The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet Read online

  As much as my mother’s wailing has continued on (and no, my carefully researched statistics didn’t assuage her fears), I have come to the conclusion that I am fine with my life choices. In fact, I’m great with them. I much prefer to have my mind on my studies and not guys. Honestly, Option C doesn’t strike fear into my heart the way it does my mother’s. And Lydia’s. Working hard at something I love, having great friends, and seeing the world? That sounds like the brass ring.

  Sure, I’m in debilitating debt. And sure, I won’t be able to afford to own a shoe box, let alone a place to live until I’m . . . ever. But then again, who isn’t in debilitating debt right now? We worked hard to get this debt-ridden, and we’ll work equally hard to get out of it.

  Charlotte is a perfect example. Even with her aunt helping her, she is in even more debt than I am, because I had a partial undergrad scholarship. But I just ran into her outside the registrar’s office, getting things set up for the summer.

  “You’re doing what?”

  “I’m going to be working on campus for the summer semester. The editing lab, and the administrative offices. I just set it up.”

  “But what about your thesis?” Yes, my school runs on a trimester schedule—but our grad program doesn’t offer the courses we need during the summer. So, we are told that the break between the second and third years of grad school is the best time to dig in and do as much work on your thesis project as possible, before the hecticness of school returns.

  “It won’t be so bad—I’ll just be making sure a bunch of Editing 101 kids don’t destroy the computers, and I’ll have access to the editing suites and be able to work on my projects there.”

  I must have looked obviously dubious.

  “Work study really helps me defray my expenses at school. And if I save up enough, maybe I’ll be able to devote more time to work in the fall.”

  Again, I got the impression that Char wasn’t telling me everything, but she wasn’t about to.

  “Well, I have huge plans for the summer. Just so you know,” I said.

  “That so?”

  “Oh, yes. Aside from my thesis, I’ve taken on a couple of high school students for tutoring in English. So, I’m finally going to stake my claim to the comfy chair at the library. The one at the big table, so I can spread all my papers out. Stay there all day.”

  “Wow. You really know how to live large.”

  I shrugged, cocky. “That’s just how I roll.”

  Yeah, I’m happy with my life choices. Studying what I love, and great friends. What more could anyone possibly want?

  SATURDAY, MAY 12TH

  Okay, I have to admit that maybe . . . just maybe . . . I’d been a little bit judgmental about a certain young man who is spending this summer in our quaint little town. What with the rampant speculation about his being on the lam, hiding out in a McMansion, or at the very least questioning why on earth he’d decide to move here.

  I’m just lucky that my sister is a big enough person to not hold it against me.

  Yes, ladies and gentlemen (of my imagination, because seriously, who would be reading this?), I might have been a little too harsh on Bing Lee.

  It all started with flowers. After their date last week, Bing sent Jane flowers at work to let her know he was thinking of her. First of all, points to him for not sending them to the house, where my mom would jump all over them, read the card, and then likely get it framed. Secondly, he’d been on Jane’s Pinterest apparently, because he knew her favorite flower.

  But the flowers did come with a card, one that also bore an invitation to a dinner party. For Jane and for me. My mother, being my mother, figured that the mythical medical school friends must have come into town, and to better her chances for all of her offspring, decided to try and wedge Lydia in (as well as herself, for some reason).

  But Bing handled it like a champ.

  He thanked my mom for dropping off Jane and me at the door, and sent Mom and Lydia away by promising to come over for dinner sometime next week.

  My mother was satisfied, having finally gotten the promised chance to feed Bing Lee. Lydia, for her part, seemed fine with it. She wasn’t enthusiastic about a “sit-down-take-a-sip-of-wine-and-spit-it-out type thing, anyway.”

  It was a gorgeous party. And Netherfield is a really gorgeous house. I have a feeling that Caroline did a lot of shopping and hiring of painters to get it to look like more than just a young bachelor lived there. Bing was also the perfect host—kind to everyone, happy to see them, and going out of his way to make people feel comfortable.

  “Hey, Lizzie,” Bing said to me when we entered. “I’m glad you could come.”

  “I’m glad you invited me.”

  “Well, I knew Jane would be more comfortable with other people around . . . you especially.”

  “Bing, did you throw an entire dinner party just to make Jane comfortable?” I asked, things clicking to place in my head.

  “Well . . .” He blushed. “I want to get to know everyone else, too.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s some dedication to your courtship.”

  Bing looked uncomfortable (in a manful way), so I decided to cut him some slack and change the subject. But can I help it if I changed the subject to something I wanted to know?

  “So what made you decide to move here, anyway?” I asked. “Buying a house is a big decision.”

  He shrugged. “I told my parents it was an investment property.” Which I guess is a rich-person term for I have a half dozen houses and flit between them, but Bing continued. “But really, I came up here for Stuart’s bachelor party, and I just . . . fell in love with the place. The town. The people.”

  It was no surprise to me that his eyes were following Jane as she greeted Caroline across the room.

  “Anyway, I just thought being here would be nice.”

  And it was. It was really nice. He was really nice. After I freed him from my inquisition (skills honed from my mom), Bing spent the entire evening next to Jane. But not in a cloying, stalkery way. In an I’m truly interested in you and your opinions way. He asked her what she thought of the house. Asked her for her professional design opinion. I can’t imagine that went over well with Caroline, but she didn’t say anything, just smiled at Jane and enthusiastically agreed with whatever she said.

  Charlotte was there, too (for Jane’s comfort, but I was happy about it myself), along with a couple other people we knew from school, some from Jane’s office, and a few others we’d met at the wedding.

  “Bing Lee makes friends easily, it seems,” Charlotte said to me.

  “Yeah,” I mused, all the while keeping my eyes on Jane and Bing. The look on his face spoke volumes. “He really likes her, doesn’t he?”

  “Yup,” Charlotte agreed. “So . . .”

  “So . . . maybe I was a little hard on him.”

  “Aw, you admitted your mistake.” Char grinned at me. “I’ve never seen that before.”

  I swatted her arm for that, making her spill a little of her drink. Which, thankfully, was just water. She told me she’s decidedly off vodka tonics for a bit.

  “Yes, this is that rare occasion where external factors were perhaps influencing my first impression of someone.”

  “Translation: you were wrong.”

  “I am capable of changing my mind, when it’s warranted.” I let my eyes find Jane and Bing again, across the room. “And I was wrong about Bing. Which is good, because Jane really likes him.”

  “Really?” Charlotte asked. “How do you know?”

  “Because she told me,” I replied. “And besides, just look at her.”

  At that moment, Bing whispered something in Jane’s ear and she laughed. Then she turned away to address something Caroline said, trying to pay as much attention to other people as she did Bing.

  “Then maybe she should show it more,” Charlotte said, frowning.

  “She shows it plenty,” I replied. “She’s at this party, isn’t she? She’s sitting next
to him at dinner.”

  “Jane would have sat next to anyone who requested it of her.”

  “You think that?” I asked. “Why, just because she’s nice?”

  “Exactly! She’s nice. And she’s nice to everyone. If she really likes Bing, she should show him a little bit more favor than she would a random stranger, is all I’m saying.”

  Actually, I’m fine with the way Jane was acting. As much as I’ve changed my mind about Bing tonight, I am happy that she is remaining her usual composed self, at least publicly. Playing it cool means it won’t go too fast, and Jane can keep some boundaries—and keep some of herself. Maybe this will turn into something real. I just don’t want her to fall so hard (with our mother’s encouragement) that she forgets who she is, and what’s really important.

  The rest of the evening went well. Bing had apparently wanted to grill burgers on his back patio, but Caroline made him hire caterers for the evening, which I can’t fault because it resulted in the best crostini (which I would never admit to my mother) I’ve ever had. Charlotte ended up talking to a guy (!) for forty minutes, debating whether or not the French New Wave was overhyped. (Charlotte’s take: it was.) And there was even some dancing, of the mildly embarrassing, “Hey, you guys remember the electric slide?” variety. All in all, it was a pretty great evening. In fact, the only burr in its side was that perpetually sour-faced buzz kill known as William Darcy. But hey, we expected that, didn’t we?

  Darcy spent most of the evening hanging back in the corner of the room, watching the merriment with disdain. Caroline would occasionally go over to him, and they would exchange presumably snarky banter. More than once I discovered his eyes following me, but he would look away the second I caught him. I could only imagine that he was recalling the horror of our dance.

  I will give him this: at least with Darcy you know for certain whether he likes you. Or in my case, whether he does not. Unlike Jane and Bing, there is absolutely no guesswork involved.

  TUESDAY, MAY 15TH

  Comment from *****: Lizzie, if you can change your mind about Bing, what about Darcy? Or Lydia? Jeez, judgmental much?

  I’ve been getting comments like this lately on my videos. And I know you’re not supposed to read the comments, or feed the trolls, or whatever—but the fact of the matter is, comments are how I communicate with the viewers, so I have to.

  Let me just say, the vast majority of the feedback I have received has been great. As a woman putting herself out there on YouTube, the fact of the matter is I expected far more “Show us your tits!!!!!!!” and “she ugly ho” comments than I have received. (The debate about gender norms in new media as filtered through anonymity would fill up this entire journal, so we won’t go there.) So, the negative comments I do get I tend to take pretty seriously—as constructive criticism. However . . .

  “It’s not a negative comment,” Dr. Gardiner told me when I cornered her at lunch yesterday.

  “It’s not?”

  “No—it is questioning your presentation and your worldview . . . which is exactly the kind of back and forth you want in an open communication,” Dr. Gardiner said. “In fact, what you’re doing with your video project is really quite exciting—I have not seen a community form around a voice like yours in a long time. But you do have to address the concerns of your community.”

  Which has gotten me wondering about what comes next. It’s just an idea right now, and I don’t want to overthink it, but what if my videos could be something bigger than just my end-of-term project?

  But Dr. Gardiner makes a solid point. To have a true dialogue with the world (which is the whole point of this video project), I have to think wider than my narrow viewpoint.

  The thing is, though, I don’t think I’m being overly judgmental. I think I’m being pretty true to life. But how to make this clear to the faceless masses on the interwebs? If they won’t take my word for it, whose word would they take?

  SATURDAY, MAY 19TH

  I didn’t make it to the library this morning. I was on my way out the door when my mother pulled up in the driveway, honking like a madwoman and effectively blocking me in.

  “Oh, good, Lizzie, you’re still here! You can help me with the groceries!”

  In the trunk of my mother’s car was the entire grocery store. She had bought out every department.

  “I’m headed to the library, Mom. Can’t Jane or Lydia . . .” I tried, but my effort was weak.

  “Jane had to work at the design center this morning, and Lydia is still asleep. She was up studying too late last night.” My mother clucked her tongue.

  Let’s be clear: Lydia was not up late studying. She was up late watching cat videos online. She’s obsessed with cats lately. I could hear her across the hall as I was trying to sleep.

  “Today is too important for the library,” my mother said, handing stuffed bags of produce to me. “We have to make the very best impression, and that means cooking everything perfectly. You’ve just been elected my helper. Come on!”

  If my hands weren’t laden down with what was a ridiculous four pounds of lamb, I would have smacked my forehead. Of course. Tonight is the night that Bing and Caroline Lee are coming over for dinner. Tonight is the night my mother goes full-on crazy.

  And I’ve been “elected,” as my mother put it, to be the one who keeps her from that fate.

  “What is all this?” Dad asked, emerging from his den with the newspaper in hand.

  “It’s dinner.” I heaved the bags onto the kitchen table and went back out for more.

  As I passed, I heard my dad say, “For who?”

  “The Lees.”

  “There are only two of them, correct? We didn’t invite all the Lees in the world, did we?”

  “Oh, honey.” My mom simply laughed, waving off my father’s objections.

  “How much did you buy?”

  “I wanted a variety. Jane has told me so little about what they like—”

  “How much?”

  The tone in my dad’s voice shocked me. He never gets angry. He rarely ever gets above bemused. I quickly got the last of the bags out of the trunk of the car and came back into the house.

  “I told you, Marilyn, we can’t just go spending—”

  “And I told you, honey. It’s for a special occasion—”

  “They can’t all be special occasions! We cannot keep on like this!”

  Mom and Dad didn’t notice me at all standing in the hallway. They were too involved in their conversation. And there was no way I was going in there at that moment, so I just slid into the den, waiting it out.

  It shouldn’t have taken more than a few moments, I figured. And I don’t think I had any perishables in my bags.

  It’s really weird being an adult child and listening to parents fight. Especially when your parents never fought much in the first place. Or at least, they didn’t in front of us. Part of me wants to crawl up into a ball, regress to the age of seven and hide, pretend that it wasn’t happening. But another part of me is too smart, too curious, to not want to know what the problem is.

  And I suppose that curiosity is what led me to my dad’s desk. And to glance at his calendar. Mostly it was normal—business meetings, bridge night at the club (now crossed out). But there was an entry for next week, written like it was the most normal thing in the world: 2 p.m. Bank—Mortgage Refinance.

  Now, that could be something normal, right? I don’t know a lot about mortgages, but they get refinanced all the time because of changing interest rates and things like that . . . I think. But adding this entry onto the fact that they cancelled their club membership . . . and now Dad and Mom are having conversations about how much she spends . . . it seems like things are starting to pile on top of each other.

  Dad’s office laid off about 30 percent of their workforce a few years ago. He managed to keep his middle-management position, thank God, but had to take a bit of a pay cut. Of course, at the time they reasoned everything would be fine because Jane would
be on her own soon enough, and I was about to graduate undergrad, so they wouldn’t have me to worry about, either. Instead, Jane and I are still both at home. And Dad and Mom are having hushed conversations in the kitchen about how four pounds of lamb is too expensive.

  But then I heard my mom laugh again, a little trill that told me their brief disagreement was over.

  “Lizzie? Where are the rest of the bags?” she called out, after I heard my dad move down the hall and close the bathroom door. (If Dad’s not in his den, he’s in the bathroom. He told us a long time ago that it’s a man thing.)

  I plastered a smile on my face as I came out of the den, carrying the rest of the groceries. I couldn’t think about the money issue any more. At least not today. Because my mother was strapping on her apron and beginning to flutter all over the kitchen, and it wasn’t even ten in the morning yet.

  I figured if I could just focus on getting Mom through the dinner, everything else could wait.

  “Now Lizzie, do you think I have time to learn how to make sushi? It’s not as if I have to cook anything, right?”

  Tonight is going to be a doozy.

  SUNDAY, MAY 20TH

  3 a.m. I can’t sleep. Not because I’m wide awake, but because there is literally no room. Lydia is hogging all corners of my not-exactly-spacious double bed. Oh, and when Lydia drinks, she becomes a thrasher in her sleep. Seriously, I was about to try and climb in next to her, when she kicked wildly and gifted me with a healthy bruise on my shin.

  Suffice to say, the evening did not proceed even remotely as planned. Oh, Bing and Caroline came over for dinner. Bing brought a bottle of wine, which was a lovely gesture. (But by the way my mom fawned over it, you would think such a thing was rare and exquisite, and that we didn’t live within driving distance of the entire Central California wine valley region.) And yes, Mom cooked food. And she only asked Bing and Caroline once if they minded that she didn’t use soy sauce. But sometime around the appetizers, things started to go awry.