Searching for Mr. Darcy

Scene Seventeen

Finally Friday, Maisie stumbled into work fifteen minutes late.  Three nights out in a row were not conducive to her sleep habits, and she'd overslept.  Luckily, Talia had already gotten up and made breakfast and coffee, so she hadn't needed to stop on the way in.

"Have you been online yet this morning?" George asked as soon as she sat down, his head popping over her cubicle wall like a gopher in a carnival game.

"I literally just got here."

"Hurry - check your page."

Maisie set her purse and bagged lunch down and started her computer.  George hovered over her while it booted up.  "Don't you have anything better to do?"

"Nah, it's Friday.  Light day.  No one's actually working today."

She rolled her eyes at him, but there was definitely some truth in his assertion.  Fridays tended to be light days in the housing industry for builders.  Unfortunately the same did not hold true for sales people.

Her computer finally ready, she opened Chrome and went to Facebook.  She had over a thousand notifications on the SFMD page.  "What the...?  I thought it had slowed down."

"Apparently, Yahoo picked it up."  He pointed to one of the posts on the page - a link to a Yahoo article about it.

"Great."  Maisie clicked on the link and read the story while George looked over her shoulder.

Most ladies of a certain generation can remember the moment that Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy emerged from the lake, his white shirt wet and sticking to his broad-shouldered frame, in the BBC Pride and Prejudice mini-series.  Funnily enough, that scene never actually happened.

While it's true, Firth as Darcy does jump into the lake, and he is shown dripping wet afterwards, we never actually see him exiting the body of water.  Our collective imaginations filled that part in.  Good job, imaginations!

And now, a 30-year old woman in North Carolina is giving us another reason to remember wet-shirt Darcy.  Maisie Frampton created a Facebook page in her search for the perfect real-life Mr. Darcy, and it's going viral.  She's asking the entire country to help her in her quest, and so far thousands have responded.  While most of the men offering themselves up on her page aren't actually named "Darcy," her intention is clear, she'll never change her name unless she gets to become "Mrs. Darcy."

If you know a Darcy who's looking for his Elizabeth, check out Ms. Frampton's page.  It could be a match made in literary heaven.

Yahoo! has reached out to Ms. Frampton for comment and will update this post with new details as they emerge.

"Fantastic," Maisie mumbled, closing the tab without reading the comments.

"It's pretty cool," George said.  "You're a meme!"

"Can they post my name like that without my permission?"

"It's on a public page, so I'm guessing yes.  Who knows?  Why, do you want to sue?"

Maisie shook her head, resigned.  "What's this about them reaching out to me?  They haven't reached out!"

"Check your PMs and email."

She did, and sure enough, there in the 'other' folder was a message from the author of the article, asking for an interview.  Maisie typed a quick response with her cell phone number and instructions to call over the weekend.

"You're going to do it - an interview?" George asked.

"Might as well.  This thing doesn't seem to be dying down on it's own."  She'd made her bed, and by not deleting the page, she'd decided to lay in it.  She might as well make the most of it and get cozy.