by Cat Gardiner
Being Unlucky Thirteen Lizzy had always had its drawbacks, particularly when it came to dating. Her mother had seen to that. In certain circles, some considered Frances Bennet a washwoman, in other circles, a Yenta, but in Meryton, she was well known as a consummate busybody with a voice so shrill, so annoying, and so loud that it could quite easily shatter tempered glass.
Her mother made no bones about how she felt about each one of her children. From the oldest to the youngest, she would list them by preference, not age. Jane, of course, the beautiful supermodel who earns millions and travels the world jet setting with the rich and famous, gave Frances bragging rights and so, she was number one in her mother’s esteem. Next was Lydia, the youngest and most precocious, not to mention the easiest (not in temperament, but rather in her quickness to jump in the sack) was born on Frances’s birthday and therefore considered the luckiest of all her daughters. Third on the list of favorites was Kitty who in spite of the many obstacles and unfortunate circumstances that seemed to gravitate to her – never mind many of them were of her own making - she managed to land on her two feet. Therefore, one could certainly consider Kitty a lucky girl. Mary was fourth and last in the looks department. Her homeliness was so unfortunate that it exasperated their mother who was sure that no man in his right mind would want such an unattractive woman. She unabashedly voiced that unkind opinion until the equally unfortunate Billy Collins latched onto her “ugly” daughter.
And, of course, bringing up the rear of all the sisters was herself, Elizabeth, the second born and the second in both beauty and success. Apart from her unluckiness, many had claimed she was first in wit, first in intelligence, first in athletic ability, first in likeability, and she had to admit first in her father’s esteem. She was last in her mother’s and last in luck, especially when it came to love. She had been born on Friday the 13th during a full moon after twenty hours of excruciating labor. Her mother had been wholly confident a bouncing baby boy would be born – not the underweight, scrawny, colicky girl child that she turned out to be.
Therefore, as one might surmise, going home to the Bennet house was less than a trip to paradise particularly when feeling shaky. After yesterday’s audition and the auction nightmare that followed, she was ready to crawl in a hole and wait for the Christmas season to pass her by. Following Mr. December’s blatant teasing in front of the final count of six hundred and fifty screaming women, Jane and Charlotte saw fit to compound her humiliation.
Determined to not bid on any of the men, because surely it would be unprofessional if she did, it didn’t stop her best friend from doing so. Apparently, Charlotte and Jane joined forces, bidding $5,200 on Mr. December and winning the date under the name of ‘Elizabeth Bennet.’ Now, as the recipient of a promised ‘Hot Date’ with one of New York’s Bravest and Hottest, she cringed knowing the satisfaction Darcy must feel at her expense. She was mortified and swore not to redeem the date.
Once she arrived from the train station by taxicab at her childhood home, she knew today’s little journey into blind date hell was going to be worth blogging about as soon as she returned to the city. Everyone but Jane and Charlie attended. Billy Collins’s orange Ford Pinto and George Wickham’s black Grand Torino sat parked at the end of the driveway in the cul de sac. Her father, Thomas, stood precariously on the top of a ladder, hanging Christmas lights on the eave of the house. Frances was winding silver garland around the mailbox at the curb. Kitty was hanging huge, red ornaments from the tree on the front lawn, and her sweet, albeit immature fiancé Ashton, stood on the roof as though he was impervious to falling and cracking his skull open.
Elizabeth muttered “fool” under her breath and, balancing the tray of Italian cookies her mother insisted she tote ninety minutes east with her, she stood back, taking in the scene before her. She audibly chuckled, braced herself with fortitude, and pulled back her shoulders. Determined to get through the evening with her sanity intact and a possible date for Christmas dinner, she figured that having survived Darcy’s embarrassing taunt, she could survive a blind date orchestrated by her mother.
“Finally!” Frances shouted loud enough for all the neighbors to hear.
Elizabeth thought she saw Ashton slip on the roof shingles, startled by her mother’s voice.
“Did you bring the cookies?”
She held the large tray out. “Obviously, I did mom.”
“You didn’t eat any did you? I’m sure Joey doesn’t like his women fat! Just like Johnny Lucas, but you blew that opportunity a long time ago.”
“Who the heck is Joey?”
“Your date, missy, and he’ll be here in thirty minutes so go clean up. You look like something the cat dragged in. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Do something with that mop of hair on your head, and put on some makeup for a change. You’re not going to win him over looking like that.”
Feeling once again like that little girl who never did anything right, Elizabeth trudged up the walkway after stopping to kiss Kitty hello.
Thomas called down from the ladder, “How’s my girl?”
She smiled as brightly as she could muster, even though she didn’t feel the emotion behind it. “Fine daddy. Long, delayed train ride. How are you feeling?”
“Apart from the agita your mother and Lydia give me, nothing a decent bottle of wine and a good book locked in my study can’t cure.”
Yeah, everything was just as she left it the week prior – the month prior – the year prior. Nothing ever changed at the Bennet psychiatric facility. She weakly smiled, her sigh following as she entered the house, greeted by the smell of her mother’s infamous meatloaf. That’s right – infamous – the worst meatloaf ever – the one she vomited into the Lucas’s pool - and it was slated to woo her blind date.
The house, oftentimes referred to as Longbourn, had been christened so because Frances’s most common verbal vexation was how she has long bourn the sufferings of a mother with five daughters – one of whom should have been a son. Though never a contender for Better Homes and Gardens magazine, today it looked as though Santa exploded in the congested foyer. The blast, having traveled throughout the house flung garland, tinsel, and random ornaments upon every trellis, cornice, and light fixture. That, too, was the same every year. Her mother’s Precious Moment’s collection was now relegated to the dining room breakfront and in their place, adorning the mantle, her cherished Department 56 collectibles were arranged with loving care upon a roll of glittered, medicinal cotton, simulating snow.
The artificial Christmas tree had yet to make its appearance from the basement, and Elizabeth had a sneaking suspicion that would be tonight’s “family project.” She shuddered, remembering the year prior when Frances drank too much spiked eggnog and the tree toppled over on top of her. No, that was one family project she wasn’t going to hang around for. The train back to the city from the Ronkonkoma station left promptly at five minutes after six and she intended to be on it.
Her ears honed in on a familiar sound. Although she herself hadn’t made that sound in quite some time, she remembered it well enough. At first, she wasn’t sure if she heard correctly, but with each step closer to the hallway, her first assumption was accurate. The raucous giggle was the huge tip off, especially since it came from Lydia’s bedroom. Then she heard the moaning followed by the banging of the headboard against the wall, which caused Frances’s wood framed, paint-by-numbers, poker playing dogs to shift on the wall.
After sliding the cookie tray onto the dining room table, Elizabeth stormed back down the corridor and yelled, “Put your pants on George. My father’s loading his shotgun as we speak!”
The giggling stopped when she heard someone fall to the floor. “Move,” “ow!” and “hurry” were screamed in whispers from behind the door.
“Ho, Ho, Ho,” Elizabeth punctuated loudly and laughed.
She walked into her and Jane’s former bedroom and cringed, as was her usual practice every time she entered her former sanctuary. Her mother fancied herself the Martha
Stewart of Long Island, and although she had no skill whatsoever, made the bedroom into her craft workshop.
Globs of dried glue from Frances’s glue gun weapon, stuck to every surface, including upon Elizabeth’s dreaded high school yearbook. Not that she cared about the yearbook, God no, but it was the principle of the matter - the blatant disregard of anything that pertained or belonged to her “unlucky daughter who should have been a son.”
That glue gun in her mother’s hand was as lethal as an AK-47. Nothing was safe from being adhered, stuck or patched together. She took in the scene before her. Fabric, ribbon and strange-looking appliqués surrounded the all-in-one, super mack daddy sewing slash embroidery machine.
Apart from the overwhelming sense of despair that always reared its ugly head whenever coming home to this madhouse, Elizabeth would have burst out laughing. Instead, she grabbed her childhood teddy bear, now painfully – and disturbingly - dressed in a makeshift hat and dress smothered with appliqués.
She sat on her bed, clutching her once loved furry friend, and looked around the room. Feeling as if an unhappy child again, she wondered if she would ever be happy here. Why did it always have to be such a miserable, difficult experience to come home? Softly, she began to sing, “Where are you Christmas? Why can’t I find you?”
For a little while, she attempted to chill out in her quiet room. Unfortunately, escaping her destructive thoughts proved fruitless when her eyes settled on the cover of the yearbook, again. It stared back at her, tauntingly, as her mind revisited the horrific senior photo experience. She snorted a mock laughed in remembrance.
Frances’s shrill voice ripped into her recollections and solitude.
“LIZZY! He’s here! Make sure you use the Binaca breath spray!”
She laid teddy down and looked out the front window. Now she truly laughed. She couldn’t help it, really.
A restored, black, 1977 Pontiac Trans-Am with the t-tops removed – never mind the fact that it was 35 degrees outside - sat parked diagonally behind George and Billy’s cars. The ridiculous muscle car’s golden, big bird emblazoned on the hood waved at her. The windshield sticker spanning the top of the window read, “Love Machine.” A small black sticker of a seated, naked woman in silhouette was affixed to the right corner of the windshield.
She craned her neck attempting to see ‘Joey’ standing at the front door but was unsuccessful. After taking off her coat, fixing her hair and putting on a little lip-gloss, she emerged from the bedroom to find her date surrounded by all eight members and not-so members of the Bennet insane asylum.
“Come in Joey,” Frances almost crooned. “I’m so glad you could come. Look Lizzy, Joey is here.” Without him noticing, her mother opened her mouth and pretended to spray Binaca before disappearing into the 1970s avocado-green kitchen.
Again, Elizabeth tried not to outwardly chuckle. It would have been rude to do so. She looked to her father who stood with his hand over his mouth. Yeah, he thought the whole scene was funny, too.
At least six foot five, Joey weighed about one hundred and eighty pounds wet. Skinny as a rail, he wore a red and black, plaid shirt and a matching NASCAR ball cap. One would think he would have dressed up to meet his possible future girlfriend, but sadly, Elizabeth realized – he was dressed up. His usual attire was grease monkey, car mechanic overalls. The neglected black grease under his fingernails attested to that.
The crowd surrounding him separated when she neared the circle of vultures. She smiled slightly to her sister, Mary. “Hi Joey, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
He smiled revealing tobacco-stained teeth. “Yeah, right back at ya’. Your mother told me a lot about you.”
If the car, his appearance, or his yellowed mouth had not done so already, his statement alone was discouraging. Right away, that was the kiss of death – Frances spoke of her. To make Joey feel comfortable she fibbed, “She told me a lot about you too. Your Trans-Am is beautiful - in excellent condition.”
“Thanks!” Joey beamed from ear to ear because if a girl liked the car, the girl was going to like him, and most likely, that meant getting laid. With a car like that, what girl could resist him?
In his mind, that was a fact.
With inflection that only an avid car enthusiast could appreciate, he rattled off in one long successive breath, “I re-tooled that baby myself from top to bottom, inside and out over the summer. It’s the exact 1977 Special Edition model Burt Reynolds drove in the movie Smokey and the Bandit. Starlight black car paint, black vinyl interior, two-hundred and twenty horsepower, and goes from zero to sixty in six point three seconds. I even have a CB installed – not that I use it, but it’s authentic.”
Who knew that Billy Collins would be able to contribute to the conversation with such knowledge? He cleared his throat and rubbed his hands together in excitement. “I know that car. Yeah, I played Driver San Francisco on my X-Box. Now that’s cool driving. The Special Edition handles so smoothly that it takes corners like it’s on rails. There’s nothing like playing a game where the cars are actually wreckable, nothing like watching an Aston Martin collide with a Bentley. I never wreck the Trans-Am. Man, I’m sure I can drive yours with the same amount of skill I used as the main dude, Tanner, in Driver San Fran.”
Joey watched Billy crack his knuckles in anticipation. “I don’t think so. No one gets behind the wheel of The Love Machine unless she wants to be my Sally Field, and even at that the Bandit here’s gonna need a little incentive to let her.”
Elizabeth resisted the urge to cringe overtly at Joey’s reference to himself as “The Bandit.”
Mr. Bennet had no choice to step in because, quite frankly, he noticed George Wickham taking a step forward to join the conversation, which was now entering into dangerous territory of the sexual innuendo kind. It was just the kind of conversation ripe for George’s crude sexist jokes and bombastic bragging.
Elizabeth was astounded at what a simple compliment had brought about in the strange men standing around her. She could see Mary from the corner of her eye, attempting to silence Billy, and she noted how Lydia did just the opposite, bursting to contribute how she always refers to George as her Love Machine.
Thomas declared loudly, well as loudly as he could above the car excitement, “Why don’t we go into the dining room. Frances’s meatloaf is about ready.”
Billy continued to rub his hands together. “Awesome. I love your mother’s meatloaf, even if it gives me terrible gas. Good going in but killer comin’ out.”
Elizabeth noted George’s slight shudder when he heard the words ‘Frances’, ‘meat’ and ‘loaf’ in one sentence.
He said, “Gas? It gives me effin napalm vapors.”
“Lizzy escort our guest to the dinner table!” Frances chimed in from the kitchen, holding a Pyrex dish filled with her usual string bean casserole - the one with the canned crunchy onions sprinkled on top.
Like a bad dream, she walked side-by-side with Joey. Absolutely mortified, she heard Billy’s knuckle cracking and Lydia’s giggles from behind. Never mind speed dating, never mind Darcy’s antagonistic gyrating, and never mind the lesbian profile on Metro. At least with those, she had the opportunity to meet normal people. These people were certifiably insane!
As though the gods above had been listening to Elizabeth’s silent plea, she was delighted to see that all the men sat together. It was clear to her that they wanted to discuss cars, women, and other interests, which she surely had no interest in. Thomas sat at the head of the table with Joey on one side, Ashton beside him and Billy on the other side with George installed beside him. Unfortunately, that meant George sat beside her.
Twice she needed to remove the palm of his hand from her knee under the table.
Between serving and eating, dishes and utensils clanking, and general conversation about cars, horsepower and torque, everything seemed to be some odd semblance of polite conversation. She was learning a little – very little – about the man her mother thought perfect for
her. Her father looked on silently with nothing to contribute, remaining in the safety and amusement of his thoughts. Oh yeah, she knew those thoughts. They were most likely the same ones she had.
“So Lizzy, Lydia says your apartment overlooks the Hudson River. That must have set you back a shit load of money.” George snorted a laugh. “That figures, I hear lesbians have a lot of dough.”
Frances’s piercing scream from the other end of the table caused every eye to twitch. “WHAT?”
Kitty’s eyes bulged in shock. “Lizzy is that true? You’re gay?”
“La! I knew you were gay!” laughed Lydia. “Lizzy the Lezzy!”
All eyes and heads turned simultaneously to Elizabeth in a repeat of Darcy’s calendar audition.
“What?! Wha … I’m not gay. What are you talking about, George?”
Thomas laughed, and she bore her eyes into his. Traitor.
George snickered. “It’s okay, you can come out of the closet. I know the truth. I know a girl, who knows a girl we went to high school with, and she told me she read your personal ad online on one of those hoity-toity websites.”
“It was a typo! I’m not gay and money has nothing to do with sexual orientation!” She cried out.
Billy cracked his knuckles again. “You know Microsoft’s Fable video game features gay couples – they even have sex.”
“Hey, calm down. It doesn’t matter to me,” George stated defensively, holding his hands up before him. “I’m just askin’ because of the money. Hell if you ask me, I think it’s cool – opens up the possibilities for a little threesome. You, me and …”
“That’s enough George!” Thomas finally bellowed.
Heads pivoted from Elizabeth to Frances at the end of the table when she ranted, “Oh my God! That’s why you’re not married - you and that Charlotte Lucas. She made you do this! What did she do, buy you one of those sex magazines or one of those vibrating things - a bilbo? Did she seduce you? I knew it! Wait until her mother hears what she’s done to you!”