Boyfriend #13
Clark Barnyard, age twenty-three
Still not over boyfriend #11 and humiliated by #12, Jane declared she would shed her victimhood and become the elusive predator—fierce, independent, solitary! . . . Except there was this guy at work, Clark. He’d make her laugh during company meetings and share his fries with her at lunch. He was a few years younger than her, so it seemed innocent somehow. When he asked her out at last, despite the dark stickiness of foreboding, she didn’t turn him down.
He cooked her dinner at his place and was goofy and tender, nuzzling her neck and making puppy noises. They started to kiss on the couch, and it was nice for approximately thirty seconds until his hands went under her shirt and started hunting for her bra hooks. That was so not Mr. Darcy.
“Whoa there, cowboy,” she said, but he was “in thegroove” and had to be told to stop three or four times before he finally pried his fingers off her breasts and stood up, rubbing his eyes.
“What’s the problem, honey?” he asked, his voice stumbling on that last word.
She said he was moving too fast, and he said, then what in the hell had they been building up to over the past six months?
Jane sized up the situation to her own satisfaction: “You are no gentleman.”
And Clark summed up in his own cliché way: “Hasta la vista, baby.”
Day 10
After breakfast, the pairs once again broke off to rehearse their individual scenes. As the others left the morning room, Mr. Nobley asked, “Would you like to stay here or . . .”
Jane assumed he was about to ask if she wanted to return to the garden, but his hesitation showed he still felt awkward about last night, their almost-ness and its abrupt ending. She worried that the stilted air between them would continue all day.
“Here is fine,” she said.
“Very well,” he said.
There was a bowl of olives on the sideboard, and, as they both looked over their scripts, at the same moment they reached into the bowl, popping an olive in their mouths.
Mr. Nobley started to chew and, still not looking at her, said, “I suppose we could run lines or . . . dear god, what is this?”
He began to cough just as the flavor of the olive fully hit Jane’s tongue. She managed to squeak out, “I don’ t—” before her throat tightened, as if refusing admittance to the offending bite of food. They both wheezed and coughed, so taken down by the unexpectedly rotten taste that they leaned into each other to stay upright. Jane spit it out in a napkin but the overwhelming flavor continued to assault her.
“Are olives . . . supposed to be . . . fermented?” she managed to say between gasps.
“Whatever it is . . . it’s . . . beastly.”
They scrambled for a glass of water each, chugging it as it spilled down their necks. And then, gasping, they made eye contact. At the sight of Mr. Nobley, eyes wide and chin dripping, laughter seized in Jane’s belly. She tried to hold it in, but a high-pitched yelp escaped. Mr. Nobley burst out an undignified guffaw, and that made Jane laugh so hard that she had to grip the sideboard to keep from dropping to the floor.
After the unexpectedly diverting olive episode, the tension dissolved, and a friendly air took over so thoroughly that the conversation never waned for the rest of the day. They spoke mostly of the “current” age—analyzing in depth the social mores of the time, recounting the causes and effects of the Napoleonic Wars, and wishing for access to fresh produce. Mr. Nobley came alive with the discussion, his eyes bright as he listened to her opinions, with his own flowing freely. And then, in turn, shaking his head and trying not to laugh as Jane made up fake backstories for all the people in the portraits.
“This lady is frowning because she just ate an olive.”
“And this smiling gent?” he asked. “What’s his secret?”
“He’s not wearing any pants.”
They kept moving through the house and ended up in thegardens, avoiding everyone else, just to keep talking. If the other couples rehearsed as well as Jane and Mr. Nobley did, she had grave concerns about the outcome of the theatrical. But she didn’t regret a second of their wasted time.
At the dinner gong, they reluctantly came back inside. The meal was an informal affair of cold meats, cheeses, and breads laid out in the dining room, where the players bolstered their strength for the coming tour de force.
At last, they gathered in the drawing room. Servants had hung a backdrop painted with a simple landscape of green meadow, brown mountains, and blue sky. Battery-powered lamps flickered on the rug in a semicircle to separate the stage area from the audience—three rows of chairs and sofas slowly filling with members of the Pembrook staff. Jane felt ripples of nerves and excitement as she arranged her costume on her shoulders, a sort of dairymaid outfit that left her shoulders bare.
Standing off to the side, Captain East wore a plain-cloth shepherd’s tunic, leaving one side of his magnificent chest naked. His shoulders stooped as he furiously reread his script.
“You’re not nervous, sir?” asked Jane.
He smiled, but his brow was tight. “I am not easy with . . . memorized lines. I can speak more plainly when the words come from my heart.”
