The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet

by Bernie Su

  “Why do you keep bringing up Darcy?” I asked, exasperated. We were back in the library, back in our graduate school cubbies—although our original ones had been reassigned, and we were relegated to the back near the bathrooms where no one wanted to be. But still, it was just like old times.

  “Because it’s the one thing that’s unresolved!” Char replied, loud enough to get shushed. “Oh, shush all you want, Norman—I don’t go here anymore.”

  “Speaking of, you didn’t have to come find me in the library. I was going to meet you at the theater.”

  “Yeah, but I knew you were here and I was early.” Char shrugged. “Besides, I have to head to LA tomorrow for a couple of meetings and you are dodging the subject.”

  “And by subject I assume you are not referring to my thesis, which I am currently trying to compose?” I replied.

  “Not unless you’ve changed your thesis to a 150-page report on the recently discovered virtuous aspects of one Mr. William Darcy.”

  “You know, I don’t know if I like it when you have nothing to do. You turn into my mother.”

  “Lizzie . . .”

  “Look, I told you—Darcy and I . . . we aren’t anything,” I finally said. “We aren’t friends, and we aren’t more than friends. There might have been a time when we could have been, but I haven’t heard from him since I left Pemberley Digital, and I don’t expect to.”

  “Why not?” Charlotte asked softly.

  “Because . . .” I tried. “Because I don’t.”

  It was just a missed opportunity. That’s all. And it sucks, especially because it seemed like . . . it seemed like I might have not only missed an opportunity, but missed something important. But I can’t go back in time.

  “You know you don’t have to accept that, right?” she said.

  “Charlotte, can we talk about something else, please?” I said, shutting down that line of conversation. “What are these meetings you have in LA?”

  “Shopping around Game of Gourds—we want to make it our launch series in our entertainment division, expanding out from our informational videos. It’s an entirely different business model and we need to finance and market it accordingly.”

  “You should use the game platform itself,” I said. “Package the first five episodes together and end on a cliffhanger, so the investors want to see what happens next.”

  “Not just one episode?” Charlotte asked, taking out a pen.

  “No—the episodes are short; let them get sucked in,” I replied. “That can work for your marketing strategy, too—launch with little expectation, let word of mouth build, and then once five or six episodes have aired, media blitz. This way people have something to binge-watch and get sucked into.”

  Charlotte smirked at me. “You want to take my meetings for me? You’d be good.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve got a thesis to finish.”

  “Heck, I should hire you right now—so you don’t go and start your own company right under my nose.”

  I looked up from my papers to Charlotte. But her head was buried in writing down what I had been saying.

  Meanwhile, it’s what she had said that captured my attention.

  * * *

  “Dr. Gardiner!” I called out, racing down the hall. I don’t know why I’m always running down this hall, but this time it seemed particularly important that I reach my faculty advisor in the greatest haste.

  “Lizzie,” Dr. Gardiner replied. She was used to my affinity for haste. “What can I help you with today?”

  “I think I got it.”

  “It?”

  “I mean, I think I figured out what my last independent study can be. My own company.”

  That got her attention. “You have a company now?”

  “No . . . it would be a fictional company. But I would write up a full prospectus as if my videos and their success were the launch project for my own company. Initial start-up goals, five-year projections, market strategy, everything.”

  Dr. Gardiner considered me for a moment. An uncomfortably long moment.

  “Well, that certainly qualifies as creative.”

  I took a deep breath. “Listen, the one overarching thing I learned at Collins & Collins, and Gracechurch Street, and especially at Pemberley Digital, is that I have the ability to do this,” I said, boldly. “To be in this industry. Heck, to build a company myself. Dr. Gardiner . . . I can do this.”

  Dr. Gardiner considered it—and I quietly panicked—until her face split into a smile.

  “Why not,” she said, shrugging. “I’ve agreed to everything else this year.”

  “Thank you!” I gave in to the incredibly unprofessional urge to hug my teacher. “Thank you so much!”

  She stumbled back a little bit with the force of my hug, but kept smiling. Finally, I realized just how uncouth this was and released her.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “That’s quite all right,” she said. “Lizzie, I want you to know, you have certainly made this past year interesting. As a teacher, you learn that good students are a dime a dozen. Interesting ones? They are what you hope for.”

  I blushed, and then took my leave, knowing Dr. Gardiner had just given me the biggest compliment she could give.

  Now, I just have to live up to it.

  SATURDAY, MARCH 9TH

  “Hi, Mary,” I said when I answered the door. “I forgot you were coming over.”

  My emo cousin just stared at me. “I’m helping Lydia catch up in her math class. She missed a couple weeks, what with . . .”

  “Yeah, I know,” I replied. “Actually, do you have a sec? I would like to talk to you about something.”

  I hadn’t really forgotten that Mary was coming over. In fact, since Lydia mentioned it yesterday, it was all I had been thinking about.

  Because it was possible that my humorless, dry, only-owns-the-color-black cousin Mary had some answers. And I had a lot of questions, most of them stemming from what Lydia told me a few days ago.

  We’ve all been wondering who or what caused the Website That Shall Not Be Named (™ J. K. Rowling) to mysteriously disappear from the Internet just a day before it was intended to go live. Charlotte couldn’t find anything, I didn’t even know where to start looking, and Dad was so relieved, he stopped investigating and started focusing on Lydia’s recovery.

  But Lydia didn’t forget. Lydia did some digging.

  And she discovered that the website ceased to exist because of one William Darcy.

  How did he do this? He bought the company that George sold the tape to. Novelty Exposures (or the company it was hiding) is now owned by Pemberley Digital. And in so doing, he bought all of their property, including the sex tape. The most amazing part is that George had not only sold the tape to the company, but universal rights to it. So if he ever leaks a frame of it anywhere, he will be in violation of his contract and sued so fast he’ll have to leave the planet to escape extreme pecuniary damages.

  Of course, this doesn’t solve everything. George is still free to roam the world. Free to try to pull this stunt on other women, although I would hope that any woman in that situation would perform an Internet search history of George and see my videos. But I can’t guarantee it.

  Sometimes, the bad guy does get away with it. But at least this time, he didn’t get away with hurting my sister.

  However, my big question is—why would Darcy do that? Why would he save Lydia? He’s never even liked Lydia, being that she’s too “energetic” for his tastes. I’ve been thinking it over and over for days, and whether he did it because he still feels responsible for how despicable George is, or . . .

  Or he did it for me.

  Which is impossible to wrap my head around! While we might have gotten close to something happening at Pemberley, ultimately nothing did. And in the grand scheme of things, I’m still just the girl who shot him down and called him names on the Internet. I cannot fathom why someone in his position would do something so large for any reason, let
alone me.

  So I decided he didn’t.

  Lydia didn’t reveal anything about how she found out. It could have been just from a friend of a friend through the grapevine of Internet life. But . . . Lydia assures me she’s not wrong. So I need to check with my own sources.

  “So, Mary,” I began, more than a little unsure how to broach this subject. “How are you? I haven’t seen you since Lydia’s birthday party.”

  “Really? Because I was at your house for Christmas.”

  “Oh . . . yeah. I remember now.”

  “And I was here last week, hanging out with your sister. We passed on the stairs, and you said, ‘Hi, Mary, I forgot you were coming over,’ much like when you greeted me just now.”

  “Okay, you make a solid point.” I stopped her before she could list the few hundred times I’ve forgotten about her existence in the past twenty-two years. “But, um . . . that’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about. You and Lydia are close these days.”

  Mary cocked her head to one side. “I guess.”

  “So, did she tell you anything about how she found out . . . about who took the website down?”

  Mary looked genuinely surprised. “You mean she didn’t tell you?”

  “She told me that it was Darcy, but not how she found out. And it doesn’t make that much sense to me, so I thought—”

  “It was him,” Mary cut me off. “Our source is solid.”

  “Mary . . .” I sighed, suddenly tired. “I need to know. Please.”

  Mary glanced around quickly, then shrugged, putting her bag on the floor. “Lydia’d been thinking a lot about the website. Obsessing over it, really. The only conclusion she could come to was that George had taken it down, because he hadn’t known how much it would hurt her. That somehow she’d gotten through to him.”

  I could feel my brow coming down in a flat line. “George didn’t contact her, did he?”

  “No,” Mary assured me. “Her counselor told her that was a common hope in betrayal situations, but not likely. But I knew that she’d keep holding on to the hope until she knew for sure. So, I figured we should get into contact with the one person we know of that also knows the real George.”

  “Who?”

  “Gigi Darcy.”

  “Wait . . .” I shook my head, trying to comprehend. “Lydia called Gigi?”

  “No. There’s no way Lydia was ready for that. So I friended Gigi on Twitter, and we messaged.” Mary’s eyes lit up with anger. “She told us that her brother had immediately begun to search for George, the moment he heard about the sex tape. George had been hiding out in a beach resort when Darcy found him, sipping a margarita and cashing in on Lydia’s pain.”

  I could barely breathe. “And then what did he do?”

  “George wouldn’t budge,” Mary continued. “But Darcy did get the details of the sale to that porn company from him—who he actually sold it to, I mean. With so little time, Darcy knew the only way to stop the company was to buy it. So he did.”

  I stood there, in total shock for what must have been a full minute, because Mary began to squirm.

  “Did you need anything else?” she asked. “Lydia’s probably wondering where I am.”

  “Hm? Oh, right,” I said, shaking off my haze. “No, I’m good. And thanks.”

  “No problem.” Mary sighed the sigh of the long suffering.

  And I was left to sort out my feelings.

  There’s no way Gigi would lie about her brother, so it has to be true. Darcy bought an Internet porn company, and dismantled it, to stop my sister’s sex tape from being released.

  I can feel that familiar queasiness in my stomach, as I am once again dancing on that thin line between dread and hope, thinking that Darcy might have done it for me.

  But if he had . . . I would know, right?

  Wouldn’t he call me?

  Maybe he’ll call.

  No, Lizzie. Stop being foolish.

  . . .

  . . .

  Still, I should make sure my phone is fully charged. And the ringer on. Just in case.

  MONDAY, MARCH 11TH

  You know, I kind of hoped we were done with drama in the Bennet household. Things have been much calmer with Lydia taking some time to heal and Jane and Bing on the East Coast. Dad comes home after work every day and hangs out with his daughters. Mom is happily occupied dreaming of the day Bing and Jane get engaged and deliver her grandchildren, and I’m keeping my nose to the grindstone, writing my thesis and last independent study concurrently. So, all in all, things have been pretty calm around here.

  All of that changed yesterday, when Caroline Lee barged into the den and confronted me.

  Yes, confronted me.

  About what, I’m still not sure. But she was incredibly angry when she came in and accused me of ruining her brother’s life by encouraging him to run away with Jane, and now ruining Darcy’s.

  Let’s put aside the fact that I have absolutely no say or influence over Bing’s life—or my sister’s. And I told Caroline as much. But to say that I ruined Darcy’s life, when I have almost nothing to do with him at this present point in time, is frankly ludicrous.

  But Caroline has been watching my videos. And she blew it out, point by point.

  She said it was my doing, and my doing alone, that had Bing quitting school and running off with Jane. Jane wasn’t strong enough, and Bing had never made a decision of that magnitude in his life, according to her. Of course, Bing didn’t even find out about my videos until after he quit school, but in Caroline’s mind, that’s neither here nor there.

  She also said that Darcy taking time away from his business to go solve my younger sister’s crisis looks extremely bad to his financiers. Especially his aunt, Catherine De Bourgh. Caroline claimed she was thinking of withdrawing her support, but since I worked at Pemberley, I know how well they are doing, and a businesswoman as savvy as Ms. De Bourgh wouldn’t make such a decision on such a flimsy excuse.

  Caroline kept going on and on about how terrible I was for her brother and Darcy, how it was my influence that was making them make terrible decisions.

  Oh, yeah, Caroline? Decisions like making your brother break up with my sister?

  That was when I decided to pull out the big guns. It was time to finally ask Caroline about Jane’s supposed “indiscretion” the night of Bing’s birthday party. Because if Jane has no idea, Bing wasn’t sure, and it seemed like Darcy wasn’t entirely sure, either (although he’s the one who saw it), then Caroline is the only one who’s left.

  “You mean your sister never told you she kissed another man?” she said so smugly, I knew that if Jane had kissed another man, then it was Caroline who orchestrated it. After all, she’d been in Jane’s company the whole night.

  And she didn’t deny it.

  What Caroline did do was, at Bing birthday party, somehow fix it so that Jane was kissed by one of Bing’s drunk friends, and Darcy saw, misinterpreting it as a betrayal of Bing. That’s it. That’s the big mystery. One that could have been cleared up by PEOPLE TALKING TO OTHER PEOPLE. Since I’m one of the people who often has trouble with such communication, I shouldn’t judge, but I can’t help but think of all the heartache that could have been saved had Caroline not been so desperate to get her brother away from Jane.

  She had the audacity to say that she was simply doing what was best for the people she cares about. She “helps them.”

  And there she was, accusing me of interference!

  I was so angry, and honestly exhausted by the whole thing, I did the only thing I could. I told the truth. With everything I had in my power.

  “Well, let me help you with something. You know who’s in charge of Darcy’s life? Darcy. And you know who’s in charge of mine? Me. The same goes for Bing and for Jane.” I took a deep breath. “And now, despite the fact that you’ve come into my house and insulted me, and my family, again, please consider yourself welcome to stay for dinner.”

  I’m particularly proud o
f that last part. My mom’s southern hospitality is born and bred in us, and it had the pleasant side effect of making me look like the better person.

  She turned me down. And walked out.

  It took only about five seconds for me to start to feel bad. And to feel like we weren’t done. I mean, why does Caroline think she gets to control my life? Because that’s what she was doing—she was there to make me feel terrible for her brother and my sister being happy together, and to make sure that I kept my greedy mitts off of Darcy. And if she’s been watching my videos, she knows there is no call for such a warning, because he doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore. But that didn’t stop Caroline.

  Yeah, we definitely weren’t done.

  Quickly, I jumped up and followed her out to her car.

  “Caroline,” I called out, stopping her from opening the door. She kept her curtain of shiny black hair in front of her face, blocking me from her view.

  “You know, if you think you can barge into my life and start ordering me around, then—”

  Her head whipped up then. She was . . . crying.

  “Obviously I can’t,” she spat at me.

  “Caroline,” I said, much softer.

  “You get your own life. Darcy gets his own life. Jane gets hers, Bing gets his.” She blew out an angry breath. “THEN WHAT DO I GET?!?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” I replied, shocked. “I think you have to find that out for yourself.”

  She looked for a second like she was about to say something else, but she just ended up mumbling under her breath, “Of course,” before climbing in her car and screeching out of the driveway.

  When I turned around, Lydia was standing in the doorway.

  “What was that all about?” she asked, wrinkling her nose at the car fading into the distance.

  “I’m not totally sure. It’s complicated.”

  Lydia crossed her arms. “Explain it to me over fro-yo? I’ll drive.”

  So I did. Over red velvet cake fro-yo with coconut shavings.