Strokes of Inelegance: the final part of a modern P&P story!

Greetings, friends! It’s almost the end of a “scandalous September.” (Did you do anything scandalous this month? For my part, I turned another year older…very scandalous indeed!)

In March, I began an untitled P&P short story to help me get out of a writing funk. Now, as we approach October, I have finally finished! (Well, there’s a long epilogue I’ll post on my dusty old website soon; I decided not to post it here because this last installment is already long enough — and Austen Variations is getting quite busy with all of the wonderful P&P: The Untold Stories posts.) Check them out if you haven’t already!

If you’re new to my story or would like a refresher, here are all of the previous parts: part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven ,and part eight.

For those of you who have stuck with me all these months, thank you! Your encouragement and interest have meant so much to me. Enjoy!

Three months later…

If someone had told her, in the depths of winter, that she’d find 75°F  too hot—that she’d wish she had worn the sundress Jane had suggested instead of this stupid cardigan, long-sleeved blouse, and wool skirt—Liz would have thrown a snowball at their head.

She should have known better. Heat seemed impossible in late winter and inevitable in late spring; this she’d learned from growing up in New England, and still she dressed for graduation as if it were held in March instead of May.

“I can’t believe you won’t be here to suffer through this ridiculous ceremony with me next year,” whispered Charlotte, as they followed the procession of faculty down the main street of the campus. Two by two, the teachers marched merrily out of step, ostensibly ranked by seniority, passing through a gauntlet of students, ninth through eleventh graders who had lined the street to cheer on their teachers and, behind them, the graduating seniors. At the front of the line: a bagpiper wearing a kilt and two fife players, plus a drummer, all dressed in Revolutionary-era clothing. In her five years at Meryton, Liz never had learned why these costumed musicians led the procession.

“Just think,” Liz whispered back, “my absence will move everyone behind us up the line, which means Bill Collins might be marching beside you next year!”

Charlotte shot her a glare. “That does not make me feel better, Liz.”

“Well then, once the school year is over,” consoled Liz, “you can come to Boston and stay in my dusty little studio and complain about Bill while we eat the best Italian food the North End has to offer.”

“Well, if tiramisu is involved, then I guess I can let you move.” Charlotte sighed. “I can’t believe you’re leaving, Liz.”

Sometimes, neither could she. When she stared out at the hills in the morning, when she walked the farm loop surrounding the campus, when she heard the bells ringing at noon or the students singing after dinner—well, she couldn’t imagine any place would ever compare to Meryton.

Then there were all the people she would miss dreadfully: the students, of course, especially her swimmers and dorm residents, the girls she’d come to know so well; her friends and colleagues, Charlotte at the very top of the list; and even Cathy, who had wished her well when she had told the Head of School that she’d given a great deal of thought to her advice and decided to try something different.

“If I’m only teaching four classes at a day school, not coaching and heading a dorm,” Liz had explained to Charlotte, when breaking the news, “I’ll have so much more time to write, and besides…I think the city will be good for me.”

And it would be—even if she never did see Will Darcy roaming the streets of Boston or Cambridge. Which he wouldn’t be, because he would be too busy—and so would she be. Besides, they hadn’t exchanged a single word since that night at the Hunsford Grill.

But after that disastrous night, Liz had promised to be more honest with herself. And so she knew that she’d look for him when she was roaming the streets of Boston and Cambridge, just as she was looking for him now, knowing he was standing somewhere behind the students, watching for Georgiana as she marched down the street with the other graduates.

After a moment of glancing this way and that, she spotted him. It wasn’t difficult to do: he was one of the tallest people in the crowd, not to mention one of the best dressed, wearing, of course, a very fine three-piece suit. (He must have been even hotter than she was; he was definitely hotter than she was.) Perhaps it was the passage of time, or maybe it was that troublesome courage of hers, but Liz refused to look away when he noticed her. She took a breath and smiled—not a tentative twitch of the lips or an embarrassed smirk, but a full-out grin, as if she were glad to see him. Because she was glad—very much so. 

And Will? He grinned right back at her.

Oh, what a smile! Not a heart-stopping smile, mind you, for Liz’s heart beat faster, not slower, as she looked at Will. No, his was a foot-stopping smile; at the sight of that grin, Liz stuttered to a halt, astonished and gratified to be the recipient of such unrestrained warmth after three months of no contact between them.

“Excuuuuse me!” exclaimed Bill Collins, who stumbled into her from behind. “Let me advise you, Elizabeth, to pick up the pace. At Mrs. de Bourgh’s request, I have arranged the timing this ceremony to the minute, and your dawdling is by no means appreciated!”

“My apologies, Bill,” said Liz, biting her lip to keep from laughing (his pedantic tone and bulldog scowl so much more amusing now that they would soon be former colleagues). She glanced once more at Will to see if her ridiculous behavior had inspired an even wider grin—but he was gone.

Well, that was life, wasn’t it?

This time, Liz didn’t bother to check her laugh—a laugh aimed squarely at herself. Will had many reasons, almost none of them to do with her, for appearing so happy today. After two years of caring for a dying father and another year of wrestling with grief, he must have wondered if he would ever see Georgi walk across the Meryton commencement stage. No doubt Georgi would have claimed that graduating from high school was not an accomplishment for the ages, but for Will, a brother who had spent the last four years worrying about his beloved sister, this day must have represented a great cause for celebration.

Still, how could Liz not hope that she, too, might be a small source of happiness for him? She had far too much time to contemplate this question in the following two hours. True, the commencement address, given by Ambassador Edward Gardiner, was a moving tribute to his own time at Meryton Academy, but with every line that inspired a laugh, Liz thought of Will’s grin—and with every comment about perseverance through difficulty, she thought of Georgi.

Then there was Cathy’s long-winded speech (even Bill checked his watch twice), and Liz found herself wondering if she’d be able to locate either Georgi or Will after the ceremony. There were at least a thousand people in attendance today, and when commencement ended, chaos would ensue as families and friends tried to find each other for a congratulatory hug or a teary goodbye.

Finally, the Dean of Studies made her way to the podium to read the full names of all 203 seniors as they crossed the stage to receive their diplomas. When the name Georgiana Colleen Darcy reverberated through the sound system, Liz forced herself to do nothing more than clap politely, as she did for every other student. Such restraint was not required of the friends and family in the audience, and Liz had to laugh as the swim team’s favorite chant — “We are Meryton! We can’t be prouder! If you can’t hear us, we’ll yell a little louder!” — echoed through the tent, likely started by Anne Rosings. Even amidst the swimmers’ raucous cheering, a deep and resonant “Love you, Georgi!” sounded from somewhere in the visitor’s section, and Liz turned in her seat, angling her head every which way in the hopes of seeing Will.

“Ahem!” Bill squirmed in the seat next to her. “We must set an example, Elizabeth, and model decorum or else—”

“Shhhh!” hissed Charlotte, who sat on Liz’s other side and gave her a quick wink. “It’s not proper to talk during the ceremony, Bill!”

Face reddening, he opened his mouth—and then promptly closed it, pressing his fingers to his lips, as if afraid he might not be able to control himself in the face of such a dilemma: defend himself or defend Cathy’s orderly ceremony?

“Are you sure you don’t want to move to Boston with me?” Liz asked Charlotte afterward, as they tried to edge their way around the crush of people embracing, fist-bumping, laughing, sobbing, shouting, and waving to each other outside the tent. “I’m fairly certain every school has its own version of Bill Collins, and no one handles him quite like you, Char.”

“Truth be told, he’s not half bad when you get him talking about something other than being Assistant to the Head of School. You should see the garden outside his apartment. He works in it almost every day, and every season, there’s a new splash of color.”

“What?” Shocked less by Bill’s proclivity for gardening and more by Charlotte’s proclivity for visiting Bill’s garden, Liz stopped dead. And so, for a second time that day, the person unfortunate to be walking behind her found themselves walking straight into her instead.

“Oh! Forgive me. I—” Mid-apology, Liz spun around and found herself face to face with—

Yes, there was a split second when Liz also believed it would be Will. But if life didn’t quite follow the romcom script in her head, it still gave her more than enough blessings.

Georgi stood before her, arm in arm with Anne Rosings, their graduation gowns shimmering in the sunlight.

“It’s good thing I wasn’t holding a coffee cup today,” said Georgi, grinning. (What was it about these Darcys and their devastating grins?)

Anne furrowed her brow. “Coffee cup? Why would you be holding a coffee cup on graduation?”

Liz met Georgi’s eyes. That winter day seemed a lifetime ago—and not just because so much had changed for Liz. Georgi too had changed—or perhaps she had merely grown more comfortable in her own skin. She certainly spoke more frequently in class. Oh, she’d never be the most talkative person in a room, but she seemed to understand that she, too, had a right to use her voice.

“Congratulations,” said Liz softly. Then, realizing she was looking only at Georgi, she added quickly, “Congratulations to you both! Anne, I’m impressed, but not surprised, that you won the Thomas Cup.”

“Anne was certainly surprised!” exclaimed Georgi, throwing an arm about her friend. “She kept looking around, as if there was another Anne Rosings in our graduating class! But we all knew there was no one else better at Latin than this Anne Rosings.”

Anne made a face. “Yes, I’m sure to make a real impact in the world with my mastery of a dead language.

“So,” said Liz, “what can I do for you two distinguished alum? You’ve both checked out of the dorm, right? I can’t remember whose paperwork I signed early this morning.”

“Oh, we’re all done with the dorm,” said Anne. “No more 9:45 pm curfews for us!” Then, suddenly, her eyes welled with tears, and she threw her arms around Liz. “I can’t believe we’re leaving!”

Patting Anne on the back, Liz met Georgi’s wistful gaze.

“Thank you, Dr. Bennet,” she whispered, “for everything.”

“Everything, eh?” Liz gave Anne one last pat on the back before stepping back to smile at both girls. “Even the times I made you each swim extra laps? And what about the time I cut the wifi to your dorm room, Anne, because you were staying up past 1 am to binge watch ‘Heartstopper’? Since you weren’t in my English class, Anne, I suppose only Georgi can thank me for making her read Herman Melville.”

“I loved every minute of it,” said Georgi, leaning forward on her toes, as if she, too, wanted to give Liz a hug. Instead, she reached for one of her hands and gave it a quick squeeze. “If I publish any poetry at college—”

“When you publish it,” interjected Anne.

Georgi rolled her eyes. “Fine, when I publish it, I know I’ll have you to thank, Dr. Bennet.”

Blinking rapidly, Liz shook her head.

“Hey, can we friend you on Instagram or something?” Anne asked. “That way, you can see all our exploits in England!”

“She doesn’t have Instagram,” Georgi said before Liz had a chance to respond. “She doesn’t even text!”

Liz raised an eyebrow. Just how did she know that?

Georgi blushed. “Well, I mean, I assume you don’t text because you’re always losing your phone charger and…didn’t you once say texting was the bane of…Anyway, I’m guessing you don’t do Instagram.”

“No, so you’ll just have to write me an old-fashioned letter. Or email, which might feel just as old-fashioned to you. When do you leave for England?”

“I think our flight leaves at something like 11pm?” Anne glanced at Georgi, who shrugged. “Yeah, I think 11 tonight from New York.”

“Tonight!”  Liz exclaimed. “You’re leaving so soon?”

“No reason to wait, really. Can’t stay in the dorms now that we’re alum, and my parents and siblings have to get back to London. So, off we go!”

Liz glanced at Georgi. “But won’t your br—won’t your family want to celebrate with you?”

“Will is the only family that really matters to me, honestly. We’ll have dinner tonight, and then he’s going back to work tomorrow.” Georgi held Liz’s gaze. “I really wish someone could get him to take a break every once in a while, you know?”

“God, Georgi, you’re being so obvious!” whispered Anne, as if she, too, weren’t being obvious. Then she gave Liz a bright smile. “Well, we should let you say your farewells to others. I was absolutely gutted when I heard you weren’t coming back to Meryton next year! At least we’re graduating, but the rest of the swim team are going to be miserable without you.”

Georgi chewed on her lip for a moment before asking, in a rush, “Where are you going next year? Are you at least staying in New England?”

“Actually,” said Liz, aiming for as breezy a tone as she could muster, “I’ll be teaching at a day school in Boston.”

“Boston! As in, across the Charles River from Cambridge…that Boston?”

Anne laughed. “Which other Boston would she mean, Georgi?”

“I’m just saying…Boston. You’ll just a few miles from my br—from where I live, Dr. Bennet!”

Liz felt Georgi’s insistent gaze but focused on searching through her bag for a pen and usable scraps of paper. “Yep, Boston it is. Here,” she added, ripping two unused pages out of her day planner and scribbling down her new email address.

Anne looked at the piece of paper as if it were a mythical artifact. “I adore you, Dr. Bennet, but do you really expect me not to lose this before I leave campus?”

“Don’t worry,” said Georgi, who had already pulled out her phone and taken a picture of the email address. “I can send it to you—or to anyone else who really wants to reach you—if that’s okay with you, Dr. Bennet?” she added, smiling sheepishly at Liz.

“Look, Tamara’s leaving!” cried Anne, grabbing Georgi’s hand and tugging her away before Liz could respond. “We have to get a photo with her before she goes. Cheers, Dr. Bennet!”

All at once, Liz found herself alone in the crowd. As a studier of character, she usually loved these moments of incongruous solitude: there was no better time to observe the details of other people’s lives. Today, however, she was interested in observing the details of only one person in the crowd. As she wove her way around strangers, students, teachers, and acquaintances, Liz told herself to stop searching for him. If the mere idea of Will Darcy disconcerted her, then she should be glad that she couldn’t locate him now. She was, after all, still on duty—a fact she’d forgotten until she heard the insistent buzzing in her bag.

Though it took her a good minute to fish out her least favorite belonging—she’d had to borrow Jane’s charger last night so that she could be prepared for on-call duty—Liz was able to catch the caller just in time.

“I’m locked out of the dorm, and I completely forgot to pack my second-favorite pair of boots before checking out this morning!”

A crisis situation, indeed. Liz barely kept the laughter out of her voice as she assured Maria Lucas that she’d be at Longbourn in a matter of minutes.

Yet when she reached the dorm, it wasn’t Maria or her parents waiting at the main doors.

She stopped a few yards away, allowing herself the simple pleasure of looking at this man who, with each encounter, presented a different facet of himself—yet who, in essentials, seemed very much what he ever was. Suit jacket slung across a shoulder, he could have been mistaken for a GQ cover model—if she ignored all of the other little details: how he kept rocking back and forth on his feet, how the circles beneath his eyes were just a shade too dark to be fashionable, how beads of sweat—hah, so he did sweat!—had gathered at along his hairline.

Gone were the grin and the glare, the warm-hearted brother and the ice-cold devil. He was not the dedicated researcher or the reluctant businessman, nor was he her endearing correspondent or uncertain suitor.

In that moment, she could think of him only as Will: here, waiting, watching her as she watched him.

While the silence stretched between them, she thought of a half dozen ways to start the conversation: “How are you?”, “Congratulations on Georgi’s graduation!”, “I was hoping to run into you,” “In three weeks, I’ll be living in Boston,” “I haven’t been able to eat fries for months,” “God, it’s good to see you.” 

But he beat her to it: “Hi, Liz.” 

She threw her head back and laughed. Yes, a simple greeting worked, too. (In fact, it more than worked when it meant hearing him say her name in that voice of his.)

“Is laughter a good sign—or a bad one?” he asked, smiling tentatively.

“A very good sign,” she said, closing the gap between them. “Will, I’m so glad you’re—”

“Dr. Bennet! Oh, I’m so glad you’re here!”

At the sound of Maria Lucas hailing her from afar, Liz groaned.

“Not a favorite student, I take it,” said Will, laughing softly.

“Oh, Maria’s fine”—aside from the fact that she is keeping me from imagining more interesting ways I might make you laugh—“just forgetful and far too obsessed with shoes.” Liz glanced over her shoulder, wishing she could, with one look, send Maria running in the opposite direction.

Alas, her former dorm resident practically skipped up to her and chirped, “Oooh, is this your boyfriend, Dr. Bennet? He’s cute!”

Liz focused on breathing slowly and steadily, supposing it was the only way she could a.) reduce the fiery blush spreading across her face and b.) stop herself from strangling Maria with her bare hands.

“Wait a second,” continued Maria, squinting at Will. “Aren’t you Georgi’s bro—”

“I do hope no one accidentally took your boots,” Liz cut in quickly, yanking her keys from her bag and shoving one of them into the main door.

“Oh my god, if someone took my boots, I’m going to freak out!”

As Liz let Maria inside, she dared a glance back at Will, who gave her a lopsided grin (oh god, that grin).

“Please don’t leave,” she said, then grimaced at the desperate note in her voice. “Of course, if you have to go, I understand. This may take five, ten minutes, and you probably have so much to—”

“In fact, I had only two items on my to-do list today: celebrate Georgi’s graduation and”—he met her gaze—“come find you.”

Never had she been more impatient with a student than she was with Maria that afternoon. The girl who had, for the past four years, paid scant attention anything except what other people were wearing had suddenly become obsessed with the quality of light in the stairwell, the color of the bathroom doors, the crooked pictures on the wall.

“And oh my god, I’ve missed the smell of burnt mac and cheese so much!” she cried as they passed the dorm kitchen (as if Maria hadn’t passed that same kitchen and smelled that same disgusting odor just the night before).

When they at last found the boots, stuffed in the back of her former closet, Maria sighed. “I guess I should have listened more closely to Mrs. de Bourgh’s speech about the best method of packing up a dorm room, but she can be so long-winded and boring, you know?”

Liz barely managed to usher Maria out of the dorm without telling her that Cathy wasn’t the only long-winded person of her acquaintance.

“Have fun with your boyfriend!” called Maria as she hurried down the path toward the main part of campus.

Liz offered Will a strained smile. “Kids these days, right?”

He laughed, and she almost told him he had to stop laughing like that—unless he promised to never stop laughing like that for her.

“Are you going to miss this place?” he asked, glancing up at the facade of Longbourn.

She stared up at the window of her apartment kitchen, thinking of all the mornings she had made pancakes for the girls—and all the Saturday nights she’d boiled water for tea to keep herself awake for midnight check-in.

“Yes, very much,” she said softly. “Wait, how did you know I was leaving?”

“It’s hardly a secret. Georgi called me last week, after the faculty farewell ceremony.” He paused, then added, “She was near tears.”

“But she’s graduating! Neither of us will be here next year.”

“Perhaps she hoped…” He shook his head. “Where are you moving?”

She bit her lip, then glanced up at him. “Boston.”

“Boston.”

“Yes, Boston.”

They looked at each other for a long moment.

“I hear it’s a pretty good place to live,” he said.

“Almost as good as that place across the Charles River.”

He smiled. “Cambridge has its charms, I suppose. It has a very high nerds per capita number, and then there are all those restaurants serving artisanal…”

When he stopped short, she laughed.  “Oh, go on! Making that joke is practically a requirement between us now.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

“Ah,” she said, hoping she sounded nonchalant instead of disappointed. “Tired of fries, are you?”

“No, not at all. But I thought—well, you might be.” A blush stole across his cheeks. “When I really like some…That is, I’m not always the most socially…” He shook his head.  “I can overdo it; I can be too intense.”

Her heart stuttered. Had she made him feel that way? She wanted to assure him that he had not been at fault for what had happened—or not happened—between them. No one had been at fault, really—just the timing. But now…

“When something’s good,” she said, meeting his eye, “I don’t think it can be worn out. I’m the kind of person who rereads a favorite novel three times a year. I get obsessed with songs, listening to them on repeat so many times I wear out the CD.”

“You still listen to CDs?” His lips twitched. “I should have known, Ms. ‘I Refuse to Text’.”

“It’s Dr. ‘I Refuse to Text’ to you. And so what if I like old-fashioned things?”

“Vinyl is old-fashioned; CDs are obsolete.”

She made a face.  “Oh, fine, make fun of me when I was trying to bare my soul to you, Mr.—excuse me—Dr. ‘Too Much Intensity’.”

Laughing, he gave a mocking bow. “Be not alarmed, Madam. I honor your reverence for all things outmoded: CDs, nineteenth-century novels, Wendy’s fries…”

“Oh, now this is war! Watch out, Cambridge: I’ll be sending my tall ship, lined with canons, down the Charles River to shoot french fries at you.”

She had hoped to encourage another laugh, but he appeared suddenly grave.

“Listen.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, causing his jacket, still slung across his shoulder, to slide slowly to the ground. He did not pick it up. “I was wondering if I could ask you…”

Her breath caught. This was it: never before had she wanted to be asked to dinner—or lunch or breakfast or even for a walk; there didn’t have to be food involved—as much as she wanted it now.

He exhaled heavily. “I wanted to ask if Cathy forced you to leave the school—if you were taking a new position because of what happened at Ramsgate.”

“Oh.” She took a quick step back, as if she could dodge his words. But she had already been struck by the damaging truth: he was here because he felt guilty.

“I don’t know if it’s too late,” he continued, “but I could talk to her, help her see that she’s in the wrong. She’d listen to me, and—”

“Stop.” She held her up a hand. “Please, just…stop.”

“God, Liz, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Believe it or not,” she said quickly, hoping to stem this latest expression of guilt, “I am a competent human being—and a damn good teacher.” 

“That’s not what I—”

“True, in your presence, I haven’t always been as professional or level-headed as I would have liked, but I am able to manage my own career!”

“I don’t doubt that! But the last time I saw you, Cathy had called you outside for a ‘private discussion,’ and then I heard from Georgi that you were leaving. I feared—”

“What? That she had ordered me to look elsewhere for a job because I was cozying up to her favorite donor? Oh, and don’t forget that I made the school look foolish by behaving in an unsportsmanlike fashion at an interscholastic event.” Liz let out a harsh laugh. “Let’s face it: that’s all true, isn’t it?”

“No, that’s not how I see it—and I wish you didn’t see it that way, either. As for Cathy de Bourgh—”

Liz shook her head. “She’s not at fault, Will. Cathy didn’t tell me to leave the school, but she did ask me to think about the role I was willing to play here, and I realized…” She sighed. “Do you know, I have never rented my own apartment?”

Will blinked. “Er, no. I didn’t know that.”

“I went from my parents’ house to a college dorm to another college dorm because I was a resident assistant during grad school to help pay for tuition. Then I moved here, to Longbourn—a high school dorm.” She shrugged. “I don’t know if any of that really matters, but somehow, it feels important—a sign that, for all my vaunted independence, I haven’t tried to branch out. Not that teaching at a day school in Eastern Mass. is a revolutionary change from teaching at a boarding school in Western Mass., but still…”

“No, I get it.” He smiled ruefully. “I went to the same schools my parents and grandparents attended. I’ve lived in Cambridge for almost the entirety of my life. And I’ve also never rented an apartment.”

She ducked her head, hoping to hide her smile, but she must have failed, for he said, “I know, I know: poor little rich boy.”

“When it comes down to it,” she said, smiling openly now, “we’re both quite fortunate. I appreciate that you wanted to help me, Will, but…well, when I saw you here, waiting, I didn’t want your help. I didn’t want your guilt or your apology. I wanted…” She bit her lip, then laughed. “I wanted your number!”

“My number?”

“Yes, your number. Perhaps that seems shocking, coming from the Luddite who never uses her phone, but…”

“Actually,” he said, one corner of his mouth inching upward, “what’s shocking is that you still want to talk to me, given what an ass I’ve been this afternoon.”

“Well, that’s the tenor of our friendship: you’re an ass, then I’m ass, then back to you…and now it’s my turn again.”

“The thing is, Liz…”

Back off, Liz, whispered her pride. Don’t give up, shouted all the rest of her. “Look, no pressure, okay? I just thought…Well, since I’ll be in Boston, we could—oh, I don’t know—create a ‘best of’ french fries list? Have tea together…or throw it into the Harbor?”

“Yes to all of that,” he said, taking one step toward her, then another, so that, when she looked up at him, he was close enough to touch. (But he didn’t touch her, damn it.) “But Liz, you already have my number.”

That startled a laugh from her. “True! But having your number is not the same as you giving me your number so that we might”—she glanced down at her hands, tightly clasped, as if in prayer—“have dinner sometime?”

Heart pounding, she glanced up at him.

“Why do you think,” he said, taking her hands into his, “that I came to wait at the dorm today?”

“Guilt?” she asked, knowing now that it wasn’t guilt. Still, she quirked an eyebrow. “Pity?”

He matched her raised eyebrow with one of his own. “You have a talent for willfully misunderstanding me, Elizabeth Bennet. Yes, I was concerned about your departure from Meryton, but I only learned about it last week. I’ve been thinking about this”—he glanced at their hands—“since Ramsgate, since before the swim meet. In fact, there hasn’t been a day since I met you that I didn’t want your number.” He paused, then murmured, “I want a great deal more than your number, Liz.”

“Yes,” she said, because it was the only word that came to mind when he brushed his thumbs along the undersides of her wrist.

Their gazes locked, and she said (this time in a whisper), “Yes,” as he slid his hands along the bare skin of her forearms.

“Yes,” she would have said a third time, except she no longer had words, only a sigh, as one of his hands found its way to the small of her back and the other traced the line of her jaw.

Did he kiss her—or she him? A debatable question, certainly, for he pulled her flush against him, but she wove her fingers into the curls at the nape of his neck, angling his head just so. Yes, debatable—but irrelevant: neither kissed the other because cell phones are quite possibly the cruelest conveniences in the history of humanity.

Or so Liz thought when both hers and his rang at the same time—his from his suit jacket (still on the ground), hers from her bag (also on the ground, though she had no memory of dropping it).

“Ignore?” he whispered against her lips (a point in favor of the “he kissed her first” theory).

She desperately wanted to say yes again, but instead murmured, “Georgi?”

He immediately dropped his hands and reached for his jacket. She was slower to retrieve her bag, and even slower to find her phone, so when she finally swiped the screen, the call had gone to voicemail.

“Your car warranty will soon expire. Please call 1-888…”

Ergh, why did modern life put romance at the mercy of spam calls?

At least Will’s call was legitimate: it was indeed Georgi, wondering where he was.

“I was supposed to meet her ten minutes ago,” he admitted. “We’ll have an early dinner somewhere in Connecticut before the Rosings drive her and Anne to JFK for their flight to London.”

“And you’re returning to Cambridge…tomorrow?”

She couldn’t keep the note of hope from her voice. Perhaps he was driving back to Meryton after dinner; perhaps he planned to spend the night at the inn before returning to Cambridge; perhaps they could meet up for a late-night coffee or…

His shoulders sank. “I’m returning to Cambridge tonight, actually; I have a meeting with the board at 9 am. When are you moving to Boston?”

“The middle of June,” she said, feeling now as if that wasn’t soon enough, in spite of all the packing she had to do.

His shoulders sank further. “I’m traveling to our west coast labs on the twelfth and won’t be back until the twenty-third.”

“Well, here,” she said, holding up her phone. “My number.”

He squinted at it. “Your phone number is laminated on the back of your case?”

“How else am I supposed to remember it?”

He laughed. “You know there’s this setting…”

“Don’t you dare laugh at me, Dr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, and definitely don’t talk to me about settings on my phone. Given the very recent past, I’m tempted to throw this thing into the nearest trash can.”

Of course, she wouldn’t have dreamed of throwing her phone away now that he had typed his number into hers and her number into his. (So this was how one became addicted to technology.)

Yet after exchanging numbers, how were they to proceed? How, especially, did they say goodbye—hoping that it was only for now, hoping that all the energy between them could survive the changes ahead?

Liz knew how she wished to see him off, but then his phone buzzed again—“A dropped pin from Georgi,” he said, and though she didn’t know exactly what that meant, she knew enough to realize there would be no time for romance now.

She forced herself to smile casually, as if this were just a simple farewell between two people who might, just might, have a few dates ahead of them. She was a modern woman, for goodness sake, not some Regency damsel who, after a bit of banter and a few chaste kisses, skipped immediately to a rosy vision of a happily-ever-after!

“You had better get going,” she said. “Georgi can’t miss her flight.”

“Right. Well then…”

“Well then,” she echoed, smiling faintly. “Safe travels, Will.”

“Happy moving, Liz,” he said, nodding curtly before turning away.

And then, abruptly, he turned back to her. “When precisely are you moving? What date exactly? And to which neighborhood?”

She tried very hard not to grin. “The North End, on the fifteenth.”

“Do you have movers, or—”

“My older sister and her boyfriend are helping me. I’ll be fine, really,” she added, on seeing his doubtful expression. Not that she was imagining a future for them, but if she had been, she supposed this would be one of his persistent hang-ups: an endearing—and occasionally annoying—tendency to try and solve her problems for her. “But hey, if you’re in the area after you return from your trip, give me a call, okay?”

He nodded, turned, glanced back at her, and then strode off into the Meryton sunset. (In fact, the sun wouldn’t set until after 8 pm, and it was only mid-afternoon; also, Will was walking east, not west, but Liz still allowed herself to imagine, as she trudged up the stairs to her apartment, how he might look with the sunset behind him. Probably the same—either way, handsome enough to tempt her.)

The rest of her day was fairly routine: she wrote ten end-of-term comments (treating herself to a handful of jelly beans after completing each); checked in three eleventh-graders who couldn’t get flights out until the morning (and then made them all dinner: flatbread pizzas with fresh asparagus, a gift from Charlotte…which, now that she thought of it, probably came from Bill Collins’s garden), and fed Kitty (whose hairball-reduction food was not working).

As she went through the motions of ordinary life, she tried not to think of Will—and by 9:30, she had mostly succeeded: she focused on packing a box of books (wondering only twice what kind of books Will liked to read); she refused to daydream about kissing (except when she found herself rereading Jane Eyre, one of the books she was supposed to be packing; Rochester was no Darcy, of course, but for all his issues, he had his charms); and she completely forgot about her phone (old habits die hard).

So when her phone rang, she almost didn’t hear it. Jane Eyre was just in the midst of her best speech to Rochester (“I am no bird; no net ensures me; I am a free human being with an independent will”) when Liz realized that the chirp of her phone was not, in fact, a bird-like noise.

“Hello?” she said breathlessly, then added, remembering she was still on duty, “Liz Bennet, on-call resident speaking.”

“Hello, Liz Bennet, on-call resident.”

She gasped, laughed, then pulled the phone away from her face to look belatedly at the caller ID: Will Darcy. “You put your name, as well as your number, into my phone!”

It was his turn to laugh, the deep sound of it reverberating as if he were standing in a cavernous, mostly empty space. A parking garage? His residence? (She envisioned him in a sparsely-furnished penthouse—affluence and austerity combined.)

“Yes, I’m a technological genius,” he said. Now she heard the echo of footsteps, each footfall even and forceful, suggesting he was walking somewhere now, or perhaps climbing stairs. No doubt he skipped the elevator most days—all those steps to the penthouse helping to make up for the long hours he spent at the office.

She blew a raspberry into the phone. “Also an arrogant genius. Even so, I’m rather glad to hear from you.”

“And I’m rather glad to call,” he returned, a smile in his voice.

She was just about to ask after Georgi when a knock sounded at her door.

Groaning, she said, “The universe is clearly conspiring against us. Someone just knocked, and since I’m on duty—”

“Then you have no choice but to answer,” he agreed. “Don’t hang up; I’ll wait.”

“You sure?” Padding to the door, she glanced down at herself, making sure she hadn’t, when changing for bed, accidentally thrown on the tank top Lydia had given her for her birthday (“I Love Boobks”). “Hopefully it’s a quick ‘I locked myself out of my room’ matter.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he assured her, in a voice that made her wish, desperately, they were not separated by two phones and the length of Massachusetts.

It took her several long seconds after throwing open the door to be sure her wish hadn’t been so desperate that she was imagining things.

“I was in the area,” he said, his grin a tad shy, his voice a bit hoarse as he turned off his phone and slipped it into his jacket. “So I thought I’d give you a call.”

Another time, she might have laughed, but after all that had happened today, she knew there was only one proper response. Tossing her phone to the ground, she stepped into his waiting arms and kissed him.

I’ll post the link to the epilogue on FB in the next week, or you can follow my web site so you’ll be notified when I add the update. Thanks for reading! If you have feedback, suggestions, or questions, feel free to leave them in the comments section below.