Chapter Eleven
"La Vie En Rose"
I thought that love was just a word
They sang about in songs I heard
It took your kisses to reveal
That I was wrong, and love is real
Hold me close and hold me fast
The magic spell you cast
This is la vie en rose
Fitz had a rather compelling evening ahead of him. As soon as he was assured his ignoble and unprincipled assistant had left, he showered and shaved. Then he spent an overly long time considering what to wear to a Mexican restaurant which had mediocre food and poor service, but a restaurant where Liz, his Liz, waited for him.
Once again he was a few minutes early. He did not walk around this time, but stood in front of the restaurant waiting. It had been open for lunch as well, and he could see diners inside. He thought that boded well for poor service and hopefully a long evening of conversation between them.
Suddenly she was there, and he was startled from fantasy to reality.
"Hi," he said. There was just something that lit him up inside at seeing her.
"You've out-dressed me again," she commented.
"It's workout clothes or work clothes for me, I fear. If you hang around long enough this evening you might even see me in black tie."
"Black tie? Are you going somewhere else tonight?" Liz sounded a little confused.
He hoped she was not hurt by his confession. "I have an art auction that is a black tie affair, rather swanky. I had tickets I forgot about when I made plans with you. I may as well crash there since you will be leaving me at seven," he said, then smiled a little, "you could stay, you could, come…I have two tickets."
"Black tie? Do you see what I wear?" She was in jeans again but had on a jacket rather than a sweater this time.
"Well," he said, "maybe we could go shopping if you wanted to stay."
"Not an option. Unless you wanted to call my mother and explain why I was not coming home and picking up my baby sister."
"I get the feeling that I don't really want to do that," he said.
"I don't suggest it," she replied.
"Dinner awaits us," he said, and he pulled open the door for her.
"Such a gentleman," she said, and it almost sounded like singing to his ears.
"Always," he grinned.
There was no one at the hostess desk to note they were waiting, but that had been part of the plan. After a few minutes, they sat down in a very colorful reception area and talked while they waited to be seated.
"What are your plans for the weekend?" she asked.
"I suppose I will do the same thing I always do, which is work, read reports. Do you know what you are doing? You are to be under your mother's thumb, right?"
She smiled. "I do my best to not be under my mother's thumb. I spend most of my weekend with my father if I am not studying."
"Really?" he tilted his head. "I had this idea that you were home baking cookies and being bossed around by your mother."
"You would be wrong then. I rather adore my father. We are a lot alike. Don't assume that the reason I complain about my mother means that I spend all my time with her," she pushed him gently against the shoulder with her own.
"I won't," he said. "What do you and your father do?"
"Dad's a bit of a tinkerer; he's rather good with his hands. He has a little workshop, and I am often sitting on a stool by his workbench," explained Liz.
"I see," he said, "that sounds rather fun."
"You're not a tinkerer by nature are you?" she inquired.
"I don't know. I don't know that I had a life before I took on the business," he explained.
"That sounds awful," she frowned. "You sound old before your time."
"Do you need a table?" said a voice, interrupting them.
"Yes, table for two," he called.
"This way," and they followed a young woman in the standard restaurant dress: black pants, white shirt.
"I think this menu has fewer items than last week's," remarked Liz as she opened it and scanned the two sides.
"I had never considered that, but there is not much to Mexican. Different fillings and different wrappings—just how you want to combine them. Know what you want?" he asked as he put down his menu.
"I am still considering my options," she shook her head.
"They are probably all fair, just get what you want," he said.
"You take me to a restaurant and only declare the food fair?" she cried, her eyes lighting up.
"We didn't come here for the food, remember?" he grinned then.
"That's true," she said.
Somehow, before they even ordered, they got on the subject of theater.
"I have to like theater. I'm an English major: Shakespeare! There's a visual element," she explained. "They're meant to be seen more than they are meant to be read. They're meant to be heard more than they are meant to be studied. It's the words."
"But you can still appreciate the words when you read them," he argued.
"But sometimes we need to hear words aloud," she replied. "Lady Macbeth: 'but screw your courage to the sticking place.' Who really understands that without seeing it in context?" She had waved her hands in the air, but pulled them back to the tabletop.
"I wonder that you don't use 'out, out, damned spot' for Lady Macbeth," he said.
"It's 'out, damned spot, out,'" she smiled, but then frowned. "Sorry, my sisters hated it when I corrected them. But consider Othello," her hand came up to her chest, "'beware, my lord, of jealousy; it is the green-ey'd monster,' how much more powerful to see and hear that performed before you than to read it."
Liz held her hand up in the air next and adopted a rather bemused look on her face. "Or, A Mid Summer Night's Dream: 'Lord what fools these mortals be.'" The hand dropped down again. "That is just chicken scratch on paper, but when you have an actor up on a stage and hear it, it is far more passionate, you feel it here," she hit her chest. "To have six words to make us both laugh and to think at the same time. I am sure your dry old reports do no such thing!"
"I have to admit that my dry old reports never make me laugh and think at the same time," he agreed. Something inside him had inflamed as he watched her performance, the little flourishes of head and hand. Her eyes, and the expression of her mouth changing with each character. He considered how very smitten he was.
"Software," she said suddenly, then she shook her head. "Actually you are too clean-cut for software."
He realized that she was attempting to guess what his dry old reports were about when his thoughts were definitely elsewhere. "I believe most companies have some aspect of software, some custom software, but if you think my company's main focus is software, no."
"Hmmm," she pursed her lips just as their waitress finally showed up to take orders.
They returned to the topic of theater: they had a lot to share. It surprised both of them that they could talk about the subject in equal measure, and it was not all just from a literary standpoint. Their experience of plays were not only the ones English majors were required to suffer through, or the childish versions of famous Broadways ones which Fitzwilliam sat through when Georgie was involved in theater, but they both attended modern ones when they could find the time.
Fitz shared how his sister had been involved in many productions as a teen, watered-down productions of adult plays. He had encouraged Georgia to continue this interest after their father died. It had allowed her, in a way, to deal with the grief of losing both parents in a short amount of time. But mentioning Georgie's interest meant he had to talk about the fact that both his parents were gone.
"That must have been difficult for you." They were still waiting for their food, and Liz fiddled a little bit on the tabletop as it was a more serious topic than arguing about the differences between Russian and British playwrights. "I suppose it was up to you to hold your family together. Is it just you two, are there no cousins or other family?" she asked.
"I have two cousins, sort of nearby," he said. "My cousin Bob and my cousin Anne."
"Are they older or younger?" she asked.
"Both older, and yes they both assisted."
"That sounds rather clinical," she said with a small smile.
"They are only children," he said after a short pause. "Bob had no sister so he had no way to relate to a girl of that age. How was he to know how to deal with a twelve year old?" Fitz had paused as though he did not want to continue, but then kept speaking. "My cousin Anne is, well, I don't know...how much you understand about money and what it does to people?" he saw something, almost like a hood coming down over her eyes.
"Perhaps you do," he continued. "There are different ways it affects people. There are those who have only known what it was like to have money. Anyway, my cousin Anne is someone who always had a silver spoon. She never had siblings, and it has always been about her. It isn't that she doesn't care about other people, she simply cares mostly about herself." He shrugged his shoulders a little bit as he dismissed his cousin. "So it is me and my sister. I spent a lot of time figuring out what to do for Georgie. And drama worked well."
"I think I would go crazy if I had to deal with the grief of losing both my parents then having to deal with a sibling who was still a child. I'm thankful my parents got the having of us over so quickly that we are self-reliant and close in age. We are rather close, even if we are all different women and are studying different subjects. It must be different to be so far apart from your sister in age," remarked Liz.
He did not answer. She reached her hand across, palm out and he put his hand in hers. "Trials," he said, "trials."
"I am sorry," she replied.
"My life was a series of trials for a couple of years," he said.
"So you got a dog to tell all your secrets to," she mused. "That had to have helped."
"I never thought of it like that," he said.
"I imagine that the responsibility of one more life could have been your undoing, so getting Jack at that time had to have been a bonus and not a burden," she squeezed his hand.
"I don't think I have appreciated Jack as much as I should have," said Fitz, "when you put it like that."
"Dog walker," she explained, "it's my job. I think it is human nature to not appreciate the things in front of us; the things we take for granted."
They held each other's hand as they looked across the table at each other. After one last firm squeeze, they let go.
"This conversation has gotten rather heavy," he said.
"Well, what else can we talk about? I can tell you about my mother," she said and grinned.
"Can't you tell me about you?" he asked quietly.
"That might be a heavy conversation as well," was her reply.
"Tell me about you when you were little," he prompted.
"Me as a little girl: I was little," she grinned. "I was about this high," she grinned even more as she held her hand up to about the height of the table. "I adored my grandmother," Liz placed an elbow on the tabletop and leaned a fist on her chin.
"Which one?" asked Fitz.
"My father's mother," she answered. "Nonna. She was a hugger, boy was she a hugger. We were always in her arms, and she would never let go. She was fiddly, made things, sewed things, baked things. I think that was where my father got his tinkering from."
"Are you a tinker..tinkerer? That does not come off the tongue very easily," he smiled his half-smile.
"I am not sure that I am. I haven't quite figured out what I am supposed to do in life. My oldest, that beautiful and perfect sister who is in graduate school; she knows what she wants to do. Beauty and brains. My youngest one, well…besides trying to always wind up Mom because Mom has certain ideas about how girls should behave, she refuses to conform. She is so talented, you should hear her perform."
He sat up a little then, "really, does she act? or what instrument does she play, or does she sing?"
"She actually can do both," said Liz. "She cannot pass a piano without tinkering at it," her eyes brightened. "She likes to sing, has this unusual alto voice. But she is always a little un-directed. I think she needs to meet somebody who will mold her, in a way."
"Interesting, and then there's you," he directed.
"Yup. Then there's me. With my stupid English degree. I should only graduate, and find some guy to marry, and it is up to me to give Mom grandkids because what else do you do with an English degree?" The other hand came up, and she rested her chin in both hands.
"Do women think like that?" he asked.
"Some actually might, but we have moments when Mom… she is so in your face that we joked that one of us needed to distract Mom if the other two were to succeed."
"Succeed, but not the way your mom wished?" he asked.
"I think it is part of our way of deflecting Mom's rather fierce energies. It is a little over-bearing to be Mrs. …" she stopped herself.
"Yes?" he prompted.
"I was about to give something away there," Liz pouted her lips.
"Did your mother ever work?" he asked.
"No and yes. Mom insisted her focus be on us. Always and forever. Most of my friends had both parents work. My roommate, Charlotte, had a mom who worked a great deal. I think I would have preferred that model. It would have been a better one, but in some ways, we seem to be rebelling against, or conforming to, our mother and her focus on family." Her eyes bugged out a little.
"Like your having to leave me in an hour and a half because you have to spend your weekends with your mother?" sighed Fitzwilliam.
"Exactly," said Liz.
"Sure you don't want to go to a charity event this evening? Black tie." His eyes danced.
"No thank you," Liz answered. "Not unless jeans and sneakers are acceptable attire."
Their food arrived, and there were minutes of eating and inquiring of the other about taste, some sharing, oh you have to try this, not what I expected, conversation before they settled back down to taking small enough bites that they could get back to talking.
They moved back to discussing the theater, and began to talk about musical theater. They had moved through the whole historical range of plays and theater; it was difficult once they got to Broadway to not talk musicals. They found they both enjoyed them. The rest of their dinner, they talked of ones they had seen live, ones they had seen on video, and ones they sorely would like to see should they ever be performed locally. Fitz, of course, had seen far more than Liz with her limited funds.
Despite assurances of bad service and being able to linger over dinner, it still was not half past six when they finished their meal. They walked out of the restaurant content with the meal and the conversation.
"I still have time on your clock," Fitz asserted.
"There is no place to go," she answered. They walked out to the parking lot. It had more cars in it now, but was not yet full. Another perk of this restaurant, besides poor service, was that it had parking lot, and they did not have to use a city lot.
He laughed as they walked the rows of cars and came to his own and pointed to the sedan next to his. "You did that deliberately."
"I assumed the only BMW here would be yours," she answered, grinning.
"Ice cream?" he asked. "You need to hit the road, so no drinks. By the time we hit a bar it would be time for you to leave anyway."
"It would probably be time to leave as soon as we got the ice cream," she circled around on his logic.
"True, you cannot get anywhere here quickly, can you?" He sighed and looked down at her.
"No," she shook her head. "I did try; I lingered over dinner."
"There is always sitting like awkward teenagers in a car and talking," he suggested.
"I don't know that I ever sat awkwardly in a car as a teenager," she asserted.
"Were you never an awkward teenager?" Fitz asked.
"I don't think I have ever stopped being an awkward teenager," replied Liz. "I just don't know that I ever sat with a boy in a car."
"I don't think I am a boy anymore," he said, frowning.
"I should hope not," she replied. "I am sure your car is more comfortable than mine," she was warming to the idea. "I have never even touched a Beamer, let alone sat in one." He reached into his pocket and clicked; the doors unlocked. Fitz walked over to the passenger side to hold it open for her. Liz shook her head.
"You don't want to really do it?" Fitzwilliam frowned.
"I thought we were going to act like awkward teenagers," she answered. He noticed a rather wicked grin.
"Yes."
"So why don't we sit in the back seat," Liz suggested.
"I don't know that I have ever been in the back seat of my own car," he replied.
He shut the passenger door, and opened the door behind it. After she crawled in, he went around to the other side and got in, and joined in her laughter. They sat on either side of the back seat of his car, laughing. Liz had started with a small giggle, but she kept going, and raised a hand to her lips, eventually covering her eyes with her elbow because she was laughing so hard. Her embarrassment, yet her delight, and her nervousness, and her excitement were all contagious, and Fitzwilliam found himself laughing equally as hard as they sat as though teenagers, yet in the back seat of a high-end motor vehicle, giggling.
"This is just so unexpected, it's funny," she said.
"Okay, perhaps I just need to let you go on your way," he replied. They straightened themselves and sat then as if on a church pew, looking forward and not at each other.
"What time is it?" Liz asked.
"I don't wear a watch anymore; I usually look at my phone, but it's in my pocket," he answered.
"6:40," she said. Liz had pulled her phone out from somewhere. "Do you suppose watch sales have plummeted now that everyone uses their phone?"
"I suppose so," Fitz said. There was silence between them then.
"Liz," he began.
"Look," she said at the same time.
"No, you go first," Fitzwilliam told her.
She looked at him but then up at the front of the car. "I am…I think I told you…I…I had a relationship that went sour, very sour at the end."
"Yes."
"His dad had a lot of money. He is on track to be the next big shot in town, and it was very painful. I have learned to just not trust guys who can afford cars like this. On principle, I have avoided them and lumped them all into one big puddle."
"And then you get on your rain boots and splash on them," he countered.
Liz laughed. "I like that idea…but I like you too." She moved closer, scooting across the back seat of that car. You would assume it would be awkward, but if teenagers could do it, they too could figure out a way, and they did, to kiss in the back seat of a car.
At first, they merely leaned over, towards one another, their lips finding each other. His hand came out to stroke her hair, and she leaned over to tug at him, her hand found a knee, then her arms moved around him to pull him to her.
His kisses became wilder, advancing beyond those morning kisses, or even that goaded goodbye kiss the previous week. He infused them with everything he felt about her. How much she thrilled. How much he enjoyed her company. How much he did not want to let her go when the clock got to the top of the hour.
Their hands were on each other, but their grip finally loosened as her arms relaxed their hold around his shoulders, his relaxed their grip on her waist, and they looked at each other in the dark.
"Time?" Fitz inquired.
"Probably," Liz answered. "My little sister awaits." His hands moved away from her, but she did not relax her grip.
"You need to get out of my car if you are going to go," he suggested.
In turn, she asked, "why don't you get out and escort me to my car?"
"I would never let you drive away," he explained. "But as you said, your sister is waiting for you."
"She just practices the piano until I show up," replied Liz. Her arms tightened around his shoulders.
Fitzwilliam leaned over to capture her lips again, but then he leaned back after a few more kisses. "I still do not want to be the reason you are late for home," he said. "Your mother," he moved slightly away from her.
"Nothing to kill a mood like mentioning my mother," she said. "I will go," Liz moved over to the door.
"You and I can do this again…next Friday?" said Fitz. "Dinner again?"
"Yes," she said. "We will. We will get together again next week."
"Good night, Liz," he said.
"Good night, Fitz," she called as she opened the door.
Fitzwilliam Darcy sat in the back seat of his car lost in thought. If anyone noticed him sitting there and thought it an odd sight, he did not notice while he listened to the sounds of her slamming her car door, starting the engine, and driving away.
He felt lonely and cheated, and did not want to wait for seven more days to spend a few more hours with her. There were the short bursts of time in the morning, but he felt cheated, simply cheated as if playing a card game, or his pocket picked, or having been teased at school, as he finally climbed from the backseat of his BMW, and into the front, to drive home. He would forgo the art auction as it was not where he wanted to be, not the society he wished.
He went home, and slacks be damned, sat cross-legged on the floor with Jack's head in his lap and considered a pair of beautiful eyes, and an equally stunning pair of lips.