Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet (9781476763248) (16 page)

“Not dating him,” I said. “Not
not
dating him. Just hanging out.”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Mary's mouth squish into a hard line. “Okay, that's cool. I think it's a good thing you're interested in dating again.”

Oh God, was this going to be “the talk?” Not the sex talk, which occurred when I was nine, and my mother sweatily showed me what happens between men and women using my collection of My Little Ponies. You think she would have been an old pro at the talk, three girls in, but from what Jane and Lizzie told me, the ponies had been an improvement.

No, the talk Mary was going to give me was the “It's so awesome you're getting back out there!” talk. The one where you get praise for having the inner strength to carry on living. And that's fine, but it's not something I was up for during morning talk radio.

But once again, Mary caught me off guard. “But is it a good idea to be dating someone now?”

“Why not?”

She sighed. “Because we're going to be moving soon. You're working so hard to transfer schools, I just don't want him to . . . distract you, is all.”

I almost said, “Distract me from what?”—stupid Driving Honesty. But we pulled into the parking lot in front of Books Beans and Buds, taking my attention and giving me time to answer.

“He's not a distraction. I mean, is playing in Violet's band a distraction for you?”

“No,” Mary said. “And I'm not playing in the band.”

“Not officially, duh, but you still practice with them, and—”

“They only have one more farewell show, tomorrow. And Duke's playing the show. So I'm not even their practice bassist anymore.”

“Oh,” I said quietly. “I'm sorry. I know you liked hanging out with them.”

“It's fine. It's not like I was ever going to actually
be
their bassist. I was just helping out for a minute.” Mary shrugged. “But you're right. I've got too much to do to play in a rock band.”

She said “rock band” like most people say “hair scrunchie”—a total disbelief that such a ridiculous thing even exists anymore.

“But I'm ready for when we get out of here,” Mary said. “I can only make so many double espressos while working on Lizzie's stuff at night.”

“Right,” I said, guilt creeping in. Mary handles everything with a shrug and just gets it done. It hadn't occurred to me that she might be under pressure of her own.

Nope, go away, guilt. Don't care. Do not care.

“Anyway, see you after psych,” Mary said.

She got out of the car and waved good-bye.

Leaving me with a heaviness in my chest.

Dammit, for the briefest second, I was caring again.

*  *  *

When you're gliding through the easy life of not caring, everything tends to bleed together. Days of the week, classes, hours. What episode of whatever show you're watching. It's all the same. So it's hard for things to stand out.

Everything is just . . . fine.

The only bright spot of any day was Cody. Chances are he'd
text with me during psych, and make me snort-laugh at something while Professor Latham was going over the subject of our next paper. Which I'll get a C on.

Or we'd be in the coffee shop, and Mary would watch us. But then, all I had to do was say Violet probably needed something and Mary would go and see what was up with her. No big deal.

Even Gothic Lit—which Cody totally should have been paying better attention to, given the fact that he's a writing major—was a chance to dust off my flirt skills. So what if Mary thought he was a distraction? He was—and a distraction was the only thing keeping me going at this point. Even though I'd read “The Tell-Tale Heart”—mostly because it was super short and Kitty ran down the battery on my phone by making me play her ocean sounds all night—and I was totally able to be insightful for Natalie's sake, I was still way more interested in Cody's knee pressed against mine than I was in starting the discussion on
Dracula
.

Not caring set me free. Not caring let me breathe easy. And not caring meant that if you wanted to be a bitch to me like Harriet was in the bathroom, I could take it.

It was after Gothic Lit. The mochaccinos had hit me mid-class and I'd had to pee for the last twenty minutes. When I came out of the stall, Harriet was standing at the mirror, reapplying her already perfect makeup.

“Oh,” I said. “Hi.”

I had two choices. Unfortunately, the leaving immediately one involved me being gross and not washing my hands, so I had to suck it up.

As I approached the mirrors and turned on the faucet, she kept her gaze locked on her reflection as she put on a coat of peach lip gloss.

“Oh, wow, your new boy toy let you out alone?” she said. “He should be more careful. Never know what Lydia Bennet will get up to.”

I could have gotten sad. I could have gotten defensive. Instead,
I was the bigger person—not literally, Harriet has shoulders like a rugby player—and remained silent.

“Do us all a favor and bang
before
you come to class, okay? It's kind of disruptive when you guys go at it at the table.”

Okay, first of all, I haven't slept with Cody. We'd barely kissed. But a little flirting isn't a crime, even in the middle of class.

And B . . . well, there's only so long you can be the bigger person.

“You should be careful with that shade of lip gloss,” I said. “Doesn't exactly go with the color green.”

“Please,” Harriet replied. “I'm so much better off. I mean, if I'd known Cody was only into damaged chicks, I could have told him about that time I got mugged at the mall.”

“He's not into damaged chicks.”

She looked at me, with the kind of pity that just pissed me off. “Please. He told you his major, right?”

My eyes narrowed. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Harriet gave her reflection a small smile.

“Ever ask yourself what he wants from you?”

I smiled as sweetly as I could manage. “I just know he doesn't want it from you.”

She turned so red under her foundation, I wondered if she needed another layer.

“Whatever,” she said, straightening her shoulders and turning back to the mirror. “I can't wait to get out of this stupid town. Get down to LA and USC where I belong.”

She threw her makeup in her bag, swinging it over her shoulder as she stalked past me for the door.

“Harriet. You weren't mugged. You dropped your shopping bag in the middle of the department store, and
thought
you got mugged. They had it waiting for you at the lost and found, with your name on the receipt and everything.”

“How'd you know that?” she asked, shocked.

I snorted. “
Everyone
knows that.”

She took a deep breath through her nose, all huffy. Then she shoved the door open with her hip, and left.

Leaving me alone, with the running faucet echoing off the tile.

She didn't realize it, but Harriet had managed to twist the knife Mary accidentally plunged in that morning. She was ready to leave town and go to LA. Mary was ready to head up to San Francisco.

Me? I'm not going anywhere.

Okay, maybe I cared about that a little.

*  *  *

But if I thought I was going to find any comfort at home, I was mistaken.

I was doing my normal Thursday routine. Which, two weeks ago, would have been rereading my psych textbook, making sure I understood it completely. Now, it was mostly watching nineties sitcoms on Netflix. I thought I was home alone, but then, suddenly my mom appeared in the living room.

In her nightgown.

At one o'clock in the afternoon.

“Mom?” I said. “I thought you were out?”

My mom is usually the first person up. More often than not, breakfast would have been made, cleaned up, and the living room floors vacuumed by the time any one else managed to get in line for the shower. I'd just assumed I'd missed breakfast because I got up so late. And the vacuuming, because Kitty was nowhere to be found.

“Lydia! I could say the same thing about you,” she said, clutching her robe closed around her neck and madly fixing her bed head. “Don't you have school?”

“Not today.”

“Well, still,” she fluttered. “I would have thought you'd be out studying, or working on one of your papers.”

I shrugged. “Just being a little lazy today.”

“Are you hungry, honey? Can I fix you something?”

I held up my bowl of cereal. “I'm good, thanks.”

“That's not a real breakfast,” she said as she moved to the kitchen. I could hear her clanking pots and getting the cutting board out. I got up off the couch and followed the sounds.

“Mom, are you feeling okay?”

“Of course!” she said, a pot of water landing on the stove with a thud. She turned the burner on high. “Why would you ask such a thing?”

“Um, because you're in your nightgown in the middle of the day.”

She just looked me up and down. Yes, I was still in my pajamas, but that wasn't the point.

“Well, perhaps I wanted to be a little lazy, too,” she said. “I occasionally could use a break from having to do everything around here. A morning where I sleep a little later.”

“Okay.” Sorry. Didn't mean to strike a nerve.

“Honestly. I sleep in once, and it's an inquisition! What do you think I did before I had you girls to look after?”

“I . . . dunno.” I'd never really thought of my mom before us.

“I had fun, that's what,” she said, smiling at me. “Your father and I stayed out late, we slept in. Now that you're moving out soon, I thought I might give it a try again.”

That knife—the one Mary plunged and Harriet twisted? Basically my mom was twirling it around like a baton.

“You're excited for me and Mary to leave, huh?”

“Honey, aren't you?” she asked. “You must be so bored, sitting here just watching television. If I were you, I'd be itching to get out of the house, get started on my new life. New people, new places . . .”

“Yeah, no, you're right,” I said. “I'm really not that hungry. I think I'll take a shower.”

“Okay, sweetie.” The water had started to boil. “Lunch will be ready by the time you're dressed!”

Nothing like realizing that even your parents want you gone to make you feel like hiding in your room.

Which I did for approximately the next six hours.

But hey, I actually did my psych reading. And watched more nineties sitcoms on my phone.

I was drifting into a boredom coma, dreading Friday and the classes that were going to come with it, when there was a knock on my door.

“Hey . . .” Mary said, wearing a suspicious amount of eyeliner. “You're not ready.”

“For what?” I asked.

“The last Mechanics show?” She crossed into the room. “You said you'd go with me.”

“I did?” One side effect of actively not caring and letting everything bleed together was that you totally forget when you promise people things.

“You're not sick again, are you?” Mary asked, inching back toward my door.

“No!” I said, sitting up. “I'm totally down for going. I just . . . I didn't think you'd want to, considering Duke and everything.”

“I dunno,” Mary said, stubbing her toe against my carpet. “I figured I should go anyway. Support Violet. And Gen and Jones. But if you don't want to go you don't have to. I understand if you need to work.”

“Nope,” I said, hopping off the bed so fast I scared Kitty out the door. I started pulling an outfit together. Something bright and fun and awesome. “I'm in.”

“Are you sure? Like I said, I'd understand—”

“Mary, please. Lydia Bennet is always ready for a party.”

The line at Carter's was, somehow, even longer than it was at the last Mechanics show. It's like the fact that they had already played a dozen “farewell shows” this summer had completely escaped everyone.

Then again, there really was nothing else to do here.

There was another bouncer-looking guy walking up and down the line while Chris, as always, guarded passage to the door. Wow, hiring extra help? Violet's band was probably the biggest business Carter's had ever seen.

We cut to the front, gave our names, showed IDs, the whole routine, and Chris waved us through the door. Fortunately, Mary was also busy looking at her phone, or she might have noticed his offhand comment about seeing me a lot lately.

C'mon, Chris. Discretion.

“Texting Violet?” I asked, squinting as my eyes adjusted to the darkened room.

“No,” Mary replied. She rocked up onto her toes and scanned the crowd of people mingling before the show started. Her eyes locked on one spot and I followed her gaze.

“Denny!” I squealed, half running, half skipping to the boy coming toward us. I threw my arms around him. “Mary didn't tell me you were coming!”

Denny Reyes was Mary's former coworker back at the pizza place and, as far as I had been able to tell, only friend. Besides me, of course. And now Violet.

I'd been slightly interested in him prior to George, but it wasn't something that had any chance of working out.

“I wasn't sure I was going to make it,” he replied, tossing a
friendly head-nod and a smile in Mary's direction. He was way more respectful of her boundaries than I was. “Josh and I had plans, but he got called into work last-minute, so . . . here I am!”

Josh, aka Denny's boyfriend. Yeah, he had a pretty valid excuse for not falling victim to my adorbs.

Still, once Denny and Mary started working together, the three of us hung out a lot when I was visiting last fall. But as I'd been sticking close to home since, well, George, I hadn't seen him in ages.