“Good,” she said when the kiss ended. “It’s hard to shop for the man who has everything money can buy…”
He quieted her with a finger to her lips. “I like this so much better. Best presents ever.”
She smiled and pulled his hand away. “One more present, Birthday Boy. No cards till tomorrow though. That’s Line 8, Section 13D in the Official Birthday Fairy Guidebook.”
She reached down and picked up a flat, square box.
Still overwhelmed by his feelings, Darcy took a deep breath and unwrapped the box. He pulled out a leather photo album, similar to the ones on the shelves at Pemberley. His eyes widened, and slowly he opened to the first page and stared at a photo of himself and Rich sitting shirtless in the front seat of a jeep, a pair of cocky, good-looking, teenage boys.
“Oh my God. You are amazing.”
“It’s not full; I’ve just started it,” Elizabeth said quickly.
He leafed through the book, seeing pictures of himself with his father, cousins, aunts and uncles, school friends, and pets. In others, he was alone. One or two of those came from news stories, and Elizabeth had zoomed in and cropped out anyone besides him.
Nearing the middle of the book, his smile grew bigger. More Pemberley. He remembered this day, sitting poolside, smiling at someone out of camera range and lifting his glass in a toast to Jane and Charles. And finally, one of Elizabeth, distractedly gazing at him as he looked off in the distance.
“Lydia, again?”
“Yes.”
“She isdefinitelygetting a car.” Darcy wrapped his arms around Elizabeth. “I have much bigger plans for you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Despite her proclivity for bringing in rich baked goods, occasionally booking him in quirky hotels, and eagerly sharing cat videos, Darcy knew his assistant, Sara, was a godsend. She’d booked him on an optimally timed yet not unbearably early flight out of New Orleans on Sunday morning. By then, he’d survived what he hoped was one of the last bachelor parties of his lifetime. It had been tamer than some others he’d attended. Charles was, at heart, a tech geek who was deeply in love and couldn’t think of anything beyond apps, programming, and his angel. Rich’s bachelor party—should he ever settle down and find the right woman—would be rather interesting in an overwhelming sort of way and probably held several time zones away from the actual wedding.
Darcy had no interest in a bachelor party for himself. He’d never even thought about that until recently, when Elizabeth made clear she was as committed to him as he to her. Her reluctance to mention their relationship to her father still bothered him a little, but he understood why she felt almost hostile toward the very idea of confiding something of such importance to the man who couldn’t be troubled to attend her book party or sit with her after her leg surgery. He wondered whether Ted Bennet resented his daughter’s success or was simply angry that she had pulled away from his orbit.Or maybe he is just an obtuse, egocentric prat.
When he returned late Sunday morning from New Orleans, Darcywent straight from the airport to Elizabeth’s apartment, where he found her surrounded by labeled packing boxes and garbage bags. Her ruthless efficiency impressed him. Beyond emptying files from a desk drawer or slipping some papers and photographs into a suitcase, he’d never packed up a house or apartment, or even his college rooms. He’d always paid people to do such things, but Elizabeth had declined his offers for a moving service. She seemed to be an old hand at de-cluttering her life. She was leaving behind the furniture for Sylvia and Bernard—the boyfriend now had a name if not a face to visualize—to use during their stay. However, she was de-personalizing the place as much as possible and leaving no trace of herself behind. Picture frames and photographs were boxed up, the kitchen bulletin board was empty, books and clothes and the hodgepodge of everyday life were in boxes and hanging bags. It didn’t add up to much, he realized later, as they packed it all in his Rover. There would be plenty of room for it at his place.Theirplace.
Elizabeth was anxious to finish with the move. Knowing Sylvia would arrive in New York in a week had her on pins and needles. Knowing her mother would be sleeping in her bed, making coffee, and taking showers in the apartment where Elizabeth had so many memories made her uneasy. And knowing she and Jane would be meeting Sylvia for a pre-wedding “mom and daughter dinner” had her feeling ill. If Darcy wanted to think her impatience to move was all about the thrill ofhim, she wouldn’t set him straight. After all, nearly all of her impatience, her excitement, and admittedly, her nervousnesswascentered around him.
While emptying her dresser, tossing out old underwear and socks, she came across the sports bra she’d been wearing that long-ago night at Netherfield. If only they’d laughed at the degree of difficulty the wretched piece of spandex had presented, everything that had happened later could have been avoided. They could have laughed, talked, eaten perfectly baked lasagna, and become friends—maybe lovers—months earlier.C’est la vie.We are so much more than that now, and we’remaking up for lost time.
Later, riding in Darcy’s Rover blocks from her new home, she glanced in the rearview mirror, spying her messy hair and makeup-free face. She stuck out her tongue at her reflection.No regrets. We’rehere now.And then she laughed, recalling an old theme song she knew Darcy wouldn’t recognize. I’m moving on up, to the West Side… To a de-luxe apartment, in the skyyyyy…She sang the words, hummed the ones she didn’t know, and ignored the uncomfortable thought that Sylvia would likely be doing exactly the same thing.
Darcy glanced at her curiously but said nothing, more focused on driving through heavy traffic. Oddly, he found himself enjoying the new role of moving man. Carrying Elizabeth’s belongings and packing up the car was an unusual kind of workout for him. After directing the doorman to cart Elizabeth’s bags, boxes, and suitcases up to the apartment in the service elevator, they had a quiet dinner.
Both were exhausted from the joviality of the past weekend spent in close quarters with drunken, happy friends and acquaintances hell-bent on having fun. If the bride and groom had been well behaved—beyond excessive drinking and giddy sexting to each other—it must be said that their best man and maid of honor had earned gold stars. Each had spent Saturday night sipping their drinks, keeping an eye on behaviors that skirted propriety and the law, and doing all they could to ensure that some semblance of dignity and honor was maintained. Of course, Elizabeth—her eyes averted—hadtipped a male “dancer” to give Caroline a grinding lap dance and made sure Charlotte switched her camera to video for the performance. And Darcy had reined in Charles’s high spirits while allowing Herb to join a poker game where, low on cash, he’d staked naming rights to his firstborn child. The baby girl, due in December, and her mother, the only fully sober member of the bachelorette slumber party, were unaware of the cost of Herb’s lackluster betting skills.
Exhausted and surrounded by Charles’s overserved college buddies, Darcy had sent Elizabeth a text at 2:00 a.m.: “Spare me from ever attending another bachelor party.”
Her reply had hit his sweet spot: “Feels like a mind meld to me.”
After dinner, tired from the hauling and unpacking and the retelling of “fun” party stories, Darcy held up his phone and snapped a picture of Elizabeth wearing polka-dotted pajamas and sitting amidst the flotsam and jetsam of packing popcorn, scrunched-up newspapers, and empty boxes. She was staring at the picture of herself she’d given him for his birthday, which he’d placed beside one of his grammarschool photos. The cats were batting around the paper and diving in and out of the boxes. He had a sudden vision of Christmas morning, still more than two months away.
“Hey,” he said softly. “It all looks great. Your things fit in perfectly. Even that Crock-Pot gadget.”
Elizabeth turned to look at him and smiled. “It does.”
Darcy reached his hand toward her. “Come to bed, my domestic goddess. We have to work tomorrow.”
She laughed at his serious expression, took his hand, and stood up. “In the interest of full disclosure, Ididmention that I won’t iron your shirts or pack PB&Js for your lunchbox, right?”
He nodded woefully before planting a kiss on her nose. “Alas, you did. But you promised me Christmas cookies, so that’s all right.”
Sylvia hadn’t spent more than a few days in New York since divorcing Ted Bennet nearly fifteen years earlier. Thus, she still thought “her girls” would want to have dinner at their then-favorite restaurant in Little Italy. Elizabeth gazed at the red-and-white checkered tablecloths and the multicolored wax dripping down the white candles stuck in dusty wine bottles. She tried to drum up warm memories of their occasional family dinners at Trattoria Piero, but all she could recall was spilled wine and her parents arguing over the cost of private school tuition versus a hot tub. The past is the past, and you decide your own future—wasn’t that the last thing Will had said before seeing her off tonight?Just be in the moment and remember: I have a choice.And from the get-go, Sylvia was making it easy to make that choice.
