he’s here.”
“Why will Jane be busy with Chip Bingley?” Kitty asked.
With relish, Mrs. Bennet said, “They’re having dinner tomorrow night at Orchids.”
Uncertainly, Jane said, “Mom, you haven’t been reading my texts, have you?”
Merrily, Lydia said, “She doesn’t know how!”
Mrs. Bennet appeared uncontrite. “Helen Lucas mentioned it.”
Jane furrowed her eyebrows, which for her reflected genuine pique. “How would Mrs. Lucas know?”
Liz cleared her throat. “I think I told Charlotte. But just in passing.”
“Chip and I might never see each other again after Saturday.” Jane’s cheeks were flushed. “So please, can everyone not make a big deal out of this? Mom, I’ll have plenty of time to spend with Cousin Willie.”
“It was obvious that Chip found you absolutely charming, Jane,” Mrs. Bennet said. “And so he should have. But you’ll have to ask why he didn’t go into private practice. Working in an emergency room, he must see very unattractive people.”
Liz, who felt some responsibility for displeasing her sister, said, “I wonder if Willie is interested in visiting the Freedom Center.”
“Just so you all know, I have a paper due at the end of next week,” Mary said. “I won’t have much time for Willie or Aunt Margo.”
“That’s so heartbreaking,” Lydia said. “I wonder if they’ll ever recover from the devastation.”
“Well, I look forward to seeing both of them,” Jane said.
From the head of the table, Mr. Bennet said, “That makes one of us.”
AFTER DINNER, LIZ followed the scent of nail polish to its source, which turned out, as was often the case, to be Kitty; she sat on the counter in the bathroom she and Lydia shared, the door open, painting a rather impressive pattern on her toenails of cream-colored polish with sparkly gold dots.
Liz turned on the overhead fan. “You know how Dad sleeps in his study?” she said. “Is it because of the Jewish thing?”
Without looking up, Kitty said, “Maybe.”
“Do you think it is?”
At last, Kitty met Liz’s eyes. “Ask them.”
Liz had no intention of doing so. Mr. Bennet’s two great and overlapping interests were genealogy and history—when capable of driving himself, he whiled away many afternoons in the stacks of the Mercantile Library downtown—and at some point about a decade prior, he’d announced with amusement his discovery that Mrs. Bennet’s maternal grandmother had been Jewish; indeed, prior to her marriage, Ida Conner had been Ida Rosenbluth. While not an overt anti-Semite, Mrs. Bennet was prone to making declarations about almost all religious and ethnic minorities that were often uncomfortable for her listeners. “Jews are very fond of dried fruit,” she’d told Liz on more than one occasion, and when Liz had been in fifth grade, Mrs. Bennet had refused to purchase a party dress for her that had a black sequined bodice and a black velvet skirt, on the grounds that it was “Jewish-looking.”
Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Bennet wasn’t receptive to Mr. Bennet’s pronouncement about her religious ancestry. Adding insult to injury, Lydia and Kitty took to referring to their mother, in and out of her presence, as the Jewess; in fact, Lydia once reduced Mrs. Bennet to tears by recommending that she have a late-in-life bat mitzvah. This teasing had faded over time, possibly replaced with Lydia’s badgering of Mary about her sexual orientation. But perhaps, Liz thought, the consequences of the genealogical discovery lingered still.
In the bathroom, Liz said to Kitty, “You don’t think Mom and Dad would ever get divorced, do you?” The more pointed question, which Liz didn’t ask, was Do you think they should?
Kitty made a scoffing sound. “They’re too lazy,” she said.
ON SATURDAY EVENING, just before being picked up by Chip Bingley, Jane stood in front of the mirror that hung over Liz’s bureau, applying blush. As she glanced at Liz’s reflection, Jane said,
“Why will Jane be busy with Chip Bingley?” Kitty asked.
With relish, Mrs. Bennet said, “They’re having dinner tomorrow night at Orchids.”
Uncertainly, Jane said, “Mom, you haven’t been reading my texts, have you?”
Merrily, Lydia said, “She doesn’t know how!”
Mrs. Bennet appeared uncontrite. “Helen Lucas mentioned it.”
Jane furrowed her eyebrows, which for her reflected genuine pique. “How would Mrs. Lucas know?”
Liz cleared her throat. “I think I told Charlotte. But just in passing.”
“Chip and I might never see each other again after Saturday.” Jane’s cheeks were flushed. “So please, can everyone not make a big deal out of this? Mom, I’ll have plenty of time to spend with Cousin Willie.”
“It was obvious that Chip found you absolutely charming, Jane,” Mrs. Bennet said. “And so he should have. But you’ll have to ask why he didn’t go into private practice. Working in an emergency room, he must see very unattractive people.”
Liz, who felt some responsibility for displeasing her sister, said, “I wonder if Willie is interested in visiting the Freedom Center.”
“Just so you all know, I have a paper due at the end of next week,” Mary said. “I won’t have much time for Willie or Aunt Margo.”
“That’s so heartbreaking,” Lydia said. “I wonder if they’ll ever recover from the devastation.”
“Well, I look forward to seeing both of them,” Jane said.
From the head of the table, Mr. Bennet said, “That makes one of us.”
AFTER DINNER, LIZ followed the scent of nail polish to its source, which turned out, as was often the case, to be Kitty; she sat on the counter in the bathroom she and Lydia shared, the door open, painting a rather impressive pattern on her toenails of cream-colored polish with sparkly gold dots.
Liz turned on the overhead fan. “You know how Dad sleeps in his study?” she said. “Is it because of the Jewish thing?”
Without looking up, Kitty said, “Maybe.”
“Do you think it is?”
At last, Kitty met Liz’s eyes. “Ask them.”
Liz had no intention of doing so. Mr. Bennet’s two great and overlapping interests were genealogy and history—when capable of driving himself, he whiled away many afternoons in the stacks of the Mercantile Library downtown—and at some point about a decade prior, he’d announced with amusement his discovery that Mrs. Bennet’s maternal grandmother had been Jewish; indeed, prior to her marriage, Ida Conner had been Ida Rosenbluth. While not an overt anti-Semite, Mrs. Bennet was prone to making declarations about almost all religious and ethnic minorities that were often uncomfortable for her listeners. “Jews are very fond of dried fruit,” she’d told Liz on more than one occasion, and when Liz had been in fifth grade, Mrs. Bennet had refused to purchase a party dress for her that had a black sequined bodice and a black velvet skirt, on the grounds that it was “Jewish-looking.”
Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Bennet wasn’t receptive to Mr. Bennet’s pronouncement about her religious ancestry. Adding insult to injury, Lydia and Kitty took to referring to their mother, in and out of her presence, as the Jewess; in fact, Lydia once reduced Mrs. Bennet to tears by recommending that she have a late-in-life bat mitzvah. This teasing had faded over time, possibly replaced with Lydia’s badgering of Mary about her sexual orientation. But perhaps, Liz thought, the consequences of the genealogical discovery lingered still.
In the bathroom, Liz said to Kitty, “You don’t think Mom and Dad would ever get divorced, do you?” The more pointed question, which Liz didn’t ask, was Do you think they should?
Kitty made a scoffing sound. “They’re too lazy,” she said.
ON SATURDAY EVENING, just before being picked up by Chip Bingley, Jane stood in front of the mirror that hung over Liz’s bureau, applying blush. As she glanced at Liz’s reflection, Jane said,
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