The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet

by Bernie Su

  Alas, we still didn’t get any answers about the “indiscretion” (which, yes, I should just ask Jane about, but . . . I don’t want to put her into the past again. She’s moving forward. Besides, if there was no “indiscretion” she wouldn’t know what they’re talking about, anyway.), and we didn’t get the real reason Caroline wanted to see the letter. But she did give up hope of ever seeing it by calling my mother inconsiderate and belligerent and Lydia an embarrassment to everyone, and then storming out of the building.

  We haven’t seen her since. And hopefully never will.

  Please, universe, please say that is the last of the drama I can expect for a while. I could use some normal. I have a prospectus to write, and I would really like to make some serious headway on it before Charlotte and I hit the road home for (woo-hoo!) Thanksgiving next week.

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20TH

  Ladies and gentlemen, we are ready to leave the building. And I am so ready to go home.

  Tomorrow, that is. Charlotte still has some last-minute adjustments to make to the Game of Gourds online trailer for its Thanksgiving release. Ricky has already left the building and fled to the great northern paradise of Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he will spend the holiday in a country that celebrated their Thanksgiving weeks earlier. But he’s calling every fifteen minutes or so, and relaying instructions from Ms. De Bourgh about the best font and filter. (Note, the best font and filter were chosen and locked a month ago, but hey, let’s question everything last-minute.)

  Actually, I shouldn’t be too harsh on Ricky. I’ve gotten to know him a lot better over the course of these past two months, and he’s not that bad. He’s . . . he’s actually pretty nice, in a vaguely disconcerting way. He even offered me a job upon graduation.

  “Should you have no other means of supporting yourself, of course,” he clarified. “And it will not be nearly as lucrative as the package you refused and Ms. Lu accepted lo these many months ago, but your talent would be an asset. Especially at a cut rate.”

  Believe it or not, I’ll miss Collins & Collins. The cheesy Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations I put up. The morning meeting and the coffee room. Of course, I’ll miss Charlotte the most. I am thoroughly convinced I did the right thing in not taking the job, but being at Collins & Collins has been an eye-opening experience. Heck, I’ll even miss Ricky Collins, a little.

  But I won’t miss Ricky enough to go along with his plan to force Charlotte to stay here through Thanksgiving, just to make certain the Game of Gourds trailer gets uploaded as scheduled. (First of all, it’s scheduled within the system, so it should go off without a hitch. And secondly, it’s a task that can be monitored from literally any computer anywhere.) Nope, now that Ricky is out of the building and out of the country, I fully intend to whisk Charlotte out the door, tomorrow, for a well-deserved holiday. No matter how many times he calls her and asks for minuscule changes to the trailer.

  It’s going to be turkey, stuffing, and Mrs. Bennet’s southern sweet potato pie. Home, here we come!

  THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22ND

  “Too . . . much . . . pie . . .”

  That was the refrain from all three Bennet sisters, as we lay on the floor of the den, slipping in and out of our Thanksgiving turkey comas. We’d just finished with dishes duty, Dad had commandeered the living room TV for his annual re-watch of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, and Mom was lying down, exhausted from the intense schedule of cooking, serving, and passive-aggressively questioning her elder daughters about the state of their lives.

  “That’s my Jane, looking lovely as ever,” Mom had said as she ladled out more mashed potatoes. “But I’m just so worried about you in Los Angeles! Why, your car!”

  “My car will be fine, Mom,” Jane replied with characteristic patience. “It was parked, and the side-view mirror got knocked off; insurance is taking care of the repairs.”

  “Until then, I am happy to ferry you to and from the train station,” our dad interjected.

  “But you are not eating enough in Los Angeles, are you?” Mom had continued. “When girls move away from home they never eat enough. Unless they have a nice boyfriend to take them out for fancy meals. I don’t suppose you ever ran into Bing in the city?”

  Way to be circumspect, Mom.

  But Jane handled it well. “No. I’m busy, he’s busy. Can I have more green beans, please?”

  “Oh, me, too!” Lydia piped up, and shoved her plate under Mom’s nose.

  Mom could never turn down a request for more food.

  “What about you, Lizzie?” Mom then said. “How is Charlotte doing at Collins & Collins?”

  “She’s doing great, Mom.”

  “Oh, so you mean her life wasn’t ruined by taking the very generous job offer in her field?” she replied, her voice more tart than cranberry sauce. “That’s so strange. I could have sworn that’s what you thought would happen to you.”

  “It is what would have happened to me,” I answered back. “Can I have more green beans, too?”

  “Yes, my dear, it seems Charlotte and Lizzie are actually different people,” my dad piped up between mouthfuls of stuffing. “I know you think they might have gotten switched at the hospital, but I’m afraid Lizzie is ours—she has the Bennet ears.”

  My mother sent my father a look that said he wouldn’t be getting any green beans.

  “What about Mr. Collins?” she’d asked instead. “Is he still unmarried?”

  “He’s engaged, Mom.”

  As my mother chattered on about how “engaged isn’t the same thing as married,” and “Canadian women have no idea how to keep a man happy” (meanwhile, the entire nation of Canada might have something to say about that, but I digress), my dad leaned over to me and whispered in my Bennet ear.

  “I don’t know if you’re glad to be back, but I’m certainly glad to have you. It brings the relative amount of silly back down to tolerable levels.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Don’t thank me—it also swings her attention away from me to you.”

  Even in the midst of my self-absorption (the Darcy thing was practically ringing in my ears all through dinner; I wanted to shout it at Mom when she started in on our love lives), I had noticed that Mom and Dad have relaxed a bit in our absence. Dad mentioned going to bridge at the club again. Mom winked at him while she served the cranberry sauce. And she wasn’t forced to skimp on the turkey.

  Seriously, it was a thirty-pound turkey.

  As we were clearing the table, and Mom was having her well-deserved glass of wine and putting her feet up—she would be snoozing in minutes—I pulled Dad aside.

  “So . . . how have things been?” I asked him.

  “I think you’ll find we’ve been chugging along without you, my dear—although I do enjoy having you back.”

  Maybe it was the fact that I had been away, and I could see things a little clearer with distance. Maybe it was my recent introduction to direct confrontation via William Darcy, but I decided not to tiptoe around my father.

  “Have you been having any more problems with the bank?”

  There, I said it. Bold as brass, like an adult. And my dad looked up from his load of plates like he was realizing I was one for the first time.

  “I sometimes wonder if we should have made you so smart and observant.” He shook his head. “Perhaps we would have been better served letting you play video games all day long.”

  “Dad . . .”

  “The wolf is no longer at our heels, Lizzie, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  It was what I was worried about—and had been for a while. But it felt so good to have an actual answer for once that I couldn’t just leave it at that.

  “How?” I asked.

  My dad began to load the dishwasher. Lydia and Jane were collecting the table linens in the dining room, so I knew I had a little time.

  “Did you know we’d almost had the house paid off?” he finally said.

  That was surprising, to say the
least. “You did? When?”

  “Five years ago—before my company downsized. It was either leave and try to find a different job in my fifties, or take a pay cut and hope for the best. I’d never saved for retirement. The house was going to be our retirement. Since it was almost paid off, your mother and I thought that if we could make it through the next few years, when you girls would be out of the house, we could simplify then.”

  I’d known about my dad’s job, of course, and that having us three still at home long past our move-out dates was a burden. But I was reeling a little bit from hearing my dad talk about it so bluntly.

  “So we took out a new mortgage on the house, freed up some funds, and resigned ourselves to paying for it for a decade or so longer than expected. Then we made the mistake of carrying on like nothing was different for five years.”

  “So . . . over the summer . . .”

  “Over this summer we fell a bit behind, and we had to have some conversations with the bank. That’s all.”

  “God.” I took a deep breath. “No wonder you got so mad about Mom buying out the grocery store. I can’t believe she remodeled the kitchen, too!”

  “Actually, remodeling the kitchen was a stroke of brilliance on your mother’s part. Once it was done we had the house reappraised, and discovered we had more equity in the home now.”

  I was going cross-eyed trying to keep up with all these real estate terms. Adult conversations are tough. “So what does that mean?”

  “Basically, that means since the house is worth more, we owe less on it. And it’s kept the bank off our backs.” My dad closed the dishwasher and set it to run.

  “Dad, that’s . . . great. You have no idea how great that is to hear. But—it could happen again pretty easily, right? I mean, should you be back playing bridge at the club?”

  “Allow an old man his foibles, Lizzie. I don’t have to justify every expense to you.” He winked at me as he said it, but it was a dismissal in every sense of the word. I just shook my head. It’s awfully hard teaching old dogs new tricks, and if Mom and Dad hadn’t learned from this close brush with foreclosure, then when would they ever?

  “We will muddle through, kiddo. We always do. And one of these days your mother will finally convince me to sell, and we’ll get a smart little condo on the other side of town. Just big enough for two empty-nesters, and your quibbles about bridge at the club will seem silly.”

  “Wait . . .” I said, confused. “Mom will convince you? Not the other way around?”

  “Well, where on earth would I house my bonsai or train collections in a condo? Not to mention my daughters.” He smiled at me and shook his head. “I want you all to have a home to come to. It’s not the same without you. And even in spite of your mother’s inquisition, and my sad financial planning, I hope you find coming home worth it.”

  So that was pretty much Thanksgiving dinner. Conversations big and small. But as we girls lay on the floor of the den post-dishes, I knew Dad was right: the four-hour drive home with a Men At Work tape (yes, tape) stuck in the player, and the entire meal’s worth of Mom’s cross-examination and then Dad’s adult talk, had been worth it. Because I was home again.

  “But if I never see another slice of turkey again, I’ll die happy,” I moaned.

  “Don’t speak too soon—if I know Mom, there will be turkey soup for the next week,” Jane replied, causing both me and Lydia to groan loudly.

  “Don’t forget the stuffing,” Lydia whined. “OMG, if our viewers could see us now.”

  “You mean my viewers?” I slid Lydia a look—although there wasn’t much to it; turning my head took more effort than I was willing to expend.

  “No, ours—duh. My videos got views, too.”

  Oh, yeah. Lydia’s videos. While I was away, she filmed some more of her own, and roped not only Mary but Jane into being on them. Also, her little trip to Los Angeles to visit said Jane? Mom and Dad were unaware of it until Mom noticed her car was gone. Luckily, Jane called them, and then made Lydia call her professors.

  But Lydia didn’t get interrogated at dinner, did she?

  “Right. Your videos.”

  “You haven’t watched them, have you?” Lydia asked, sitting up.

  “I’m going to!” I said. “I’ve just had a lot of stuff going on.”

  “They’re two minutes each.”

  “Lydia,” Jane cautioned. “You saw how busy I was at work? And I haven’t had time to catch up on Lizzie’s videos. I promise you, Lizzie was working just as hard.”

  A little pool of dread began to form underneath all the food in my stomach. I knew Jane wasn’t caught up on my videos yet, because if she was, we would have talked. But she’s going to have to be now. And I’m afraid that her heart is going to break all over again when she sees Darcy admit to what he did to her and Bing. And what Caroline said about her? She’ll have to face the fact that we were completely deceived by Caroline—she was never Jane’s friend. Or mine.

  I wonder if I should tell Jane about the contents of the letter. Or will it make any difference to her? Darcy doesn’t exactly apologize for what he did regarding her and Bing. In fact, he outright defends himself.

  That might hurt too much.

  “Whatevs,” Lydia was saying, as she dug her phone out of her pocket and began texting. “You should totes watch my videos. The Los Angeles Adventures are particularly awesome. I got lots of views. I made like enough in advertising to get some pretty cool Christmas gifts for certain someones,” she teased.

  “That’s so sweet, Lydia,” I began, only to have cold water thrown over me.

  “I know, right? I’ve been dying to get Kitty a super-awesome cat condo, so she’ll stop shredding my jeans. It’s not a good look.”

  “As the fashion aficionado in the house, I have to agree,” Jane said, smiling at me. Then, as Lydia was distracted with her phone, she said low to me, “You really should watch her videos.”

  “I know,” I replied. “I will. First I’m going to die from overeating, though.”

  “OMG!” Lydia bounced up out of her prone position on the floor, staring at her phone. “It’s Harriet—I have to take this!”

  As Lydia jumped to her feet and began to jabber, I couldn’t help but feel wistful to have the food coma rebound capacity of a twenty-year-old. And I’m not that much older.

  “Who’s Harriet?” I asked Jane.

  “One of Lydia’s friends from school this year,” Jane replied. “Lydia’s been doing pretty well in her classes, you know.”

  “That’s good! Is that Harriet’s doing?”

  “Honestly, I think it’s Lydia’s. And Mary helped her with math tutoring.”

  “Well, I’m glad she has some good influences,” I remarked. “What with her penchant to run off to Los Angeles at the drop of a hat and all.”

  “They saw? Well of course they saw, my videos are online to be seen, bitches!” Lydia was laughing loudly into her phone. “Hells yes, I’ll go out and meet your friends . . . Are they cute? . . . Tomorrow? Totes! . . . Anything for my fans.”

  “Although that’s a little more concerning,” I said under my breath. “Jane? Do you think Lydia’s a little . . . rambunctious? Like too much?”

  Maybe it was because I was away so long, but now that I’m back in the bosom of my family, I can’t help but be a little concerned. Ever since I got back, my baby sister has resembled nothing so much as a pinball, ricocheting from one thing to the next, making a lot of noise and flashing lights on the way.

  Like Caroline said.

  Like Darcy said.

  I felt like the worst sister ever for thinking that way, but it just kept popping up in my mind, unbidden. I didn’t know how to stop it.

  But Jane simply watched Lydia, considering. “I just think she’s Lydia.”

  WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28TH

  According to Lydia, George Wickham is back in town. No idea why—swim season is long over; the community pools are covered. If he’s back, one can only assume tha
t the conditioning job with the Meryton Marines Club team didn’t pan out. As per Lydia’s sources, however (let’s assume he met some of her classmates at the bars he frequents), he will only be around for a couple of weeks. Let’s hope.

  But as George is in town, I’ve got George on the brain. And so does Charlotte. She just blackmailed me into revealing part of the letter to my viewers. Not the part with Gigi, but the part where George spent $125,000 in one year of college. (How? Did he put a down payment on a house?) Since it was a rebuttal of what George (and okay, I) previously said on the videos, it was only fair that I give the other side airtime, too.

  But still, I feel a little nervous. About betraying Darcy’s confidence. About . . . actually admitting to myself that I 100 percent believe Darcy’s version of events. Or maybe I’m just still wrestling with how wrong I was about George before. And how wrong I was about Darcy. Because if I was wrong about him for this, I could be wrong about other things, too. I’m not saying that I think he’s anything less than a stuck-up rich hipster, but . . . stuck-up rich hipsters are people, too, aren’t they?

  I think part of this seismic brain shift is that Jane finally caught up on all my videos. Including the ones with a certain hipster. And do you know what she said?

  “Poor Darcy.”

  “Poor Darcy?” I repeated, in shock. “Not even you could possibly think I should have said yes to him, can you?”

  “No, of course not,” Jane replied. “But it must have been a shock that you turned him down.”

  “Yes, I would say so,” I said flatly.

  “It . . . it took a lot of guts for him to come to you like that and declare his feelings. The fact that he thought they would be returned was probably the only reason he managed to overcome his natural awkwardness and do it.”

  That’s my sister Jane. Determined to find the humanity in even the most unlikely of scenarios. Also, she had no idea what “indiscretion” Darcy was talking about, as expected.