The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet Read online

  And I moved back when, after four years of living on my own for undergrad, I got accepted to the grad school with the best communications program . . . within driving distance of my parents’ house (luckily, my car is less of a junker—I bought it off of Dad when I went away to college with three years’ worth of summer job money). Considering the student loans I had already amassed, I traded in my independence for some small relief.

  I have another year left before I have to start paying off the stellar education my penchant for studying and learning bought me, and the prospect of it scares me to bits.

  Since Lydia only goes to community college, her expenses are admittedly less, but she still doesn’t have any money coming in—just money going out. (She also doesn’t have a car, and has to share with Mom and beg rides off of everyone else.) In some parts of the world, we would have been left to our own devices the second we turned legal, so it’s actually really good of our parents to let us continue to live at home.

  But if we didn’t? If we were able to be as adult in reality as we are in age . . . maybe Jane wouldn’t be taking the prospect of Bing so seriously. Maybe she’d be able to keep it casual with him, without the constant reminder of our mother’s expectations. Without the pressure cooker of five adults living on top of one another with only one bathroom, and being unavoidably mixed up in each other’s business at all times.

  Sometimes it feels like a prison. But it’s the prison I know.

  Hence the merciless teasing of Jane in my last video. (I can be passive-aggressive at times. I do get some things from my mother.) I really should apologize. I really should try to be more open-minded about Bing. Jane knows what she feels, right?

  But then again, Jane is a lot stronger than she looks. When I teased her about Bing, she started teasing me about Darcy, and now that’s all the commenters want me to talk about. They think I “met” someone at the wedding. Someone that my mother may one day invite over for dinner, breakfast, and Thanskgiving.

  Ha ha, no. Sorry, viewers. I’ll simply have to tell them about what he said to Bing about me, and put his prickishness front and center. That will get them off the scent. And no, I’m not at all worried about impugning the character of a douchebag on the Internet. After all, I’m just going to say what actually happened.

  SATURDAY, APRIL 28TH

  Comment from *****: Lizzie your impression of Darcy is hilarious! More please!

  Comment from *****: Darcy can’t be that bad. Come on. Really?

  Comment from *****: More Darcy! Hahahaha!

  Jeez, more Darcy? That’s all they want? Me to talk about a wedding that took place a week ago now? I have other things going on in my life, you know. I have school, and finals coming up, and . . . okay, I guess just more school—but that’s important to me! Darcy is most certainly not important to me.

  PIE CHART: THINGS THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO ME

  Honestly, I would rather just forget him. Hope and pray that our paths cross as little as possible while he visits Bing and not at all thereafter. But then I think about my audience—the semi-large one (and growing!) that I weirdly have now. Do I make it clear to them just how awful he was? After all, I still haven’t detailed the Most Awkward Dance Ever (™ Charlotte Lu, but I’m stealing it) on air yet. Surely, that would make them realize how awful he is. Or is that just feeding the beast? And is feeding the beast something I want to do?

  Ugh, I wish Charlotte were here. She would help.

  . . . Fine. You want more Darcy, people? You get him.

  TUESDAY, MAY 1ST

  I got my Charlotte back! I picked her up at the bus stop today. She’d been in Fresno (glorious Fresno!) for the past week.

  “Why Fresno?” I asked the second she got into my car, hugging her. “Why did you abandon me in my hour of need?”

  “You mean why did I abandon you in your hour of needing someone to help you film videos to go take care of my aunt who landed in the hospital?”

  “Well, when you put it like that . . .”

  Charlotte’s had a close relationship with her aunt ever since she was little, and they ended up bonding on a family trip to China when Char was eight. Her aunt even helps pay for Charlotte’s school, which is good because her family is in even worse straits than mine.

  “How’s Aunt Vivi doing, anyway?”

  “She’s better,” Char said. “The timing couldn’t have been much worse, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She waved her hand dismissively. “Just that missing school with finals looming is not ideal, that’s all. How much make-up stuff do I have to do, anyway?”

  I fill her in on the papers and other assignments that got handed out in her absence. I took over our discussion group, so luckily she doesn’t have the annoying busywork of grading freshman essays.

  I feel like something is going on with Charlotte that she’s not telling me. But if Charlotte doesn’t want to talk about something, it doesn’t get discussed. Seriously, when she got her first kiss in ninth grade, she didn’t tell me. And it wasn’t because she thought I’d be jealous—I’d gotten my first kiss the year before in a harrowing game of spin the bottle and lorded it over her, as one is wont to do. She just didn’t think it warranted a conversation. So she decided to not talk about it.

  Thus, I’ve decided that Char was not off visiting her aunt—an aunt who, by the way, knows how much school means to Charlotte. Heck, said aunt is helping to pay for it. There is no way she would condone the removal from her studies for a week. No, I’ve decided Charlotte was having a torrid holiday with a tall, dark, and handsome stranger. That’s my headcanon, at least.

  But when Char doesn’t want to talk about stuff, she just turns the conversation to another topic. Which she did then, with supreme skill, before I could ask her anything cropping up in my suspicious mind.

  “So how’s Darcy?”

  I nearly swerved off the road. “What?”

  “Darcy. You know, the guy you’ve made the last three videos about.”

  “I have not,” I protested, but it was admittedly weak.

  “Uh-huh. Why are you spending so much time talking about a guy who you met once, at a wedding, ten days ago?”

  My bestie sure knows how to cut to the core of the . . . everything.

  “I . . . The comments . . .” I tried. “It’s all everyone wants me to talk about!”

  “They’re your videos, Lizzie. If you don’t want to talk about him, don’t.”

  “But audience expectation . . .”

  “You can’t just give them candy, Lizzie. You have to control your content. Take back the videos—talk about what you want to talk about.” Char looked at me, peering over the top of her sunglasses. “Now, if you wanted to talk about Darcy . . .”

  “I most vehemently do not.” Except maybe one more time. Just to clarify that I don’t want to talk about him, of course.

  “Fine.”

  We then let the radio take over. The best thing about a best friend is that there isn’t always this burning need to fill the silence. Instead we can just sit together in the car and sing along to the radio, neither of us caring how off-key we are.

  And it was on the incredibly high, unsingable part of “Defying Gravity” (there’s nothing wrong with a deep love of show tunes) that we happened to pull up to a stoplight right in front of Jane’s work. They have a pretty, quaint storefront on our town’s pretty, quaint downtown main street. (Every time I walk by, I want to make over my bedroom with embroidered throw pillows and my closet with fashion-forward silhouettes.) Jane, as the lowest man on the totem pole, does a lot of driving to go fetch samples of fabrics and shots of espresso. Which it seems she had just done, because we saw her pulling bags of material out of the trunk of her car.

  Or rather, one Mr. Bing Lee was pulling the bags out of the car, eager to help. Behind him stood a sour-faced Darcy and Caroline, at a distance. Caroline had shopping bags in hand. Bing held up a fabric-laden hand to his friends, indicating they shoul
d wait, and followed my sister into the store.

  I watched them in the rearview until I couldn’t watch them anymore. Or rather, until the light turned green and the Ford Fiesta behind me honked and made me drive.

  “He probably just ran into her on the sidewalk,” Charlotte said.

  “Probably,” I agreed. What else is a rich guy summering in a new town supposed to do but wander the stretch of street between the yogurt shop and the independent movie theater that happens to include my sister’s place of work? “Or he could be stalking her.”

  “Yes, because you always stalk someone with your sister and friend in tow.”

  Well, yeah, but . . . fine. Point to Charlotte.

  “It’s was awfully nice of him to help her carry all that stuff in,” she continued.

  “Or it’ll undermine the way her superiors at work perceive her, if she can’t even carry in a couple of shopping bags by herself.”

  Charlotte just stared at me, straight-faced. “Grasping at straws does not become you, Lizzie Bennet.”

  The thing is, I don’t think I’m grasping at straws. Or, more accurately, I should be grasping at straws. If there is a single straw that ends up being questionable about Bing, I need to find it—because my mother sure won’t. And Jane . . . Jane thinks the best of everyone. She’s going to think especially best of a guy she happens to like.

  Of course, the obvious question to ask is what is a guy like Bing doing in a hamlet like ours? Shouldn’t he be in the big city, moving and shaking with the people who will be coming to him for nose jobs once he’s out of med school?

  Maybe he’s looking for a more idyllic life?

  Maybe he’s running from a deep, dark family secret?

  Oh, maybe he’s committed a crime and is on the lam! (Although, who brings his sister and douchebag best bud on the lam?)

  But seriously, what prompts an otherwise seemingly normal single guy in his twenties to up and buy a house in the middle of nowhere?

  Someone has to play devil’s advocate. And that someone might as well be me right now. And yes, so far, Bing seems okay. But how okay can a guy be when he’s best friends with a guy like Darcy?

  SATURDAY, MAY 5TH

  If there were one benefit to having my sister in the opening steps of the love dance with a rich guy, you would think it would be that my mother would be satisfied by it. That she would allow herself to sit back and sigh with a deep contentedness and raise a mint julep to the fruits of her machinations.

  But no.

  All it means is that she has more time to focus her zeal on her remaining daughters.

  Take dinner last night.

  “Do you think Bing has friends at that medical school of his?” my mom asked as she spooned out a serving of lasagna that probably took her nine hours to prepare.

  “I would imagine so,” my father said, not looking up from his plate. “Most young people enjoy interaction with other young people with similar interests, I’m told.”

  “Perhaps Jane can convince him to have some of them visit this summer,” my mom mused. Jane is currently out to dinner with said Mr. Lee, and my mother’s imagination is in overdrive because of it. “Better ones than that disagreeable William Darcy,” she continued. She still hadn’t forgiven him for the way he was rude to her at the wedding (and me, if she had known about it). I consider it one of life’s small blessings.

  My mom left her last sentence hanging in midair. I locked eyes with Lydia across the table. Neither of us wanted to be the one to take the bait. My father knew better than to do so, too. But then again, when had my mother ever needed conversational prompting?

  “He could make it a party. It would be wonderful if you girls could meet some nice young men. Before it’s too late.”

  “Too late?” Lydia snorted. “Mom, I’m, like, twenty.” I kick her under the table. It’s just the sort of opening our mother is angling for.

  “There have been studies done, Lydia. Oh, yes! Studies.” She said that last word reverently, as if the information she was about to impart would be life-changing. “They say that by the time you graduate college, you have more than likely already met your life mate.”

  “Well, it was certainly true of you, my dear,” my father said, between mouthfuls of lasagna.

  “And I still have a couple of years.” Lydia smirked. “You’re screwed, though,” she said to me.

  I wisely kept silent.

  “When I was your age, Lizzie, I was already pregnant with Jane. Time is ticking. Did you know there is a higher chance of getting killed by a terrorist than a woman getting married after thirty?” my mother continued, enjoying having the table in her thrall.

  “Did you know your data is specious and you’re citing an article that is thirty years old, which has been disproven a dozen times since then?” I couldn’t help it. Sometimes, the research monster in me comes out.

  But my mother just clucked her tongue.

  “I never did understand your humor, Lizzie.”

  “Well, if my choice is death by terrorist or hasty marriage to someone I already know in the hopes of staving off singlehood, I choose Option C.”

  “Option C?”

  “Yes. Where I have a successful career, a healthy disposable income, and a close group of single friends with whom I can travel the world.”

  “You would deny me grandchildren?” My mother’s voice quavered, hinting at the threat of tears. Which I think they taught her how to do in Southern Lady School.

  “Oh, no!” I grin at my dad, who is trying to hold his own smile in. “Once I’m established in my career, have paid back my loans . . . there’s always artificial insemination.”

  I fully expected my mother to explode. But instead, she just took a deep, steadying breath and continued spooning out lasagna.

  “You may not even have Option C, Lizzie.” Her voice became hushed, as if she were telling a horror story around a campfire. “You know your Aunt Martha started menopause when she was forty.”

  The thing is, my mother believes deeply every false fact she spouted at dinner. She is legitimately worried that I will end up a spinster, at the age of twenty-four. It keeps her up at night.

  As divorced from reality as she is, I don’t want to be the reason my mother can’t sleep.

  So I spent my Saturday morning at the library, researching data and statistics about modern marriage—and it turns out that no, at twenty-four, I am not statistically likely to die sad and alone. In fact, the chances that I will have a more substantial relationship and stable children go up if I marry later.

  I came home today ready to present these facts to my mother, in the hopes they would assuage her feelings and maybe, you know, get her to back off the marriage train just a smidge. But before I could approach her, Lydia blocked me from entering the kitchen.

  “Um, hey, Lizzie. Whatcha doing?”

  “I was going to go talk to Mom.”

  “Uh-huh, cool . . . Wanna go to the mall?”

  “No, not really.” Lydia was literally standing in the kitchen doorway, impeding my path.

  “Well, I do. Drive me, okay?”

  Then I heard a sob. Not a short, swallowed thing, either. A long, mournful wail. The wail of the severely disappointed.

  “What’s going on?” I asked as I tried to peer around her.

  “Nothing!” Lydia said brightly. “If you drive me to the mall, I’ll go with you to that boring British movie you want to see. Come on, let’s go! Now!”

  “Mom?” I called out. “What’s wrong?”

  “No, Lizzie, don’t go in there! Trust me!” Lydia tried to pull me back. When I just shot her a look, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine, don’t say I didn’t try to warn you. The mall would have been better.”

  I dropped my bag on the floor. I found my mom in tears, sitting at the kitchen table. “Mom, did something happen?”

  I knelt beside her, and she clasped my hand.

  “Oh, Lizzie, it’s the most horrid thing.” She to
ok a deep breath. “Cindy Collins from across the street . . . she’s spending the summer in Florida with her new boyfriend.”

  “Okaaay . . .” I said. My mom and Mrs. Collins were friendly, but they weren’t exceptionally close.

  “She came over to ask”—sniffle—“to ask us to water her plants until her son Ricky comes to town.”

  “Okaaay . . .” I tried again. Charlotte and I had gone to grade school with Ricky Collins. His parents had gotten divorced when we were in middle school, and they decided to have Ricky live full time with his dad, since Mr. Collins moved to a better school district. We only saw Ricky for a couple of weeks in the summers after that. But he had been memorable, if only because he was so annoying.

  “But it might be a little while before Ricky gets here because she said he’s starting a business . . . and he’s just gotten engaged!”

  Oh. Oh, dear.

  “If Cindy Collins’s dickheaded son can find someone, that’s one less person for you!” (I flinched when she said “dickheaded.” I didn’t know she even had that in her vocabulary. But desperate times call for lapsed standards, I guess.) Then, my mother pressed a handkerchief to her mouth in horror. “That’s just one step closer to Option C! Oh, Lizzie . . . Where did I go wrong?”

  As I pressed my fingers to my temples, and promised to fetch Mom (and myself) some aspirin, I could hear the screech of tires on the driveway out front.

  And I realized my car would be blocking any other car in, so who could have possibly pulled out? My eyes flew to my bag on the floor—the contents spilled out, my keys notably not among them.

  Lydia had stolen my car and taken off to the mall. And as my mother gave another mournful wail, I could only wish I had gone with her.

  TUESDAY, MAY 8TH