Chapter 37
"Oh no, don't tell me that he already finished his meeting." Elizabeth told the secretary on seeing that the door of Darcy's office was open.
"Half an hour ago. He's been waiting for you since then." Margaret pursed her lips.
"He's going to kill me."
"He would kill anyone else if they dared to keep him waiting, but not you, darling. He's far more tolerant with you than with the rest of us."
"I hope so."
"Are you going to see that house you told me about?" The secretary glanced at her with a slightly displeased look, her loyalty divided between this lovely young woman and her adored boss. And for selfish reasons, of course, because, though she really liked Elizabeth and considered that she was perfect for him, she was fearing that this 'senseless' idea of having her own place would affect the excellent mood Darcy had been having since they started living together.
"Yes, in about an hour. I'm so excited, Helen said it was a lovely house." Elizabeth headed towards Darcy's office.
"Good luck."
Darcy was reclined back in his desk chair, watching a video on the TV with a cigar between his fingers and a cloud of smoke around him when Elizabeth walked into his office. That was a good sign. If he was smoking, it meant that he was relaxed and that he would not make a scene because of her tardiness.
"You are late." The director's tone was half-teasing, half-annoyed.
"I'm sorry," Elizabeth apologized and bent to give him a quick kiss on the lips. "I couldn't make it sooner."
"It doesn't matter, I was updating some work." He took her hand and sat her on his knee. He gave the cigar one last puff and crushed it out in the ashtray. "How did the meeting go?"
"Excellent, I'll tell you on the way. What are you watching?" She glanced at the screen.
"Screen tests for Appearances."
"Have you decided the cast already?"
"No, not yet."
"You have, but you don't want to tell me." Elizabeth smiled impertinently. They were making such a big secret about the leading cast, there were disagreements between the producers, names such as Ewan McGregor and Charles Bingley were being considered and that Kirsten Dunst and Natalie Portman had made great auditions. But no one wanted to say a word until the final decision was made. For luck.
Darcy evaded the answer with another question. "Are you related to someone named Mary Bennet?"
"I don't think so. I'm Bennet by adoption. Why?"
"They sent this script for me to read." He glanced at the thick volume on his desk. "The worst crap I read in my life."
Elizabeth moved closer to read the title. "Spaceshafts?" She arched her eyebrows. "The erotic sci-fi best seller?"
"You know that rubbish?"
"Of course!" She was all excitement. "Are you going to direct the movie? It's fabulous!"
His expression was one of pure astonishment and disbelief. "Tell me it's a joke, Elizabeth, or I'll have to reconsider having a future with you. The mother of my children can't read that kind of stuff."
"Lydia is the Spaceshafts' fan." She laughed. "What surprises me is that you are wasting your time with it."
"A friend begged me to see it. I won't read any material he sends me anymore, I grant you."
"Let's go," Elizabeth rose from his lap and took his hand. "Or we'll be late for our appointment."
"It's your appointment." Darcy made no attempt to move.
"William! Come on!" Elizabeth tried to pull him up. The man was so heavy that she didn't move him an inch.
"William," Margaret appeared at the door. "You have a phone call."
"Who is it?" He asked as Elizabeth tugged at him.
'Ann de Bourgh', the secretary mouthed silently so Elizabeth -who had her back to her- wouldn't hear that her boss's ex was calling him.
But the boss had nothing to hide so he repeated aloud "Ann?"
His secretary rolled her eyes. He did this on purpose. "Yes, Ann."
"Tell her I'll call her back later."
Margaret left the office and from there, they heard her saying, "I'm sorry, Ann, but William is busy with Elizabeth right now. He'll call you back later."
Elizabeth giggled at Margaret's slyness, that 'he's busy with Elizabeth' sounded quite suggestive. "Why is she calling you?"
"I guess it's something about the BAFTAs." He said as he rose. "There are rumors about The Secret of the Mountain being nominated in one or two categories."
"Really?" Elizabeth was all excitement.
"Let's see what happens." He said, grinning. He was very excited about that, too.
"Come on, let's go or we'll be late."
"All right," He put his jacket on. "But I warn you, this is the last house I see with you."
"You said the same thing with the last one." Elizabeth fixed the collar of his shirt, which was twisted under the jacket. Somehow, he always managed to do that.
"This time I'm being serious."
She stood on her tiptoes and whispered a seductive "Don't worry, you'll be rewarded for your generosity," right in his ear.
"Lasagna?" was his hopeful inquiry.
"No," she threw him a coquettish glance, "We can read a scene from Spaceshafts together. If I'm not wrong, that book contains some very naughty stuff."
"Aha!" he laughed accusatorily, "so you read it!"
Living on her own brought significant changes to Georgiana Darcy's life. For years she had lived in semi-protected environments, non-hearing environments, surrounded by people who were deaf just like her or who were trained to communicate with her. Even at home. But, for the first time, she was part of the outside world, a hearing world that had its own codes and that, until now, she had been reluctant to join. She was now interacting with people who weren't prepared to converse with her, who didn't understand her or who treated her as if she were stupid. Like the Korean woman in the mini market. She didn't know if she could speak English or not, but she never understood one single thing she said and vice-versa. Her gardener wasn't any better, he always nodded and seemed to agree with what she asked him to do but then he would end doing something entirely different. The garden looked fine, so she couldn't complain, but what made her crazy was not knowing if he was doing this on purpose or not.
But she was doing fine, she was growing in confidence every day and most of all, she liked her independence. People didn't scare her so much, she was learning how to organize her house and how to manage on her own. Cooking was still out of the question, so she usually ate a snack at a nice cafeteria that was halfway from the Institute where she was teaching and her home. Everyone was very nice with her, the food was tasty and she was able to relax before going home after a full day surrounded by kindergarten children. So there she was oblivious to everything else, not knowing yet that it would be at that cafeteria where life would made the most dramatic change of all, where she would meet the man that would become her husband.
"Excuse me."
Georgiana felt a strange presence next to her and looked up. She paled and blushed and her heart started racing when she recognized the man she saw at the supermarket, the one that yelled at her, that smiled at her at the parking lot and the one she had dreamed about for the past six days. Gosh, it was him!
"May I have a word with you?"
Bloody hell, he was talking to her but she was so nervous that she couldn't read his lips. Her face felt so hot that she knew she was blushing and surely the man was noticing and … 'Smile, girl, smile, or he'll think you are stupid'.
She smiled.
"Listen, I …what an idiot, you can't hear me …" He paused, scratched his head and started all over again. "Do you mind if I sit?" He pointed at the chair across her.
Georgiana nodded again, looking less agitated though nervous all the same.
He sat, studied her for a moment and began. "I owe you an apology for yelling at you back at the supermarket. I didn't know you couldn't hear me and I was unforgivably rude with you. I'm very sorry about that. I'm sure you must think I'm crazy for sitting at your table like this, but I had to do it. I've been thinking of this since that day and when I saw you entering the cafeteria today, I knew that I had to talk to you. I …" he shook his head, "I don't even know if you understand what I'm saying but I …"
"I understand."
"I think it's lovely, don't you think, Will?"
"Mmmmmh? Oh yes, nice, yes." He replied with an evident lack of interest.
The woman from the agency noticed that Elizabeth was positively interested and increased her effort to convince them to rent the house. She showed them the bedroom, telling them how luminous it was and how spacious the closets were, the spare room, which could be used as a study, and then she showed them the bathroom on the upper floor: a little old, but large and well kept.
"Oh, William," Elizabeth said enthusiastically, "it has an antique tub! Isn't it great?"
"Yes, fine." He wouldn't fit in there, he noticed with a frown.
"The previous tenants were an elderly couple with no children, very meticulous and clean people, as you see."
"I like it." Elizabeth said.
Darcy then did the Darcy thing: scan the bathroom with displeased eyes. First the ceiling, then the floor and then he gave a long look at the walls while the women waited expectantly for the final verdict. Helen, the real estate agent, had already shown them three houses and she always braced herself when he did this because the man would always find something that would blow the deal. And, of course, he found it, sending Elizabeth's expectations about her new home down the drain: he opened the tap.
First, a brown, thick liquid gushed out.
"Oh, that's already fixed," Helen cried nervously. "The plumber came a week ago. I'm sure that's the remaining water in the pipes."
The director smiled condescendingly and flushed the toilet. That really ruined it all. Rust mixed with water was spat out from the tap and they heard this strange, loud noise coming from the pipes inside the walls. They seemed as if they were about to explode.
"Thank you, Helen," Darcy placed his hand on Elizabeth's elbow in a clear indication that they were leaving. "Nice house, we'll call you if we make a decision."
"I understand." Miraculously, Georgiana found her voice. She wasn't sure she sounded clear enough, but she said it and it seemed that the man understood her, because he grinned.
"You can speak."
Georgiana shook her head and then waved her hand, as if undoing her negative and nodded, confirming what he just said without voicing it. What he read from that reply was that she could talk, but that she was not willing to do it with him right now. He understood her reluctance, she seemed quite timid and the process of speaking didn't look effortless for her.
"And, can you read my lips?"
That sign was universal. It was a 'yes' with a touch of a 'more or less' and a 'if you speak slowly'.
"Sir, can I get you something?" A waitress interrupted them.
The man looked up at her and then at Georgiana. "Would you like some coffee?"
She pointed at her unfinished cup of tea.
"A coffee, thank you." He asked the waitress.
Again they were on their own and he hesitated, not sure of how to continue. This wasn't easy for him, he had never been in a situation like this one, trying to converse with a girl that couldn't hear a word of what he said. Their eyes met, both smiled at each other -with evident uneasiness- and they looked down again.
The waitress came with his coffee and left the cup on the table. The man put some sugar in it and spoke while stirring it.
"I'm not usually like this, you know, I'm quite talkative, but I don't know how to converse with you."
Georgiana tilted her head to follow the movements of his lips. He was looking down so they were practically out of her sight and she couldn't read them.
He noticed her effort in following the conversation and looked up. "I'm sorry, I forgot that you must watch my words, not hear them."
The deaf girl shrugged in a manner that said, 'It happens all the time'.
"Would you forgive me for the other day? I didn't mean it, really."
She nodded.
"Do you always come to this café?"
Georgiana started making signs, counting with her fingers and he started to guess.
"Three … four … four times a week …every four weeks," she shook her head, laughing, and he laughed too, "Christ, this is weird …at four!" he saw her nodding and smiled, "you come here every day … no, not every day … er …" he frowned as he observed her signs, "almost every day? Oh, yes, almost every day, at four. From where?"
She showed him a folder resting on her right.
"What's that? Your work?"
The girl opened the folder and showed him her teaching material and some drawings the kids gave her.
"You are a teacher?" He grinned most becomingly. "Wow."
Georgiana nodded, looking very proud of herself and pointed at him.
"Me? What do I do? Well, I'm in biochemistry, I work for a laboratory in Market Deeping."
The frown on Georgiana's face told him that she didn't get it.
"Biochemistry," he mouthed carefully, "wait, I'll write it down."
She read the paper napkin he gave her and smiled.
"I'm Eric." He pointed at himself.
Again, she couldn't understand what he said so wrote it down on a paper. The girl took it and beneath it, she wrote hers.
"Georgiana." He read it aloud. "Hello, Georgiana. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
They shook hands and slowly, and not without difficulty, they started a conversation. Georgiana never said a word, she used signs, facial expressions and written words to communicate; Eric used spoken and written sentences and a few signs too and even if there were lots of misunderstandings and giggles from both parts, they succeeded in transmitting what they wanted to say.
He learned that she worked with kindergarten children, deaf just like her, that she had a brother and though she was very private about herself, that she moved on her own not long ago. From his part, Eric told her that he had just turned thirty, that he was from Salisbury, that he had been living in Peterborough for the last two years and that fate reunited them because he came to the store across the street looking for a new pair of trainers when he saw her entering the cafeteria.
With every second Eric spent with her, his confusion grew. What moved him to talk to her in the first place was his need to apologize to her, his guilt for what he said and, why not, a good deal of beaten pride. He always boasted about himself as being a man of sense and education, who had lived in the world and to know that he was capable of such behavior made him feel awful. He looked at himself in the mirror and saw arrogance and discrimination. Until now, his contact with disabled people had been practically non-existent, he only saw them from the distance, never interacting with them or doing it only for a short while. There was the blind woman he once helped to cross the street or the beggar in a wheelchair to whom he showed occasional charity by giving him a few coins. Just passing images, not real people with real lives. But here he was, with this adorable young woman, feeling the weight of his ignorance and prejudice. She was deaf and she was a teacher, she went to the supermarket, she came to this cafeteria, almost every day, at four. She was real. It was unsettling, because he realized that he could like her, and he never imagined himself captivated by a deaf girl. Because if it was remorse and pity what moved him to approach her, an entirely different feeling was keeping him there. He was beginning to feel helplessly attracted to her.
Time was running short -Eric noticed that she glanced at her watch- and he realized that he would have to do the first move if he wanted to see her again. He took his chance.
"Listen, I … no, look, I would really like to see you again. Can I have your e-mail or something so I can write to you? If not," he smiled charmingly, "I know I can find you here, almost every day, at four."
Her heart was all flutters and she knew she was blushing when she wrote her e-mail on the same paper napkin where they wrote down their names. Eric took it and put it away inside the breast pocket of his shirt.
The time to part finally came and Eric escorted her out of the cafeteria. They were heading in opposite directions so they said farewell at the door.
"It was very nice to meet you, Georgiana."
'I feel the same way,' she signed.
"Bye."
Georgiana looked into his eyes and said a hoarse "Good-bye."
Eric smiled broadly and gave her a soft squeeze in her arm. They started walking, both lightheaded, towards home. It was Eric who first turned around to check on her, he followed her delicate figure as she walked away and returned to his route, missing, for a fraction of a second the quick glance she stole in his direction. But he had to take one last look and this time he stopped to observe her, wishing that she would turn so he could see her smile one last time. And she didn't disappoint him, she turned, she smiled at him and waved her hand in one last good-bye.
The look in their faces as they walked home was of pure joy.
"Blast!" Elizabeth coursed when she tumbled over one of Darcy's shoes. She bent, placed them neatly under the chair where she had just folded his clothes and headed towards the bathroom, all the time mumbling things about how tired she was of picking up his stuff.
Darcy raised his eyebrows when he heard a loud PLANK!
"Can't you lower the toilet seat just for once?" Elizabeth cried angrily. "You aren't living on your own, didn't you realize that already? I don't know why I'm talking to him, he doesn't give a damn about what I say ..." her tone then changed from clearly annoyed to one of mocking astonishment, "Oh, it's a miracle! the towel is hanging in its place! Mr. Darcy hung the wet towel on the rack for three consecutive days! It deserves a celebration! I think I'll organize a party, or no, no, I'll better have it written down in the Guinness book of records, this is something that should be documented!"
The man smirked on the bed. He just loved to hear her complaining. She was so funny.
Elizabeth returned to the bed and found her man, oblivious to her protests, watching TV with all the pillows behind his back. This was all what she could take tonight. Angriest pout on her face, she lay flat in bed next to him, with no pillows, arms crossed over her chest.
"Come here." Darcy raised his arm for her to recline over his chest.
Elizabeth didn't move.
"I said come here, woman." He commanded.
She groaned, slapped the mattress and did what she was told. She curled her body around his, hugging his waist and entangled her leg in between his.
Darcy kissed the top of her head as he embraced her. "Good girl. Now you are going to tell me what's going on."
"I'll never find an place to live." She whined.
"Don't lose your hope, my love, you'll find a house of your liking. Some day." He tried to comfort her, though, inwardly, he was so happy with what happened today. Blessed be the pipes.
"But this one was perfect. The bedroom was large, it had a lovely view, and then, you had to ruin everything when you opened the tap. It's unfair."
"It's a sign, Elizabeth," he reverentially glanced heavenwards and spoke in a voice full of mysticism, "someone up there is telling you shouldn't move."
"Yeah," she smiled as she caressed his chest. "And you are more than happy with that."
"I won't deny it." He chuckled.
Her hands were doing circular movements over his stomach when she realized that something was missing, "Where's my tummy?"
Darcy looked down at his now flat stomach. "You said I was heavy the other night so I decided to lose a few pounds."
"You are losing weight, for me?" She grinned. Could this man be more adorable?
"Richard beat me in squash, too."
Elizabeth tried her best not to laugh at him openly. Of course, it was not just because of her. Darcy and his ego. He had to be on top, he had to be the number one in everything, he had to be the best. Two blows like those and he had to do something about it.
"I'll miss it." She caressed his stomach.
"Well," his smile grew more wicked and broader. "Then you'll have to conform yourself with other parts of me that are equally attractive and far more playful."
"Such as?"
"You know which one.'" The part that he was referring to was beginning to move and he placed her hand over it to let her know. Elizabeth smiled, because, sometimes, the bluntness with which he communicated his arousal could be indeed shocking. "Come here, little thing," he brought her body over his, "let's give him something to play with."
Elizabeth accommodated herself over him, a seductive smile on her lips. For his attitude, she almost knew what would follow next. When Darcy wanted, he was the best, the loving machine, the animal, pure passion and stamina, but when he was lazy, he was the laziest of them all. And this was that occasion, because everything he did -or perhaps what he didn't do- was telling her that he was in the mood for effortless sex tonight. Yes, she was almost sure that this would be what she had come to call a 'laying on his back, you do all the work, lazy fuck'. He would give her lazy kisses, align her with his body and start a slow, lazy penetration. And then? Not much, he would just lay there, tensing just what needed to be tensed, observing lustfully how she removed her nightgown and smiling blissfully as she worked on his pleasure and hers. Oh, no, sometimes he would thrust up, but not much, just a little, when she really was making him crazy. If she was lucky enough, he would wait for her to climax to finish and maybe -and only maybe- caress her breasts as she rocked her pelvis over him. Was she spoiling him? Yes, what was wrong with that? How could she complain about this when he was always such a generous and proficient lover? Anyway, wasn't this the Lion King thing to do? So she willingly indulged him, she made all the effort, increasing the pace when he asked and receiving his seed when he exploded. And what about her pleasure? She never had to worry about that, she knew it would happen even if he didn't do anything to provide it. And the bastard knew it perfectly well too because he encouraged her with a 'come on, sweetheart, give it to me' when he saw it coming and then asked her a 'you are not going to slow down now that you are done, are you, love?' when she finally climaxed. When his turn came, she couldn't disappoint him, no, so she went on, until she saw his body tensing, until he groaned and released. Then came the best part: Lying on top of him, so lovingly embraced by his arms.
How she loved lazy fucks.