The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet (6 page)

“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 should 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?

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 took 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.

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.”