The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet

by Bernie Su

  Oh, no, wait—that’s not true. He did ask permission to come into my room and interrupt everything with his insistent proposal. He asked it of my mother.

  I’m pretty sure my mother has been in on this scheme for a while now. She must have known about his intentions toward me—it certainly explains all those hints she dropped about “partnering” (still ew).

  It also explains why she was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs after Ricky left.

  “Lizzie! What are you doing? I just saw Mr. Collins and he said that he offered you a job and I said congratulations to him and to you . . . and then he said that congratulations would have to wait until he’d convinced you to take it! What did you tell him?” she asked, barely letting my foot touch the bottom stair.

  “I told Ricky no, Mom.”

  She looked at me as if I had just admitted to murdering a penguin. “You go after him right now, and you tell him you changed your mind!”

  “No, Mom. I don’t want to work for him.”

  “I DON’T CARE!” my mother screeched. After this there was some incoherent yelling and badgering, punctuated only by the words “Wait until your father gets home!” and the occasional sob and threat to march across the street and bring Ricky Collins back here.

  I sort of wished Jane would walk through the door. Her presence, and likely Bing’s, would have quelled some of my mom’s more overt histrionics. Since we came back home, Jane and Bing seemed to be back on track—the little bump in the road of overstaying our welcome (and other things) long in the past. He’d even resumed driving her to work—but since we’re no longer at Netherfield, they’ve stopped calling it “giving a ride” and have termed it “carpooling.”

  Heck, I would have taken Lydia walking through the door then. But Lydia has an uncanny ability to sense when Mom-drama might be unfolding, and to stay out of the way.

  But finally, what ended the situation—or rather, brought it to a head—was my father coming home.

  He was very quickly attacked by my mother.

  “My dear, I can’t understand a word you’re saying. Let me put my bag down at least.” He went into his den, and Mom and I followed.

  “Your headstrong middle child has decided that she would rather not take a good job in her field working for a respectable man with money and connections,” my mother harrumphed.

  “What she means is that I would rather not give up my degree or my dreams of having a satisfying career creating narrative and influencing the world to go make corporate videos for Ricky Collins!”

  My dad looked from Mom to me. “Ricky Collins. The dickhead?”

  “No, honey,” my mother clarified through gritted teeth. “The nice young man who has his own company, and offered your daughter a partnership. And she won’t even give it a chance!”

  “I don’t understand why you want me to work for him so badly!” I blurted, finally losing my temper. “It in no way leads to me finding a husband, which is all you usually care about!”

  “Because, husband or no, it’s the first step!” my mother cried, her eyes going steely. “Whether you choose Option A or Option C, you have to start somewhere.”

  I was so shocked, I’m pretty sure my mouth fell open. My dad’s, too. My mother raises her voice all the time, but this was different. This was . . . cold. And honest.

  “God, I am so sick of everyone in your generation holding out for something perfect,” she continued, beginning to pace. “Your sister Jane working that tedious job for no money when she could be doing something easier that pays better, with less stress, and still have enough time to wrap Bing around her finger. God knows what Lydia will do, but it won’t be to settle for something she doesn’t know she wants. And you think your ideals are so precious that when you step out into the world, everything has to be as exact as it is in your head. Well, it won’t. You have to work for it. And taking a decent job—however unworthy you find it—is the first step.”

  She turned to my father. “You know I’m right. You know having one girl out of the house and supporting herself would be a godsend. So talk to your daughter, and tell her so.” Then, she marched out of the room.

  And the thing was . . . my mother was right. She was right about me wanting the perfect job when I leave school. Right about me being idealistic—perhaps too idealistic. But I hadn’t even considered what a relief it would be to my parents. Out of the house—one less mouth to feed. Dad’s mortgage meeting last week. Mom tearing apart the kitchen to get it up to code so we can sell if necessary. The coupon club replacing bridge.

  God, was I being too selfish? I could feel my eyes stinging . . . and my resolve crumbling.

  “Well, Lizzie. It sounds as if you have a decision to make,” my dad said with a sigh.

  “Dad . . . if you tell me to take this job, I will.”

  My dad just looked at me for a moment, considering. “Do you want this job?”

  “No!” I sniffled. “It would be terrible. But if you need me to—”

  “Then don’t you dare.”

  His words came out fierce—fiercer than I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

  “Your mother’s and my financial problems are our own. You don’t get to carry that burden. You’ll have your own as soon as your student loans come due, so don’t worry about us.”

  “But—”

  “You have dreams, Lizzie.” He laid a hand on my shoulder. “Goals. Now is the time in your life to pursue them. Don’t put them on hold. Because if you do, pretty soon you’ll be middle-aged with three children, working a job simply to pay the bills. And you’ll have forgotten what those dreams were.”

  I hugged my dad. Long and hard, the way dads deserve. Then he said he would take care of Mom, and that maybe I should go have dinner at Charlotte’s. So I grabbed my data card out of my camera and headed over to her family’s apartment.

  “Lizzie,” Charlotte said again, poking me in the shoulder. “Are you sure you want to post this?”

  I understand Charlotte’s hesitation. This is the first time something has actually happened on my videos. Not me talking about it after the fact. Not a reenactment. It’s raw and real. It might even be a little too harsh.

  But I made my decision. I’m not giving up my dreams for Ricky Collins. Not for his base pay, benefits package, or signing bonus. And by putting my decision on the web, in my way, I’m sticking to it.

  “Absolutely,” I replied. And hit the button.

  TUESDAY, AUGUST 21ST

  My mother is relentless. No matter what my father and I have said to her, no matter how Jane tries to placate her, she does not take no for an answer. And she’s been encouraging Ricky to do the same.

  “Oh, Miss Bennet!” he said, practically attacking me in the brief span of time in between leaving my car and making it to the house. “There you are—I was afraid you were going to miss our appointment!”

  “We had an appointment?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  “Yes! Your mother said that you would be pleased to assist me in packing up the last few boxes of my own mother’s abode!” His eyebrows waggled. Yes. Waggled.

  “No, Ricky.” This must have been the forty-seventh time I’ve said “no” to him, not that you’d know it by his pushiness. “Besides, don’t you have movers?”

  “Sadly, the men hired for the task do not take instruction well and have more than once raised my ire by placing kitchen linens in with bathroom linens . . . They have not deigned to show up today.”

  This would explain why I saw my mom taking cranberry green bean gelatin out to the movers yesterday. One can only assume they are all at home with a stomachache.

  “Thus your mother volunteered your services!” Ricky continued. “And perhaps in that time, I can convince you of the more improving aspects of working at Collins & Collins. I am given to believe that such a thing is possible, and of benefit to you.”

  All I can say is, thank God for Charlotte. As soon as she closed the passenger-side car door, she swooped ar
ound and got in between Ricky and me. Come to think of it, this might have been more for Ricky’s protection than mine. I was pretty aghast. And you wouldn’t like me when I’m aghast.

  “Actually, Mr. Collins, Lizzie and I just came from class registration,” Charlotte began, laying a calming hand on my arm. “So she has a lot of stuff to do. But I’m free. And . . . I can help.”

  “But Mrs. Bennet said—”

  “Mrs. Bennet didn’t realize that Lizzie’s . . . carpal tunnel is acting up again, thanks to filling out all those forms. But there’s nothing I love more than . . . lifting heavy boxes. All day.”

  Charlotte really knows how to take one for the team. That’s martyr-level sacrifice right there.

  “Don’t worry, he’ll be gone soon,” Charlotte whispered to me.

  As I watched Charlotte maneuver Ricky back to his house, I couldn’t help but feel a little overwhelmed with everything. School starting back up in a little over a month, Ricky’s proposal, Mom and Dad’s fight over it. Plus, that last video I put online certainly made an impression. I’m getting a lot of tweets and comments about it.

  Maybe I need to take a break—from what I can, anyway. Scale things back, stay off the Internet for a week or so. Just until things calm down and I feel normal again.

  SUNDAY, AUGUST 26TH

  I just got home from a day of errands with my dad—and only my dad, thankfully, Mom’s passive-aggressive griping having reached whole new levels of Southern-fried crazy—to find Charlotte in my room.

  “Hey!” I said, seeing her sitting there, thumbing through a booklet and some papers from a big manila envelope. “What are you doing here?”

  She seemed startled to see me. Even though it was my room. She quickly gathered up all the papers and stood.

  “I was doing your video today, remember?”

  “Have I thanked you for that yet?”

  Seriously, Char took my desire to go a little off the grid and made it a reality. I didn’t have to worry about filming today, so I could spend it out of the house, away from the stress of my mother and Ricky. It let me worry about other things, like my impending last year of school and my formal thesis proposal, due much too soon for me to want to think about.

  “So what was the video about?” I asked. They are my videos, after all; best if I’m versed in them.

  “Actually, Ricky came by and helped me out,” Charlotte replied.

  “And have I thanked you for that yet?” Charlotte has basically tied herself to Ricky this past week. She must have put a tracker on his phone, because whenever he showed up at our doorstep, Charlotte was there, ready to whisk him away. “Although I’m not certain how I feel about him being in my bedroom again. He didn’t sniff anything, did he?”

  “No. Lizzie, I have to talk to you about something,” Char said, holding the papers in front of her like a shield.

  “What? Is everything okay?” I asked, sitting down on the bed.

  “Yes. Sort of. It’s about the job Ricky offered you.”

  “Oh, God, not you, too,” I groaned, putting my head in my hands. “Please don’t try and convince me to take it—I can’t handle that coming from my bestie. Just back me up on this one.”

  “No, that’s not it. He’s not going to offer it to you again.”

  “Oh. Good.” I sighed, relieved. Charlotte glanced down at the papers in her hand, the manila envelope.

  A manila envelope that suddenly seemed really familiar.

  “He offered it to me,” she said simply.

  “Stunned” is not word enough for what I was feeling. “And what did you say?”

  “I told him I have to think about it.”

  “Good.” I exhaled. “But you don’t really have to think about it, right? That was just a way of letting him down easy?”

  “No. I don’t have to think about it,” she said, unable to meet my eyes. “I’m going to take it.”

  TUESDAY, AUGUST 28TH

  I am calm. I am calm I am calm I am calm. I in fact have been calm the last two days. I told Charlotte that I understood, but she should think about it some more. That taking Ricky’s job offer will alter the course of her life irrevocably, and quitting school with only a year left before getting her degree is something that she could very well regret in the future.

  Charlotte listened, nodded, and then took that malicious manila envelope and went home. To think about it. Or so I thought.

  What she really did was call Ricky Collins and accept his offer.

  So I decided I would talk it over with her. Calmly. Rationally.

  “How could you?” I said, when Charlotte came over today to film the next video—and hopefully to explain everything.

  “Lizzie, it’s my decision. And it’s already made.”

  “I DON’T CARE!” I screeched.

  “Wow.” She blinked at me. “Sound like your mother much?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You can’t take the job, Char. You just . . . you can’t. It’s ridiculous.”

  “Why is it ridiculous?” she asked. “And I am taking the job. I have to. I need to.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  “Yes I do!”

  “Is it the money? I know it’s tight right now, but there’s only one year left, and you have your aunt to help you, and—”

  “Aunt Vivi can’t help anymore.”

  My eyes flew to her face. “What?” Char was her aunt’s favorite. She’s always helped with Charlotte’s education. It wasn’t a lot, but it was something.

  “A couple of months ago, when she got sick? She actually fell down the stairs. Broke her hip.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “She’s fine, but she couldn’t work for a while. And there were a lot of bills. So I told her not to worry about my school anymore.”

  “Charlotte—”

  “And if I move out of the apartment, my aunt can come and take my room, and live with my mom and Maria.”

  I felt for Charlotte, I really did. She’s in a tougher position than I am. But . . .

  “Does your family want you to sacrifice your education for this job? To make their lives easier?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “Then don’t do it!” I wrapped my arms around her. “You work two jobs and have student loans to get your master’s. If you leave school you’re still going to owe that money, and you won’t have the degree to show for it.”

  “What good is the degree, anyway?” she asked me. “You’re the one who said we’re doomed to unemployment. Hell, at least it’s a job in our field!”

  “But not what you want to be doing!” I knew I was yelling, but I didn’t care. “You have dreams—goals!”

  “Lizzie, right now my biggest dream is for my mother to not have to take a job flipping burgers when she’s seventy-five.” Charlotte threw up her hands.

  “That’s not what they want for you! That’s not what I want for you!” I pleaded. “Charlotte, if you take this job, I’m never speaking to you again.”

  Then, my eyes fell to the camera. All set up and ready to go. And my mind went to the only thing I could do.

  I threw my arms around Charlotte, held her in place.

  “What are you doing?”

  “If your family can’t stop you, and I can’t stop you, maybe they will,” I said, as I turned the camera on.

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 31ST

  It didn’t work.

  Charlotte is gone.

  She walked away from her degree, from the videos, and from her best friend.

  I don’t know what to do anymore.

  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4TH

  When I don’t know what to do, it turns out, Lydia does.

  Yes, Lydia.

  I had been slinking around the house, dodging Mom, whose disparaging looks and passive-aggressive attitude can get surprisingly grating after the first dozen interactions. Dad does his best to mollify Mom, and Jane is constantly bringing me tea.

  I just wanted to avoid life for a while. Because if I d
id face up to what happened, Charlotte would really be gone and I would really have been a terrible best friend for not seeing things from her perspective.

  I still can’t believe she did it, though. Gave up on her dreams of being a documentary filmmaker just to be No. 2 at Ricky Collins’s company. Comfortable or not, she’s still depriving herself—just in a different way.

  Anyway, it was just me and my melancholy thoughts on this subject until Lydia burst in and insisted we go out to Carter’s as a distraction. Remarkably, Jane was behind this plan as well, offering to call up Bing and Caroline and have them come, too. But the coup de grâce that got me out of my sweatpants and out of the house was the fact that George Wickham emailed me, saying he’s back in town and was waiting for me with an ice-cold beer in hand.

  Talk about a distraction.

  I swear to God, that man was made for a commercial on the beneficial effects of spending six hours a day in chlorine. The minute we walked in, he turned away from the girl he was chatting with and focused his laser-beam baby blues right on me.

  “Hey, peach.” He smiled as we approached, and he wrapped me in a bear hug. “And the peach sisters!”

  “Hey, George,” Lydia said, putting herself forward—and by that I mean her boobs. He had met Lydia before, at least. I like to think she doesn’t immediately preen for complete strangers.

  “Hey, Lydia.” He winked at her. “You gonna cause trouble tonight?”

  “Are you offering?”

  “Okay, that’s enough of the Lolita act,” I said, enjoying the feeling of George’s arm around my waist.

  “And this must be the lovely Jane.” George then turned on the charm by raising her hand to his lips, a paragon of gallantry.

  “It’s so nice to meet you,” Jane said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Have you?” He looked at me then, all flirty. “Well, I’m flattered to have been thought worthy of mention.”

  “Worthy?” Lydia snorted. “You’re the most interesting thing to happen to Lizzie in, like, years.”

  “Lydia . . .” Jane warned.