Pride, Prejudice, and Push-Up Bras

by Mary Strand

  Pride, Prejudice, and Push-Up Bras

  A Bennet Sisters Novel

  Mary Strand

  Triple Berry Press

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  About the Author

  Also by Mary Strand

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Triple Berry Press

  P.O. Box 24733

  Minneapolis, Minnesota 55424

  Copyright © 2016 Mary Strand

  Cover design: LB Hayden

  Editor: Pam McCutcheon

  Logo credit: LB Hayden

  All rights reserved. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without the author’s express written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Electronic ISBN:978-1-944949-00-6

  Paperback ISBN:978-1-944949-01-3

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Ann Barry Burns,

  who gives the BEST advice,

  and indulgently reads all my manuscripts,

  and knows how to live.

  With all my gratitude to:

  Jane Austen, who wrote The Book in the first place.

  Barbara Samuel, whose writers’ voice class inspired me to write this book.

  Brenda Hiatt Barber, who gave me a set of training wheels when I set off on my first wobbly ride on my indie-pubbing bike.

  Laura Hayden and Pam McCutcheon, collectively also known as Parker Hayden Media, LLC, who took a million technological worries off my shoulders and produced a fantastic result, including my publishing imprint’s logo and the cover of this book and basically everything except writing the words themselves. Pam also edited my words, beautifully.

  Dulce Foster, who helped me with juvenile criminal law questions, although she’ll wisely deny having spoken to me. Any mistakes are my own.

  Julie Hurtubise, who knows yoga far better than I do.

  Beth Pattillo, who introduced me to 10 Things I Hate about You.

  Jim Hoehn, who periodically gave me a rugby player’s version of a kick in the butt when my excuses not to write were pathetic, but he softened the kicks with music.

  Key people who provided critiques or edits or brainstorming help, including (1) Micahlyn Whitt, who first steered this book to YA; (2) Carol Prescott, who answered my constant pesky research questions without ever once blocking my emails or phone calls (that I know of); (3) Sarah Lau, who put up with my endless questions about rock bands and people “her age”; (4) Ann Barry Burns; (5) Tom Fraser and Kate Fraser; (6) Connie Brockway and Susan Kay Law; (7) my Maui Writers Conference group, especially Jenny Crusie and Suzanne Kalb and Ardath Albee; and (8) Just Cherry Writers.

  Michael Bodine, who has been utterly unable to teach me patience despite his best efforts.

  My friends in Romex, especially the Pursuit and Business gangs.

  Chapter 1

  It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

  — Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Volume I, Chapter One

  According to Jane Austen, a guy who’s rich and single should definitely be looking. Of course, Jane Austen lived two hundred years ago, didn’t own a cell phone or iPod, and never even heard of the Beatles.

  So I don’t give a rat’s ass what she thinks.

  I also don’t care if, thanks to my mom’s long-ago wacked fixation on Pride and Prejudice, my name is Elizabeth Bennet and my sisters’ names are Jane, Mary, Catherine, and Lydia. I’m eighteen and in charge of my own life, thank you very much. At least, I would be if I weren’t still living at home and too poor to get my own apartment without Dad’s help—which comes with big strings attached—and too stressed from watching over my sister Jane to fix my lack-of-cash situation.

  So, right now, I really needed to keep an eye on Jane.

  Rachel Langdon, my best friend ever since third grade, moved with her parents into this wildly deluxe condo at the beginning of September, and Rachel finally invited Jane and me over after classes today to check out the condo’s rooftop pool. I’d rather have Rachel still living next door than in a fancy condo a mile away, but a pool is a pool. Especially on a gorgeous Minnesota day in mid-September.

  While I swam a few laps in my trusty black-and-purple Speedo racing suit, Jane stripped down to a hot pink bikini, grabbed a chaise lounge, and checked out the guys hanging around the pool. Within ten seconds, five of them offered to get her something to drink, if not to hook up.

  So much for a nice swim. Groaning, I climbed out of the pool, grabbed a towel, and headed over to Jane.

  Rachel was stretched out on the chaise next to Jane, in brown-and-orange plaid bermudas, a Twins T-shirt, and a John Deere baseball hat pulled low over her forehead, reading an accounting textbook. It probably explained why none of the horde of guys slobbering all over Jane were paying any attention to Rachel. In fact, one sat down on Rachel’s shins as he stared at Jane, drooling.

  “Rachel?”

  She didn’t even glance at me, let alone shove the twerp off, so I figured she was either too embarrassed or too thrilled to say anything.

  I swatted him away, then moved on to Jane.

  She looked up at me, utterly innocent, when I started dripping all over her. I gave her The Look and got back a sweet smile. I said “Jaaaaane,” and her eyelashes fluttered.

  When one of the guys actually sighed, I grabbed her hand and yanked her off the chaise lounge, then stalked down to the far end of the pool, Jane firmly in tow.

  “Liz, please!” She hissed at me, probably because yelling out loud isn’t sweet, and Jane is the sweetest nineteen-year-old on earth. Sure, she’s guy crazy and so intent on finding Mr. Right that she forgets to go to class half the time, but sweet. In a crazed sort of way that guys never notice. “You didn’t have to drag me away. I barely said anything, and—”

  “Jane, you can’t find Mr. Right at the Langdons’ condo building.” I kept my voice low and my grip on Jane firm. “They have a pool. I’d like to get invited back. But when Mr. Right turns into Mr. Wrong, as he always does, and we suddenly have yet another place you can’t go, I lose my pool.”

  Jane sniffed. “It’s just a pool. And there’s no reason why we can’t keep coming here.”

  “I’m not giving up this pool, and I’m not giving up Rachel.” I felt my teeth grind. “Do I have to remind you about all the places we’ve had to stop going? The pizza parlor? The deli counter at Kowalski’s? Not to mention the friends we avoid just because you hooked up with their brothers?”

  “You make it sound like I plan this.”

  I lifted an eyebrow.

  “I don’t.” Jane glanced at the pack of frothing young guys hovering t
hirty feet away and gave a cutesy little finger wave. “It’s just that, well, things don’t always work out, and it gets...embarrassing.”

  “Embarrassing?” I glared at the guys, but none of them budged. I’ve gotta work on my glare. “That’s why Dad had to get you a new cell-phone number? Three times now?”

  Jane shrugged, but her gaze kept sweeping the pool deck, this time landing on a couple of fresh victims at the far end: one tall and blond, the other taller and dark. I mentally bet on the blond guy, who looked almost as sweet as Jane.

  “Excuse me, Liz. I just remembered I have to—”

  I grabbed her arm. “You don’t have to do anything. Those guys live here, too.”

  “I’ve never seen them before.”

  “You’ve never been here before. And I don’t want this to be your last time here. Or mine.”

  She headed toward the far end of the deck anyway, dragging me along, until we came to the edge of the pool. She suddenly twisted out of my grip, and I landed in the pool.

  I came up sputtering. “Hey!”

  All I got in reply was her cutesy little finger wave.

  “She can’t help how she is, Liz.” Rachel glanced up from her accounting book when I finally flung myself onto the chaise lounge that Jane had vacated. “Guys like Jane. She’s cute, she’s nice...”

  “She’s determined.”

  “But in a sweet way. Even you think so.”

  “Well, yeah, but...” Even after living next door to us all these years, Rachel didn’t really have a clue about Jane. Sure, Jane seems like your typical gorgeous college student with a major in English and a minor in cute guys, but I knew better. Dad figured it out the last time he had to change her cell-phone number, in July, which was the same moment he told me he’d chip in on an apartment for Jane and me only if Jane got over her “cell phone issue,” as Dad put it. As if I could keep her from all her relationships ending badly. Right.

  Basically, I was stuck living at home for the next bazillion years unless I either shut Jane down or robbed a bank. So, even though I’m a year younger and would really rather let her do her thing, no matter how many cell phones it costs her, I’ve spent the last couple of months making it my job to protect her.

  From herself.

  I glanced at her now, chatting up the two hotties at the far end of the pool and somehow managing to wiggle her tush as she spoke. I groaned. Time to make my second save of the afternoon, and we’d been here only fifteen minutes.

  Just as I pushed myself off the chaise, though, she suddenly scooted back to Rachel and me, her face stark white against the remains of her summer tan.

  I sank back down onto the chaise, a whoosh of relief leaving my body, and looked up at Jane. “What’sa matter? Neither one asked you out?” I nodded at the chaise lounge on the other side of me. “Pull up a chair. No big deal.”

  She plunked down on the end of my chaise lounge. “I-I think it is a big deal. Huge.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Jane. There are millions of other guys in the world, and at last count half of them wanted to go out with you.”

  Jane shivered, despite the cloudless day and a temp in the upper eighties. “They’re—”

  “—just guys.” I glanced over at the two hotties, still talking to each other and not even glancing at Jane, which I had to admit was weird. I mean, guys stare at Jane. Like, sometimes for hours at a time. “Maybe they’re not into gorgeous girls in hot pink bikinis. Maybe they’re gay.”

  “They’re not gay.”

  “How would you know? You asked?” I frowned at Jane before turning to Rachel for moral support, but Rachel was reading her accounting text. Shrugging, I looked back at Jane, who was now openly staring at the two hotties. It wasn’t Jane’s style, but, then, Jane wasn’t used to rejection.

  Just then, I spotted the blond hottie sneak a peek over his shoulder at Jane, at which point the other guy walked away, out through the door. After a long moment and another puppy-dog look at Jane, the blond guy followed his pal. They’d barely arrived, in swimsuits they hadn’t even gotten wet, but I had a feeling they weren’t coming back.

  Good. Two guys I wouldn’t have to protect Jane from. Or vice versa.

  I patted Jane’s hand—and noticed her fist was clenched.

  “Geez, Jane. They’re gone, but so what? A dozen other guys here would like to get your digits.”

  Rachel snorted.

  “It’s not that.” Jane stared at her fists, the knuckles of her hands now turning white. “I kinda flipped when I found out who they were, so I, um, basically ran away.”

  “You ran away?” I blinked. Jane ran away from a couple of hot guys even though it’s her life mission to land a hot guy? “Who are they? Drug addicts? Perverts?”

  “Ha ha.” Jane wasn’t laughing, though. In fact, she looked sick. “It’s...The Book. It’s happening.”

  I frowned. The only one with a book open was Rachel, and I didn’t think Jane was talking accounting. “What book? What’s happening?”

  “The Book. Pride and Prejudice.”

  Ever since Jane and I figured out, in middle school, that Mom had somehow talked Dad into letting her name the five of us girls after the sisters in Pride and Prejudice, we’d referred to it not so affectionately as The Book. We also had a few choice names for Jane Austen, and sometimes even Mom. We weren’t quite sure about Dad, who probably never even read it.

  I shrugged. “It’s just a book. Be grateful you didn’t get stuck being Lydia. Or Mary.”

  Jane finally looked at me, her eyes crazed and a bit like Mom’s when she skipped her bipolar meds. “I met them, Liz. They’ve come. Charlie and Alex.”

  “Those guys who left? So?”

  “Charlie Bingham and Alex Darcy.”

  My jaw dropped as the names sank in. Just like—well, almost like—the names of the guys in The Book who hooked up with Jane and Elizabeth. Who married Jane and Elizabeth.

  “Holy crap.”

  Mom once admitted she’d actually hoped that naming us after the girls in The Book might make The Book come true, at least for Jane and me. We’d all laughed. Of course, by then Mom had gone to law school and become a divorce lawyer and done everything she could to keep us away from guys. Not that she’d exactly succeeded with Jane.

  Until this moment, though, I’d focused on distracting Jane from guys long enough to move into an apartment with me and convincing Dad that Jane’s “cell phone issue” was over. I’d never given a serious thought to The Book actually coming true, and I definitely didn’t want Alex Darcy coming near me, no matter how hot he is. Not when I’m only eighteen, at least. I have plans for my life.

  My knees suddenly shaking, I pushed Jane aside and went to the edge of the pool, then made a clean dive straight to the bottom. Drown myself? Good idea!

  I didn’t drown myself, but I decided to keep it as an option, especially after I caught Jane three times in the next few days sneaking a peek at a beat-up copy of Pride and Prejudice that I kept trying to hide. But the phone didn’t ring and no one named Bingham or Darcy showed up at our door. Sure, I’d have to avoid Rachel’s pool for the foreseeable future, but it was the price I’d pay for keeping Jane safe.

  Not that I’m totally selfless. I also wanted to keep myself safe—like, indefinitely—from any guy named Darcy. I didn’t believe Jane Austen could actually have an effect on my life, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  By Thursday, I’d almost forgotten about the Two Guys Who Must Be Avoided when Mom trotted in the front door after work, waving a sheaf of papers she plucked out of her briefcase. “I know you told me not to give it another thought, Jane, but I couldn’t not give it another thought, especially when his name is Bingham—so close!—and his friend’s name is Darcy.”

  Glancing up from his leather chair, my dad stared dumbly at Mom. Jane’s face turned red, and I tried without success to catch her eye. Since when did she blab to Mom about anything, let alone her latest couple of hot prospects? Even if their last na
mes were Bingham and Darcy, we’re talking Mom.

  Mom kept talking, even though no one else said a word. “Yes, yes, I understand his name is Bingham, not Bingley, and the friend’s name is Alex Darcy, not Fitzwilliam, but who on earth would name a child Fitzwilliam today? I mean, other than a Rockefeller or Vanderbilt or perhaps a Kennedy or—”

  While she rattled off every rich family she’d ever heard of, my eyebrows rose. Mom, who named the five of us girls after characters in a book, was wondering how people named their kids these days?

  Dad picked up the newspaper and pressed it into his nose. As I sprawled on the living-room rug with a Sudoku puzzle book instead of the freshman calculus problems my prof had piled on today, I glanced again at Jane. Deep in some novel she claimed was homework, she shrugged and pretended she hadn’t started Mom on her latest rampage.

  “Don’t you want to know what I found out?” Mom’s face started to turn purple, which actually complemented her turquoise dress.

  The newspaper dropped an inch or two, but Dad still didn’t say anything.

  As if Mom ever waited for permission, especially when her eyes were popping out of her head. “Well. Doreen Langdon says she doesn’t think anyone named Bingham or Darcy owns a place in their condo building, but the penthouse condo—four bedrooms!—is owned by a wild young man who travels quite a bit, and apparently he often lets his friends stay there while he’s away, which is very trusting of him in my opinion, but, then, I’m not his mother, or even his lawyer. But perhaps that’s where they’re staying.”

  I don’t think she even took a breath.

  “You didn’t say much about Alex Darcy, and Lord knows Liz—” She broke off but waved her papers again, oblivious to the fact that I’d just snapped my pen in half. “Well, I took a moment to run a quick search on Charlie Bingham. Purely out of caution. I know you tend to get a little, well, obsessed with boys, Jane, but I just don’t think he’s right for you.”