Chapter Two-and-Twenty
TWO-AND-TWENTY
I don’t got this.
I fumble over my words repeatedly during our last presentation, including almost calling the database by the wrong name, and then, while Professor Pedersen is speaking, some alarm I don’t remember setting goes off on my phone and I have to scramble to silence it and throw the thing deep in my bag.
Afterward, as I’m trying to apologize, he says, in a bitterly sarcastic way, “Fortunately, it was the final session, so almost no one was there.” Then he offers to take Geoff out to lunch, and the two of them go off together, leaving me to box up the last of the OWEN-C crap swag crap.
Not quite sure what to do with myself, I sit down at one of the tables in the lobby and mull over whether the convenience of one of the coffee shop sandwiches is worth the cost, both in terms of dollars and looking bloated in one of Gaby’s dresses.
I’m still making up my mind when Fisher appears out of nowhere.
“There you are,” he says, and there’s relief in his voice, but also a flash of irritation. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
I realize my phone is still in my bag, and still on do not disturb after the alarm humiliation. When I retrieve it, I see text, missed call, and voicemail notifications. Ope! “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I didn’t expect to see you until later. Is everything all right?”
As he slides into the seat opposite me, I realize that he looks, if possible, even more exhausted than he did before he left Grantham. Everything is most definitely not all right.
“If you don’t want to talk here,” I say, scanning the crowded lobby, “we could go up to my room—”
He shakes his head, but I’m not sure he even heard my offer, or whether he’s answering my question. “My father is back in the hospital, and it’s all my fault.”
“Your fault? How could that be?”
“He had … some kind of episode, and it … um.” He looks past, rather than at me.
“It turns out that right before it happened, he was looking at a message from one of Davis Investment’s vice presidents.
It was—” He swallows and drops his gaze.
“It was a picture of us at Rockefeller Center, and it said, ‘I thought you told us your son was ready to take things seriously?’”
“Oh, God. Oh, no.” His dad’s “episode” isn’t his fault; it’s mine. “I should never have—”
“How could you know?” He traces the medallion on the center of the table. “But I knew—and I certainly should have known better than to …”
His voice trails off into silence, but none of the possible conclusions to that sentence work in my favor.
Beyond his mother’s superficial politeness, it’s clear his family doesn’t approve of me.
I’m not part of their world. Worst of all, I’m distracting their son from his duties at a crucial juncture.
He should have known better than to fall in love with me.
“Please don’t worry,” I whisper, resting my hand on his, stilling the nervous movement of his fingers. “I’m sure this is just a temporary setback in your father’s recovery.”
He shrugs, resigned and skeptical all at once. Finally, though, he drags his gaze to my face. “I should get back to the hospital. I’m afraid I need to bail on our date for tonight—that’s really what I came here to explain.”
“I understand.” I tilt my head to offer what I hope is a shyly seductive glance from beneath my lashes. “Do I get a raincheck?”
His lips twitch in an attempt at a smile.
“Of course.” He turns his hand palm upward on the table, so that my hand settles easily into his grasp.
“I’m sorry to ruin your last night in New York, though.
You should go out anyway, have some fun.
” His smile is genuine but so weak it quickly fades. “Though don’t let Winkworth—”
“Geoff?” That was the last name I expected to hear. After almost a week working side by side with Geoff at this convention, I’m even more convinced Fisher’s read him all wrong.
“Yeah. He’s … That is, I—” His phone must buzz just then, because he reaches for it with his free hand, glances at the screen, and shakes his head. “I can’t explain right now. Just … please. Promise me?”
I’m not even sure what I’m promising, but it doesn’t really matter. Geoff Winkworth isn’t the man I want to spend New Year’s Eve with.
I squeeze Fisher’s hand. “I promise.”
“I’ve got to go,” he says and lifts our joined fingers to his lips, which are curved in a weary but relieved smile. He brushes a kiss across my knuckles, then releases me.
After he’s gone, tears well, blurring my vision.
I don’t dare wipe them away. Someone could be watching and mistake their meaning.
It’s not that I regret our lost evening out, or the chance to wear one of those gorgeous gowns.
Mr. Davis’s health is what matters. But tomorrow, I’m going back to Grantham, and who knows when—if—Fisher will be able to follow?
Eventually, when I’m sure my knees won’t buckle, I gather up my things and return to my room.
I call guest services, explain about the dresses, and ask for them to be stored until Gaby can arrange to retrieve them.
I don’t really have any interest in a night on the town alone, so I change into comfortable clothes (yes, of course I brought Fisher’s sweatshirt) and flop onto the bed.
And when I’m still restless even after I check my messages, scroll social media, and virtually window-shop for stupid shit I can’t afford, I grab my laptop and open the recovered documents folder.
There’s still maybe twenty files I haven’t sorted through, and that task is at least as mindless as everything else I’ve tried to distract myself, so I click on the file at the top of the list, with its gibberish name.
It’s an undergraduate essay on the work of Kate Chopin.
Of course she still exists, I think. No happy endings there.
The second is a to-do list I wrote God knows when, one of a hundred previous (failed) attempts to organize my life. Straight into the trash can with that one.
The third opens slowly, another large file.
I tap my fingers impatiently on the keys, ready to delete it too.
I mean, really, was anything on my old laptop worth saving?
Not my dissertation proposal, because even if I manage to finish the damn thing, Pedersen may not recommend me for a job.
Not even the draft of my stupid novel, because only a fool would believe a book could change the world.
Finally, text begins to appear.
Chapter I
IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
“My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?”
Clearly, I’m hallucinating, seeing something that doesn’t—can’t—exist. But down at the bottom of the screen, the page and word counts keep growing.
With trembling fingers, I navigate through the document, using the slider bar on the side of the window; snatches of a familiar story flash temporarily into view as I scroll past: botched declarations and sisterly love and charming scoundrels.
Oh my God. It’s there. It’s all there. But how?
Vaguely, I recall something Fisher told me that night at his house, about how it might not have been the solar flare that destroyed my old laptop, that it might’ve just crashed all on its own.
And maybe, if that happened even half a moment before the surge took down everything, then it’s possible this one copy of Pride and Prejudice, something I downloaded so long ago I don’t even remember doing it, was somehow preserved?
It doesn’t quite make sense—but when has any of this ever made sense?
Immediately, I back up the file in every different place I can think of.
Then I spend the next few hours getting reacquainted with my old friend, trying to commit every detail to memory, in case the unthinkable happens twice.
Even after all that, I still can’t bring myself to close the file, to say nothing of closing my laptop.
When there’s a knock on the door—someone’s finally come to retrieve the dresses, I assume—I carry it with me, my eyes glued to the screen so I can make sure it doesn’t disappear again.
“Hey.” It’s Geoff, his forearm propped against the doorframe, one of those crooked smiles on his lips.
“Julian decided to turn our celebratory debriefing luncheon into a three-martini affair, and then, when we got back to our suite, he rang up his ex-wife, and I—well, I was wondering if maybe I could hang out with you for a while?”
Fisher’s warnings pop immediately into my head. But surely this isn’t the scenario he was so worried about. I mean, I have no idea whether Professor Pedersen and his ex-wife are arguing or, well … not, but it doesn’t make much difference. With a commiserating grimace, I wave Geoff in. “Of course.”
He saunters past and perches on the edge of my bed, since there’s nowhere else to sit. “Did I interrupt your work?” he asks, nodding toward the laptop cradled in my arms.
“Oh, um—yes and no. I, uh, I found this document, and I—”
I want so badly to share this discovery with someone.
And, since I’ve never figured out how to broach the subject with Cassie, Geoff’s really the perfect person, one of the few capable of understanding the importance of what I’ve found—I think even Fisher would grudgingly acknowledge that much.
I close the distance between me and Geoff and hand my laptop to him.
He starts reading and is, of course, immediately captivated. “What is this?” he asks after a few moments, looking up at me with those blue eyes, which are now wide and fathomless.