The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet Read online

  “Mom is going to fuh-reak when she finds out. Also, you should totes lay off the makeup counter, sis—or at least leave it to people who have been outside of a library and know what looks good on, like, humans.”

  “Uh, about Mom,” I said, trying to get my sister’s attention away from her phone, where she was I can only assume emailing or texting or tweeting someone about my slight overuse of the lip liner. “I would rather not tell them. Mom and Dad, I mean.”

  “Oh, really?” Lydia got this look on her face, one I know all too well. “What’s in it for me?”

  “Lydia, we have to get going if you want me to drop you off at school before I go to work . . . Oh, hi, Charlotte, it’s so good to see you!”

  And now my older sister, Jane, entered. Really, my tiny bedroom was too small for this many people.

  “Hi, Jane,” Charlotte replied. “How’s it going?”

  “Good!” Jane smiled brightly. “I love Mondays, don’t you? You get to see everyone back at the office and share what you did that weekend. How was your weekend?”

  “Well,” Charlotte said, “I was here, helping Lizzie . . .”

  There is not a kinder, more solicitous soul than my sister Jane. She knows very well what Charlotte was doing this weekend. She spent most of it in this very room. But Jane was still going to be polite and genuinely interested in what Charlotte would say.

  I figure her extreme niceness evolved naturally over the past twenty-six years as a defense mechanism for her beauty. You may want to hate Jane because she’s so pretty, but it’s really hard when she’s baked you cookies and made you tea.

  Case in point: When I was in junior high, I decided to despise Jane for being a beautiful, sophisticated high-schooler and Lydia for being happy, carefree, and generally getting whatever she wanted. (What can I say? I was going through an awkward phase—as one does—and I was very tired of being the middle child.) My annoyance with Jane lasted all of about six hours, ending when we got home from school and she taught me how to side-braid my hair.

  My annoyance with Lydia is ongoing.

  “That’s right, you were doing the video!” Jane said. “Lydia showed it to me. Lizzie, it’s fantastic, very funny.”

  “Really?” I said. “You think I looked okay? My makeup?”

  Jane blinked at me twice. “Hmm.” Well, that answered that question. “You know, you should wear that maroon blouse next time—it really makes your skin glow.”

  Jane works for a design house in what passes for our little downtown. They do a lot of different aspects of styling—interiors, furnishing, etc.—but Jane works in their fashion department. She is the only person I know who can take a thrift shop housedress and turn it into something that could conceivably be worn to an awards show. So if there is anyone’s fashion opinion I trust, it’s hers. But . . .

  “I would, but there’s something wrong with the buttons—there’s gappage.”

  “Oh, I can fix that.” Jane waved away any arguments. She went into my drawer and found the blouse. As she did, she turned to Lydia.

  “You ready? I should be able to get you to Art History class if I speed.”

  Jane doesn’t speed.

  “Ugh, Art History is so lame—the lecturer just drones and laser-points at the peen on old statues. Total perv.”

  “I was just telling Lydia,” I interrupted, bringing us back to something a bit more pertinent than genitalia on old statues, “that I don’t think it would be a good idea if we were to tell Mom and Dad about my videos. The project is about portraying my home life through new media, and I can’t really do that if . . . Besides, it’s only going to last a few weeks, anyway.” I can feel my teeth grate at the glint in Lydia’s eye. “Please?”

  “And again I ask,” Lydia smirked, “what’s in it for me?”

  This forced me to pull out the big-sister guns.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I mused. “Maybe I’ll refrain from telling Dad about that box of fake IDs under your bed.”

  We stared down. Lydia is only twenty. This fact is not well known to the local bartender community.

  “Fine,” she relented. “Mom and Dad would spoil the fun, anyway.”

  “Great!” Charlotte said brightly. “Now can we go to school and/or work?”

  As we shuffled out of my room, Jane spoke low to me. “Lizzie, are you sure about Mom and Dad? If they find out . . .”

  “Please,” I said, with an approving glance at Charlotte. “Do you know how many hours of video get uploaded to YouTube every minute? Nobody is ever going to watch these.”

  “Ha!” Lydia laughed. “Don’t be so sure, nerdy older sister. I’m in your video, and I’m destined for fame.”

  SATURDAY, APRIL 14TH

  Home from morning office hours with Dr. Gardiner, and I feel a little better. I’d been nervous after the second video went up. (That one only took four hours to make, so . . . progress!) We’ve gotten some views—a couple thousand, actually. Which isn’t Charlie Bit My Finger levels by any means, but I’m still kind of shocked that a couple thousand people have had this tiny glimpse into my life. And seemingly came back for another.

  The people on the Internet must be really bored.

  And so far, most of the feedback has been positive. But I’ve been a little nervous about how I portray my family. Specifically my mom and dad.

  “Are you being honest about how they interact with you?” Dr. Gardiner asked.

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  And that’s the question. Ever since Jane expressed concern about it, it’s been on my mind. Am I being too harsh? Especially considering my parents don’t know about the videos. I don’t need their consent to portray them, only their consent if they appear on camera, which is NOT going to happen. Still, they’re my parents. My frustrations with them are probably pretty normal. Until one airs them for the entire world to see. Then the magnifying lens of public opinion warps everything.

  But Dr. Gardiner reminded me that honesty in the portrayal of my life is all I can do—and actually, is the point of the whole project. So I left her office feeling a little more confident, and came home to what was apparently the World Ending (™ my mother).

  “Your father is the reason none of you girls will ever get married!” My mom was in the kitchen, wailing this latest revelation to Jane, who took it with her usual grace while helping her prepare lunch.

  “He won’t even go introduce himself to the new neighbor!”

  Oh, yes. The new neighbor. This current World Ending has been going on for about a week now—I had almost blissfully forgotten about it, what with school and my videos. But Mom is obsessed with meeting Bing Lee and getting one of her daughters in front of him. So you would think she would just go up and introduce herself . . . but no. That’s not how Mom operates.

  Perhaps it’s because she knows she might be a tad overwhelming to the uninitiated?

  Could she be that self-aware?

  “We’re not exactly neighbors, Mom,” I tried. The house in question is at least twenty minutes away, on the other side of town. The nice side. The McMansion side.

  “Which is why I can’t provide the introductions!” my mother said between splotchy sobs. “If they were nearby I could just walk over with a welcome plate of cold meats and cheeses. But I need your father to do it, and he will not oblige me! I am bereft!”

  Occasionally, my mom thinks it’s the nineteenth century. And that she’s Scarlett O’Hara.

  I could only roll my eyes and back away slowly, because from the look on my mom’s face, anything else would just be instigation. So I wandered over to my other parent.

  “Hey, Dad, thanks for being the reason I’ll never get married,” I said from the doorway to the den.

  “You’re welcome, Lizzie. Anything I can do to help,” he answered from behind the newspaper.

  “You could just go introduce yourself to this Bing Lee and end Mom’s torture, you know.” Another wail erupted from the kitchen. �
��And ours. Conversely, we could time travel to the twenty-first century and we girls could introduce ourselves. Oh, look at that!” I glanced at my watch. “We’re already here!”

  “Now, are you going to spoil all my fun?” There is a glint in his eye. It’s a glint similar to Lydia’s when there is mischief to be had.

  Now as silly as this whole thing was, if Dad was anti introducing himself, he would have flat-out said so, and my mom would have started scheming up a new way to get Bing Lee in one of her daughters’ (read: her) grasp. But from the fact that it’s played out this long, combined with that little glint, and what appeared to be a smirk, I knew something was up.

  “Dad . . . is it possible that you have already met Bing Lee?” He shrugged.

  “Dad . . .”

  “All right,” my father sighed. “It is possible that I was at the club the other day, and it is possible that young Mr. Bing Lee happened to be there signing up for a new membership. It’s also possible that I took the opportunity to introduce myself and mention that I have three daughters around his age.”

  My eyes went wide. “You did not. You sold us out, packaged us off just like Mom wants?”

  “I didn’t package you off—trust that I have a hair more tact than your mother,” he said with a grin.

  “What were you doing at the club?” My parents have a weekly bridge night at the club, but it’s on Mondays.

  “Canceling our membership,” my father replied. “Now that you all are grown and no longer taking tennis lessons, we hardly use it.”

  Right. Except for bridge on Mondays. So, that’s not weird.

  “Well . . . what’s he like? Bing?” I asked. Hey, he’d been the topic of discussion in my house for a week now; I’m allowed to be a little curious.

  “You can find out for yourself next weekend—he’ll be at Ellen Gibson’s wedding. Apparently he went to school with her fiancé.”

  Right. Ellen Gibson’s fiancé went to Harvard. Therefore, Bing Lee went to Harvard. When my mother found this out, Bing Lee went from a major catch to the mythical unicorn/phoenix/centaur she’d always hoped would wander into her daughters’ lives.

  “Okay,” I said, sitting down next to my father. “How much longer are you planning on keeping this from Mom?”

  “Not much longer. I thought I might spring it on her at the wedding.”

  “Dad, I know you like winding up Mom, but do you also enjoy post-apocalyptic nuclear hellscapes? Because that’s what the house will be if you don’t tell her. Soon.”

  “I have no idea what half that sentence means, but I take your point.” My dad lifted himself out of his chair with a sigh.

  “And if your father doesn’t care enough about you to introduce himself to Bing Lee, chances are we won’t meet him until he marries Charlotte Lu!” my mother ranted, while simultaneously crushing pecans with a mallet. Cooking de-stresses her. We eat well in this house.

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” Dad said. “If I had known that I’d be ruining Charlotte’s future happiness, I would not have introduced myself to Bing Lee the other day.”

  As my mother shrieked and squealed and pressed my father for more information, I couldn’t help but watch my parents do this dance—Dad winding up Mom, Mom getting flustered, then happy—that they’ve been doing probably since they met. It made me smile.

  And I realized Dr. Gardiner is right.

  This is my family. If I can’t be honest about them, then I’m not being honest about myself. This is my life, warts and all. And that’s what I’m putting out there.

  TUESDAY, APRIL 17TH

  My mother has reached a whole new level of crazy.

  You’d think that with the news that we’d meet Bing Lee at the wedding this weekend, she would be satisfied. But no, now the rumor is that he’s bringing guests to the Gibson wedding, so he must have a girlfriend. Or multiple girlfriends. She’s freaking out about it. Again, my mother has reached a whole new level of crazy.

  I was driving to the library (side note: Thank God for these free mornings on Tuesdays. I don’t know when I would document or brainstorm ideas for the vlog otherwise. The end of the semester is coming up fast and my workload shows it.) and I saw my mom making the turn into the Netherfield development. And it struck me: She’s doing drive-bys. Trying to catch a glimpse of the elusive man himself and whoever he has with him and find out if it’s possible to wrest him from that person’s clutches.

  She doesn’t even know this guy! He could be nice, sure. But he could also be terrible . . . an aimless drug addict, or worse yet, an East Coast elitist with a crippling downhill skiing addiction. Yet she has already claimed him as her future son-in-law. And that’s what worries me most. I had been vacillating between being sorry for Bing Lee and being sorry for us Bennet girls, but the fact that Mom is more than willing to hook one of us up with him without even having had a conversation with him means that she’s not thinking about what might make us happy. Only about what might make her happy, and one of us possibly secure.

  Either way, Bing Lee had better fasten his seat belt for the wedding this weekend. He doesn’t know it yet, but it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

  FRIDAY, APRIL 20TH

  “Oh, my God. Lizzie, did you see this?” Charlotte burst into our cubicles at school. I was working on a paper for Advanced Theories of Media Criticism. At least, I should’ve been. What I was really doing was iChatting with Lydia, who’d been swimming in the Mom crazysauce, speculating about Bing Lee’s guests. Although speculation seemed pointless. Lydia had already done her usual snooping and found out that his guests were only his sister and some dude named Darcy. Which—if it’s his first name—sounds like a Judy Blume heroine, but I digress.

  Charlotte was shushed by the other grad students, but, for once, didn’t care.

  “See what?”

  “Your numbers.” She leaned over my shoulder and pulled up the Internet.

  On the screen was my YouTube channel. And she pointed at my views. Which had suddenly gone up to 60,000. Per video.

  “Oh, my God!” Now it was my turn to be shushed.

  “Oh, shut up,” Charlotte said to the shushers. “Something is actually happening here.”

  “I didn’t think it would work,” I said.

  “What wouldn’t work?”

  “I . . . I emailed a few people. And tweeted. Vloggers. And asked if they would check it out.” I had been secretly hoping that they would check it out and love it so much that they would recommend it to their viewers, but I really didn’t think it would work. It was a shot in the dark.

  Oh, my God.

  “Who did you approach?” Char asked, but her fingers were already flying, searching my email and my Twitter feed. “Hank Green?!” she squealed. Then . . . “Felicia Day tweeted about your videos?”

  “I didn’t think it would work,” I repeated dumbly.

  “Lizzie, you’re a hit! You have a legitimate audience now!”

  “I have a legitimate audience,” I said. “And they’re going to want more videos.” My stomach turned. “Good videos. Oh God, what if I don’t have anything to say anymore? What if I have nothing to talk about?”

  Char smirked at me. “I’ve known you since birth, Lizzie. You’ve never had nothing to say.”

  “But . . . I’m pretty boring.”

  This is sadly true. Lydia isn’t totally wrong about me. I’m fairly nerdy. I read books and write term papers. I’m (annoyingly) perpetually single. I may have a point of view to express, but still . . . it’s not the stuff compelling content is made of.

  “How do I keep people’s interest five, ten videos from now?”

  “You’re overthinking it,” Charlotte said, which is her version of soothing. “Don’t worry about five, ten videos from now, worry about the next one. And with the Gibson wedding tomorrow, you should have something at least halfway interesting to say on Monday.”

  I took deep breaths. Any iChat convo with Lydia or advanced theory of media criticism was forgotte
n. Charlotte was right. I just have to focus on the next one. And if I know my mother, at least the Gibson wedding will yield something interesting to talk about.

  SUNDAY, APRIL 22ND

  It’s about 2 a.m., and if I were smart I’d be asleep right now. Check that—if I had a best friend who wasn’t wasted and pocket-dialing me, I’d be asleep right now. But I just received a call from Charlotte that went something like this:

  (garbled noise) . . . “Either I’m drunk, or this party just came down with a bad case of Fellini.” . . . (more garbled noise) . . . “Why is my phone lit up?” (BEEP)

  To be fair, I wasn’t asleep yet anyway, since we just got home from the Gibson wedding about an hour ago. My mom is currently in a state of glee (or slumber. Gleeful slumber). Because, according to her joyous monologue on the way home, all of her pain and plotting were worthwhile as Mr. Bing Lee, admittedly good-looking wealthy type and recent homeowner, has now met and been smitten by one of her daughters.

  Specifically, Jane.

  I, however, am in a state of unbridled annoyance, because of one single person.

  Specifically, William Darcy.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  The wedding ceremony was lovely. Outdoors, in the afternoon. Why live in a sleepy coastal central California town if not to take advantage of the weather for your nuptials? Our longtime friend Ellen pledged to love, honor, and cover her new husband on her work’s health insurance plan for as long as they both shall live, while Ellen’s mother sniffled her way through the ceremony—her sniffles only slightly softer than my mother’s wails. (Note: Ellen Gibson was in the same class as Jane since first grade; her mother and ours cut up orange slices for soccer practice together. Mom can barely hold her head up in front of Mrs. Gibson now, as her daughters remain tragically unwed.)

  Of course, during the entire ceremony, my mother was craning her neck across the aisle to better stare at Bing Lee and his companions. Luckily, he didn’t notice, but his overly tall, stuck-up friend certainly did. He frowned at us from beneath this ridiculously hipster newsboy cap. Although I can’t even be sure it was a frown now. From what I saw of him that evening, his face just stays that way.