by Bernie Su
But I couldn’t let myself get too weirded out by my newfound personal freedom just then, because on Friday, I had my orientation at my new independent study.
“Welcome to Pemberley Digital!” cried the very chipper tour guide, as she handed out badges to me and a group of fourth graders.
The entryway to Pemberley is a beautiful glass atrium, stretching all the way up through the center of the building, feeding natural light down to the fountain in the middle. People moved across glass walkways, saying hi to each other or asking questions in the open atmosphere. Everyone curious, everyone energized. It reminded me of the very best of college campuses. I was five minutes through the door and already I was in awe, stretching my neck to see all the way up.
“Lizzie Bennet,” the tour leader said to me as she handed me my badge. “We are so excited to have you shadowing Pemberley!” Then . . . she hugged me.
Belatedly, I realized that was the first clue. At the time, however, I was simply surprised that Pemberley was such a huggy place.
“Now, everyone, Pemberley Digital is a new media and entertainment company that builds technology platforms as well as content. So, what does that mean?” She smiled at the fourth graders. “Well, our CEO, William Darcy—” She grinned wider when she said his name. And oddly, so did other employees within earshot. “—would say we are an innovative firm dedicated to the next wave of communication innovation. But basically it means we make stuff for the Internet. And yes, that’s a real job.”
That got a laugh out of the fourth-grade teachers.
Our tour guide walked us through the atrium and into the building proper.
“Is that a slide?” one of the kids asked. “And a ball pit?”
“These are some of the offices of our creative team,” our tour guide said. “We encourage everyone to decorate their office as out-of-the-box as they want. Conformity doesn’t often lead to creativity.”
I’d say it was out-of-the-box—it looked like a jungle gym with desk space. The next office looked like an undersea pavilion. The fourth graders ohhed and ahhed. (And they weren’t the only ones.)
“And these are our napping pods. Anyone can climb in and take a nap for a half an hour, whenever they need it.”
I could easily imagine the noise Charlotte would make if she were here.
We moved on to the third floor.
“These are our production facilities,” the tour guide was saying. “We have a stage, a wardrobe department—now, who wants to play on the green screen?”
A bunch of fourth-grade hands went up. And okay, mine did, too.
After that, we made our way through the cafeteria, the theater where new apps and programming are presented (with popcorn!), and up to the rooftop, where there was an Olympic-sized pool, an in-house masseuse, and topiary lovingly tended into the shape of dozens of animals.
“Is that . . . a unicorn?” I asked our tour leader.
She cocked her head to one side. “I’ve always thought it was a seahorse. Lizzie, I hope you don’t mind being grouped with a bunch of kids. We haven’t really had a shadower before, and I thought you would enjoy a tour first.”
“I did!” I assured her, and watched her face break into the widest smile. “This place is pretty incredible.”
“Great!” she replied. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say so. I have to take the kids down to the cafeteria for their lunch, but I’ll show you your office first, and then come back to check on you. Sound good?”
Yes, my office. Not some corner that wasn’t being used I could set up in. My office, with my nameplate next to the door. And it’s lovely. Big windows, with such a view, a desk with a new computer, and a couch and . . . more than I could possibly have ever wanted.
I sat there in shock for a while, that this is my life now. This great apartment in San Francisco, this incredible opportunity to shadow one of the most impressive tech companies I’ve ever seen (although my purview is admittedly limited), and being treated like a welcomed and respected member of the team, not a lowly grad student/stranger looking for scraps from the knowledge table.
There was yet another thing that shocked me. Our tour leader?
Happened to be Georgiana “Gigi” Darcy. William Darcy’s younger sister.
I don’t know what shocked me more: the fact that she, a Darcy, was this sweet, enthusiastic creature, or the fact that after admitting to having watched all my videos, she still liked me.
In fact, was very eager to like me.
Gigi Darcy being our tour guide simply brought back to the foreground of my mind the hipster shadow that had been lurking behind every napping pod and innovative company policy. Darcy.
He has to know that I’m here, right? No matter what Charlotte says when she’s trying to alleviate my worries. The only way he wouldn’t is if he stopped watching my videos. Which is a distinct possibility. Perhaps after he gave me the letter, he decided he’d seen all he needed to see.
Regardless, tomorrow is my first full day at Pemberley Digital, and I have to give it my full attention, so I can’t give in to the temptation to worry over Darcy anymore. Especially since he’s not here.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9TH
Darcy is here. And yes, I shouldn’t be too surprised. It is his city, and his company. I’m the one that’s the intruder. But I still can’t help feeling ambushed.
Although Darcy seemed pretty ambushed, too.
It was his sister who did it. Yes, it seems that the ebullient Gigi Darcy, watcher of my videos and amateur matchmaker, has decided that luring her brother away from Los Angeles to San Francisco and then literally throwing him into the same room as me would be the BEST IDEA EVER.
And to think, I had just been contemplating friendship with her.
I’m kidding. (A little.) But there I was, sitting in my office, making a video and killing time before I was scheduled to have dinner with Dr. Gardiner (fresh off the plane from Australia), when in came Gigi, dragging her brother by the arm.
One minute, I was there by myself, and the next . . . Darcy was right in front of me.
It was as awkward as I had feared.
I don’t really remember what was said—although I could simply re-watch the video—but I know that he was as surprised to see me as I was him. He knew I was here. As I’d guessed, he’d have to have been informed, but I don’t think he had any intention of seeing me. That is, when you find out the girl you professed love to basically thought you were scum, but then find out she is miraculously at your office, your natural inclination might be to avoid the pain and embarrassment of seeing her at all costs. And I can’t blame him for that.
It was so odd just being in the same room as Darcy again. He looked . . . different. Not like he had a new haircut or a mustache or anything ridiculous like that, but he seemed to carry himself differently. Or perhaps I was just seeing him that way. After all, this was the first time we’d seen each other since I read his letter and found out just how wrong I was about almost everything.
People look different when you know their secrets. And they look differently at you.
As for me, after the initial shock wore off, I felt shame. As if I’d been caught doing something I shouldn’t have—that my being here was essentially snooping into his business and life. But Darcy was so strangely nice about it. Well, nice in his way. He asked if there was anything he could do to make my stay more comfortable. Made sure that everyone was treating me well. The whole time I wanted to scream, “You shouldn’t be nice to me! You should be angry I’m here! Or at least a little rankled!”
It’s strange. I had been dreading for so long seeing Darcy, and now that I have . . . it sort of feels like I was actually hoping to see him. There’s such a thin line between those two things.
However, my walk down to the Marina for dinner was not enough to settle my mind on the subject, and Dr. Gardiner called me on it.
“What is it?” she asked. “Is everything okay at your independent study?”
“What? Yes!” I said quickly, bringing my eyes up from my plate. “I’m being treated so well and given access to everything.”
“What about the apartment?”
“It’s amazing. And you can tell your friend that the plants are still very much alive.”
“Then why have you picked apart three dinner rolls and not eaten a thing?”
I looked down at my plate. Sure enough, there was a pile of torn-up bits of bread, ready for me to throw to pigeons like the crazy lady who lives in the park and mumbles to herself. (Which, considering my dislike of birds, is not a good life choice.)
“If you’re watching my videos, you’re going to find out about it, anyway.” I sighed. “Darcy is here.”
Dr. Gardiner’s academic eyebrow went up.
“I just saw him.”
“Well,” she finally said, “you knew this was a possibility.”
“But that doesn’t make it easy. It was very unexpected and uncomfortable on both sides.”
Dr. Gardiner took a sip of her wine. “Is it more unexpected or more uncomfortable?”
I considered it for a moment. “Unexpected, I guess. In fact, he did everything he could to make sure I was not uncomfortable.”
“Lizzie, you are going to encounter the unexpected in your professional life,” Dr. Gardiner replied, smiling at me patiently. And personal life, I thought, but Dr. Gardiner continued. “Someone you interned with could be interviewing you one day, or your teacher could set you up to shadow a company that belongs to someone you’d rather not see. But you have to work with the unexpected, not against it. Who knows? The results might surprise you.”
Once again, Dr. Gardiner was correct—as she tends to be. Things like this happen. You run into people, or work with people, you have a fraught history with. My history with Darcy might be a bit more fraught than most, but still—we are adults. I’m here to shadow his company, and that’s all.
“Now, enough about the CEO,” Dr. Gardiner was saying. “Tell me all about Pemberley Digital.”
As I started going into raptures about the napping pods, our food arrived and I felt a little bit more like eating. But now that it’s two in the morning, and I know that I will likely see Darcy again in six short hours, I’m back in my nervous, insomniac journal-writing mode.
I just have to keep remembering Dr. Gardiner’s advice. This is unexpected, not uncomfortable. I just have to roll with it.
And who knows. Darcy might end up surprising me.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 15TH
They say things happen in threes. First, Gigi startled me by being my orientation tour leader and genuinely liking me. Then, Darcy startled me by showing up here and being gracious and kind. What could possibly be the third? The cherry on this Let’s Shock Lizzie sundae?
Bing Lee.
He just showed up the other day. Walked into my office (I either have to get used to this as the norm or start locking my doors), saw I was filming, sat down, waved to “Charlotte.” We talked, but mostly around things. It seems that he is still blissfully unaware of my videos, thinking I’m making video letters for my friend. He also seemed very eager to see me—and as if he’d come into Pemberley Digital for that express purpose.
So, another hit of the unexpected. That’s okay, I can work with it.
But I still needed an explanation.
Right after I saw Bing, I ran into Darcy in the hallway. Or he ran into me. I might have loitered for a few seconds outside a meeting he had just been running.
“Lizzie, good,” he said, pulling me slightly aside as the rush of Pemberley Digital employees exited the room. “I was hoping to see you.”
“You were?”
“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “I wanted to make you aware that a . . . mutual acquaintance is visiting.”
“If you mean Bing, I just saw him.”
“You did?” Darcy looked surprised. “I’m sorry if that disturbed you—Gigi must have told him you were here and I guess he couldn’t wait to seek you out.”
“I wasn’t disturbed,” I replied. “But why is he in town? Doesn’t he have med school?”
Darcy blinked twice before answering. “He had some interviews, with local hospitals. He asked if he could stay with me.”
“Oh. Well, like I said, seeing him didn’t disturb me.”
“Good,” he replied. “I would hate it if you were made to feel uncomfortable.”
“Yes,” I smiled, sheepish. “You’ve mentioned that.”
“I know that . . . well, with me here for a few days . . .”
“It’s your company!” I interrupted, feeling my face go red. “You’re the one who belongs here. You shouldn’t be the one to feel out of place; it honestly should fall to me.”
“I wouldn’t want that,” he said. Then he cleared his throat. “Are you enjoying your stay—gathering useful information for your prospectus?”
“Oh, yes—Pemberley is . . . amazing,” I said. “I enjoyed the meeting you ran the other day—about the investment potential in creative outlets on the Internet.”
I had tucked myself into the back corner of a standing-room-only conference room, where Darcy had been leading a discussion about all the creativity and talent to be found online, and how they can help foster those talents. Before I got here, I had been thinking that Darcy’s company would be all about making the quickest, easiest buck. But really, Pemberley Digital’s mission is to grow and create new things. Through mentoring and development in new media, to make the world just a little bit better.
But when I mentioned the meeting, it was Darcy’s turn to blush. “Anyway,” he said, changing the subject and walking me back toward my office, “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t thrown by Bing showing up here.”
Thrown? Yes, a little. But more than anything, I was confused. Why was Bing so keen to seek me out—especially if he hadn’t seen the videos? And why on earth has no one told him about them?
And why, oh why, oh why didn’t I ask him what the hell happened between him and Jane?
More than anything, seeing Bing just dredged up old feelings from last summer—remembrances of seeing my sister happy, sitting next to him on his couch at Netherfield, looking like the only two people in the world. And then flashes of despair, knowing how hurt Jane was by his leaving.
I’ve long since stopped being angry at him—it wasn’t my place to be angry, and I know that it wasn’t all his doing. But I still want answers, damn it.
I’ve gotten too good at letting opportunities pass me by. I have to stop dancing around the edges of the truth and actually be willing to get to the bottom of things.
And with Bing Lee here in San Francisco, maybe I’ll finally have the chance.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 18TH
I just keep getting surprised by Darcy. Not “leaping out of the shadows at me” surprised, but more “revelations of character” surprised. Which can be just as disturbing as, if not more so than, someone creeping up to you in your high school hallway and scaring the bejesus out of you by pretending there is a bird on your shoulder, Charlotte.
Not that anything that alarming happened. Well, Darcy did voluntarily wear a newsboy cap and bow tie, which was a little shocking. But a few days ago, I was working late in the office, and no one else was there—except Darcy.
I had been hoping to get answers from Bing about why he left Jane, and how he could let his friend and his sister control so much of his love life, but since I hadn’t seen Bing since he dropped by the office almost a week ago, my courage was waning by the day. However, I finally got up the nerve to ask Darcy instead.
On camera.
“Why didn’t you tell Bing about my videos?”
I expected evasion. Hemming and hawing. Maybe outright indignation that I would question his judgment. (Hey, outright indignation is not a foreign concept to Darcy . . . or at least the Darcy I thought I knew before.)
But this is where he surprised me.
Darcy said he didn’t tell Bing because
he was respecting my confidence about the videos, the same way I respected his in not revealing too much of the contents of the letter. I’d never thought of it that way, but he’s been keeping my secrets, too. Which is odd for people who are little more than acquaintances, right?
Darcy also said it was because it seemed like it would be cruel. They’ve both moved on. Who knows if she would even take him back?
Maybe he’s right. In fact, I think he is. Everything that Jane has said since she moved to LA tells me that she’s enjoying life and moving on without Bing. But it still makes me so sad.
No, Lizzie, stop it. I shouldn’t get involved. (In fact, that should be a belated New Year’s resolution.) No good has ever come of it. Hell, I took a step back from Lydia’s temper tantrum, on the auspice that I had to focus on my own life. And Jane is doing great on her own in LA. Why should the sudden reappearance of Jane’s ex-boyfriend throw everything into a tailspin?
There is so much more going on here—I’m learning so much at Pemberley, I’m part of creative strategy sessions, and I was asked my opinion on color options for this new communications app they are developing. (I went with blue. Always go with soothing blue.) I’ve even been making friends, hanging out a little bit with Gigi and Fitz, who have threatened me with karaoke.
Everything at Pemberley is about creating something new and innovative, not rehashing the past.
I’m not here in San Francisco to obsess about my sister’s love life.
So why is my mind obsessed with Jane and Bing? And admittedly, with Darcy?
TUESDAY, JANUARY 22ND
They say New Year’s resolutions only last on average three weeks. So, this is the week to break them, right? Discounting the fact that I actually made my “policy of non-interference” resolution four days ago, it seems like I’m right on schedule. Because not only did I interfere in Bing and Jane’s life again, I went and told Bing that Jane is still single.