The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet

by Bernie Su

  Oh, God—I just realized . . . what if this is Bing’s way of introducing Jane to his parents? And introducing his parents to our parents? Or what if it’s a secret wedding that he and Jane have been planning this whole time?!?

  No. No, that’s not possible. I just channeled my mom for a second, that’s all. Besides, Jane would have told me. She really can’t keep a secret, and especially not one like that. All that she’s said is that she’s looking forward to the party because she and Bing still haven’t had much opportunity to spend time together lately, what with him having to fly out for med school meetings (admittedly, I know nothing about med school, but I didn’t think it involved so much travel) and Jane’s doubling down at work, sadly suspending the Cutest Carpool Ever (™ me, because I’m sappy like that).

  Here’s the thing, though—if I had the “meet the parents/surprise wedding” idea skitter through my brain, you KNOW my mother has latched onto it with the ferocity of a bulldog. Perhaps I should bring reinforcements to the party, just to distract Mom from her convoluted planning.

  I could ask George to be my plus-one. He’s a solid possible-son-in-law-sized distraction. But would he want to go with Darcy there?

  Actually, maybe I’m thinking about this wrong. Given that Darcy was the one who ducked out of Carter’s in shame, it could be Darcy who avoids the party if George is there. Granted, this means that I wouldn’t get the pleasure of confronting him over George’s grievances (if I have the guts to do it, which is in no way a guarantee), but I would instead have the pleasure of slow dancing with the ridiculously hot guy I’m seeing.

  Now, that’s something worth pondering.

  SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16TH

  Another party, another 2 a.m. journal entry. And another reason I can’t sleep. And no, Lydia isn’t passed out in my bed due to over-indulgence, nor has Jane stayed out all night with Bing. No, this time, my anxieties rest squarely on my own shoulders. Because only at 2 a.m. can I wonder about what’s so wrong with me that a perfectly nice guy would stand me up?

  George didn’t make it to the party tonight. And I guess I would have understood if I’d had some warning, but he not only didn’t show, he didn’t call or text to let me know that he wasn’t coming. If he didn’t want to come, he could have told me. Instead he said that he wouldn’t miss it for the world, Darcy or no Darcy.

  I still haven’t heard from him, and trust me, I’ve sent the maximum allowable number of texts someone with dignity can send (four) to find out what happened.

  Then I was thinking, what if something did happen? What if he got in a car accident, or fell and is in a coma? What if he’s injured and unable to call for help?

  That’s when Lydia’s voice popped into my head and told me I’d been stood up. Except, it wasn’t her voice in my head. It was her voice, next to me at the party.

  “G-Dubs better have a solid excuse for ditching you, because no Bennet should put up with the ghost act. Not even the lame Bennet,” Lydia said, as she put a drink in my hand. How she carried a drink to me when she was already double-fisting two of her own is unknown, but Lydia does possess unseen skills.

  “I can think of only one reason,” I said, my eyes finding Darcy as he stood awkwardly on the other side of the parent-sanctioned room.

  It was pointed out that having a party with twenty-somethings and their fifty-something parents was a recipe for awkward, and a solution to this might be to utilize the echoing vastness of Netherfield and have essentially two parties. The older crowd mainly stayed in the lounge and patio area, where a jazz trio (I think it was the same one from the Gibson wedding) was set up for those inclined to foxtrot, while we younger folk had a nightclub-type setup with a DJ in the rec room and finished basement area.

  We all came together for cake.

  It was a bit like those parties we had when I was in eighth grade, where all us kids watched a movie and had pizza in Dad’s den and the parents drank wine in the kitchen and gossiped. But on a massively different scale.

  Anyway, it was getting later and later, and I had migrated upstairs to the parent-sanctioned area, mostly because it provided a sight line to the front door. I had just sent my fourth text to George when Lydia came up to me.

  “Ugh, Darce-face.” Lydia scowled, seeing my line of vision. “Why do I get the feeling you’re already plotting the next mean thing you’re going to say about him on the Internet?”

  “You know me too well,” I replied.

  “Hey, I fully support you in this endeavor,” Lydia said. “I mean, if Darcy is the reason we are denied the sight of a sweaty George Wickham dancing downstairs . . . and it gets too hot, and he has to take his shirt off . . .”

  “Stay on topic, Lydia,” I replied.

  “Right, whatevs. Anyway, if Darcy’s to blame, give it to him with both barrels. God knows you keep them loaded.”

  I didn’t ask what Lydia meant by that.

  “What are you doing up here, anyway?” I said instead. “Shouldn’t you be downstairs rubbing up against some of Bing’s college buddies?”

  “Obvs,” she replied. “But I had to come up here and find you or Jane.”

  “Why—what happened?” My radar immediately started going off. I glanced around the lounge. No Mom. Oh, no. In my worry over George, I had let her out of my sight!

  “Nothing much,” Lydia hemmed. “Just, you know, Mom wandering down to the kids’ party. Talking to people. Telling everyone about the wedding arrangements.”

  “Oh, my God, did you stop her?”

  “Stop her? I took video!” Lydia held out her phone and treated me to a reenactment of my slightly tipsy mother talking to a couple of baby stockbrokers about how she was “the inevitable future mother-in-law of the host,” and “do you have any advice for investments once the couple settles in?”

  “Oh, Lord,” I moaned.

  “I know, right?” Lydia grinned at me. “It sucks that Dad came down and stopped her then, but I’m so going to post the first bit on YouTube. Just so our audience knows that we aren’t exaggerating about Mom.”

  “First of all, it’s my audience, and secondly . . . can I see that a sec?” I asked sweetly. Lydia handed over her phone, and I let my thumb accidentally slip to the delete button.

  “Aw, look at that, it’s gone. Sorry, Lyds,” I said, handing the phone back to her.

  “I can’t believe you did that!”

  “Of course you can,” I replied. “Think about it. What would Jane say if she saw that video posted online?”

  “Huh,” Lydia replied, obviously not having considered Jane’s feelings and embarrassment. “Where is Jane, anyway? I haven’t seen her all night.”

  “I think one of Bing’s friends had too much to drink. I saw her and Caroline helping him down the hall.”

  I don’t think Jane had a very good night at the party. She’d had her hopes so high, getting to finally spend some quality social time with Bing, but every time I saw them get within a few feet of each other, Caroline or their parents or one of the out-of-town guests would pull him away to play host. And when Caroline was free, she certainly tried to be by Jane’s side, but she’s a poor substitute for her brother.

  But Jane is nothing if not resilient. She put a smile on her face and chatted with everyone she didn’t know, delighted to make new friends as always.

  “Maybe we should go find her,” I said idly. “See how she’s doing.”

  “OMG, yes,” Lydia said. “Anything’s better than standing around pathetically staring at a door or at Darcy. Speaking of which . . .”

  I followed Lydia’s gaze. To find William Darcy headed right for us.

  “He’s coming this way,” Lydia squealed through her smile. “Now’s your chance!”

  “My chance for what?”

  “Both barrels!” she said, and she shoved me forward.

  I nearly tripped straight into Darcy’s chest. But I caught myself.

  “Lizzie,” he said.

  “Darcy,” I replied. “Hello.�
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  “Would you care to dance with me?”

  Out of everything he could have said, I did not expect that.

  “Dance? Now?”

  “Yes. If you’re willing.”

  “Umm . . .” I was caught completely off guard. By the events of the party, by Lydia pushing me, and now by Darcy. That is the only justification I can give for having said, “Okay. I mean, sure.”

  As he led me out onto the patio, I glanced back at Lydia. Don’t you dare video this, I mouthed over my shoulder. She pouted, but she put her phone away, and then flounced off to cause trouble somewhere else. Leaving me with Darcy.

  A few other couples joined us on the dance floor. If we had been downstairs, the music would have been so loud and fast that we wouldn’t have been able to talk. But instead, the jazz trio struck up an easy mellow number, and as Darcy’s hand came around my back, the silence had to be filled.

  “You have to let me lead.”

  That Darcy. Full of conversation.

  “What makes you think I wouldn’t?” I asked as we began to move.

  “Experience.”

  Oh, yes. We’d gone through this whole farce before at the Gibson wedding.

  “Perhaps it’s best to not judge a person on one dance alone. After all, if I had done that, we wouldn’t be dancing now.” In reality, I should have done that, but . . . yeah, caught off guard.

  “Point taken,” he said, and guided me through a turn surprisingly well. I wasn’t entirely sure, but I think we were waltzing. “However, I am glad you danced with me, and gave me this second chance.”

  I could see that he was trying his best to be agreeable, but given the fact that I was determined to hate him, I really wasn’t in the mood for it.

  “I find second chances to be a very good thing. Don’t you?”

  “I suppose. If they are deserved.”

  “Aren’t they usually?”

  “Not in my experience,” he replied.

  “So in general, you find your first impression to be correct.”

  “Don’t you?” he echoed.

  “Yes . . . but I like to think that I give people the benefit of the doubt, initially at least,” I said.

  “I am more than willing to give people the benefit of the doubt when I meet them,” he replied. “But if they show themselves to be not worth my time, I have no desire to have them in my life.”

  “That sounds . . . very clean.”

  “It is.”

  “And lonely,” I added, pleased to find that I’d caught him off guard for once. “So, you are willing to admit second chances are a good thing for those who deserve them, but you don’t grant them yourself.”

  “I . . . can think of very few times they are deserved.”

  “George Wickham comes to mind.”

  Darcy turned a deeper shade of snobby, if that’s possible, when he said, “George Wickham doesn’t deserve to even have his name spoken aloud.”

  By you, I thought. To have his name spoken by you is too much give on your part, you conceited, suspender-wearing one-percenter. But unfortunately, I didn’t say any of that out loud. For some reason, both my barrels were failing me when I was smack-dab up against my target. I tried to rally. To bring the red out of my vision and return my voice to ice cold.

  “You were very rude to him at Carter’s the other night,” I said, challenging. “Dare I say you hurt his feelings?”

  “I’m really not concerned about George Wickham’s feelings.”

  “I am,” I replied. “I consider George a . . . friend.” More than a friend, but I wasn’t about to admit that to Darcy. For some reason, the way he loomed above made holding on to my bravery very difficult.

  “George is very capable of making friends. He’s even more capable of using them.”

  Spoken like someone who wouldn’t recognize a true friend if one came up and tapped him on the shoulder.

  “He’s been unlucky, then, to have called you a friend once upon a time.”

  I let my eyes fall to the front door again, across the lounge and inside the house.

  “He’s not coming, Lizzie.” Darcy’s voice was a whisper in my ear.

  “You don’t know that,” I said, whipping my gaze back to him. “I invited him. He could—”

  “That man will not make an appearance. Of that I’m certain.”

  And with that, Darcy confirmed my paranoid theories about why George wasn’t there at that moment. It was all his fault. Of course it was. There was no other explanation.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Are you? I wouldn’t think so.” One thing I would not tolerate was his pity.

  Silence reigned over us then. Just moving in time to the music, and willing it to end. For me at least. Darcy, however, had his mind on other things.

  “May I ask,” he said, “to what does your previous line of questioning pertain? About second chances, that is.”

  “Just trying to figure you out, Darcy,” I said, suddenly tired. “You’re hard to read.”

  “You’re not an easy read, either,” he said under his breath.

  “Perhaps we are better off if we stop trying to read each other,” I replied. “And just say what we mean.”

  I waited. Waited for the guts to come out with both barrels blazing and tell him off to his face. Waited . . . for him to say something first.

  Apparently, I waited too long. Because as I was holding my breath the music stopped, and Darcy took his hand off my back and let me go.

  “Thank you for the dance,” he said before he bowed (yes, bowed) and walked away.

  I would have given anything to have Charlotte there then. To have someone to run to and talk everything over with. George would have been good, too—although, if he’d been there, I would never have ended up dancing with Darcy. I would have even taken Mom at that moment, my desperation to not be alone with my thoughts was so acute. However, the flip side of the coin is I can be thankful that my mother did not see me dancing with Darcy, lest she suddenly decide to stop disliking him and start planning fictitious wedding number two.

  As it was, I wandered. Looking for my Jane, who would hopefully provide some relief. But she’d been missing for a little while.

  She wasn’t with Bing. He was in the lounge talking to his parents, a forced grin on his face. Nor was she with Caroline, who I saw leading Darcy down a hallway, presumably to a place where he could fake text in a corner to his heart’s content.

  My last hope was Lydia. I found her downstairs, surrounded by guys, dancing—she was definitely enjoying herself too much to see me. (Luckily, Mom was not down there anymore. I think Dad took her for a walk to get some air.) And, I decided, in about one more drink she was going to get cut off—by her big sister, if not by the bartender. I’m better at recognizing the signs.

  I wandered back upstairs, letting my feet soak in the pool for a moment. I wasn’t in the mood for a party anymore. I was sad and tired and I wanted to go home. I was even considering roping in Lydia and getting my car from the valet, when I saw Caroline and Darcy walking quickly back into the lounge. Followed a few moments later by Jane.

  “Jane!” I called out, grabbing my sister’s attention. She smiled when she saw me, but there was something a little off. Her face was a little too flushed. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Me?” she replied quickly. “I’m fine. How are you?”

  “Fine,” I said. “I guess. I just danced with Darcy, if you can believe it.”

  Jane smiled. “You danced with Darcy. Willingly?”

  I laughed. Jane just has that effect on me. Three seconds of her attention and the world feels 100 percent kinder.

  “Hey,” Bing said, coming over to us and putting an arm around Jane’s shoulder. “There you are!” He looked like he’d really missed her. He also looked a little tipsy. I guess I wasn’t the only one feeling a little stressed by this party. “Are you having a good time? I have to make sure all my guests are having a good time.”

>   “Of course we are,” Jane answered sweetly. “We’re having a wonderful time. Right, Lizzie?”

  Given the lack of Wickham, the insanity of my mother, Lydia filming it, and the agitation from my dance with Darcy, there were a few choice things I could have said about this party.

  But I just said, “Right. A wonderful time.”

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH

  from @bingliest: Small towns are great but back to the big city. Hello Los Angeles!

  –Sunday, September 16th

  Bing’s left town. No one can get in touch with Caroline—except for one text she sent me:

  No one has any idea what happened. Least of all Jane.

  One minute, she’s dropping off birthday cookies at Netherfield and the next she’s getting a message via Twitter—not even to her personally, but to social media at large—that Bing’s gone back to LA.

  And it doesn’t look like he’s coming back. Mom did a drive-by of Netherfield (okay, I went with her, I was so worried), and we didn’t even get past the gate. But at the top of the drive we could see a moving van being loaded up with all their things.

  Mom drove straight home and promptly collapsed on the couch, wailing that life was over. Not just Jane’s life, or her life, but all life.

  As for Jane . . . she’s called in sick to work the last two days. She hasn’t come out of her room. She must be sneaking out in the night to refresh her tea supply and use the bathroom, but other than that, I have no idea what’s going on. She’s gotten no answer from Bing. And it’s really starting to worry me.

  I don’t think she ever told Bing about her forty-eight hours of worry. But if she did—and he still left? That would make him a bigger schmuck than I’d even thought possible.

  It would also certainly put a lot of other things into perspective. Such as getting stood up at Bing’s party is not the end of the world. Even when George finally called yesterday, and told me that he’d ended up taking a friend to the hospital and his phone got stolen, I just told him it was fine, but I couldn’t really talk, since I was too busy worrying about Jane.