said, “I need you.” Mary was shaking her head. She patted her leg, this time higher, and Kitty said, “Thigh meat. Dark meat. Chicken breast.”

      “Tits and ass!” Lydia yelled.

      Thankfully, this was when the timer went off, and in a tone indicating that she felt the failure was her sisters’ rather than her own, Mary said, “Legends of the Fall.”

      “What the fuck is that?” Lydia said.

      “It’s a movie,” Liz said. “Actually, a book, too, but Brad Pitt was in the movie.”

      “Then why didn’t you do that?” Kitty said to Mary. “It’s not like you don’t have an armpit.”

      “No, that was hard,” Jane said. “Even if we’d had more time, I don’t think I could have gotten it.”

      “I still don’t understand why you were pretending to have diarrhea,” Lydia said, and Mary said with impatience, “It was fall like waterfall.”

      Liz avoided looking at either Darcy or Caroline as Nathan from Procter & Gamble stood and took a scrap of paper from his team’s pile. When he’d unfolded it, he made the same camera-cranking gesture Mary had.

      “Movie,” Charlotte said.

      Nathan raised a finger.

      “One word,” Chip said.

      Nathan СКАЧАТЬ