“Well, you sure do give the other team a workout when you serve,” Will said, taking a slug from his water bottle. “Chasing after the ball.”
Charlie did the same. “But when I manage to keep it in bounds, it’s spectacular!”
“Right. So, about that . . . I think your teammates would appreciate a little more in bounds, and a little less spectacular.”
Charlie grinned ruefully. “I know. I just have no control.”
“You’re not exactly a clumsy guy. You’re good at other sports. I don’t get it.”
Charlie blew his hair out of his face. “You don’t have to get it, Will. I don’t need analyzing. I’m going to go get some sympathy from Jane!”
Will dropped into a lawn chair while Charlie went to talk with Jane. Will’s attention was caught by Jane’s sister, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth had been one of the better players for the women’s team. She’d probably have been the best with another few inches of height on her, but Jane had an advantage there. Elizabeth’s chestnut hair swung back and forth as she ran and jumped, and he’d found his eyes unwillingly drawn to her regularly.
What was it about Elizabeth? There was something compelling about her, but it was hard to determine what it was. Part of it, he thought, was her attitude. She was generally upbeat, cheering on her teammates and taunting the guys in a friendly fashion. She had more spunk than Jane, which he found he appreciated.
Will scowled as he saw Caroline, Lisa, and Michael arrive and greet Charlie. He’d been hoping maybe they’d just decide to stay home. He made the mistake of watching them a bit too long, because Caroline turned to scan the group and caught his eye.
“Will!” she said as she made a beeline for him. “How delightful to see you! You must be so busy these days!” As usual, she sounded just a bit as if she were playing a part as a debutante or a pageant contestant.
Will wasn’t sure why Caroline was so fixated on his schedule. She seemed to bring it up every time she saw him. Maybe it was that busy equaled making money in her viewpoint, and that meant more money for her to spend shopping if she could convince him to date her. Or marry her. Her attempts to win his interest had ramped up ever since his role as CEO had gone from temporary to permanent, a fact that did not endear him to her.
“Charlie says that we missed the first game. I can’t believe he didn’t insist on waiting for us!” She laughed, a shrill, affected laugh. “I mean, we were, what, maybe five minutes late?”
Will fought not to roll his eyes.
“I simply cannot wait to play. Shall I be on your team?” She smiled at him.
Will looked to see where Elizabeth was. She stood with Charlie on the volleyball field. She was demonstrating something, crouching down a bit and pretending to hit the ball. Then she stood up, knees straight, and pantomimed swinging her arms more, and shook her head, laughing. Charlie laughed as well, then mimicked her first position. She said something, and he widened his stance. She touched his arms as she spoke. Charlie nodded eagerly.
“Lizzy!” Richard called. “Are you trying to improve Charlie’s game? Because, you know, we really could have used that an hour ago.”
“Will? Will!” Caroline was still trying to get his attention.
“Uh, yeah. You can be on my team, I guess. As long as we aren’t playing men against women.”
Caroline laughed, a shrill laugh that made him wince. “Ha! Of course not. Because I am very much a woman, and you,” she said, touching his bicep, “are very much a man.”
He fought the urge to gag as he turned away.
The teams split off into Will, Richard, Charlotte, Maria, Vijay, and Caroline against Elizabeth, Charlie, Jane, Tim, Michael, and Lisa.
The first time Charlotte sent the ball directly over the net to Charlie, Will winced for him. But he was shocked when Charlie made a soft tap that sent the ball neatly to Michael, who set it up for Lisa to send it over the net.
When the play ended, Will rotated to the front row across from Charlie. “Wow,” he said as he reached under the net to give Charlie the customary hand slap. “What was that? A controlled hit?”
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” Charlie bragged.
And it wasn’t a fluke. Suddenly instead of keeping the ball in play only half the time, Charlie seemed to be using less energy and swinging less with his arms but keeping the ball under control almost every time he made contact with the ball.
“Regretting giving us Charlie now, aren’t you?” Elizabeth taunted when she rotated to stand across from Will, slapping his hand as she took her place. It was the first time she’d touched him. Why that mattered, he didn’t know.
It was a tight score for most of the game. They would have been fairly evenly matched if it weren’t that Caroline was more concerned with performing for Will than getting the ball. She seemed to make a special effort to bounce even when it was completely unnecessary, and twice she stopped to smile at him and missed the ball entirely. Such was par for the course with Caroline, though, so Will tried not to let it get to him when his team lost 25-22.
“Charlie!” he exclaimed. “I almost didn’t recognize you over there!”
Charlie grinned. “Yeah, Elizabeth told me I was swinging my arms too much, and that it’s more about getting low and using the whole body with your arms as more of a platform. Like bunting in baseball instead of swinging for a home run.”
“Well, whatever it was, it worked. I might even be willing to have you on my team again.” He bumped Charlie’s shoulder and was met with a laugh.
Will watched as Charlie walked over to where Elizabeth stood guzzling from a water bottle. He clapped her on the back, making her choke and gasp for breath. “Charlie!” she exclaimed once she could breathe again.
“Hey, thanks for your help, Lizzy!” he said brightly. “I can’t believe the difference it made to my game.”
“No problem, Charlie. Now, can a woman drink in peace?”
“Another game?” Charlotte asked after everyone had drunk their fill.
Will bent over to stretch his legs. He was getting old. Another game might be a bit too much. But if he told Charlie that in so many words, he’d never live it down.
Elizabeth shook her head. “I have a shift tonight. I need to get back home in time to take a shower and all that.”
“A shift?” Caroline asked. “Oh, how adorable. Does that make you a shift worker?”
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “I suppose it does. But, more importantly, it means I’m employed. And since I plan to keep it that way, hi ho, hi ho”—she gave Caroline a toothy grin—“it’s off to work I go!”
Caroline shook her head. “And now our numbers are uneven. I don’t understand why you even came if you had to leave early.”
Will was about to speak up, but Elizabeth responded before he could.
“I suppose for the same reason that you came late.”
Will wondered that Caroline still had the energy to play another game. He supposed it was all that time she spent at the gym. Maybe he needed to start spending more time at the gym himself. Exercise was supposed to be good for stress and all.
“Some of us have jobs, you know, Caroline,” Charlotte said sharply. “Not all of us have trust funds from Daddy.”
“Right,” Caroline said. “Some of us just get bookstores. That we promptly let go bankrupt.”
“That’s kinda how the world works when you’re not the owner, Caroline.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes as she marched off to her car.
Will winced. Caroline was being a brat, just like she always was. But he recognized that he’d had the same attitude towards Elizabeth, too. So she was having tough times and relying on family. Hadn’t he done the same once, too? His family hadn’t even been his family then, but they’d still reached out and rescued him. He, of all people, knew what it was like to be in a tight spot and need help. His own past was warring with his current situation, where it seemed that everybody had their hand out. He supposed the difference was between somebody always
having their hand out and somebody accepting a hand up.
Caroline shook her head as she watched Elizabeth go. The others were gathering their bags and heading for the parking lot as well, but Caroline stood next to Will as he collected his own things.
“I know exactly what you’re thinking,” Caroline said.
“Do you?”
“You’re thinking what a waste of space that girl is. I can’t believe that sweet Jane puts up with a witch like that leeching off her for weeks on end.”
“That wasn’t at all what I was thinking. In fact, I was thinking that she gets prettier every time I see her. She has the most beautiful eyes.”
Caroline stared at him, aghast. Then she shut her mouth and smiled with narrowed eyes.
“If I didn’t know you were joking, Will, I would call you blind.”
Will parked in front of his parents’ house and headed inside. As he walked in the door, he put his briefcase on the bench under the hooks and took off his shoes to put in the bin. Some habits never die.
Georgiana was at the island in the kitchen, somehow doing homework with one cat lounging on her textbook and another walking in circles around her stool.
“Georgie!” he said, kissing her forehead.
She swatted at him. “Ana, Will! You’re supposed to call me Ana!”
“Right.” He pretended to hit his forehead for forgetting, not that he really had. “Ana. Pretty sure Mousie isn’t supposed to be on the counter, is she?” He stroked the cat from head to bottom.
“Mousie is helping me study.” She pointed to her textbook, partially visible beneath cat fur. “See?”
“Okay, just because you can see through the cat doesn’t mean I can.”
She snorted. “She’s covering up the top half of the page so I have to remember what it said without peeking.”
“Uh-huh. Likely story. Mom and Dad too busy to care what you and those cats of yours are up to?”
As he spoke, Birdie leaped up from the floor directly onto the island, a fluid leap that looked incredibly graceful until she knocked into Mousie. A flurry of rolling furballs ended up with Mousie on the floor and Birdie practicing a balance beam walk along the edge of the countertop.
Ana giggled.
Will gave her a sidearm hug and went to see his parents.
The cats had been Will’s gift to Ana when she’d been so upset after the accident. Her doctor was hesitant to call it depression, but Ana had been moody and withdrawn, not wanting to go out with her friends or talk on the phone or do much of anything except school and homework. Ana loved school, a concept that Will often found anathema, so it wasn’t shocking that she was absorbed in it, but it was unusual for her to take no interest in anything else.
That was when, after a long conversation with his mother, Will had gone to the animal shelter and brought back two kittens. They were a bonded pair and loved to play and fight, and right from the start, they made Ana smile and laugh. Will had read about how pets could help people cope with their emotions, but he and his mother were both stunned at how quickly the kittens helped Ana start talking to her family again. Even the children’s therapist that his mom had chosen for her was surprised at the change. It was also the time when Georgie decided she wanted to be called “Ana” from now on.
“There are too many Georges in this family,” she said. “I have no idea what Mom and Dad were thinking. At least Ana sounds a lot less like Anne than Georgie does George.”
Will wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He did like the name “Ana,” and she was right in that it was less confusing with their parents. But “Georgie” also felt like a link to his past in a way, a link that was more tenuous every day. Nonetheless, he was grateful that Ana seemed to be recovering from the depression of the winter, and thankful for the cats.
Of course, giving an eleven-year-old girl naming rights over the kittens meant that the calico was named “Birdie” and the tuxedo “Mousie,” the same names she’d wanted to name kittens since she was four. Though, given her love of unicorns and fairies, it could have been worse.
Music was coming from the sunroom, so Will headed in that direction, but stopped abruptly at the door.
His father was spinning his wheelchair around the room in something like a dance, his mother curled up on his lap, head resting on his shoulder, as Bryan Adams’ “When You Love Someone” filled the room.
He smiled slightly and backed away. He’d go hang out with Ana until they emerged.
Will hung up the phone and dropped his head to his desk. The overseas marketing team in Asia had been notified about some translation errors on the Japanese version of the website. He’d spent half the morning in meetings with the marketing team, Japanese nationals who’d been hired to vet the website, and the translation team, and they were no closer to determining whose fault it was or even what the best translation was.
He heard Susan talking to someone outside his door and sat up abruptly, running his fingers across his face and hair so that it wouldn’t look like he’d just done a faceplant. Even if he had.
Leonard Bailey barged into his office, Susan a step behind him.
“Sorry, Will!” she called behind Leonard. Leonard turned sharply to look at her, then at Will.
“You let her call you Will?” he asked as the door closed.
Will shrugged. “She’s my personal secretary. It seemed a bit overly formal to have her call me “Mr. Darcy” all the time.
“Your father’s secretary always called him Mr. Darcy. Is there something going on between you and your secretary?”
Will’s eyes widened. “What? No, of course not.”
“Hmmph. Well. I had a question about the marketing plan for the new residential system. The design you showed us at the meeting yesterday, was that the final design choice?”
“Yes. We’ve gone through several different versions. I think you saw a few of them at the board meeting last week.”
Leonard nodded. “So you’re saying you’ve already gone with this design, no?”
Will wondered where he was going with this. “Yes . . .”
“Has your father seen it?”
Taken aback, Will said, “Uh... no.”
“Don’t you typically run things like this by him before making final decisions?”
“No. He’s in an advisory position now.” Will fought to respond without letting his annoyance show. He was the CEO, not his father.
“You didn’t feel it necessary to get advice on such a major new extension to our product line?”
Will thought it rather ironic that of all the times he’d been frustrated to have to stand by himself, when he finally grew confident enough to do it, the board members wanted him to go back to being dependent.
“No, I didn’t. The marketing plan is impressive, and I’m confident it will work well for both domestic and international markets.”
Leonard looked skeptical, but he nodded. “Very well. I’ll expect to see numbers to back you up once we go public with it.”
Will was tempted to ask, “Or what?” After all, they were just a board of advisors, and his father was the owner. But while their threat might have no teeth, he knew it behooved him to listen to their concerns. His father had found Leonard’s advice sometimes frustrating over the years, but almost always on target. Leonard was a grump, but an invaluable one.
“You will,” Will assured him.
Leonard gave him one last hard look before he left.
Will gave a sigh and dropped his head back to his desk.
Charlie had decided that Will was a workaholic, and he probably wasn’t wrong. That was why Will had submitted to Charlie’s insistence that yes, he needed to come out to dinner with the group.
Will had actually had a decent time. Richard, Charlie, Jane, and Elizabeth were all there. He didn’t even think much of it when he noticed that after a brief whispered debate between the two Gardiner sisters, Jane covered Elizabeth’s meal. Will didn’t talk much, but he basked in his fr
iends’ conversation.
It would have been pretty much perfect if Caroline hadn’t been one of the invitees. But of course, she was Charlie’s “social secretary” or some such nonsense, which meant that she always knew when he was going out with Will, and she invited herself along at every opportunity. Charlie really needed to boot her out of his life, at least in Will’s opinion.
“Will,” Caroline whispered, “we should go back to your place after this. Don’t even try to tell me you’re too busy, I know Charlie told you to clear the evening. I’d love to Netflix and chill, if you know what I mean.”
“No!” Will said, a bit too loud. Everybody turned to look at him. Elizabeth, he noticed, was smirking.
“What’s wrong, Will?” Charlie asked. He looked concerned, unlike . . . well, unlike anybody else. Richard looked ready to laugh. Thanks, guys.
“I, uh―”
“Will was just inviting me back to his place after this,” Caroline said smoothly. Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “To . . . watch some Netflix.” She winked at him. Actually winked.
“No! No, that’s not what I said at all,” Will said, thinking quickly. He could just declare that he’d said nothing of the sort. But perhaps Caroline had the germ of a good idea. “I was inviting everybody over afterwards. To play board games.”
“That sounds wonderful, Will,” Jane said. “Elizabeth and I can pick up some snacks on the way over.”
He nodded dumbly. He didn’t have anything like that on hand. Had he picked up this morning? Probably not. There were probably glasses and dirty bowls all over his coffee table and clothes on the floor and when had he last washed the dishes?
“Uh, so, I should probably head out now and get a few things ready.” He took the last bite of his brownie. “You all stay and enjoy your dessert. Take your time. Please.” He was glad that he’d already paid his part of the check as he hurried back to his place to tidy it up before he had guests. How did he get into this mess? Oh, right, Caroline. Well, he had been enjoying himself with friends, so he liked the idea of having guests, even if he wished he could leave her off the guest list entirely.
A Good Name: A Modern Pride and Prejudice Variation Page 13
