I know it has been a while, but this story is still on my mind and will get finished. However, you may need to have some patience as I skip between stories and try to get things done at work. Please forgive any spelling errors. FF seems to have eliminated the spell-check function it used to have.
XXXIII
The night before his wedding, Charlie Bingley labored diligently over his love letter to Jane. With his thoughts filled with her, his pen looped over the page. He wrote on and on, fancying to himself that he had a poet's heart. He filled three sheets front and back, and then signed his name with a flourish. He folded and tucked the pages into an envelope, and addressed it to Jane.
When he went to bed at 11pm, Charlie struggled to sleep. In the short time they had lived together, he had grown accustomed to holding Jane each night before they separated a little and slept, to feeling her form and heat, to hearing her breathing. By 11:30, he had formed a "pillow Jane" by placing her pillow lengthwise along her side of the bed, but hugging a pillow was nothing like hugging Jane.
Still, he consoled himself with the notion that after tomorrow they never need be separated again. Although they had opted for a more modern ceremony, Charlie had heard often enough in movies the minister speak the line, "What God has joined together, let no one put asunder." With that phrase echoing in his head, Charlie finally slept.
As the groom, he had far fewer duties than the bride and had not set an alarm for the next morning. Darcy was supposed to come over to his place at around 11am and then later they were going to go to lunch.
In the haze of sleep, Charlie did not immediately rouse upon hearing his phone ring with the personalized ringtone song he had set for Mrs. Bennet: Scooby-Doo, Where are You? He had set it because Mrs. Bennet only seemed to call him when she was trying to reach Jane. Instead, his dream in which he had been placing the ring on Jane's finger and waiting to kiss her, morphed into a mystery where someone had replaced Jane's ring with a plastic ring and Scooby and the gang were trying to help him find it. A minute or so later, when the phone rang again, the villains were tied up, their masks had been ripped off, the ring was returned to him and Jane's hand was out stretched, waiting for him to slide the ring on.
The third time the song played, Charlie finally roused and with a groan, pulled himself up. He didn't make it to the phone in time, but then sat with it in his lap, knowing in a minute or so after leaving her message, she would call again. When it rang again and he answered, it was just as he thought: Mrs. Bennet was asking for Jane.
Charlie told her what he knew and then tried to reach Jane himself, knowing that as usual the probable issue was that once again, Jane hadn't charged her phone. But now being thoroughly awake, Charlie got up and went to the gym. As he was driving back home, Scooby-Doo, Where are You? began playing again. He answered hands free and Mrs. Bennet's voice through the car speakers surrounded him as she said, not giving any sort of a greeting: "Jane and Lizzy haven't turned up yet and neither of them are answering their phones? What if something happened to them, a car accident, a home robbery? I am so worried and there is so much left to be done!"
Charlie was pretty sure Mrs. Bennet was being overly dramatic with her predictions of tragedy, and the real problem was that they weren't even now working on last minute wedding day preparations. He told her, "They probably just had a bit too much to drink and overslept."
"But I couldn't reach Mary either!" she wailed. "Go check on them, please!"
"I. . ." Charlie prepared to respond.
In his hesitation, Mrs. Bennet assumed his assent, "Oh, thank you Charlie. You are a life-saver. You'll be my favorite son-in-law for sure. I'm going to hop in the shower now." Then there was a dial tone.
"I didn't agree," Charlie announced to the inside of his car.
When he got home, he sent off a couple of texts trying to track down Jane and telling Darcy about the situation before he jumped in the shower himself. By the time Charlie had showered, shaved and dressed, Darcy had arrived. Charlie was happy for his presence. Surely Darcy would help him out, since he knew he shouldn't go see Jane on the morning of their wedding!
So rather than sharing lunch, Darcy was dispatched as the "find Jane and get her to Mrs. Bennet's" task force and Charlie was left without anyone to go to lunch with him. He decided to see if either of his two good friends who were also serving as groomsmen were free. David Wilson didn't pick up and Raimundo Lima Silva did not answer either. He considered calling his final groomsman, Don Hurst, but then decided against it. While he had nothing against his brother-in-law, he was not especially close to him.
Just then, Charlie's phone started playing Willow Smith singing Whip My Hair. He picked up, "Hiya Sis."
"Hi Bro. How's it going?" Caroline asked. "Are you still at lunch with Darcy?"
"No, he had to get the girls up. I think Jane and Lizzy were partying a little too hard last night, celebrating Jane's last night as a single woman."
"Well, they didn't call me!" Charlie heard a pout in Caroline's tone, but also a bit of hurt feelings.
"It was a last minute thing, just the sisters and no one else," he tried to assuage her disappointment.
"But I'm going to be a sister," she rejoined.
"Yes, that's true." In a move meant to affirm that his sister was still special, and so as to not have to eat alone, Charlie invited to come over and then go out to lunch with him.
While she was over at his apartment, Caroline spotted the envelop on the coffee table addressed to "My Love Jane."
Caroline asked, "What's this?" as she picked it up, flipped it over and started drawing out the paper.
"That's private," Charlie insisted, but Caroline ignored him, unfolding the pages and perusing them.
He reached toward her to grab the pages from her, but Caroline was faster, getting up and running with them to the bathroom, where she promptly locked herself in. It felt like they were twelve and ten again.
Charlie could have knocked or used the little "key" that poked into the hole on the outside of the knob, which he kept on top of the door frame, but instead he waited, curious to see what his sister would think of his love letter. As he waited he started to worry. What if it isn't as good as I remember it being?
A few minutes later Caroline emerged, shaking her head "no." "Charlie, listen to me, you cannot give that to Jane."
"Why?" Charlie asked, feeling a bit hurt. He knew the letter wasn't perfect, but he had written about all his feelings and wasn't a husband supposed to tell his wife how special she was to him?
"Because, it's just a mess. I can't understand one sentence in seven. Trust me, this will not make a good impression on her. It may send her running for the hills. You've got to rewrite this, or better yet type it."
"Really?" He took the letter back from her and began scanning it. As he did, he came to the realization that he couldn't read it himself. "I guess you're right. I had all the words in my head but . . ."
"But your hand didn't translate them right. You think faster than you can write and this letter shows that. It's why mom always insisted that you use the computer for your papers, and paid me or Louisa to proofread and correct them."
"Oh, yeah," Charlie remembered. But the idea of having his sister proofread and fix his love letter was distasteful. "Okay, I'll fix it, but without your help."
Caroline looked skeptical. "You'd better have someone review it, or at least run it through Grammarly or something like that, although I am not sure that would be enough."
"Okay," Charlie agreed. To distract her, he started asking her where he should take her to lunch. Once she determined he was buying, she suggested the little French Bistro across town. Given how in demand it was, Charlie had to call up and get a reservation, but the earliest one wasn't until 2 pm. Caroline told him she didn't have to be at the salon for her updo until four, so they took it.
Charlie didn't work on the letter in the interim as he didn't want Caroline's help. They just binged watched part of The Queen's Gambit instead with Charlie wandering off when his phone started playing Chapel of Love.
"Oh, Love, are you at your mom's now?" he picked up Jane's call.
"Yes, we were really late, but thanks for sending Darcy to get us up. I really think it will all turn out okay." In the background, Charlie could hear Mrs. Bennet yelling someone, probably Elizabeth.
"It sounds like a lot is going on over there. What can I do to help?"
"Just get there at 4 to start setting up the chairs. Bring your tux with you, but wear scroungy stuff before then. And don't forget your dress shoes."
"Yes, dear . . . soon to be Mrs. Bingley. It is our wedding day! I can't wait to see you again." Charlie teared up a little, imagining Jane floating up to him in a full ballgown style wedding dress. My Jane, my bride, what else could be better?
After they got off the phone, Charlie thought aloud, "It would be so much easier if I could just tell her how I feel, rather than having to write it all out."
"Why can't you?" Caroline said, warming to the idea. "There is voice recognition software, or better yet, you could record yourself talking and upload it to YouTube, set it to unlisted and give the link just to her."
Charlie broke out into a huge grin, "Thanks Caro. You're a life saver, I'll go work on it right away."
Charlie started walking to his bedroom when Caroline stopped him by saying, "Aren't we going to go to lunch? It is about time to leave now."
Charlie turned around and the hang-dog expression on his face had her quickly revising. "This is more important. I'll order some delivery. Just promise you'll take me out to lunch after you get back from your honeymoon."
Charlie impulsively gave Caroline a hug, "You are the best sister," he told her. "Now I've got some recording to do."
Caroline had long since finished her egg-drop soup and pint of moo goo gai pan with the brown rice she'd had to pay extra for, and Charlie's hot and spicy soup and moo shu pork was completely cold by the time he emerged from his bedroom. "Did you finish?" she asked, even though it was obvious from his tired but smiling face that he had.
"Yes. I talked to Jane about a half a dozen times and spliced the best parts together. I think she'll love it. I'm going to send her the link at five-thirty. Can you make sure she checks her phone then and watches it? And get everyone else out of there while she does it? It is only about five minutes long."
"Okay," Caroline gave Charlie a hug. "I've got to go in a minute to get to my appointment on time and then I'll see you at the wedding."
