“Shut it,” Darcy muttered.
She peeked at his socks and dropped the trouser leg.
“Well, Lizzy? Do we have a rule-breaker here?” Charlotte awaited the verdict expectantly along with Charles, Jane, and a few other skybox habitués who’d caught wind of the challenge.
Elizabeth glanced at her audience and then up at her subject. Although his eyes maintained their cool detachment, his erstwhile pale cheeks were now reddened, and his hands were gripping the seat’s armrests. She turned around and announced that “Mr. Noir” had in fact complied with campus rules, thus concluding her investigation.
“Really?” Charles looked dubiously at Darcy.
“Yup, there’s a narrow band of orange, which makes him legal,” Elizabeth affirmed with a laugh.
“Color me impressed,” Charlotte quipped.
“Let’s celebrate.” Charles smiled at Jane. “I’ll get us all a platter of nachos.”
“It’s on me.” Darcy rose and strode to the exit.
The small group watched him leave and then turned their attention back to the game.
“Thanks, Mr. Noir,” Elizabeth murmured. Charlotte poked her in the ribs.
Charles leaned over, looking amused by the proceedings. “Hey, Elizabeth, forgive me for not introducing you properly. My friend’s name is not Noir, it’s Darcy. Fitzwilliam Darcy.”
“Darcy Fitzwilliam Darcy? What kind of name is that?”
He laughed. “No, just Fitzwilliam Darcy. It’s a mouthful, I know.”
Charlotte shot a bemused glance at Charles, who was leaning a little closer to Jane than the norm on first acquaintance. “It’s a bit fluffy, but it would explain his accent. He’s British?”
“You noticed, eh? Half. He’s?—”
“A New Yorker,” muttered Darcy, sliding into his seat. “Nachos, mini burgers, and a vegetable platter have been ordered.”
By the time the game ended, the platters were emptied, but the contact lists on two cell phones contained new numbers.
Two weeks later, those numbers were programmed onto each other’s speed dials.
Elizabeth was happy Jane had met such a nice man. Her sister had endured too many “nice” guys who didn’t appreciate her sweet nature, but as the next few weeks flew by, it was evident that Charles didn’t fit the pattern. In fact, his appearance in Jane’s life seemed to be the catalyst for breaking the sisterly bond. Jane used to have dinner with Elizabeth at least once a week, and they usually shared weekend plans, but now it was all Charles, all the time. Happy though she was for Jane, Elizabeth missed her roommate. Daily texts and brief phone calls were not enough.
After more than two weeks with barely a glimpse of her sister, Elizabeth jumped at the chance to have dinner with the new couple. “It’s not formal or anything, Lizzy,” said Jane. “Bring Brian. Charles’ sisters might come along and maybe some other friends. We’ll have a table for eight, just in case.”
Brian. The not-quite boyfriend. Elizabeth debated whether she wanted to invite him. They’d been dating for a few months, but their schedules mostly kept them apart. So did their interests if she were honest with herself. He was happy when ensconced in his lab, testing adhesion and permutation qualities for an aerodynamic metallurgic study. Or something like that. She wasn’t all that intrigued by his work and found it difficult to listen when he and his colleagues started comparing notes. If she really thought about it, she wasn’t certain he interested her at all. It was easier not to think about it. She had her work.
Elizabeth was busy with school and reasonably happy as a client liaison at Philips/Hill Marketing. Ned Philips, a UM trustee, had taken her under his wing after her college soccer career sputtered along with her athletic scholarship. She started on the lowest possible rung as a paid intern and went on to learn the ins and outs of the marketing business. She met interesting people, and the firm even help pay for her masters’ program. Although she was getting a bit restless, Elizabeth felt she owed Philips/Hill a few years of hard work for their investment in her. After all, getting a master’s degree in creativewriting wasn’t exactly the norm at a marketing agency, and she’d heard some grumbling about favoritism.
Now, with school nearly over and only two car payments left, she felt secure enough to be mapping out her ten-year plan. She never considered Brian as part of that plan. He was a handy friend and polite company at these events, but she hadn’t missed him and hadn’t picked up the phone to call or text him in more than a week. Had he been trying to reach her? It didn’t matter.
Jane, forever concerned about her little sister’s love life, texted Brian to make sure he would get them both to Marciano’s on time. Elizabeth stared at his message: “Pick u up @7 Friday.” She grimaced.Thanks, Jane.Now she had two long-overdue conversations ahead of her.
Conversation was rarely more stilted and uncomfortable than during the two hours Elizabeth spent at Marciano’s. The eight seats Jane reserved had filled up, and besides her sister, Brian, and Charles, there wasn’t a person there that Elizabeth ever wanted to see again. Charles’ sisters, Caroline and Louisa, were a matched set: fraternal twins who looked nothing alike but finished each other’s sentences, two redheads—one painfully thin with well-styled, carroty hair and the other chubby-cheeked with vibrant red curls. One was draped in jewelry yet ringless on her left hand; the other sported a giant wedding ring. Louisa’s thick-bodied husband Herb Hurst kept one hand wrapped around his wife and the other around a glass of bourbon. After Herb introduced himself as the friendly neighborhood drug dealer, he laughed loudly and said heactuallyworked in sales for Big Pharma. Elizabeth smiled tightly and thanked the gods that she wasn’t the evening’s designated driver. She would need plenty of wine.
The thin redhead was staring at her. “Are you the sock police?”
Elizabeth stifled a smile.Someone’s been telling tales.“Volunteer member of the campus sock inspector corps at your service.”
Herb and Charles burst into laughter.
“I heard about you checking Darcy’s socks! You humiliated him,” Caroline huffed. “How dare you make him the butt of your joke!”
