Beginning, Previous Section, Section XVII, Next Section
The first day of December dawned cold but clear. The forecast was calling for snow sometime during the next week, but thankfully, it seemed as though this first day was going to be fine. As Darcy shoved back the covers on his bed, he glanced out the window and murmured, "Thank God." Shivering at the cold he felt the moment he was uncovered, he turned and glanced at the other side of the bed. He wasn't surprised to see that Elisabeth was laying on her side with only a thin sheet draping her. Darcy briefly considered wrapping his duvet around her, but it would do no good. She would only kick it off seconds after he did, grumbling in her sleep that it was too hot.
How anyone can be too hot in weather like this is beyond me, Darcy thought as he grabbed a thick robe and hurried into the bathroom. And yet Elisabeth was constantly hot and gulping down ice water at work. She'd felt faint the other day when she'd been working at the cut table during a particularly vicious rush and only a quick trip outside in the fresh, freezing air had made her feel better. Despite this, she still planned to work until the end of the next schedule, two weeks before her due date.
He took as hot a shower as he could stand only to start freezing again the minute he stepped out. With a resigned sigh, he wrapped himself in the robe again and tied it securely. If Elisabeth was hot, the least he could do was to keep the temperature around sixty-six for her. Never mind that while she walked around the house in a huge maternity T-shirt and shorts, he was in a thick wool sweater and jeans with two pairs of socks on. She was comfortable, and at this point, that was the important thing.
But Darcy couldn't help but think of December seventeenth with longing. He prayed the baby might even decide to be a bit early so he could go back to being comfortable in his own place. The minute such a thought entered his mind, he immediately felt guilty. The inconvenience of being cold was nothing to what Elisabeth was going through just being pregnant.
After brushing his teeth and running a comb through his recently-trimmed hair, Darcy walked into the kitchen and started brewing coffee, hoping the smell would wake Elisabeth up even if she couldn't have any of it. He opened his refrigerator to see what he could make for breakfast. He'd learned to scramble eggs although it had taken him several tries, and even he knew how to make toast. He took out the carton of eggs and the half-gallon of milk with a smile on his face.
Darcy was just buttering the toast when he heard the bathroom door shut, meaning Elisabeth was awake. Darcy grinned. He knew the smell of coffee would wake her up, and if it didn't, breakfast would. He set the toast on the table and then poured himself a cup of coffee with cream. He was setting Elisabeth's glass of milk on the table when the bathroom door opened and Elisabeth walked out wearing a T-shirt over her very swollen stomach and a pair of cut-off sweat pants.
"Good morning, El," he said cheerfully. "You've got good timing."
"I guess so," she murmured, taking a seat at the table. "Is it snowing outside?"
"No. Looks like we'll get this whole mess out of the way with a minimum of trouble from Mother Nature." Darcy took a bite of his eggs and grinned. They were perfect, in his opinion. "Jenna picked a hell of a time to move out."
Elisabeth shook her head. "She'd still be living with us if Jack hadn't decided to move home after all." She took a bite of toast with a small frown on her face. Darcy knew what she thinking about----the same thing they'd all been thinking about since Chazz had mentioned that he was looking for a new roommate because Jack was going to live with his mother again. "I wish I knew why Jack changed his mind."
"She is his mother," Darcy pointed out.
"I know, I know. But..." Elisabeth set her fork down with a clatter without bothering to put eggs on it. "I don't get that family! You'd think I, of all people, would understand that family because of my mother. But those sisters of his are worse than my mother has ever been. I can't imagine what it must've been like to grow up in that house. Jack's mother cherished him to the point of suffocation because he was her last link to a man who abandoned her while his sisters blamed him for everything that went wrong in their lives."
"Your mother isn't mentally ill. She's just...well, she is what she is." Darcy decided to take the diplomatic approach when talking about Ruth Atchison, having been exposed to her several times since their first meeting and still having no clue as to what motivated her feelings toward her second daughter. "But I'm wondering the same thing you are. You told me that Jack was adamant that he wouldn't move back home at the end of August when she went to the hospital."
"Yes." Elisabeth took a bite of her eggs. After swallowing, she said, "I'm not about to pry, though. I felt so bad about badgering Charlie until I found out what was wrong with Mrs. Middleton that I swore to myself that I'd never do it again. I crossed the line and became a Gossip Sister that day. I could excuse it by saying I was only asking out of concern for Jack's welfare, but the truth was, that wasn't my main motivation."
"It's not like you told anyone but me, and I didn't tell anyone at all."
"I know, I know. I still felt like a squashed cabbage leaf." Elisabeth took another bite of toast. "Well, whatever his reasons, it's opened the door for Jenna and Chazz to give living together a try."
Darcy almost groaned as a smug expression made its' way onto Elisabeth's face. When he'd heard what Elisabeth, Charlie and Jack had done to bring Jenna and Chazz back together, he'd cringed at their audacity and arrogance. Why, he wondered, had they thought that a silly plan like that would work? If two people didn't want to be together anymore, you couldn't force them to be together. It was as simple as that.
But Chazz and Jenna had gotten back together again, which only made Elisabeth believe in the rightness of their plan. Darcy supposed they'd been right, because after talking through their misunderstandings and going on a few hesitant dates where they'd done little besides talk, Chazz and Jenna were back and happier than before. Now that Jack was moving out of the townhouse he shared with Chazz, Jenna was moving in over her mother's strenuous objections.
Darcy really only had one objection to Jenna's departure from the apartment downstairs, and that was because he couldn't ask Elisabeth to move in with him. Even though Elisabeth spent more time in his apartment than hers these days, including all of her nights because Charlie had point-blank refused to "live in an igloo," as she'd put it when Elisabeth started turning down the heat in their apartment, she was still paying rent and utilities on the apartment she shared with Charlie. It wouldn't be fair to Charlie if Elisabeth moved out at the same time Jenna did. Charlie simply didn't make enough money to cover what the monthly expenses would be.
Darcy had hesitantly suggested that maybe Charlie could look for a roommate, but Elisabeth shook her head. "She'd rather live alone than with someone she barely knows," she'd said. "She lived with a girl before that she knew from work and that turned out badly."
In the recesses of his mind, Darcy seemed to remember that he'd been introduced to Charlie's old roommate in his first few days of working at the store----a very tall redhead named Amanda, or something like that. The girl had seemed nice enough, but he supposed you really didn't know someone until you lived with them for a while, something he was discovering now that Elisabeth had all but moved in with him.
"Did Charlie get the day off to help us out?" Darcy asked before sipping his coffee.
Elisabeth shook her head. "She got a crisis client in last night, so she's having to work all day. She was going to take her only personal day so she could have tonight off, but now she's having to work the whole shift. I personally think it sucks, but she can't do anything about it. She's already volunteered to work third shifts this week for the extra money."
"Third shifts?"
"Yeah. When they have a crisis client, they like to have an extra person work at the house to watch over them and make sure he or she doesn't try to do anything during the night. Charlie says she doesn't mind it----she gets to work on her screenplay and gets paid for it at the same time. Nice work if you can get it, I say."
Darcy chuckled. "I suspect Charlie does a little more than that. Has she heard about that promotion she was supposed to get or whatever it was?"
"Nope. I think she's getting a little ticked about it, too, but not so much because she hasn't heard anything on it. Her father's been driving her up the wall about it."
"Her father?"
"Yeah. Uncle Joe's a great guy, make no mistake, but when it comes to Charlie he's a little...pushy. Charlie's always been the smart sister in her family, and her father's always trying to make sure she makes the most of her life. I don't know how he feels about her dreams of being a screenwriter, but he was the one to encourage her to get her psychology degree so she'd be able to get a job when she left college. She made the mistake of telling him she might be getting a full-time position. Ever since then, he's been asking her if she's had a chance to talk to her boss about it and when it might be coming through."
"He doesn't know that Charlie would rather be tortured than do something like that?" Darcy questioned.
"Oh, he knows, all right. He just wants her to get over it and ask about it. Uncle Joe's perfect child would have Charlie's brains, Danie's street smart attitude, and Andie's competitive spirit." Elisabeth finished off the eggs.
"So has she asked about it?"
Elisabeth swallowed and nodded. "She hated doing it, too. She didn't want to seem belligerent about it and she's afraid that's how she came off looking. And all she found out was that there hadn't been any decision about it. She's decided that if she doesn't get on full-time, she's going to quit both here and there and go to work in a factory."
Darcy nearly sputtered. "I don't see that happening," he said when he was under control again. "Charlie would hate doing factory work."
"Neither do I, really. I think this is another one of Charlie's frustrated comments, like when she used to swear she'd shoot herself if she was still working for Planet Earth Pizza in 2000. I think what'll happen is that she'll keep working both jobs until something becomes full time in that residential program she works for when there isn't someone there for crisis counseling, then make the switch." Elisabeth grimaced and rubbed her stomach. "Ow. Little brat."
"Kicking again?"
"Uh-huh. I'm telling you, Dare, if this girl doesn't become the next Mia Hamm, I'm going to be very upset after all the kicking she's done the past two months. And to think I was so excited when she first started doing this."
"Look on the bright side. You're down to the last three weeks. Seventeen days, and she'll be here." Darcy took her free hand in his.
"I hope you're right. I don't think I can take much more of this." Elisabeth sighed and in her eyes Darcy saw something he'd seen more often as her due date approached----a hint of fear. He'd asked her about it once, but she hadn't said anything. He wondered if it was the delivery she feared, or if it was the fact that the child she'd been speaking of in general terms for nine months was about to become a living being. He wished she would confide in him, but he tried to understand that she couldn't right now.
Darcy opened his mouth to ask her if she was all right when the phone rang. It was Jenna, asking if they were ready to get started at Jack's place.
Jack had made things easier by moving most of his things out of the townhouse when he'd had time during the week. Between his work at Planet Earth Pizza and teaching night classes, there hadn't been a great deal of time, but he'd done his best and most of what was left were things that would require a truck to move----his bed, dressers, the dining room table and chairs and entertainment center, and other odds and ends that he hadn't been able to get to or things he'd left for Chazz's use until that Sunday.
According to Chazz, Jack hadn't slept in the townhouse since Friday, when his mother had been released from the hospital. No one had seen Jack since Friday, for that matter, but when Elisabeth caught her first glimpse of him, she nearly gasped at haggard his face looked. It looked as though he hadn't slept in two days, and perhaps he hadn't. Jack had always looked younger than his thirty-three years, but now he looked almost...old.
Mustering a smile, Elisabeth said, "Hey, Jack."
"Hi." Jack was packing computer books into a box with the care someone would give fine china.
"Um...Charlie says she's sorry she can't make it, but..."
"She had a crisis client and had to work all day. I already know." Jack lifted the box to make sure the bottom would hold with the weight of the books. Satisfied, he folded the flaps of it in, took a black marker, and wrote "COMPUTER BOOKS" on the top. Setting the marker down, he picked up the box again and started heading for the door.
"Oh, she called?" Elisabeth followed him outside, holding the door for him.
"Yeah." Jack walked to the truck, borrowed from Sean for the day, and set the box as far towards the back as he could.
"When did she call?" Elisabeth asked.
Jack shrugged. "I don't really remember. Sometime yesterday, that's all." He walked back into the house, grabbed another box, and started filling it with more computer books. Occasionally, he would smile at one of the titles, thumb through it casually, then put it in with the others. "Hey, how's your grandmother doing?"
"Granny Bess?" At Jack's nod, Elisabeth replied, "Recovering slowly. She still has a lot of trouble moving her left side and talking is all but impossible, but she recognizes people when they come to see her and she tries to say their names. She even tried to smile when Darcy and I stopped by the other day." Elisabeth didn't mention that the sight had brought tears of relief and sadness to her eyes. Relief because it appeared that Granny Bess was going to survive this setback, and sadness at how big a setback it had been.
"I'm glad to hear that. I know it looked bad there for a long time."
"Yeah. We were convinced that this time she was...she wasn't going to make it..." God, how it hurt to say the words! "But she's pulled through, at least part of the way. Now she's got to get as well as she possibly can."
Jack nodded. "I know a lot about that," he said quietly.
Elisabeth knew if there were ever a time she would ask about his decision to move back home, it would be now, but the memory of the day three months ago when she had pried into his personal life nudged her into keeping silent. She turned her attention to a free box that she could put Jack's share of the kitchen utensils in. When she looked up again, she saw that he was staring at her as though he'd expected her to ask him.
"Are you okay?" she asked, putting a hand on his arm.
Jack took a deep breath. "No, not really. But like your grandmother, I have to make the best of a bad situation." He took the hand she'd placed on his arm and kissed it before letting it go. "Thanks."
Elisabeth smiled at him and nodded.
"Hey, Jack! Do you really have to take all the CDs? Can't you leave me just a few until I can swipe my collection from my sister?" Chazz asked, poking his head in the door.
"You'll have Jenna's collection," Elisabeth pointed out.
Chazz gave her a look. "I know you didn't just tell me to listen to Kenny G and Michael Bolton. Are you nuts? I get enough of that crap at work. C'mon, man! Just leave me the Creedence Clearwater Revival CDs and I'll be happy."
"Can't do it, Chazz. CCR mellows me out. You know that." Jack tested the box he'd finished packing before closing and marking it.
"Don't you have a CD burner on your computer?" Elisabeth asked.
Jack paused before lifting the box. "Damn, I wish I'd thought of that before today. El, do you think Charlie would mind if we used hers?"
"Not at all, but I'm warning you now----hers takes forever and doesn't always work. For some reason, it doesn't like copying CDs as much as it used to. Charlie says it must've developed a conscience on her when she wasn't looking."
"Hmm. I'm surprised she didn't have me take a look at it." Jack shrugged. "Well, give it your best shot." He disappeared upstairs and returned a moment later with a CD carrying case, which he handed to Chazz. "If you lose the one that took me a year to track down, I'll kill you."
Chazz saluted him smartly before disappearing.
"Jenna does not have a single Michael Bolton CD in her collection," Elisabeth said. "I know this because Charlie and I threw it out when she came home from St. Louis."
Jack laughed, a familiar and pleasant sound that brought some animation back to his face. Michael Bolton jokes were a staple of Planet Earth Pizza employees, who were forced to listen to his music when no one put money in the jukebox. When De Bourgh Enterprises had bought the place, someone had come up with the brilliant idea to play pleasant, soothing music every two minutes if no one was willing to spend the money to shut it up. Fortunately, this interval had been increased to every five minutes, but it still meant that they heard enough Michael Bolton to make them scream.
"Did you ever ask Darcy who came up with that lamebrain idea?" Jack asked, picking up the box and walking to the door.
Elisabeth almost answered until something about his question struck her as being odd and kept her silent. As she held the door open for him, she frowned. His question insinuated that Jack knew the truth about Darcy, which was impossible because the only people who knew besides herself were Jenna, Charlie, Sean and Rachel. No one else was supposed to know.
So how had Jack found out?
She waited until Jack returned to the house before asking, "Why would I ask Darcy something like that?"
Jack stopped just short of reaching the remaining stack of books to be packed away. He blushed slightly before saying, "Um...it was something...Chazz mentioned, that's all. Something about Darcy being related out our supposedly-esteemed boss in New York."
So Jenna had told Chazz that, too. With a heap of mental curses hurled at her absent sister, Elisabeth said, "No, I never asked him. Does the entire damn store now know that Darcy is Catherine de Bourgh's nephew?"
"I doubt it. If Caroline knew, she wouldn't have finally given up on her efforts to win Darcy's affections, or get him in a compromising position, or whatever it was she was doing until the end of August. And if anyone outside of the Gossip Sisters knows, they probably could care less. Darcy's proven himself." Jack packed the last of the books hurriedly, without the care he'd shown before, and without bothering to check the weight of the box started to pick it up.
With a groan, he set it back on the table. "Too heavy," he muttered, taking some of the books out.
"What can I do?" Elisabeth asked. "Other than open the door for you when your hands are full, that is."
"Pack up my odds and ends. There's not much. You'll probably have more to do helping Jenna move in than you will with me moving out." Jack closed the box again.
As it turned out, Jack was right, because Jenna hadn't been nearly as diligent in getting all of her things ready for a move from the apartment. Jenna claimed this was because she'd thought most of her things were still in boxes from when she'd moved out in August, left unpacked due to lack of space, but it turned out to be wishful thinking. By the early afternoon, all of Jack's things had been moved to his mother's and they were ready to start moving Jenna, which was when the miscalculation was discovered.
"You've had nearly three weeks, Jen!" Elisabeth grumbled as she grabbed one of the boxes they'd swiped from the store and started cramming psychology books into it. "Why didn't you start doing this when you knew you were moving out?"
"I didn't realize how much I'd unpacked," Jenna replied hotly. "Hey! Watch it with those! They're expensive."
Elisabeth glanced at the heavy red book she'd been about to throw into the box. "What is this book, anyway?" she asked. "DSM-IV?"
"That's the manual we use to diagnose illnesses." Jenna took the book and delicately put it in the box.
"You mean you don't just go up to a person who's hearing voices and tell them they're schizophrenic or whatever?"
"No, because a person who hears voices isn't necessarily schizophrenic. There are a number of mental illnesses which include auditory hallucinations. Schizophrenia is just the illness most commonly associated with that phenomenon."
Elisabeth batted at her sister with Jenna's only little throw pillow. "Show-off. What would that be if you were speaking English?"
"I was speaking English----how did that get out? I could've sworn that was still boxed up with the extra pillows I brought with me!"
"You dragged it out one night because you misplaced Charlie's, remember? Hers turned up three days later behind the couch where Chazz had deliberately dropped it because he thought it was ugly." Elisabeth smiled at the memory. Charlie, outraged, had pelted Chazz with it the moment he'd showed up that evening to pick Jenna up for a date.
"Oh, yeah, I remember now." Jenna smiled as well as she took the pillow and set it aside for later, to be put back in the box she'd dug it out of. "Chazz wants to get her a new one for Christmas. He's praying he draws her name in the gift exchange at the store."
"A new throw pillow? He'd be taking his life into his own hands doing that. Besides, he's out of luck. Sean and I drew the names yesterday and Chazz is stuck getting Kit a gift."
Jenna paused. "That should prove interesting. I'm sure Chazz had a number of ideas for what he could get her. Can I tell him, or do you want to do it?"
"Let him find out tomorrow with everyone else when Sean posts the list on the bulletin board."
"Whose name did you get?"
Elisabeth sighed. "Are you ready for this? Caroline Benson."
Jenna snickered. "You're kidding."
"I wish. Sean asked me if I'd like to switch with someone since it would just be the two of us who'd know, but silly me, I told him that Caroline would be fine. I said I could think of any number of things to get her as a gift, but none of them are really appropriate."
"A knuckle sandwich being tops on your list?"
"Uh-huh." Elisabeth filled the box as full as it could get before closing it with heavy tape and writing "JENNA'S EGO-BOOSTING BOOKS" on the top. Before Jenna could see what she'd written, Elisabeth set a stray book on top of the writing. "I'll probably just get her something generic, like a gift basket from Bath & Body Works."
"That's always a nice gift, as long as the person you're trying to give it to isn't..."
"Bubba," Elisabeth finished with her sister, the two of them laughing.
"What's so funny?" Darcy asked as he walked into the apartment.
"Old joke," Elisabeth told him. "Ready to do some heavy lifting?"
"Do you want me to answer that honestly?" Darcy looked like he wanted to protest when Elisabeth pointed to the box sitting on the dining room table, but he went to pick it up anyway. He removed the books that were on top of it, read Elisabeth's words, and smiled. Without saying a word to Jenna, he went to pick it up and nearly dropped the whole box on his foot. "God! Elisabeth, did you have to pack it full? It weighs a ton!"
"I'm sorry," Elisabeth said contritely. "I didn't think about that. I was just thinking of getting as much junk in there as I could."
"Obviously."
"Want me to give you a hand with it?" Jenna asked, grabbing one side of it before he could answer. She glanced at the writing on the box, then took a closer look. With a dark look at Elisabeth, she shuffled along with Darcy to the door. With as cheesy a grin as she could muster, Elisabeth watched them walk out before returning to what she'd been doing.
Chazz walked into the apartment and glanced at Charlie's computer, which was still on and still copying music. "You weren't kidding when you said this thing was slow," he muttered. "She couldn't have gotten a better one than this?"
"Not at the time she bought it, no," Elisabeth replied as a dull throb settled into her lower back, causing her to wince. She hadn't thought she'd been doing much of anything, since all she'd done at Jack's was open doors and pack up little items, but lately just the act of standing on her feet for long periods of time caused her back to ache.
Chazz made a derisive snort and looked around him. "Did Jenna tell Charlie that we're leaving her the bed?"
"Leaving wasn't quite the word Jenna used. Jenna used the word 'sell' when she talked to Charlie."
"Aah, she was joking with her. Jenna's gonna give that to her as a Christmas gift. She intended to do that all along. Speaking of Charlie and Christmas, did I get her name in the gift exchange?"
"You'll find out tomorrow."
"That's a no." Chazz sighed. "At least tell me that I didn't get Bubba."
"Okay. You didn't get Bubba." Elisabeth bent down to pick up Jenna's house slippers and nearly fell down completely. She bumped her head on the dining room table and cried out in pain.
"Elisabeth!" Darcy had returned in time to see her nearly fall and pulled her upright with firm hands. He practically marched her to the couch and sat her down. "Sweetheart, are you all right?"
"I'm fine," she replied. "I just..." Elisabeth's eyes filled with tears. "I don't know what happened, Dare! One minute I was fine and talking to Chazz, and the next minute I felt like I was going to fall and...and..."
"It's okay," he said soothingly, taking her into his arms as she started crying. Chazz and Jenna tactfully went to make sure what they'd packed into the truck so far wouldn't come flying out when they took off. The crying jag lasted for about two minutes before Elisabeth started to feel a little guilty that she'd made a big deal out of something rather silly.
"I'm going to be okay," she said, withdrawing from his embrace. "You should get back to helping and...stuff."
"Are you sure?" Darcy looked at her with concern in his eyes. Elisabeth nodded, hoping she looked reassuring. Something in the swift kiss he gave her made her think that it hadn't worked. "Okay, then. But you're going to park yourself on this couch and snarl orders at us, and nothing more. Got it?"
"I can handle the snarling part just fine."
"How well I remember." Darcy grinned at her as he went through his usual struggle to get off the couch to rejoin the other two.
Elisabeth's smile lasted until Darcy left the room. She maneuvered herself on the couch until she was lying on it, looking up at the ceiling. She hated these little crying jags that had become more frequent of late, because she had never been the weepy type, nor was she the type to blame everything on her hormones. But what other explanation could there be for the way she'd been acting lately? It wasn't like she was depressed or upset about anything, except maybe about the fact that she didn't get too Darcy as much as she would like due to their differing schedules.
She hated the occasional mood swings even more. Elisabeth had figured that she'd been through the worst of those after she'd found out she was pregnant, but to her frustration, she hadn't. As she plodded ever closer to her due date, Elisabeth found her temper getting shorter and exploding quicker than Charlie on her worst day. Immediately following an explosion came the remorse and yet another crying spell.
It didn't help that she'd been having to work with J.P. a lot and having to put up with Bubba and his habit of coming in hung over because Sean had been too wrapped up with problems in Vandalia and Tasha's upcoming adoption, which for some reason still hadn't gone through all the legal hurdles. And there was the George situation, which she couldn't get resolved until after the baby was born despite the fact that the tests had proven that he was the baby's father.
To top it all off, Elisabeth was petrified that someone would find out how scared she was of the whole mess. Not just the delivery, which was scary enough in its' own right, but also the fact that when it was all over, she was going to be a mother.
A mother.
Elisabeth was terrified that she wasn't ready to be a mother. Sure, she had all the outward trappings of motherhood. She had baby clothes and bottles and diapers and...the list was so long that she got dizzy thinking about everything she had. But what kept her up late at night sometimes was the fear that she'd forgotten something, that when the baby arrived there would be something she wouldn't have that her daughter would need to survive. It was no use telling herself that she could get anything her child would need. The fear lingered on, and Elisabeth knew, in her heart, that it wasn't just the fear of forgetting a material item that kept her awake.
Elisabeth's fear was that she wasn't emotionally ready to be a parent.
In so many ways, Elisabeth wanted to be like the carefree young adult she'd been at this time last year, the young woman who ran her own store in Newton, hung out with her friends every night and had fun, and was contemplating the idea of finally having that fling with George Wickham that she'd been thinking about ever since the first time she'd seen his cute butt in blue jeans. She thought that in some ways, she still was that person, only a little different. A little wiser, hopefully, since the last of those things she'd been doing last year had gotten her into her present predicament.
The baby was going to be a heavy responsibility, and not just one she'd have for a while before moving on to something else. This baby was her responsibility for the rest of her life. She was reminded, when she got to thinking this way, of what Jason Robards had said in Parenthood about how you never reach the end zone and get to do your touchdown dance as a parent. No matter how old you got, it was still your job.
And what if she turned into her mother? Ruth's words to her the night she'd informed her family she was pregnant echoed in her mind all the time. "I don't think I've ever known you...I carried you for nine months, but I don't think I understood you from the moment you set eyes on me." What if that happened when she looked at her own daughter? How could she face the possibility that she might treat her child the way she'd been treated----with love, but a distant, second-place kind of love?
It was going to be the most difficult and important thing Elisabeth would ever do, and she was scared that she wasn't going to do it right. Some nights, when she couldn't sleep, she caught herself thinking of adoption again, thinking of how much simpler it would be to just have the baby and give it up to someone who had no doubts in her mind about becoming a mother, someone like Rachel, for example. She would weep as silently as she could on those nights, not wanting to wake Darcy up for fear she'd have to tell him the truth.
How could she tell him about her second thoughts----Darcy, who was preparing to be the father to a child that wasn't even his? He obviously hadn't given it another thought since he'd announced to her family that he was going to take on this responsibility. He was clearly looking forward to the baby's arrival. He'd even helped Jenna and Charlie plan her baby shower! No, Elisabeth couldn't tell Darcy what was troubling her so much, even though he'd asked and probably suspected the truth.
Elisabeth turned her back to the room and snuggled into the warmth of the couch. Hot shame flushed her cheeks at the thoughts she was having, and her eyes filled with tears again. She wished that for once, she had something more than the chills to warn her about what the future held. Not knowing what would happen in seventeen days----hopefully less----was driving her insane.
"I just wish she'd tell me what was wrong," Darcy confessed to Jenna as he looped a rope around a stack of boxes. "Has she said anything to you about it, or maybe Charlie?"
Jenna shook her head. "No, but that's become something of the norm since you two got together. I doubt she's said anything to Charlie, either. I wasn't bothered by this because she had you, but now you're telling me she's cut off that line of communication..."
"Use small words, would you, Jen? Not all of us have the expensive education you've got," Chazz called from the passenger seat, where he was draping the seat belt around a large box.
Jenna frowned at him. "If this is going to lead to another discussion about why you have to change your major from electrical engineering to computer science, all I'll say is, not now. I swear, I'd love to shoot Jack for asking you to be his teaching guinea pig. Ever since you started being his audience for his lectures, you've talked about nothing but..."
"You're right. We'll talk later. You were saying, Darcy, that El's stopped talking to you?"
"No, she hasn't stopped talking to me. We're not fighting or anything like that. But every time I bring up the baby, she gets this look in her eyes like she's...she's..."
"Bambi on the run from hunters?" Chazz suggested. "I can see it now. The baby dressed in hunting gear with a toy gun, saying, 'Be vewy, vewy qwiet. I'm hunting Lizzies.' And then laughing."
"Only her baby wouldn't be hunting Lizzies, it would hunting Els. Elisabeth hates being called Lizzy. You know that," Jenna pointed out while obviously trying not to laugh at the image Chazz had created.
"Yeah, but it's far more likely that a baby, trying to say 'Elisabeth,' would naturally start out with 'Lizzy.' Eventually, her mama would teach her to say 'El.'"
"Hopefully, her mama would teach her to say 'Mama,'" Darcy said, bringing the ends of the rope together and tying a knot in it. "She's scared. Of the baby or of the delivery, I don't know. She won't say. I'm not angry about this or anything, but I know there are nights when she cries herself to sleep and I want so badly to comfort her, only if I tell her that I know she's crying, she'll get embarrassed or mad at me. Right now, I'm doing my best to avoid getting on her bad side."
"You're about the only one who isn't," Chazz muttered.
"Chazz," Jenna hissed.
"Well, it's true. I'm not going to lie."
"I don't know what to do. I was hoping maybe she had talked to you, because you're her sister and a woman. That's not a sexist statement," Darcy hastened to add before Jenna could react, "I just meant that you might have a better idea of what she's going through than I would."
"No, I wouldn't. I've never been pregnant, and neither has Charlie." Jenna crossed her arms over her chest. "I wish she had a better relationship with Ma. She'd be the perfect person for El to talk to, since she's had three of her own, but you know how their relationship is. Granny Bess would've been good to go to for advice, but..."
"Yeah, I know."
Jenna and Darcy stood there in dejected silence until Jenna said, "You know what? Don't worry about it. Elisabeth can't stay silent forever. Eventually, she's gonna talk to you, or me and Charlie, or the baby's going to come and whatever it is she fears will go away. Just hang in there, Darcy."
"I'm good at that," he said with a sigh. "I always have been."
Jenna fixed him with a look. "Speaking of hanging in there, I wanted to ask you something."
"Go ahead."
"Are you planning to make an honest woman of my sister anytime soon?" Jenna asked.
Darcy snickered. "An 'honest woman?' Didn't that phrase die out sometime in the sixties?"
"Maybe it did, but you're evading the question. You took the big leap when you told everyone you were taking responsibility for the baby, but my mother's starting to get that look..."
"Yeah, I know. She wants to know when I intend to marry your sister, just like you do, apparently. She thinks that my lack of a proposal means I'm not going to stick around. I don't intend to propose just to make her happy." Darcy sighed. "I'm not evading the marriage issue. As a matter of fact, I...um, I have the ring."
"You do!" Jenna shrieked.
"Shhhh!" Darcy hissed. "I don't want Elisabeth to know yet. I want it to be a surprise. I've got a day off Tuesday and she's only going to be working until four, then she's off Wednesday. I'm going to take her to Decatur so we can have a nice dinner, provided I don't get lost driving there, and then I'm going to propose. Then we'll go to a hotel and spend the night."
"That sounds lovely," Jenna said with a sigh.
"As long as everything works out. I was thinking of waiting until after the baby's born, but then I feared that Elisabeth might not want to be away from her so soon, or that we won't be able to find someone to babysit the night I'd want to take her. It's easier to do now." Darcy smiled. "I always intended to marry your sister, Jenna. I love her. Don't think that's changed just because I haven't asked her yet."
Jenna nodded. "I didn't doubt that. It's just...well, it's been a while since you said you were going to take care of Elisabeth and the baby. It seemed a bit long. I didn't mean to sound like my mother."
"You didn't. You were concerned about Elisabeth, whereas your mother's more concerned with what the neighbors will think if Elisabeth has the baby without even getting a marriage proposal. They might start saying I've changed my mind, don't you know." Darcy winked. "But I haven't."
The next morning, Elisabeth didn't bother waking up Darcy before leaving to get ready for work. He'd gotten home very late, calling her from the store to tell her that Lucy had walked out in the middle of the rush because she'd had a fight with Bubba and that he would have to stay and close. Elisabeth had been feeling more and more tired lately and had gone to bed without waiting up for him. She left his apartment and went downstairs, groaning as she walked in because Charlie, for some insane reason, had the heater turned on to seventy-two. The first thing she did was turn the heat off so the place would cool down.
After taking a lukewarm shower----because no matter how messed up her internal thermostat was getting, she couldn't take a cold shower----Elisabeth dressed and decided to make muffins for breakfast. Charlie had a long-standing craving for muffins of just about every kind. If she'd had time, Elisabeth would've made them from scratch, but Charlie wasn't picky. She'd be happy with muffins from a Jiffy box, as long as she could put a light coating of butter on while they were hot. Elisabeth preheated the oven and got out the other ingredients she would need, stirring them into the mix thoroughly before pouring them into baking cups and putting them in the oven. Elisabeth then ran a pot of water through the coffee maker to heat it up and got out two mugs for hot chocolate.
Charlie woke up just as the muffins were done baking. Elisabeth was taking them out of the oven when Charlie walked into the dining room.
"I smell blueberries," Charlie announced.
"Congratulations. Your nose is working perfectly," Elisabeth replied. "There's water for hot chocolate over there. Give the muffins a minute or two to cool down before you..."
"Are you nuts? That's when they're just right." Charlie took a plate from a cabinet above the sink and helped herself to the muffins, burning her fingers on the tin as she did so. She gave a yowl of pain but didn't let it deter her from getting what she wanted. Elisabeth only shook her finger at her before using a knife to get out the other three muffins for herself.
Charlie didn't bother trying to find a place to sit at the dining room table, which was still covered with detritus from Jenna's removal the day before. She hopped up onto the counter with her muffins and hot chocolate and started eating.
"So why are you down here making me muffins instead of Darcy?" Charlie asked before taking a bite and moaning with delight.
"Because he had a late night and I didn't want to disturb him. Lucy walked out in the middle of the shift." Elisabeth waited for her food to cool before starting to eat.
"I suppose it would be too much to hope that she's decided to quit and that she's taking Louisa and Caroline with her." Charlie sipped the hot chocolate but still managed to bring tears to her eyes.
"Of course it would. Didn't you hear what Caroline said that time Louisa nearly walked out last month? 'I don't care if she is my sister, I'm not leaving this place just because she does. The same goes for Lucy.' I think Caroline's fed up with having to change jobs just because Louisa and Lucy find something bad about the one they're at."
"I don't see why they feel the need to work at the same place all the time, anyway," Charlie said. "You don't see me wanting to work with Danie, do you?"
"You worked with Andie for six months."
"Yeah, but I was here first and Andie was only here because her friend wasn't able to get her a job working at Blockbuster at the time. The minute her friend got her in there, she left us. Not that I can blame her----as much money as I spend at Blockbuster, I might as well have my paychecks directly deposited to their bank account instead of my own."
"I seem to recall you getting a job at the store because your friend Eve had just gotten one," Elisabeth mused.
"You don't see Eve still working there, do you? No. And when she left, I didn't feel the need to quit as a show of solidarity or whatever. Of course, Eve left on her own terms instead of being fired or walking out because she thinks she's getting screwed."
"Well, we are talking about Bubba being the shift leader last night, so it's possible that Lucy has a valid argument."
"No, she doesn't." Charlie took another bite of her breakfast.
"Not everyone has your tolerance level for bull, you know. And even you've been known to get ticked off at Bubba from time to time and threaten to walk out." Elisabeth took a sip from her chocolate, which was still a bit too hot.
"I don't have a great tolerance for bull, and yes, I've threatened to walk out. But the closest I ever came to it was that night we had...oh, what was her name? It was a couple of months ago...Mary! Mary Crawford. She was letting pizzas sit there and get cold, the customers could see them, she moved so slow that even I was running circles around her, and when I told her she needed to get an order out, she looked at me like I was insane and said, 'I'm putting this order in.' Darcy wound up running her food out for her, which put him behind because he was filling in for Caroline when she had the flu. Mary complained to Bubba, who told me that I wasn't the boss and to quit acting like it. That's when I almost quit on the spot."
"Yeah, I remember now. That's what I meant when I said you've been known to get ticked off and threaten to leave. You almost did. Darcy said you were within seconds of clocking out for good but he talked you into staying."
Charlie had been about to take a drink, but instead she smiled and set down her mug. "He made me feel guilty about leaving. Did he tell you that part?" When Elisabeth shook her head, Charlie continued. "Yeah. He said he'd been there all day and he was having to stay later because he was covering Caroline's shift, and if I left he'd have to stay even later. I got to feeling so bad about it that I didn't have the heart to leave."
"He should've pointed out that you don't make enough money at your other job to quit Planet Earth Pizza yet," Elisabeth said sensibly.
"Oh, he said that, too. By that point, I didn't care, though. I do now, of course, but I didn't that night. Thank God Sean fired that Twinkie, or I really would've wound up killing her. Danie wouldn't have been able to hold her head up at the police department ever again." Charlie took a drink before asking, "So, do you think Sean will fire Lucy?"
"I don't know. He's getting fed up with her antics, but with Christmas just around the corner, I don't think he's going to want to let anyone go with business getting as good as it is. Maybe after the first of the year."
"The first of the year." Charlie snorted. "Wonderful. Thanks for reminding me."
"Reminding you of what?" Elisabeth frowned.
"That I'm still going to be working here in the new year. That we're well past the year 2000 and I'm still waiting tables. This wasn't exactly what I saw myself doing when I left college a few years back."
"Come on, Charlie. Don't beat yourself up about this. You could be in worse positions, you know. You could be...well, you could be me, for example. High school education, dead-end job that I'll likely have for the next thirty years unless I decide to..."
"Elisabeth, I hate to be the one to remind you of this, but you're in love with Darcy Williamson. Senior vice-president of De Bourgh Enterprises, certain to find another job if his aunt gives him the sack...thinking of moving to New York after the baby's born. What part of this is even close to resembling my life?"
Elisabeth took a bite out of a muffin in order to give herself time to think of an answer. "There's no way of being sure things will work out the way Darcy and I hope they will," she finally said. "He hasn't heard from his aunt since he told her about us. The last we heard anything from her was the Monday after that, when she told Sean he had to fire Darcy because we were dating and working together."
"Only Sean found a way around that. I'm surprised she hasn't been heard from since then."
Elisabeth shrugged. "Either she's arrogant enough to believe Darcy's gone and hasn't bothered to check on him because she's cut him out of her life, or she's just biding her time. I think it's option one, but you never know." Elisabeth took a drink of her hot chocolate. "How's your new client?"
Charlie groaned. "Complicated. Very complicated. Luckily, or unluckily, I might say, I don't have to do the overnights. Darla said the CILA third-shift person would handle it, so I won't be a zombie for the next week. Of course, I won't have extra Christmas money, either."
"Extra money? What about those four straight sixteen-hour shifts you worked over Thanksgiving? Don't tell me you didn't get paid overtime for those!"
"I'll have that paycheck, sure. But I wouldn't mind a little extra money, you know. You can never have enough, unless your name's Bill Gates." Charlie finished off her last muffin and got down from the counter. "Did everything get taken care of with Jack and Jenna yesterday?"
Elisabeth nodded. "They're both moved. I felt so sorry for Jack. It's obvious that he'd rather be shot than living with his mother again."
"Yeah, well..." Charlie tossed her plate in the sink. "He made a choice based on what he felt was best for everyone. There aren't any openings in residential settings around here right now, and she's well enough that the hospital won't keep her. Those sisters of his are united----they won't live with her, but they won't let him send her somewhere else. There was a place open in Belleville, but that's too far away. Hell, they still don't think there's any reason she should have to go away."
Elisabeth hadn't asked, as she'd promised herself she wouldn't, but she was glad Charlie had told her all the same. "How do you know all this?" she asked. "And why are you telling me?"
"I think Jack's reached the point where he doesn't care. I've told him a number of times that having someone with a mental illness in the family isn't something to be ashamed of, and I think he's finally starting to listen. Not that it's something he's going to be singing in the streets about, but at least he's not afraid to let his friends know the truth. I mean, you helped him move yesterday and all."
"Right."
Charlie added her mug to the dish in the sink before disappearing to take a shower. Elisabeth finished her breakfast, mulling over the day ahead. And on the fact that Charlie hadn't answered the question of how she knew all that.
Elisabeth almost cried when she had to walk in from the cold and into the heat of the store. She didn't dare go into the dining room, where the temperature was no doubt climbing into the seventies in order to placate the freezing customers who would complain if it was any other way.
"I must've been crazy to tell Sean I'd work into my thousandth month of pregnancy," she muttered, shrugging off the light sweater Charlie had insisted she wear out of fear that she might catch pneumonia. "Why am I here?"
"Because you need the money, just like the rest of us," a female voice called from the kitchen area. Louisa was working today. "I was still working the week before I had Valerie because Drew was on unemployment at the time and..."
Elisabeth tuned her out, having heard every Drew-story there was imaginable. Drew Hurst, she'd decided, was quite possibly the laziest man God ever put on His earth next to Bubba Collins and J.P. Thorpe. It was her great misfortune that she worked with two of them and knew the third. And the mention of Valerie was enough to set anyone's teeth on edge.
"Do you think we'll be busy today?" Louisa asked as she walked into the break room and made a beeline for her purse. She took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one up. "I sure hope not. I'm hoping to get home early so that I can spend some time with Drew and Val before he goes to work. I love my kid to death, El, but sometimes I wish I had someone more mature to talk to at night."
Elisabeth was torn between wanting to cry and wanting to shoot Louisa for being able to smoke. It had been seven bloody months since her last cigarette. She had thought the cravings would eventually subside the longer she'd been away from the habit, but working at Planet Earth Pizza did nothing but increase her longing for one. She'd already decided that if she ever quit this place, she'd have to work in a nonsmoking environment because she wouldn't be able to handle smoking.
"You hang around with Lucy and Caroline, don't you?" Elisabeth asked, inching her way closer to Louisa. Second-hand smoke was better than nothing. "They're...more mature than Valerie."
"Yeah, but they're also single. They have bar-hopping and boyfriends and crazy adventures...stuff I don't have anymore because I was stupid enough to saddle myself at twenty-two to a husband and baby. Don't get me wrong. Like I said, I love them to death. I just wish sometimes that I could be Drew's wife and Valerie's mother and still be single. Does that make any sense to you at all?"
Elisabeth froze. There it was, part of what she feared, voiced by someone other than herself. "Yes," she said slowly. "Only I haven't got the titles you have yet. I'm not a wife and not yet a mother."
Louisa took a drag off her cigarette and didn't say anything.
I must be insane to be thinking about this. Haven't I learned that talking to a Gossip Sister can spell instant frustration? She's only going to broadcast anything I tell her to the rest of the world. Elisabeth hesitated for another minute before saying, "I'm scared."
Louisa turned to look at her. "Scared of what?"
"Of...of everything. I'm scared about being a good mother. I'm scared that I won't do anything right. I'm scared that my daughter will turn out like..." Elisabeth stopped short before she insulted Louisa's daughter.
Louisa grinned. "You're afraid of her turning out like Valerie? Yeah, I would, too. Val's a little terror and believe me, if there were anything I could do to control her behavior, I would. Her father's just got her too damn spoiled, that's what it is. And I didn't help, either. She's my little baby, you know? The moment I first held her I wanted to make sure she had the world. Now I just want her to learn what the word 'no' means."
Elisabeth smiled. "We all wish she would learn what 'no' means...but it's not so much that I'm afraid of what she'll do. I'm afraid of what I might do. I'm afraid that I'm going to look at her and not feel anything at all. Or that she's going to look at me and know that I almost gave her up and hate me for it. I mean, do we really know how much babies know before they're born?"
"Personally, I think worrying about stuff like that is crap before they're born. You can play all the classical music in the world and read them Dr. Seuss until you're sick of 'The Cat in the Hat,' but it's not going to make them a genius just because you did these things before they're here. I didn't worry about a thing while I was pregnant with Valerie...well, outside of the delivery and how I was going to be able to pay the doctor's bills. Once she was here, that's when I started worrying." Louisa took another drag off her cigarette.
Elisabeth inhaled sharply. "Valerie may drive me up the wall, and to be honest with you, I think you let her get away with murder, but I do think you're a good mother. You love her very much. Do you...worry about that?"
"Only every single day. I worry that someday, I'm gonna see Valerie on Oprah or Dr. Phil or whatever, telling the world how I was a bad parent because I wouldn't give her an extra fifty cents to play a video game. When she acts up at the store, I hate the looks people give me. I'm sure if I were to punish her the way some of them want me to, the others would be so offended they'd call the cops. But then there are those moments when she's being a perfect little angel and she gives me hugs and tries to help me make lunch at home. Those are the moments you live for."
"Yeah," Elisabeth said thoughtfully, her head filling with images of a tiny girl with blond ringlets and green eyes helping her with lunch for Daddy. She closed her eyes and tried to banish the thought, because there was no way in the world that her daughter was going to have those blond curls, not with George and her as parents. George's hair was darker than her own. The child she was thinking of was a child she would one day have with Darcy.
"You're thinking about it, aren't you?" Louisa asked.
Elisabeth's eyes got teary. "Not the way it's going to be, no," she admitted. "I think...I think what I'm really scared of is that I won't love her enough. I'm afraid that when I look at her, I'll see George and I'll think of what a rat he was. I'm afraid that I'll resent the fact that she's not Darcy's child."
"No, you won't." Louisa sounded confident. "She could be born looking exactly like George, but you won't think of him when you see her. You'll be thinking of how beautiful she is, and how tiny her hands and feet are, and...well, how lucky you are to have gotten through the delivery, quite honestly. If yours goes as long as mine did..."
"You sound so sure of that. I wish I could be certain."
"That's because you're not that kind of person. You're a lot of things, but you wouldn't hate something just because George Wickham had something to do with it. If you did, you'd hate just about everything." Louisa took another drag off the cigarette. "Your problem is, you worry too much. If you're not careful, you'll end up being one of those mothers who takes their child to the hospital every time she has a runny nose. I'm not saying you will be. I'm just saying you might."
"I probably will," Elisabeth admitted with a forced chuckle.
"Well, maybe Darcy will take some of that edge away. He's not the most laid back guy in the world, but he's sensible. He's a good guy." Louisa grinned wickedly. "It kills Caroline to know that you got him in the end. She really had no clue about you two until he 'fessed up. She thought he was pining for Charlie. She couldn't understand that any more than she understands why he's with you, but she said she had the feeling that's what the situation was."
"That was her rationale for hounding the poor guy until he wanted to shoot her? She couldn't understand it, therefore she shouldn't give up because he might cave in?"
"You never know. He might've. If you two had come clean from the beginning, she wouldn't have chased him as long as she did. How did you stand it? The two of you together for months before you finally told everyone, and all that time..."
Elisabeth put a hand up. "Hang on a sec. For starters, Darcy and I were only together a month before everyone found out. The reason we didn't tell anyone was Charlie. And as for me standing Caroline, I've gotten used to her. I knew Darcy wasn't interested. It's as simple as that."
"Okay, okay. I was just asking." Louisa ground out what was left of her cigarette. "I don't suppose Darcy's got a brother to go along with that sister of his, does he? That would really make Caroline happy."
"No, he doesn't. He's lucky to have Ginger," Elisabeth replied before deciding it was time for her to get to work.
Darcy and Elisabeth spent exactly half an hour with each other, and not a single moment of that was quality time since she spent most of her time arguing with Bubba about how much dough needed to be done for a slow Monday. Bubba, spurred on by what he called a "hunch" and everyone else called "indigestion," thought they'd need more and insisted that she stay to do it. She told him where to shove his idea and showed him the numbers for three years running on that date. Eventually they called Sean, who was once again in Vandalia and ready to shoot them both.
Elisabeth and her numbers won the day over Bubba's gut feeling, causing Bubba to call her a few vile names when he thought no one was listening. Elisabeth retaliated by giving him the middle finger and calling him equally vile names loud enough so that everyone could hear.
"You eat with that mouth?" J.P. asked as he walked in the door after a delivery on the tail end of Elisabeth's tirade.
"Like your language is that much better," she muttered. "At least I don't cuss in front of the customers."
Darcy bit his tongue in order to point out that the acoustics of the store made it possible for every customer in the store to hear her when she was yelling. And I always thought those stories of how emotional pregnant women get were myths, he thought. Or maybe I was just hoping they were.
Elisabeth stormed out of the store after giving him a quick, hard kiss goodbye. Squealing tires were the last sound anyone heard from her as her car flew out of the parking lot. J.P. had another comment about that, after which everyone in the vicinity told him to shut up. She would be pleased to find out when she came into work the next day that she'd been right----business was slow because the temperature had dropped to the low teens and snow was expected sometime.
Bubba took advantage of the sluggish business to take off for what he'd said would be a short time, leaving Darcy in charge. Darcy had objected to this plan, hoping to get home early to spend some time with Elisabeth. He made the mistake of mentioning this to Bubba, who pulled rank and took off.
Thirty minutes had passed with three deliveries and one table as the only work that had needed to be done. The in-store customers were at the register when the door opened and a tall man with blond hair walked in. Darcy was ringing the table out and didn't have time to notice much else about the man before he called, "Door please, Caroline!"
He heard an audible groan come from the back room, where Caroline had been taking a short break before getting a head start on sweeping the floor. Darcy smiled faintly in the direction of the customer waiting, hoping he hadn't heard Caroline. He gave the customer at the register her change, smiled, and said, "Have a good night."
"Thank you," the woman replied before gathering her three children from the various games they'd darted off to play and leaving. Darcy frowned as he realized that Caroline still hadn't come to the front to wait on the man standing there. He didn't want to shout, but he didn't want to leave the man standing there, either. Walking around the counter, he made eye contact with him and said, "Sorry about your wait. Just one tonight?"
"Darcy Williamson?" the man asked.
Darcy froze in place as he got a better look and impression of the man. He was tall and well-dressed, the suit being an expensive one. Darcy didn't recognize him, but the suit told him that this was obviously someone sent by his aunt.
"Yes, I'm Darcy," he said in a resigned voice. "Has my aunt sent you here?"
"Indirectly, I suppose you could say she did. I'm James Hampton." The man extended his hand. "We spoke on the phone about a month ago. I was in St. Louis to do a story on the Rams and my mother told me to look you up while I was in the area. One hundred miles out of my way isn't what I'd call 'in the area,' but you're well worth it."
Darcy almost fell to the ground in relief. Wrong aunt, he thought, shaking the offered hand. "It's nice to finally meet you, James," he said. "I thought you'd been sent by Catherine."
"Ah, yes. The infamous Catherine Darcy de Bourgh. My mother has some very interesting words about her, but probably nothing she hasn't told you herself." James released his cousin's hand. "Is there someplace we can sit and talk?"
"Well, I'm supposed to be working at the moment," Darcy said. "I get off work soon, but the shift manager's taken off to do God only knows what and I don't know when he'll be..."
"Hi, there!" Caroline called. Her smile was genuine as she'd noticed that the person at the door was attractive. "Are you by yourself this evening? Smoking or nonsmoking?"
"He's not a customer," Darcy said. "He's my..."
"Cousin," James finished when Darcy's throat caught on the word.
Caroline's eyes widened as she processed this information. "Really? I wasn't aware Darcy had any family at all. I mean, I'd heard he had a little sister, but outside of that, he never mentions family. Shame on you, Darcy."
"Perhaps I never mentioned family in your presence because I didn't think it was any of your business," Darcy said through clenched teeth. "James, this is Caroline Benson. She's one of the waitresses here."
Darcy was a little surprised when James' smile, instead of fading or getting fake, broadened. Caroline had held out her hand, but instead of shaking it, James kissed it. "Lovely to meet you, Miss Benson," he said, as though she were royalty.
Caroline's eyes were so wide they dominated her face, and it was all she could do to stammer, "L-likewise...er, James. Were you planning to have something to eat or were you waiting for Darcy to get off of work?"
"Oh, I don't know. I might have something, since Darcy doesn't know how long he'll be. Would that be all right?"
"Of course!" Caroline exclaimed quickly. "Right this way." She led him to a nonsmoking table and placed a menu with great care on the place mat where he'd be sitting. "What can I get you to drink?"
"Just water, please. I've had more than my share of caffeine for the day." After Caroline scampered to get his water, James motioned for Darcy to join him. Although there were no tables in the dining room, Darcy didn't figure he'd get in serious trouble if he took a seat for a second, so he sat down. "Who is she?" James asked.
Darcy caught himself before he frowned and said, "Caroline Benson. I thought I told you her name."
"So you did," James mused as Caroline set the water in front of him. He glanced over the menu and placed an order for spaghetti with an extra order of garlic bread. Caroline rushed to the back to put the order in. "She seems...eager."
"That's one word for her. Determined, hard-headed, obnoxious...those are others." Darcy stopped himself before he poured out the whole of his history with Caroline Benson, because he knew she did have redeeming qualities that occasionally he saw.
James smiled at him, and Darcy was struck by the resemblance he saw between them. Someone might've mistaken them for brothers if they'd met them walking together on the street, the genes of the Darcy family apparently having been the dominant ones. "I take it you don't like her, then."
"It's not a matter of like and dislike, not really. I don't have an opinion of her one way or the other now. If you'd asked me three or four months ago, I would've said she was a nuisance that I didn't like that well."
"Why would you have said that?"
"It's a long story." The two of them sat there for a couple of minutes in silence. Darcy wasn't sure what he should say or where to begin. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Caroline throwing looks their way. Darcy wondered if maybe he should tell James about Caroline's former obsession with him, which might very well be the reason she was turning her attention toward him now.
Then he decided that that really wouldn't be fair to Caroline, who might find James attractive without thinking of his connection to Darcy at all, and said nothing.
"So...my mother was wondering how the 'old battle ax' is doing," James finally said.
"Old battle ax?"
"Our mutual aunt, Catherine de Bourgh. Mom hasn't talked to her in seventeen years." James took a drink of his water. "Not since your parents died and she went to confront Catherine about the memorial service."
"She was at my mother's memorial service?" Darcy frowned. "I don't remember her being there. I'm sure I would've remembered, although there's a lot I don't remember from that time."
"You don't remember her being there because she wasn't. Mom went to New York to get you and Ginger for the funerals. When she arrived, she found Catherine planning a memorial service for your mother. Catherine told her that since arrangements were being made in New York, there was no need for the two of you to come to 'their little gathering.'"
"Where my parents were going to be buried," Darcy said softly.
"That was Mom's argument. The two of them went ten rounds, finishing off with Mom's accusation that Catherine had done something to make herself your guardian because it didn't seem like anything Amelia and Ron would do themselves. Catherine ordered her out of her house and said she'd have her arrested for trespassing if she dared enter her home again, and that was it. I'll bet you never knew much about my mother, did you?"
"I didn't. All Catherine ever said was that her sister turned out just like my mother. I always took that to mean she'd married someone inappropriate and run away from home. If it hadn't been for Catherine's ceaseless drilling of the Darcy family history into my head, I wouldn't know what order our mothers and Catherine were born in."
"Catherine was the oldest, then your mother, then mine," James said with a grin. "Despite the fact that she despises her sister, I know the family credo just like you do. My mother did what was expected of her. The Hamptons are a very respectable if less-than-wealthy family. I think my mother was surprised that she found someone she could love and respect who had the approval of her family. If Dad hadn't come along, she might very well have ended up marrying a college-student-turned-waiter."
"Turned waiter?" Darcy asked.
"Sure. Didn't Catherine ever tell you how they met? Your father was working at a fancy restaurant. One of Amelia's 'appropriate' boyfriends took her there, got mad when she did nothing but make eyes at the handsome waiter who was serving them dinner, and stormed off, leaving her with the check. Your mother didn't have any money, so Ron Williamson paid for the bill even though it was no doubt more than he could afford."
"How do you know all this?"
"My mother was Amelia's confidante. Mom was the only one who knew that Aunt Amelia was running away to get married. She never told anyone, although she says Catherine suspected the truth. Mom wanted to follow in Amelia's footsteps, but instead she fell in love with Phillip Hampton and made her family proud...for a while."
"Here's your spaghetti," Caroline announced, setting the bowl on the table in front of James with the care one would take with a newborn baby. "You'll want to be careful because it's very hot. By the way, Darcy, Bubba's back and he's clocked you out. Hope you don't mind."
Darcy did mind, actually, because he wouldn't put it past Bubba to have clocked him out half an hour ago and cheated him out of the money. He made a note to himself to have Elisabeth check in the morning.
"Is there anything else I can do for you?" Caroline asked, the breathlessness back in her voice. Her smile was very wide and not quite as nice as a normal one. She leaned over so she was practically in James' face. "Anything at all?"
"Yes," James replied. "You can stop channeling Marilyn Monroe and just be yourself. You'll find it's much more attractive to men."
Caroline didn't seem to register the comment at first. When what he'd said struck her, she turned a mottled shade of red and said, "I'm not 'channeling' anybody. Where do you get off making a comment like that?"
"I'm just saying that you were much more attractive at the door than you are leaning over so far that I can see down your shirt. Always take the more subtle approach when flirting with a man, Miss Benson. It works much better."
Caroline clutched the shirt to her chest and gasped. "How dare you!"
James shrugged. "It's true."
"Like I'd want to take your advice on anything!" Caroline stomped over to the salad bar and started arranging tongs in the correct place. She muttered, "I wasn't flirting with you, I was doing my job! If you don't like it, go somewhere else."
"I didn't say I don't like the way you do your job, although this is the first time we've met and for all I know, you're a lousy waitress."
"Now you're saying I don't do my job right!" Caroline snapped.
"I didn't say that. You weren't listening. I said that I don't know you well enough to comment on whether or not I..."
"You apparently thought you knew me well enough to comment on...on how I do it! And saying I flirted with you...I wouldn't flirt with you if you were the last man on earth!" Caroline's cheeks remained red. "Trust me, when I'm flirting with you, you'll know it. Not that I ever would, now."
Darcy was a bit startled by the ease with which James had made his comments, and just a bit envious. It had taken him four months to finally say something similar to Caroline Benson, while James had known her less than thirty minutes and was talking to her like that. He supposed he shouldn't think that such a good thing, since it did seem like James was being mean-spirited, but his past battles with Caroline were still fresh in his memory.
James just smiled, ate his spaghetti, and talked with Darcy. Caroline came to check on them only once and nearly spilled James' water refill down the front of his suit. Darcy noticed, however, that as she started sweeping the floor with the Bissell, her eyes occasionally darted toward their table. And James made no secret about staring at her.
Caroline came back once James was finished eating to slap the bill on the table before asking, "Will there be anything else this evening, sir?"
"Yeah. Just one more thing. What are you doing when you get off work tonight?"
Caroline stared stonily at him. "You've got to be kidding," she said. "Me, go out with you?" She started to walk away. "I thought I told you I wouldn't be interested with you if I were threatened with being locked in a room with spiders."
"Actually, you said something about me being the last man on earth, but I figured you were lying because you looked away when you said it."
Caroline was almost to the front counter before she stopped to turn around. With a gleam in her eye that Darcy recognized, she deliberately walked over to them, picked up James' recently-refilled glass of water, and dumped it over his head.
"Caroline!" Bubba shouted, having just appeared from the back room. "What the hell are you doing?"
"It's all right," James said. To Darcy's amazement, he sounded amused. "I think I managed to thoroughly offend her, so this is all my fault."
"All the same, we're going to lose customers if she does that to them. Darcy, I don't suppose..."
"Forget it. I'm already off the clock and this is my cousin. I'm going to introduce him to my girlfriend and then maybe talk a little more with him before he has to leave."
"Seems like you're using the family you claimed you didn't have as an excuse not to work a lot these days," Bubba grumbled. "Caroline, take five in the walk-in. Sir, your dinner's free this evening and I do hope you'll come back sometime soon."
James smiled at Caroline----a lazy, impudent smile. "I think I shall," he said.
Caroline made a sound similar to a growl as she stormed off to the back. Darcy could only shake his head and wonder if his cousin was insane. Maybe he should tell James all about Caroline.
Then again, Darcy pondered as he saw his cousin's eyes stay focused on the back of the store, it might already be too late. And it probably didn't matter, because Darcy didn't see a future for them at all. No amount of money or prestige such as James had was going to change Caroline's opinion of him.