Being Mary Bennet Blows

by Mary Strand

  “Take my advice: apply first, tell them later. Parents never tell you to go for it.”

  Mom had, with Lydia and the circus, and look what happened. Dad was actually taking my abandonment of piano with aplomb, but I also remembered how he’d laughed when I mentioned playing electric guitar.

  I sighed. “You’re right, but I won’t get in. Even if I did, it doesn’t matter. I can’t afford it.”

  “So fill out some scholarship applications. At least Ms. Kieran will quit bugging you.”

  “What about you? Are you going to do the same?”

  “MIT is way out of my league.”

  “Not to mention too cold for year-round skateboarding.” Grinning, I elbowed Josh, the way Liz always did when she was teasing someone, male or female.

  But then I realized what I’d done, and my mouth fell open.

  Josh stared at my elbow, then flicked his gaze to his own hands, then down to mine, then—as shivers zinged up my spine—over the rest of me.

  Then he shifted into first gear and stared straight ahead out the windshield. “So where do you live, anyway?”

  Blinking, I stumbled through directions to my house and sat quietly as he pulled away from the curb and drove the ten blocks to my street. No cars were in sight—Mom’s, Dad’s, Jane’s Prius, or the Jeep—and I offered a silent thanks for small favors.

  Josh rolled to a stop. I took one more peek at him, but his blue eyes looked right through me as if I didn’t exist. As if we hadn’t just talked. As if he hadn’t flipped out just because I elbowed him the way I’d seen Liz elbow a bazillion people, even Alex, without anyone making it a Big Deal.

  Guys. I mumbled my thanks for the ride, grabbed my backpack, and climbed out of Josh’s car. I walked up the front sidewalk and into the house without stumbling. Almost without breathing.

  Definitely without looking back.

  First thing Tuesday morning—before school and after skipping breakfast because I’d waffled too long about what to wear—I marched into the media center and asked Ms. Kieran about applications for academic scholarships, specifically for MIT. I wanted to go to MIT. I was finally going to shout that thought to the Universe, but I started by whispering it to Ms. Kieran. She just smiled and nodded encouragingly.

  The fact that MIT would put me at least half a continent away from Josh next year, if not farther, didn’t influence me. Well, hardly at all.

  Guys were stupid. Specifically Josh. So why was he hanging out at my locker right before first period?

  “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself.” I took a deep breath and walked up to my locker and spun the dial on the combination, as if it was a perfectly normal thing to have a guy waiting by my locker for me in the morning. Come to think of it, with Josh, it was getting to be almost normal.

  Which was totally weird.

  When the lock clicked open, I glanced at Josh—and caught him scoping me out. I bit my lip and turned away, trying to bite off my instinctive reaction.

  I tried to decide what my reaction was.

  Had Josh scoped me out when I wore overalls? I liked my new clothes, I really did, but I also felt so exposed in them. The neckline of this shirt skimmed the top of my bra, and my jeans were so snug in the butt that I felt weird in them. Tingly. Every time I moved.

  As I turned to say something to Josh about his mutant male thinking, I caught him glancing down the hall. My gaze followed. Penelope. In almost exactly the same outfit I’d worn yesterday, only her hips swayed like a palm tree in a hurricane when she walked and her boobs were bigger. Naturally or with help, I wasn’t sure, but Josh didn’t seem to care.

  I slammed my locker and headed for class.

  “Mary? MB?” Josh’s footsteps thundered after me. “Wait up!”

  I stopped and spun around so fast that Josh slammed into me, knocking the wind out of me. Oooof. As I lurched backward, doomed to hit the hallway floor, Josh reached out and caught me by the waist, pulling me back upright.

  When his hands stayed around my waist, we were practically nose to nose. “Um, you can probably let me go now.”

  Someone whistled, and Josh’s hands dropped away, and I turned to see Penelope sashay by in the opposite direction. This time, Josh didn’t turn to stare. The warning bell for first period rang, and Josh just blinked.

  I waved a hand in his face. “Shouldn’t we get to class?”

  Josh didn’t move. “Did you need a ride home after school again today?”

  I had the Jeep, of course, but Cat would be only too happy to take it again. Why did Josh want to give me a ride? Hadn’t we gone the ten blocks to my house yesterday in utter silence? Because I’d elbowed him or because I’d made a joke? I wasn’t even sure. Maybe joking around was another thing no one expected of Mary Bennet.

  “So? Do you want to?”

  Want to what? My hands went clammy and my mouth dry as my mind flicked over the obvious possibilities. At least, the possibilities would be obvious if we weren’t talking about me: Jane Austen’s favorite spinster-for-life.

  “I actually have a Jeep.” Not that I wanted to use it today when I could get a ride in a Camaro, but because I didn’t know what Josh wanted from the ride, and I recognized stark terror when it rode hard through my body.

  “You do? But yesterday . . .”

  I shrugged. “I let my sister take the Jeep.”

  The second bell rang. Josh grabbed my hand and gave it a slight tug. “Time for class. But if you want to give your sister the Jeep again, that’d be great.”

  I spent the rest of the morning thinking in lurid detail about just how great it would be, but Josh didn’t ask again. He also sat with Penelope at lunch. She might be wearing yesterday’s new Mary Bennet outfit, but from the goofy look on his face, Josh didn’t give a rat’s ass what she wore.

  So I didn’t give a rat’s ass about either Josh or my lunch, which I tossed uneaten in the garbage can, even though my stomach had growled loudly ever since second-period Gym class.

  After school, when my stomach sprang to life again, I headed to the Jeep, the keys dangling from my fingertips. I saw the hot-pink monstrosity two rows away, right where I’d parked it this morning, and breathed a sigh of relief that Cat hadn’t stolen it. I didn’t feel like walking home today and definitely didn’t feel like getting a ride from Josh.

  Sure, the seats of his Camaro vibrated in time to the engine, and the smoldering voice of Juanes might be blaring through the speakers, but Penelope would probably be in the passenger seat.

  Leaving me with the trunk.

  Just as I thought that, the low thrum of a familiar engine came up slowly behind me. Proving my hunch, Josh’s voice accompanied it. “Hey. What did you decide?”

  I decided that Josh was a jerk who obviously couldn’t choose between Penelope and me. Even though I didn’t want Josh, and told myself so every chance I got, I whipped around to tell him what I thought.

  But Penelope wasn’t in the passenger seat. And Juanes was blaring out of the speakers.

  “I—”

  “C’mon.” Josh leaned over and opened the passenger door, just like yesterday. Like he’d had a lot of experience opening it for girls. Including Penelope.

  Did that make me pathetic? Probably.

  Biting my lip, I walked around the front of the car and slid inside. Yep, the seat vibrated. I couldn’t admit it to anyone, including Jane or Liz, because even Jane would find it hilarious. But it felt good. And Juanes sounded good. And, okay, Josh looked good, too.

  He waited while I dropped my backpack onto my shins again, buckled up, and shot a quick text to Cat, telling her to take the Jeep. Then Josh reached for my backpack and slung it into the tiny space behind his seat.

  “Where to?”

  “Home? Wasn’t that what you—”

  He shrugged. “If you want. Or we could go somewhere else.”

  I swallowed hard. “Like?”

  “Like my house? My mom won’t be home yet, and we—”

 
I gulped. “Okay.”

  “Really? You don’t mind?”

  Mind? “Um, no.” I had no idea what it meant to make out with a guy—beyond kissing, I mean, and even that was a huge mystery to me—and I wasn’t sure Josh was the right guy for such a huge step, especially since he might offer the same step to Penelope tomorrow.

  But I’d said yes, and part of me wanted to do this. Maybe the part that was vibrating in the passenger seat of a hot Camaro, but still. A girl had to start somewhere, and Jane Austen hadn’t exactly made it easy for me.

  The Camaro vibrated all the way to Josh’s house, which was a mile from mine and, surprisingly, across the street from the condo building where Charlie had stayed when he first came to Woodbury a year ago to buy a company here. I instinctively slouched down in the passenger seat.

  Luckily, though, Charlie’s car wasn’t in sight. Even luckier, neither was Jane’s.

  “We’re here.” Josh grabbed my backpack, along with his, then reached across my seat to open my door—until his forearm brushed against my boobs. As his breath sucked in, he closed his eyes and opened the door. Quickly. And then flew backward out of the car.

  I stumbled out less than gracefully and followed him up the sidewalk to a large brick house that made me wonder why he couldn’t afford college. “Nice house.”

  He shrugged. “My parents paid off the mortgage before they got divorced. Otherwise, Mom couldn’t afford it.”

  The inside of the house made more sense. It looked like someone—like, say, Josh’s dad—had taken half the furniture and no one had bothered to replace the obvious holes.

  I also saw half a dozen skateboards in the front hall.

  He glanced at them. “I usually get a new board when I win a tournament. My mom tells me it’s no excuse for leaving them in the hall.” Bending down, he grabbed a couple of them and stuck them in the hall closet. “Sorry.”

  My stomach growled, killing all of my PG-rated romantic fantasies in favor of one involving food. But didn’t girls always say you weren’t supposed to eat in front of guys? Why was that? I frowned, debating whether I should act like a girl or give in to the fact that I hadn’t eaten all day. At this point, I might start gnawing on furniture.

  “So. You wanna go upstairs?”

  My growling stomach shut up. “To your room?”

  He shrugged. “I figured that’d be the best place.”

  And the absolute worst. When did his mom get home, anyway?

  “Um, sure. If you want.”

  I wanted to see his room, I admit, but the way my stomach was flipping somersaults told me I didn’t want to go too far. Kissing would be nice, even if I wasn’t quite sure how to do it. Beyond kissing, I was both clueless and terrified out of my mind. Would we sit on his bed and kiss? But what then? Would he nudge me onto my back, and let his hand creep under my shirt and up to my bra? Would he try to undo my bra?

  Hyperventilating, I glanced at Josh as we walked along the hall to the staircase, trying to figure out what he intended by looking into his eyes. But Josh, to the extent I could see past his bangs to his blue eyes, looked totally normal. Like he did this all the time. With other girls.

  I made it up the stairs on rubbery legs. Five feet later, I was in Josh’s room. With him. And he shut the door.

  My dad would kill him.

  My mom would order wedding invitations. Oh, wait, no. She’d kill him.

  “So. Wanna get started?”

  I frowned. Was this how it went? Were all guys so totally unromantic about the whole thing?

  “I guess?”

  He tossed our backpacks on the bed and sat down. I looked around for a chair in the room. There was one, but it was stacked high with books. I sighed. At least he had a double bed. I sat down on it, too, but on the other side of the backpacks from Josh.

  He didn’t move them. In fact, he reached inside his.

  Huh?

  “Do you happen to have your roller coaster stuff with you?” He pulled a notebook out of his backpack, then stood up to grab a book about roller coasters out of the pile on his chair. “If you don’t, it’s okay. You can look at my stuff.”

  “That’s what you—” I gulped. “You wanted to work on your roller coaster design? With me?”

  And you don’t want to kiss me?

  “Well, sure. I mean, I keep asking. And like I said, Kyle basically disappeared when he got his football scholarship.”

  “But—”

  Josh held up a hand. “I know you said you already finished. But if you haven’t turned your project in yet, maybe we can come up with some design ideas that’ll help you, too.”

  I felt myself crumpling. I didn’t want Josh, or any guy, if he suddenly noticed me only because I started wearing cute clothes. And I had no idea how far I wanted to take things with a guy, even a guy I liked, even—hypothetically—Josh, but it probably wasn’t very far at all.

  “But you— You didn’t bring me here to—”

  What did I almost say? I clapped my hand over my mouth.

  “Bring you here to what?” Josh stared at me, then down at the Physics notebook in his hands. “I, uh, didn’t—”

  I saw the apology in his eyes a moment before I suddenly felt so faint from hunger that I thought I might die. A moment later, I slumped over backward. Josh and his room swirled around me like a sea of polka dots.

  And then? I have no idea.

  Chapter 13

  “While I can have my mornings to myself,” said she, “it is enough. I think it no sacrifice to join occasionally in evening engagements.”

  — Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Volume I, Chapter Seventeen

  “If it were anyone else—including me!—I wouldn’t believe it.” Assuming her usual cross-legged position on the floor of my bedroom, Liz looked like she didn’t believe it.

  This was what I got for letting Liz and Jane into my room for another sisterly chat. It was getting to be a habit, but with Liz not a comfortable one. Jane was different. I could tell her even the most embarrassing things—which was lucky, since they kept happening to me—and she cooed and hugged me and hardly batted an eyelash. Liz was more vociferous about her opinions.

  I shrugged as I glanced from Jane, camped out in her usual spot at the end of my bed, to Liz. “I can’t blame you. I hardly believe it myself.”

  “You poor thing.” Jane had listened silently to my pathetic story after all three of us arrived home the same instant—me in Josh’s Camaro, which peeled away from the curb in record time; he didn’t even bother saying good-bye. Now she nodded sympathetically. “Still, it sounds like our little plan is working.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Liz and I both stared bug-eyed at Jane, who could’ve taught even Pollyanna a thing or two about optimism.

  “It’s true.” Jane nodded at Liz, who looked like she needed even more convincing than I did. “Two days in a row now, Josh has given Mary a ride home from school.”

  Liz rolled her eyes. “So she could help him with his roller coaster project, as it turns out.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “He didn’t say anything else!”

  “Maybe he’s shy.”

  “And maybe he’s a user.”

  I held up a hand. “Excuse me? Could you guys include me in this conversation? And I don’t think Josh is a user. He’s into skateboarding, but that doesn’t mean—”

  Jane’s lips twitched. “I think Liz was talking about Josh using you. Not, well, other things.”

  “The word is ‘drugs,’ Jane. Of the recreational variety.” Liz paused to take a long swig of the Diet Coke she’d brought upstairs, then glanced at me. “No, I wasn’t accusing your new boyfriend of using drugs.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend!”

  “Not at this point, definitely.” Liz shook her head. “The guy has you laid out on top of his bed, and all he does is give you a glass of water, a donut, and a ride home.” She stared hard at me, squinting. “Are you sure that’s al
l he did? Even if he wanted help on his roller coaster, you’d think he’d make some move if he got you alone. Did he turn down the lights?”

  Jane held up a hand. “Mary already told us he didn’t do anything. Let it go.”

  “You used to claim that Charlie didn’t—”

  “Let it go, Liz.” Jane’s cheeks were tinged with pink, and I wondered how far Charlie did go with her. I mean, even if I believed all the things Lydia supposedly did, it was still a stretch to imagine the always-perfect Jane going wild. With a guy.

  “You don’t have to look like that.” Grinning, Liz pointed at the stack of books on my desk. “Your life isn’t always going to consist of classes and homework and reading. As you’re already finding out.”

  “Because we helped her change her look.”

  Jane gave the slightest bit of a smug smile, which on Liz would be obnoxious. Actually, even on Jane it was heading in that direction.

  “I don’t want guys to want me just because I’ve changed my look.”

  Jane lifted one eyebrow. “Are you so sure about that?”

  Liz nodded as if she agreed with me, which didn’t happen often. “She’s back to the brain theory; she wants guys to want her for her brains.” She studied me a little too intently. “Come to think of it, you said that’s exactly how Josh is looking at you. For your brains. And excuse me for noticing, but you don’t seem to like that scenario, either.”

  That was the trouble with having smart, perceptive sisters who suddenly paid attention to me.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Jane nodded. “You said he just talked about the roller coaster project. What did you want him to do? For that matter, what possessed you to go home with him and up to his room?”

  “And onto his bed?”

  Jane stood up, walked over to Liz, and swatted her. Then swiped her Diet Coke. “Thanks, but I was doing just fine describing the situation by myself.”

  “But she went up to his bedroom! Man, I still can’t believe it. Our very own Mary. In bed. With a guy.”

  “I wasn’t in bed with him.” I went from irritated at Josh and impatient with this conversation to pissed. And, okay, embarrassed. “But why couldn’t I be in his bedroom? What’s the matter with me?”