Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet (9781476763248) (23 page)

I could get a job. There was that opening at Books Beans and Buds left by Mary. And Violet. I could totally be a minimum-wage server at the coffee shop near my old campus—because that's not the most depressing thing ever.

I could try and sell my stuff online—but while my fashion sense is epically awesome, I don't think there are a lot of people who could pull off my style. And besides, who'd want to look like Lydia Bennet? The associate-degree-having, no-career-planned, still-living-at-home-with-her-parents loser (there, I said it) Bennet sister?

It's times like this I really wish I had a better computer.

No, really, because then I could go online and bliss out on blogs, or pirate movies, and not worry for a week, or three—and not go cross-eyed (not a super fetching look) staring at my phone screen. But as it was, my computer could barely open my email, which is what I was forcing it to do at that moment.

The second I did, glitter and cats rained down on my screen.

It took me a second to realize my computer hadn't exploded, and I was, in fact, staring at an e-card. Kinda the most perfect e-card ever.

There was only one person it could be from.

Happy graduation, Lydia!

I tried to call you a couple of times, and I sent a package, but it won't get there for a few days. But I wanted you to know TODAY how proud I am of you.

Miss you more than you know!

Love, Jane

Only Jane would manage to find the e-card with the most cats and glitter of all time because a present she sent will be late and she couldn't get through to me on the phone.

Speaking of, why couldn't she get through on my phone? I rolled my eyes as I checked it. Dead again. I have got to get better about charging it after Kitty's white-noise sessions.

I plugged it in and waited for it to glow on.

Five voice mails from Jane. And one from . . .

Ricky Collins. The weird guy who used to live across the street when we were kids, and went to school with Lizzie. And somehow kept finding his way back into our lives.

“Greetings, Miss Bennet! I do hope this message finds you in good health and good spirits. However, I wished to personally call and apologize on behalf of Collins & Collins, Winnipeg, for your . . . unfortunate circumstances. As someone on intimate terms with your family, I consider myself honor-bound to look after the Bennets, should a situation requiring as much arise. So it is my pleasure to offer you a position here, if you choose to come visit the magnificent province of Manitoba. Of course, you have no
qualifications, but we do always need people to start at the bottom and work their way up to midlevel positions. In fact, we've been considering hiring a sign-spinner. My employees suggest this would not be beneficial to us, but I intend to bring the best of American marketing techniques to this glorious nation. How are your spinning skills? Nevertheless, should you wish to come be a part of our remarkable company, please feel free to give my assistant a call at—”

The message kept going as I took the phone away from my ear, staring at it for a couple of minutes. Ricky freaking Collins just offered me a job. As a sign-spinner. In Canada. In the most annoying way possible.

Now I know why Lizzie turned him down last year, I thought, laughing.

Then, I kept laughing. Because come on—Ricky Collins! Thinks he has to look out for me! And it's weirdly sweet, or sweetly weird, I can't decide. Oh God, wait till I tell Lizzie or Mary or . . .

Or Jane.

God, I miss Jane. Lizzie would get totally enraged by Ricky's proposal, Mary would shrug and ask if I got benefits. And Jane . . . Jane would just say it was nice of Ricky to offer, and then laugh with me.

Miss you more than you know!

Oh, Jane. I miss you, too.

So why not visit?
a little voice inside my head whispered. I don't have anything on my calendar. I have a little money saved up, too. You know those videos I never took down because they represent a painful relationship and having them up seemed better than lying about it? Yeah, those have advertising on them. And apparently, some people are still watching.

Ms. Winters told me to celebrate my achievement. I can't think of anything more celebratory than going to visit Jane in New York.

And who knows? Maybe some new people and new places are exactly what I need to figure out my life.

I fell asleep planning my adventure. What to wear, who to see, what I'll do in the Big Apple.

New York City won't know what hit it.

New York City! People rushing madly to and fro! Giant billboards! The guy peeing on the escalator!

And that was all before I left the airport.

“Lydia!” I heard a high, sweet voice. Someone was madly waving at me and holding a sign with the name
BENNET
on it, decorated with sparkly unicorn stickers. Jane.

“It's so good to see you!” she squealed as she wrapped her arms around me.

“You, too!” I squealed back.

“Hi, Lydia.” A shy voice and accompanying wave popped into my view.

“Bing!” I cried, and jumped up on my tiptoes to hug him, too. He seemed surprised. Which is fair. While Jane's boyfriend and I have always been on decent terms—except for that time he left town without telling anyone and broke my sister's heart for a couple of months before he realized he was being an insane idiot and begged to get her back—we'd never really been on huggy terms. But hey, if he was willing to follow my sister to New York so she could pursue her career while they worked on their relationship, he's entered the hug zone in my book.

“Good to see you, Lydia,” Bing said, his breath a little tight. Oopsie. I let his neck go. “Is this all your stuff?” he said, pointing to the carry-on at my feet.

I snorted. “No. I had to check the others.”

Bing glanced at Jane.

“Lydia, how many other bags did you bring?” Jane asked sweetly.

“Just three,” I said. What? I've never been to New York before, I wasn't sure how to dress. I need all of my cutest outfits on hand, and all of my outfits are freakishly cute.

If anyone would understand this, it would be Jane.

“All righty,” Jane said, smiling after a moment. “Let's go get your bags. New York City awaits!”

*  *  *

This is the way to make an entrance to a city.

Town car? Check.

Little bottles of water in the cup holders if you're thirsty? Check.

Sunroof I can stand up through while we zoom down city streets looking for landmarks? Well, the sunroof was there, but the driver yelled at me the second I tried to stand up. (And besides, I guess it wasn't much of a
sun
roof considering it was already night by the time I got to the city.)

But the city lights were bright, and the landmarks didn't disappoint.

“What's that?” I asked.

“That's the site of the 1964 World's Fair,” Jane replied.

“And that?”

“That's where the Mets play.”

“And that?”

“That's . . . I think that's a retirement home.”

“So, Lydia, how is everyone?” Bing asked, from Jane's other side. “Your parents?”

“They're good,” I said. “You know. Normal.”

Although I think normal for Mom and Dad shifted sometime recently, because before I left, something seemed . . . off.

Case in point: I had thought that my parents were going to be severely anti-NYC for me. I was partly right.

“It's about time you're up,” my father had said as I came down the stairs the morning after my graduation dinner. “You missed your sister.”

“Lizzie left already?” I plopped down into my seat at the table, still barely awake.

“She had to get back, sweetie,” my mom said.

“I still don't see why she had to leave before dawn,” Dad grumbled. “I'd liked to have had a chance to talk with her, at least.”

“Honey, she had an important meeting and a long drive. I told her she didn't have to wait around for something as silly as breakfast,” Mom said, as she placed a pot of sweet, sweet coffee in front of me. “Especially when I can make her a nice boxed lunch for the road.”

“Still,” Dad said, then turned his attention back to me. “I suppose you deserved to sleep in on your first day after graduating,” he said, winking at me.

“Actually, it wasn't that,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I was up late planning my trip to New York.”

Both my parents looked up from their breakfasts as I laid out my scheme. I'd found a really cheap flight through a last-minute booking site, and had already talked to Jane (it's three hours later there, but I still caught her before she was awake). I was going to go explore the city, take in some of that culture everyone always talks about, and visit my sister as a sensible, responsible, associate-degree-having person would do.

Neither of my parents' expressions changed for a good thirty seconds. Then, my father sighed.

“I'm sorry, peanut. This isn't a good time.” His shoulders slumped, as his eyes shot to my mother. “I wish your sister was still here, because there are some things that we need to discuss about what's going to be happening now—”

So this was it. I had graduated, gotten to sleep in, and now my dad deemed it time to talk to me about the future and my plans. I expected this. I mean, I was a little hurt by it, but I had arguments ready to go (I was going to be with
Jane
, the best argument I could possibly make) when—

“What's going to be happening now is Lydia is going to New York!” Mom butted in, a bright smile painted on her face. “I think it's a fine idea.”

“Marilyn, this can't continue—”

“Tom,” she said, warning him. And that shut Dad right up. My mom never called my father by his first name. We lived in a world of “honeys” and “sweeties,” and occasionally “muffins.” “It's only for a little while. Lydia is an adult and can make her own decisions, just like you and me. Why, she's already bought the ticket—haven't you, honey?”

Actually I hadn't, I was waiting to talk to my parents (like a sensible, responsible, associate-degree-having person would do), but you bet I nodded like I'd already checked the no-refunds box and hit buy.

Argument: ended. My father, displeased, kissed my head and grumped off to the den, and my mom was happy to shove me out the door and off to the airport.

Which sort of felt weird. Because she didn't even send me off with any messages or packages for Jane. I know that they were excited to be empty nesters, and my not moving to San Francisco with Mary put the brakes on that, but . . . this just gave me the sense that I was not wanted. Anywhere.

But I didn't tell Jane that. Being in New York cleared all that stuff away. I'd spent six hours in a middle seat on a plane without Wi-Fi and now half an hour in a car on traffic-jammed streets, so by all accounts I should have been feeling pretty bitchy. But I wasn't. I felt . . . new. Everything around me was new, and I was new to everything. Every city block we drove, I could feel more and more
of the weight of the last six weeks—expectations, essays, congrats cake—lifting off me.

I could be anything here. I could be
anyone
.

I could be anywhere. Seriously, by the time we pulled up in front of a flat-fronted building somewhere in Brooklyn, I could have been in Timbuktu for all I knew.

“Where are we?” I asked. “Is this where Bing volunteers?”

Before coming to New York, Bing had decided that his path did not lay in being a doctor to rich hypochondriacs, but instead in working with the needy. But I didn't think they were
this
needy.

“No, silly.” Jane smiled. “This is my place.”

“Your place?”

“The neighborhood is up-and-coming.”

It had a lot of up to come, if the middle-aged drunks on the corner were anything to go by.

“It's nicer on the inside,” Jane said, and then made goo-goo eyes at Bing. “We can handle the bags, you've already been so helpful with everything.”

“Four flights of stairs? Are you sure?” he asked.

“Umm, four flights of stairs? As in walking up them? With all these bags?” I looked back and forth between Jane and Bing.

Bing smiled. “Maybe I should go ahead and help.”

*  *  *

Far too many steps and much wheezing later (on my part, anyway—massive amounts of stairs aren't really part of my daily routine), we finally made it to Jane's apartment.

“Are you sure you don't want to come in for tea?” Jane asked Bing as he set my two biggest suitcases down.

“I'm sure you two have a lot of catching up to do,” he said. “Besides, the driver is still waiting for me downstairs.”

“Thanks for helping.” Jane smiled.

“Anytime,” he replied, and then, like, waited for the earth to finish rotating before he finally tore his eyes away from her. “Lydia—hope you enjoy the city. I'll see you both soon?”

I nodded. “Def. Thanks, Bing!”

He waved and disappeared back down the steps.

“Let's get you settled in,” Jane said, pushing open the door to the apartment.

NYC apartments on TV are always really cute and spacious—turns out, that's a total lie. Well, not a total lie. Jane's apartment was cute (duh, it's
Jane's
), but spacious . . . not exactly.

“Oops, sorry,” I said as I banged one of my suitcases against the wall. We were both inching down the narrow hallway toward the rest of the apartment sideways.

“Allison, this is my sister, Lydia,” Jane said as we finally made it into the slightly wider space of the living room.

My eyes darted around the room, mentally matching things up to the pictures we had all insisted Jane send us, and finally landed on a girl who looked to be about the same age as my sister, curled up in the corner of a cute black-and-white-striped couch with a book in her hands.