A/N: Thanks as always to Jan, Barbara, and Alison.
Chapter 15
April and May, 2013
By the end of April, Lizzy had told Dean Goodwin she was happy to accept the offer to teach one class at Yale in September, and Will was preparing to begin taking Fridays off to be with Emma. They both had a lot to do as a result.
Will was working hard with his temporary PA to clear his schedule on Fridays and to pack all his work into the four remaining days a week. He was also negotiating with his staff to clarify what their new roles and responsibilities would be, now that he was finally handing off some of the jobs he should have delegated to others long ago. He told Lizzy that he knew his VPs would do a great job schmoozing with investors, communicating with the managers of companies they'd invested in, and other tasks he had been in the habit of monopolizing and micromanaging himself. It was hard to let them go, he said, but he knew it was the right thing to do. The VPs might be even better at these things than he was, who could tell?
Lizzy started working in earnest on sketching out her class for the fall, preparing lesson plans and ordering books and all of that. She was also still working hard on her law review article, and started to make the trek up to the Columbia University law library whenever she could to use the resources and quiet workspace there. She had access because she was an alum.
Lizzy and Will had discussed their changing needs with Elena, and they had all agreed that she would now come on Monday afternoons and all day Wednesday. This was what their schedule would be in September, so why not start now? Elena said she liked this schedule better, anyway, because it meant she could take a three-day weekend and visit her son in Baltimore whenever she wanted. And, she said, she certainly wasn't going to complain about a change in her working hours when they were already paying her a five-day-a-week salary for a day and a half of work.
And so it was that just before 9 o'clock on the first Friday morning in May, Will and Lizzy were nearly prepared for their first day of the new arrangement. The freezer was full of tubes of frozen breastmilk, and the box of rice cereal was on the kitchen counter alongside some jars of baby food. Lizzy was dressed for casual Friday, had her computer bag slung over her shoulder, and was in the living room poised to head off to the law library. Will and Emma were snuggled up on the sofa, and Emma looked like she might actually take a little nap. She'd been awake since 5:30, again.
"All set?" Lizzy asked.
"Yeah, I think so. I think we'll just hang around here this morning, and maybe go to the aquarium later."
"OK, sounds good. I'll be at the library, so you can text me if you need me." Suddenly, she realized she'd forgotten something important. "Shit. I totally forgot. The cleaning crew comes in a little after 9 o'clock on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. So we have to clean up all the baby stuff before they get here. You also might want to take Emma out while they're here, because she can't stand the sounds or the smells."
"What? We have to clean for the cleaners?" Will asked incredulously.
Lizzy nodded. "Yeah, of course. We have to give them some actual flat surfaces to, you know, scrub and dust and vacuum and all that."
Even more incredulously, Will asked, "So what exactly are we paying them to do?"
"The hard part, that's what. Do you want me to give you a hand?" She set down her computer bag. "We have to fold up the baby gym, and throw all the toys into the toybox, and clean all the crap off the table in the breakfast nook, and—"
"And you do this every other day?"
She shrugged and stopped picking up toys. "How else do you think it looks this good all the time? Whatever, we can see what happens if we don't do it. It'll probably be OK, but it'll take longer for them to finish, maybe an hour? Less if we clean up first, maybe 30 minutes. I think you're still better off taking Emma out, though."
Will sighed heavily and stood up. "I wish you'd told me before. Can you take her for a minute? I'll be right back. I just want to change so we can go out." Lizzy apologized again and took Emma, and stood looking down at her as her little baby eyelids fluttered just a little. Lizzy rocked her gently and hummed a tuneless song.
A moment later Will came back in, wearing a blue button-down shirt instead of the Harvard t-shirt he'd had on before.
"I think if we put her down in her crib, she might actually stay asleep," Lizzy whispered. She and Will walked together back down the hall to Emma's room and returned a few minutes later when Lizzy's prediction proved accurate.
"So, you didn't know that light housekeeping was in the job description, huh?" Lizzy teased him.
"No, I guess not," he answered, clearly chagrined.
"I'm sorry. You don't have to do it," she said.
"It's OK, I will. You just go, do your thing. This is your time. Go ahead."
Lizzy examined his face closely, to make sure he wasn't mad and just being passive-aggressive. It could be hard to tell, with him.
"You're sure?" she asked, just in case.
"Yeah, really. She's sleeping, anyway. What else would I do?" Actually, Lizzy could think of a million things she would do if their circumstances were reversed, but she kept her thoughts to herself.
"All right." She kissed him and picked up her bag. "Love you. See you around 5:30? Maybe before?"
He nodded, and walked her to the door.
"Do you have the new diaper bag ready?" she asked. They had bought him a black messenger-bag-style diaper bag because he had been uncomfortable with the thought of carrying around the big flowery one they usually used.
"Yeah, I'm good to go. Don't worry."
On her way down in the elevator, she almost turned back a few times, to see what he was doing, to find out if he was really tidying up the apartment. But she didn't. Curiosity killed the cat, after all.
Lizzy arrived home at about 5 o'clock, a little earlier than planned. Frankly, she wanted to know how Will and Emma had done, but she didn't want it to seem like she was checking up on them. With that in mind, she had resisted phoning him from the library on multiple occasions. He had texted her a couple of times during the day, so she knew that they had indeed gone out when the cleaners had come in and woken Emma up, and then had spent an hour or so at the aquarium watching the sea otters swim around and around.
When she walked in the door, Will and Emma were playing on the baby gym on the living room floor. Lizzy knelt down and gave them both big kisses and hugs.
"Hey, you two. How did it go?"
Will flopped down flat on his back on the carpet, his arms out wide. "I'm exhausted. And bored out of my skull. And totally in love. All at the same time."
Lizzy laughed, reaching out to stroke his side. "I know. Isn't it amazing?"
And that's when she knew for sure it was all going to be OK.
The next week, Will took Emma to the carousel in the Children's Zone in Central Park. He'd gone there as a kid with his nanny and really liked it. Lizzy had forgotten all about it, if she'd ever really noticed it. She'd always been too busy rushing around for work to pay attention to things like that, before Emma. But it turned out that Will knew about a lot of places for kids in the city because he'd grown up there. As a result, he was able to give Emma the full tour, a totally different experience of the city than the one she was getting from Lizzy. Lizzy thought that was great.
"Was the carousel as good as you remembered?" she asked that evening, sitting down on the living room floor next to Will. He was holding Emma up by the arms as she tried to stand up.
"Oh, yeah, even better, probably. They've fixed it up a lot. It was in bad shape when I was a kid. You know, the city was in bankruptcy, and they weren't maintaining anything back then." Emma's legs collapsed under her, so Will pulled her up to standing again.
"Right. What else did you do in the park?"
"We went to the playground to watch the other kids play. I don't quite get the point, since she's too little to get out of the carrier and actually do much of anything, though."
"You didn't help her slide down the slide, or put her in the swing or anything?" Lizzy couldn't help inquiring as she swiped some carpet fuzz off of Emma's leg.
"Oh, sure, of course. Mostly we sat on the bench and watched the squirrels, though. She thought they were great, really funny. They were chasing each other around super fast and fighting and making that ack ack sound."
"That's our girl," Lizzy sang, chucking Emma under the chin. Emma responded by sitting down suddenly.
"Also, she didn't like the swing very much. I think maybe she gets motion sick."
"Aha, just like her poor daddy," Lizzy teased, leaning her head against Will's shoulder.
Emma scooted her way over to the sofa and tried unsuccessfully to pull herself up.
"Hmmph. Maybe. So here's an odd thing. You know how when we go to the park together with Emma, we sometimes share a bench with someone, or end up talking about the kids with moms on the playground?"
Lizzy shrugged, "Yeah, I guess so."
"That didn't happen today, or at least not so much. When I put Emma in the swing, the mom, or nanny, or whatever she was, next to me pulled her kid out of the swing and they walked away."
"Maybe the kid was just through with the swing."
"No. It happened too many times to be a coincidence. I think they think a guy out with a kid must be some kind of scary monster." Will picked Emma up and cuddled her until she struggled away and started inching toward the sofa again.
"Seriously?" Lizzy found that surprising. "I would have thought the baby would be a huge chick magnet, like a puppy. Really, nobody came over to check you out?"
Will's ears turned a little red. "Well, I guess there was a little of that."
Lizzy laughed at him. "Of course there was. Who could stay away?"
"No, but seriously, the other thing was happening, too. I'm not making it up."
"So, a sort of repulsion-attraction thing going on. Do you think that's what Ahmed meant when he said things were weird for dads out there?"
Will nodded. "Maybe. It is peculiar being the only one there all the time."
"But we know you're not the only one. Do you want to try that— what did he call it?— Daddy and Me thing?"
Will leaned back on his elbows, looking at the ceiling. Emma thought that was interesting, so she changed course and crept back in his direction.
"Yeah, maybe. I'll think about it."
Lizzy's stomach rumbled. She looked down at him and put her hand on his knee. "Got any thoughts about dinner?"
"My main thought about dinner is that I want someone to put it right in front of me with no further effort expended on my part. I don't even want to think about where to get the delivery delivered from."
Lizzy snickered and said, "You just lie there and I'll dangle bonbons over your mouth. But seriously, and I know this isn't going to solve our problem tonight, but I had a thought about this. We're too tired to cook, and eating takeout all the time isn't good for us. One of Louisa's friend told me about a service that can bring you a week's worth of really good home-cooked meals, and all you have to do is heat them up. What do you think?"
"So you're still against the idea of a live-in cook slash housekeeper slash chauffeur slash nanny?" he teased.
She shot him a dirty look. "Be serious, Darcy. She told me it tastes good and it's, I don't know, organic and local or something. I know it's going to get hard when I'm working more, and I think this might be a good idea."
"Organic, really?" he raised his head to ask doubtfully. He collapsed back onto the carpet. "Well, OK. We can give it a try. I certainly can't cook."
"Tonight or any night," she said, giving him a little nudge.
"Nothing either of us would want to eat, anyway."
Lizzy hadn't seen or talked much with Charlotte for a few weeks, and so she thought it was time to catch up. They arranged to have lunch near Charlotte's office so she could run back to work afterwards.
Lizzy arranged Emma in her high chair and whipped out a rubber placemat with suction cups to hold it to the table. She distracted Emma by laying out some mushy banana chunks on the placemat while she and Charlotte ordered and talked.
"Just the chopped salad for me, please," Lizzy said to the hipster-doofus waiter as she clapped the menu shut. To Charlotte, she confided, "Getting a little too zaftig lately."
"Same for me," said Charlotte to the waiter, handing over her menu. "So, what's new with you guys?"
"Actually, some big changes are afoot. One, I'm going to teach a class at Yale in the fall."
"Really? You're not enjoying your life as a lady of leisure?" Charlotte's mouth turned up a little sarcastically as she said this.
"Oh, come off it, Charlotte."
"Sorry." Charlotte gazed blandly at Lizzy over the top of her water glass.
"I think it'll be good for me, a way to get back into working again. If I don't get out there in the adult world again, I'm going to go crazy."
Charlotte glanced at her sharply. "Look, Lizzy, I appreciate that you've had a hard time. But frankly, I'm getting sick of hearing about it."
Lizzy looked at Charlotte as if she had suddenly come unhinged. Were they really going to do this little dance again?
"Um...I'm sorry?" she snapped. "First you were on my case for quitting my job, and now you're pissed off that I'm going back to work? God, I can't do anything right, apparently."
Charlotte waited a beat. "No, I'm sorry. That was too much." Her face twisted a little in a way Lizzy couldn't quite read.
Lizzy reached around Emma to touch Charlotte's hand and asked, "What's going on, C?"
"Look, I'm trying to be sympathetic, really I am. But I don't think you quite get that you have a choice here that most of us don't." Charlotte sounded very bitter, and she pulled her hand away, pretending it was just to pick up her water glass.
"What do you mean?"
"Come on. You married a rich guy, and you don't need to work, have a paying job, whatever the hell we're supposed to call it now. And you can just, you know, dabble like this, if you want to. Most of us, here in the real world, don't have that luxury." She looked Lizzy in the eye, her own flashing with anger.
For a minute, Lizzy seriously considered getting up and walking out of the restaurant. If the money was going to come between them like this always and forever, what was the damn point of trying to stay friends? On the other hand, Charlotte's response seemed kind of disproportionate to Lizzy's supposed crime. Maybe there was something deeper here, something a good friend should try to figure out instead of running away. So she didn't get up.
Instead, she took a big breath and said, in measured tones, "I'm not going to be dabbling. I'm making a carefully considered career move that I hope will actually make my life work. And anyway I thought you liked your job."
"I do like my job, in spite of all my complaints about my stupid boss. Except for the money, I am happy. I'm also tired and totally at my limit." Charlotte slammed down her glass.
"So, why are you mad at me, if you're happy with your situation? Why can't I choose that, too?"
"You have a choice. Why aren't you taking advantage of it?" Charlotte's voice rose.
Lizzy leaned across the table toward Charlotte. "Why are you assuming that, because I have a choice, the right choice, really the only choice, is for me to stay home?"
Emma squawked so Lizzy distractedly put some more bananas on her tray.
Then she went on. "I don't want to stay home all the time. It's been good, but I need to get back out there. Because I 'have a choice,' does it mean I am required to make the choice that will make me unhappy, just because that life would make someone else happy? Or because someone else thinks it's the ideal life? That's not much of a choice, if you ask me."
Charlotte stared at the tabletop and didn't answer for a while. Finally she said, "No, you're right. Maybe I'm just jealous."
"I wish you had that choice, too, Charlotte. I'm sorry you don't. Really, I mean it. I want you to be happy. You know that."
Emma started massaging bananas into her hair as she watched Lizzy and Charlotte's back-and-forth curiously.
"And anyway, if you had a choice, would you want to stay home?" Lizzy asked.
"We'll never know, will we?" Again, Charlotte sounded very bitter as she slumped back into her chair.
The waiter arrived at their table and clunked their salads down in front of them.
Charlotte sat back up, picked up her fork and stabbed a tomato. "But actually, I think the answer is no. I wouldn't want to stay home, at least not all the time. But I know lots and lots of women who would, if they could. And I've known lots of women at work over the years who have quit their jobs to be with their kids, even though they really struggled trying to make ends meet on their husbands' salaries alone."
"I'm glad they found a way to live their dream, and do what they thought was best for them and their families."
"Me, too."
Lizzy took a bite of avocado. It was good, nice and soft and ripe, so she put a piece of it on Emma's placemat to see if she would eat it, too.
"So are you still mad at me because that's not my dream?" Lizzy looked at Charlotte, who was just picking at her salad now.
"No." She paused. "I guess I wish I had more choices, even though I'm pretty happy with what I've got."
Lizzy nodded. She could understand that.
Charlotte put down her fork and pronounced, "And it's a good thing, too, because Liam just got laid off."
Shit. So that's what this was all about. "Oh, man. I'm really sorry." Lizzy tried reaching out her hand again, and this time Charlotte didn't pull away.
"They closed down his store and let him go. We had to pull Chloe out of daycare this week because we can't afford it anymore. So, you see, I don't really have any choice at all."
"God. I'm so sorry. How are you doing? How's Liam taking it?"
Charlotte shrugged. "I don't know. Mixed. I've always made more than him, but now, being totally dependent on my income...Let's just say that he's tossed around the word 'emasculated' more than once in the last week."
"Oof." Lizzy squeezed Charlotte's hand sympathetically.
"On the other hand, he might actually be able to spend more time on his art, so there may be an upside. He's talking with some other families in the neighborhood about doing a childcare co-op kind of thing. They'd switch off days or something so he'd get some time to work on his sculpture." She picked up her water glass and swirled the ice around.
Lizzy remembered the construction dust and power tools lying around their apartment and wondered if that was such a good idea. "Is the playroom all done, then?"
"Yup, we finished it last month, so that part is OK, at least."
"So tell me more about how this is playing out. Is the idea that Liam will look for another job right away? He's got a degree in fine arts, right?"
Charlotte talked for a while about her conversations with Liam about this, about whether this whole thing was really a blessing in disguise as it seemed to him, or a disaster, as it seemed to her. Lizzy listened and commiserated. This was really tough stuff.
After a while, Charlotte said, "You said there was some other news with you, before. What's going on?"
Lizzy didn't feel like this was the right time for her to bring up the fact that Will was staying home with Emma one day a week by choice. In fact, she could imagine this piece of good news ending her friendship with Charlotte. "Oh, nothing. It doesn't matter. I want to hear more about your plans."
Charlotte's phone rang.
She let out a big, frustrated sigh. "Oh, God. Sorry, I should take it." She pulled her phone out of her bag and punched 'send' to pick up. "This is Charlotte Lucas." Lizzy watched Charlotte's face change from sad resignation to something else altogether as she listened to what the person on the other end of the phone was saying.
"Uh-huh. Uh-huh. OK, I'll be there." Charlotte was grinning ear to ear by the time the call ended. Then she sat in stunned, disbelieving silence before she let out a shriek of joy that she quickly tried to stifle by clamping both hands over her mouth.
Lizzy grinned back at her. "What is it?" She hadn't seen Charlotte this happy for a very, very long time.
"I have a job interview! I can't believe it. When Liam got his notice, I just...I was so freaked out and hopeless, and I couldn't see how we were going to make it, so I got on that jobs site, and I sent out a bunch of résumés. Most of the jobs were total reaches. I never in a million years dreamed that anything would come of it. But holy shit, I got an interview at the International Fund for Children!"
"That's fantastic, Char! Wow! Good for you! You've been doing amazing work in spite of all of Angela's crazy ideas. I'm not surprised at all."
"It's a pretty high-level position in their communications department. Oh my God," she gasped, clapping her hands to her cheeks. "I've been stuck at AmeriCaring for so long, I have no idea how to do a job interview anymore." Charlotte got all panicky and started to shred her paper napkin.
"Char, is there some way I can help?"
Charlotte stopped and seemed to turn it over in her mind, maybe trying to decide whether to be offended or not. "Like what?" she asked cautiously.
"How about, I don't know, a mock job interview?"
"You're not in my field. Not in business."
"No, but Will is."
"What?"
"Yeah. He's not just a nice ass and a pretty face. He's really good at what he does, and I bet he could give you some great pointers. How about it?"
"He would do that for me? Isn't he too important for that?" Charlotte vibrated with insecurity.
"I'm sure he would if I asked, and if he's available. I've told him about the stuff you've worked on. He knows you're good."
Charlotte thought about this for a minute. "Huh. Well, if it wouldn't be too much trouble. My interview is in two days, though."
"OK, how about tonight? We could have dinner at our place, and then Liam and I can watch the kids while you and Will do a run-through. Whaddaya say?"
Charlotte agreed, still cautiously, and they called their respective mates to see if it might be possible. It was. Will was very pleased to hear that something had gone right for Charlotte for a change, and was only too happy to help.
"Are you sure?" Charlotte asked Lizzy.
"Of course. That's what friends are for. How are you guys going to come over?"
"It's supposed to rain, so taxi, probably. Why?"
"Bring Chloe's trike, OK? I have a plan."
And that's what they did. After dinner, Will and Charlotte sat at the dining room table, which they had set up like an office, and talked through how the interview was likely to proceed. He had done a little research, made a few calls, and gotten some information through his many back channels about the new directions the ICF was taking in their communications strategy. He shared that with her and they talked about how her experience at AmeriCaring and her professional strengths might fit into it, and what she could bring to the organization.
Meanwhile, Lizzy, Liam, Chloe and Emma all went into the big entertaining space off the living room, the ballroom or whatever it was, the one they never used. It had some folded-up tables and stacked-up chairs at one end, but other than that it was empty except for the gilt-framed mirrors on the wall. Lizzy dragged Emma's baby gym in from the living room and built a wall around it with some throw pillows. She, Liam and Emma sat in their little fort while Chloe rode her trike around the perimeter of the room as fast as she could, screeching with joy, her brown curls streaming behind her. She only occasionally crashed into the pillows or the tables and chairs, and a great time was had by all. Lizzy decided to talk to Will about making the place into a permanent playroom for Emma.
And by the next week, Charlotte had the job. It paid considerably more than her old one, and it required longer hours at the office. It was actually a very good thing that Liam was available to pick up the slack with Chloe and other stuff around the house.
Better yet, the entire episode seemed to have soothed something in Charlotte, some sense of bitterness or injustice that had been holding her apart from Lizzy for a while now. Lizzy wondered whether it was just that Charlotte had been on her way down while Lizzy was on her way up, and now that had changed. Or maybe it was that she had finally seen that, in spite of everything that had changed in her life, Lizzy was still her oldest friend who would do anything for her. They had their ups and downs after that, and they always argued over who would pick up the tab when they went out, but Charlotte did seem to have let go of her resentment about Lizzy's money.
The day after Charlotte started work, Lizzy finally had the nerve to tell her about Will's decision to stay home on Fridays with Emma.
"Weird, huh? Our guys are both home with the kids at the same time," Lizzy said over the phone.
Charlotte laughed. "I wouldn't have expected that of Will before, but I guess I can see it now."
"We heard about this Daddy and Me group. Do you think Liam would like that? I think Will is considering going."
Charlotte snickered, "Can you imagine those two guys hanging out together? Mutt and Jeff."
"Abbott and Costello and strollers. Ha!"
The following weekend, Richard and Eleanor were in town again. Eleanor came to the apartment on Saturday morning to visit with Lizzy and Emma while the men went off to the club to play squash. The two grown women and one baby woman hiked to the deli around the corner to pick up the fixings for a brunch of bagels and lox before settling down in the living room to play.
Eleanor had just finished telling Lizzy a long, involved and oddly riveting story about a certain holier-than-thou congressman, a chandelier, and a dominatrix dressed as Bo Peep when the men came back to the apartment. As Lizzy wiped the tears of laughter off her cheeks with the back of her hand, she noticed that Will was favoring his left knee a little bit. He brushed it off when she mentioned something about it. So grumpy! She looked at Richard for some help, and saw that he looked a little off, too, although it was harder to read him because of his permanently jovial expression.
"Tough match? Everything OK? " Lizzy asked, concerned, sitting up. She and Eleanor and Emma were sprawled out on the living room carpet fooling around with some wooden puzzles, which Emma was chewing on.
"Oh, just that little shit, Chip Swales," Will muttered.
Lizzy didn't think she'd ever heard Will say that about anyone all the time she'd known him, not even Chip, who truly was an asshole. He was a smug, preening jerk, especially on the squash court. Lizzy had briefly worked with him at DeWitt, and she knew he had a vicious streak, too. She looked between Will and Richard.
"What did he do? Did he say 'neener-neener' when he won, like that other time?" Chip was famous for being a bad sport. Will always tried to avoid playing against him, but sometimes it was inevitable.
Will turned away and set his gym bag down on the floor with a thump. He never did that, either. He always took his bag right back into the bedroom. Instead, he stood there looking torn over whether to speak. Lizzy guessed that he wanted to tell her, but didn't want to repeat what Chip had said because it was too crude and that kind of language never passed his lips. Or maybe it was because he just wanted to shield her from nasty things in general. Richard, though, as usual had no qualms about speaking.
"That guy is such a jackass. We were changing, and he walked up and started giving Will a hard time about, you know, the Fridays thing. He claimed it was all in good fun, just locker room talk, but it was pretty bad."
Now Lizzy was really alarmed.
"What the hell did that jerk say?" Lizzy jumped to her feet and went to stand by Will, whose expression was becoming even more thunderous by the minute.
Richard looked at Will as if asking for permission. Will muttered something under his breath but didn't seem to object, so his cousin went on very matter-of-factly.
"He said a lot of things, but the highlights were 'balls on a necklace around your wife's neck' and 'pussy-whipped.'"
Eleanor murmured, "God, I hate that expression."
Visions of naked guys strutting back and forth in the locker room trying to intimidate each other by swinging their dicks around flashed before Lizzy's eyes.
"So what did you do?" Lizzy demanded, looking at Will.
Will answered stiffly, "I told him that if he thought there was something wrong with a man taking care of his child, or if he thought there was something wrong with a husband and a wife being equals, or if he thought a man had to dominate women all the time like he does his wife, then he'd better get his head examined." He was so angry he was shaking by now.
Richard leaned toward Lizzy and confided, "Actually, I believe Will's exact words at the end there were, 'fuck off and grow the hell up.'"
This was big. She'd never heard Will say anything like that. Never, not even close.
Lizzy put her arms around Will's waist and leaned against his side. He put his arm around her shoulders. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart." She knew how much he hated confrontations, and rude people, and making a scene. And now, apparently, Chip Swales. "That guy is an ass. He always has been, you know that. Just ignore him."
Between gritted teeth, Will said, "I knew there were guys who would think that kind of thing, but I just didn't think any of them would actually say it to my face."
And Lizzy realized that people probably didn't normally say awful things right to Will's face because of who he was and what he might be able to do for them. He was a big man, he did manly things, and he'd probably never had his masculinity challenged this directly before. This must be quite a shock, then.
Wryly, Richard commented, "Well, I don't think anyone else will have the nerve to do it again after today. Everybody knows what an adolescent dipshit that guy is. Just try to shake it off."
Sympathetically, Lizzy said, "Plus, I bet he has a teeny, tiny little needle-dick, right? So there's really no competition there, stud." She patted Will's arm reassuringly and did her very best to gaze demurely up at him. "Will's hung like a bull elephant, you know, dear," she stage-whispered to Eleanor, and batted her eyes at Will.
Blithely, Eleanor replied, "Oh, right, that's what I hear," as she looked pointedly at Richard to indicate the supposed source of her information.
Richard gave a great shout of laughter and even Will cracked a smile. "You really know how to build a man up, little lady," Richard said to Lizzy in his best John Wayne voice.
Later, they sat around the dining room table and enjoyed the spread: lox, bagels, cream cheese, capers, onions, tomatoes, the whole works.
Between chewy bites, Richard turned his head to Will, "So, Georgie's getting out soon, right?"
Will nodded. "Uh-huh. Next week." He put some bananas and cheese cubes on Emma's high-chair tray.
"What's the plan?"
"She's moving into an apartment in the city with Blake. It belongs to his family. She can have access to some more of the funds from the family trust if she stays clean and stays in therapy."
"What's she want the money for?" Richard asked, applying some more lox slices to his bagel.
Will shrugged. "I don't know exactly. Maybe for their wedding, or a summer place, or something. I don't even want to know the details, to tell you the truth."
Richard nodded sympathetically. "I'm sorry, man. I wish I could have come to more of the family therapy sessions. I couldn't get away. Sean had me working like a dog on the Hill this spring."
"You came often enough to know they weren't doing much good." Will assumed the glum expression that came over him when he talked about Georgie.
Richard leaned over to pick up some of Emma's cheese that had ended up on the floor. "Yeah. Look, I told my mom and dad that Georgie might be back in the city. They want to have some kind of, you know, family get-together for her. They want you to come, of course."
Will jerked back as if he'd been slapped.
"I know. No excuses from me. You don't have to go if you don't want to. I laid down the law with them, no booze. That's not how you welcome someone back from rehab."
Will just shook his head in disbelief.
Lizzy turned to Eleanor and said brightly, "So, what are you guys doing for the rest of the weekend?"
Later, Lizzy and Will closed the door behind Richard and Eleanor with promises of getting together again soon.
Hitching Emma up on her hip, Lizzy turned to Will and said, "Well, that was ten different kinds of crap to get dumped on you in one day. Are you OK?"
They walked back into the living room and sat down close together on the sofa. Lizzy handed Emma over to Will, who was looking bereft.
"Yeah, I guess. I just can't believe the nerve of Richard's parents. I mean, really? After ten years, they finally decide they want to patch things up, and only after Georgie comes back as the prodigal daughter? Christ."
Emma looked like she was slowing down for her afternoon nap, so Will hoisted her up onto his shoulder and rubbed her back.
"What exactly happened with them?" Lizzy asked hesitantly. He had never shared the details of this story with her before. She had sometimes hoped that maybe he could reconnect with them, become part of the extended family again. Would that ever be possible?
"We had a big showdown after Georgie OD'd. You know this part, the lawyers and counselors told me the research showed the best thing to do was to tell her she was cut off except for her allowance until she agreed to go into rehab. My uncle thought I was taking too hard a line with her, that I should show her some more compassion because she was so young, blah blah blah. He really let me have it. You know, if he admits anybody has a problem with booze or whatever, then he has to recognize his own problem. And this was after they were no help at all while she was in the hospital and I had to deal with the press and all that crap on my own. I really wasn't in the mood to see them after that."
"Yeah, I can see why. I didn't really know how deep this ran before." Lizzy put her arms around Will and Emma, who was starting to drift off in Will's embrace.
"For what it's worth, I think you're doing the right things, have done the right things, with Georgie. And with Emma, too," she said, alluding to the confrontation with Chip earlier in the day. "It just sucks that it's so hard."
"I couldn't do it without you."
They sat there for a few moments in silence.
"Are you OK with the incident this morning, with that asshat, Chip?"
"Yeah," he said. "If someone like him doesn't like how I'm spending my time, then I'm going to do it twice as hard for twice as long. 'I just get braver when someone tries to intimidate me,' or whatever that saying is."
Lizzy laughed. "Or something like that." She definitely appreciated the sentiment.
Georgie did leave Tranquility the next week, and she moved into the apartment with Blake. Sunday evening she gave Will a brief courtesy phone call as the counselors had encouraged her to do, and Monday she dutifully took a drug test as the lawyers required. The second weekend she was at home, Will's aunt and uncle had a family get-together at their house on Saturday afternoon.
Lizzy, Will and Emma arrived at the Fitzwilliam house, a nineteenth-century French-style mansion on Park Avenue, to find that the party was already in full swing. They were ushered into what was clearly the ballroom, with its big open spaces, glass doors open to the garden, and a wall of mirrors. The "family" in a small family get-together apparently included several generations of the Fitzwilliam cousins, close to 40 in all if you counted the spouses. And it was most definitely a cocktail party.
Will's uncle met them at the doorway. He was in his early seventies, a tall man like Will, but much heavier, with salt-and-pepper hair and a bulbous, veined, red nose. Like his son Sean, he had been a member of Congress, but he'd retired because of some health problems. Based on his current level of inebriation, Lizzy speculated that they might be related to the state of his liver.
"There you are, Willie. Is this the wife?" Lizzy couldn't believe those were his first words to Will after ten years.
A muscle in Will's cheek twitched a little, but he kept it together. "Lizzy, this is my uncle, Donald Fitzwilliam. Uncle Donald, this is my wife, Elizabeth Bennet, and our daughter, Emma." He was holding Emma, who started to squirm in his unconsciously tightening grip.
Lizzy stuck out her hand, and Uncle Donald took it, giving her the once-over. Staring right at her chest, he boomed, "Well, it's quite a pleasure to meet such a fine-looking young lady." Perhaps Will was not the only boob-man in the family.
A painfully thin woman in her mid-sixties came over to join them. She gave them a big, horsey smile. "Hello, Will dear," she said as she reached up to kiss him on the cheek. Her hand on his shoulder trembled visibly. "It's been such a long time. This must be Lizzy and Emma. I'm Will's Aunt Doris. We're so pleased you could come today. Please, come in and meet the others."
And so, with a glass of wine that she couldn't drink pressed into her hand, Lizzy did meet them all. She and Will successfully ran the gauntlet, saying hello to Trixie the paparazzi darling; to Lana, the face of Chancôme; to her husband Hans, the former pro wrestler and recently impeached governor of a state far to the west; and to Congressman Sean and his wife, among many others.
Coming up for air after the last of the introductions, Lizzy was relieved to discover that Richard and Eleanor had arrived. At last, a familiar, friendly face! Will had retreated into stony silence and was no help at all, but he did loosen up a little once in Richard and Eleanor's literally and figuratively warm embrace. Lizzy put her untouched wineglass on a passing waiter's tray and asked if she could please have a ginger ale.
"Damn it," muttered Richard. "I told him no booze. The old man doesn't listen to a word I say."
Georgie and Blake arrived shortly after. Uncle Donald crowed, "Aha! The woman of the hour! Welcome back, Georgie my love!" And he gave her a big kiss on the cheek, and enthusiastically shook Blake's hand. This was the first time Lizzy had seen Blake, whose bleached blonde hair and dark tan made him look as though he'd probably just stowed his surfboard at the front door.
Lizzy turned and looked at Will with eyes full of questions. He shrugged. "He skis all winter and surfs and sails all summer."
From across the room, Lizzy saw Uncle Donald hand Georgie a glass of Chardonnay, trumpeting "What the hell, it's only white wine! It's practically water." Georgie took the glass tentatively, clearly conflicted about what she should do with it.
Will turned away and muttered, "Crap, here we go again."
Richard headed over to see what he could do to remedy the situation.
Lizzy asked Will, "Do you want to go over there and help him out?"
"No, I can't. The counselors want me to let her make her own decisions. She thinks I've already been too directive with her, and they agreed."
They heard Trixie trill, "Oh my God, did I tell you who I, like, met at rehab in Malibu?"
They heard Lana, pointing to her eyes, say, "Thank you, I think they turned out really well, too. I was going to wait till next winter, but Chancôme told me I had to do it now or they'd cancel my contract."
Across the room, Hans was recounting to Uncle Donald, "And I said to the detective, so what if I'm porking the housekeeper. Wouldn't you? Look at her!" Uncle Donald hooted with laughter.
Lizzy moved even closer to Will, who clutched Emma so tightly that she gave a little squeal.
"I'm sorry," he murmured to Lizzy, "I just couldn't believe it would be this bad."
Eventually Georgie and Blake made their way to the corner where Will, Lizzy and Eleanor stood. Richard had evidently failed in his efforts to take possession of the glass of white wine, because Georgie was still holding it a little away from her body as if it were a snake that might bite her. Blake was making a big production of sipping on a glass of club soda. Everyone said hello, and they stood talking for a minute about Georgie and Blake's new apartment. Georgie mentioned that they were probably going to get married in a few weeks in a civil ceremony at City Hall—no guests.
Uncle Donald came over to them, scotch and soda in hand and Richard on his tail. He had overheard the news, and offered a toast to the happy couple. When Georgie didn't raise her glass to her lips, he nudged her with his elbow. "Go on, drink up! Where's the harm in a little wine? Anyway, it's bad luck not to drink when someone makes a toast."
"Dad! No!" Richard barked. Donald ignored him.
Georgie looked at Blake, and blinked her long giraffe-fairy lashes a few times before saying, "Well, I guess one sip won't hurt, right? I think I can handle it. I'm a big girl."
"Better not, honey," said Blake, just as she took a sip.
Will observed all of this unfold in silence. Lizzy could see that he was just barely restraining himself from saying something, though.
A few minutes later, Will pulled Lizzy aside. "We have to get out of here. Can you think of some excuse with Emma?" He seemed desperate.
"Yeah, sure. Uh, we could say her reflux is acting up and we have to get her home to take some medicine, maybe?" Actually she had no idea whether that made any sense, and Emma didn't have reflux, but she didn't really care.
They hastily made their excuses, got Emma's carseat and diaper bag from the butler, and hailed a cab.
"Did you see how he did that?" Will raged once they were settled in the cab. "Did you see how he undermined her weeks of rehab right there? You just saw the end of her sobriety right there. Right there."
"OK, sweetie, calm down. Is it as serious as that? I'm only asking, because I don't know."
"Yes, it's as serious as that. We talked about it in family therapy a million times. Georgie can't drink any alcohol, ever, because she doesn't know how to stop once she gets started. She's an addict. She knows that about herself. I couldn't say anything. I had to let her make her own choice. God!"
He raged and stormed all the way home. When they were finally back in the apartment, he said, "OK, that's it. I'm not seeing them again, ever. Never again. I don't need that in my life."
"Your aunt and uncle, you mean?"
"Yes. And Georgie's so far gone she can't even try anymore. That's it. I'm not going to be involved in her drama. She can talk to the lawyers directly from now on. I'm out. Time for me to live my own life, take care of my own family. Richard and Eleanor are the only Fitzwilliams I ever want to see again."
Lizzy thought that maybe this was going a little far, but on the other hand she hadn't been there through the years and years of struggle that had come before. And anyway, the only thing that really mattered here was that Will had reached his breaking point. That was good enough for her.
"OK. You have my full support, no matter what."
She got him out of his fancy clothes and into sweatpants and a t-shirt. They huddled with Emma on the sofa in the darkened entertainment room in front of the TV, eating microwave popcorn, frozen macaroni and cheese, and ice cream for the rest of the evening and most of the night. She even let him decide what they would watch. That was why instead of something decent like the films of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, they saw every single one of the increasingly awful James Bond movies starring the oh-so-wooden Roger Moore as 007.
Now that was true love.
If your courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate you, please tell me about it just below.