Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet (9781476763248) (3 page)

Lizzie's been treating me differently since everything happened with George. I mean, everyone has, but Lizzie's the most noticeable. She's been more attentive, more patient, more interested in my life. Which is great! Don't get me wrong. But she's also the one who wants to make sure I'm the most
okay
. Sometimes it's a little much.

We fought before George and I crossed paths. We argued more often than not to begin with, but that fight was worse than the usual “siblings who are super different bickering over dumb stuff” kind of fighting. That was the longest I think we've ever gone without talking. I know she feels partly responsible for everything that happened. And yeah, maybe if we hadn't fought, I wouldn't have gone to Vegas and I wouldn't have run into George and I wouldn't have
made out with him and . . . et cetera. But that doesn't make it her fault. The choices made were George's, and mine.

It would be great if she'd realize that.

While the waitress came, took our order, and brought our food back far too quickly for it to be fresh, I managed to coerce Lizzie into at least talking to me
about
Darcy, even if she was still refusing to talk
to
him while we were together. (Added bonus: we weren't talking about me. After talking about myself for an hour with Ms. W, even I was a little worn out on the topic.)

“So, is Darce ready for cohabitation?” I teased. “Has he stocked the fridge with your favorite Ethiopian food and artisanal cheeses?”

“Okay, one: Who has a favorite artisanal cheese? And two: We aren't cohabitating. I'm house-sitting for Dr. Gardiner's friend, remember?”

“Whatever, you're still gonna see the inside of his . . . fridge.” Lizzie threw a straw at me. “Fine. Are you guys ready to be living in the same city? Giving up the strain of long-distance sexting and webcam convos?”

“Yes,” she said, blushing again. I can read Lizzie like a book. No, like a tweet. And thinking about Darcy made her so adorable it was gross. “But, um . . . we've lived in the same town before.
This
town, in fact.”

“Yeah, but you weren't exactly starry-eyed lovers back then.”

Actually, I'm pretty sure if they'd have stayed in the same town for much longer, the universe would have imploded from frowning and visibly uncomfortable dances.

But now? He makes my sister happy. She doesn't say it, but any idiot can tell. And Lydia Bennet is way more observant than your average person. I don't think I've seen her smile this much since her science teacher let her do weekly extra-credit assignments in eighth grade. Which is great—I was really starting to worry about her getting premature forehead wrinkles.

“How was counseling?” Lizzie asked. Oh, goody, talking about me again.

I shrugged. “I think Ms. Winters is threatened by how totally easy it would be for me to take over her job.”

Lizzie laughed but didn't look up at me as she pushed her salad around with her fork. Probably looking for grasshopper legs. “I think she's got a few years before she has to worry about that.”

“Pretty much what she said. It's fine, though. Same as always. She told me I could come by this week if anything gets weird at school.”

“Do you think it will?”

I shrugged again. “I don't think so. I hope not. I mean, I think everything will be fine.”

She waited, eyes focused on me.

“I just want to get through summer and move on.”

“Of course,” said Lizzie, setting down her fork. “But if anything gets to be too much . . .”

“I'll talk to Ms. Winters. Or Mary, or you, or Jane, or whoever.”

“It's okay if that happens. We don't mind.”

“I know!”

“Okay!” Lizzie held up her hands in surrender. “I'm sorry. I'm just trying to help.”

I took a breath and steadied myself.

“I know, I know. I'm sorry,” I replied. “Everything's going to be fine.”

“I'm sure you're right.”

I picked at the remains of my burger while Lizzie finished up her salad.

“Lydia . . .”

I didn't look up. Lizzie had that hitch in her voice that I knew meant she was having a hard time finding the words for what she wanted to say. The conversations that followed were always serious. I was tiring of serious. Serious was hard. Serious meant things weren't back to normal.

“I don't know how to do this.”

Was she waiting on me to respond? Did she want me to ask what she doesn't know how to do? Hey, you know what's fascinating? This crack in my plate. It kinda looks like the outline of Kentucky. Or
maybe Virginia, or Iowa, something like that. I never paid much attention to geography.

“I don't want you to think I don't trust you, or that I think you can't handle being on your own—” Montana, maybe? A European country? As little as I know about American geography, I know less about European. “But I'm not sure how to leave and not worry about you. I feel like we're just starting to get on the same page, but I still don't really know what's in your head most of the time.”

No, definitely Kentucky.

“I know it sucks for me to ask this, but I need you to tell me it's okay that I'm going.”

The waitress chose that moment to swoop in and snatch Lizzie's plate and my Kentucky off the table and leave the check in their place. No, we didn't want coffee or dessert, thanks for asking.

With nothing else to properly distract me, I met my sister's eyes, finally. “Lizzie, it's not okay that you're going. It's more than okay. It's great. I want you to be happy. I don't want to hold you back from that.”

“You're not—”

“I know I'm not,” I cut her off. “Because you're going. You're gonna go start your life, really start it, the same way Jane did, the same way I'm going to in a few months. I'll be up at Central Bay before you know it. Everything. Is. Going. To. Be. Fine. Got it?”

“Okay,” she finally agreed. “Got it.”

“Good. I assume you also mean this meal, so, you pay for that”—I shoved the bill at her—“and I'm going to do the one thing we never do here.” I looked off toward a dim hallway with a noticeably crooked and likely never dusted sign that read
RESTROOMS
with an arrow pointing into the darkness.

“Really? Are you sure?” Lizzie cringed, and with good reason. The bathrooms at Crash are notorious for never being cleaned. Carter's—a
bar
—gets a lot of traffic from people who walk across the street after dinner and buy a drink just so they can use the bathroom.

“I'm feeling adventurous,” I told her. “Back in a minute.”

I made my way toward the hallway, dodged a cobweb, and pushed open the squeaky door.

I turned the faucet on, letting the water run for a moment to clear the rust (ew), and rinsed my hands underneath it. Just to have something to do, I think. I just needed to get away. Needed a minute out from under Lizzie's eyes. She's right; she still can't read me all that well. I don't let her. But I know that could change at any moment. And this is not the right time for that. I meant every word I said about Lizzie needing to start her life, and about me being okay. Or at least, I want to be okay. And I need her to leave in order to try.

But at the same time, as irritating as Lizzie's vigilance can be, it's been a constant over the past few months. A part of me can't help but wonder:
If I'm not feeling annoyance, what will that leave me open to feeling in its place?

Nothing
, I decided. Well, that sounds incredibly emo. Not
nothing
nothing, but not the things I'm afraid of, at least. I'll do just as I said, keep my head down, finish classes, and move on. Things will be fine once I get out of this dumb town.

I'm not worried.

I am worried.

But I won't let myself be.

That's all there is to it, right? Have a plan. Follow through with said plan. And . . . something. I'm not sure what. Something decent and rewarding. Worry about that later.

I combed my fingers through my hair. I smiled into the mirror. I straightened my top.

One step at a time.

And the next step was saying bye to Lizzie.

She was waiting for me by her car when I came outside.

“You survived. You may be the first. What was it like?”

“Peeling flower wallpaper. Couple of ghosts. Pretty much what you'd expect.”

“Poor ghosts. They deserve better.”

“Are you leaving straight from here?” I asked, peering into the window of her fully packed car.

“Yeah. Dad doesn't want me driving too late.”

“Okay.”

“Call me tomorrow? After classes?”

“Okay.”

“I'll see you soon. Don't say ‘okay.' ”

I grinned. “All right.”

She shook her head. “I won't overwhelm you with more overprotective sisterly stuff, but I love you.”

“Yeah, I know. I love you, too, Lizzie.”

We hugged. She got in her car. And she left.

I know it's melodramatic to see someone leave and think of every time anyone's left you, but as Lizzie drove out of that parking lot, I can't say it didn't cross my mind. Lizzie, Jane, all my school friends, George . . . there's been a lot of leaving. A lot of leaving me. I know that's life. I do. I know that. But I still can't help but feel there's been a pattern lately of watching people disappear out of, if not my life, at least my town.

I'm not entirely sure what it meant, but the next thought to cross my mind wasn't that I wanted them all to come back.

I wanted to be the one leaving.

“You're here!” I squealed as I came into the house. Mary was busy unpacking her ugly army duffel bag into Jane's old dresser. Unlike Lizzie's room/Mom's new Zen garden/aquarium/whatever, Mom had kept Jane's room exactly the same, like a shrine to everything Etsy.

“Okay, I can't breathe now,” Mary said, squished beneath me. It's possible I tackled her. You can't prove anything.

“I'm just so glad to see you!” I said, helping her up. (She could have just fallen over in her excitement to see me. You still can't prove anything.) “We're going to have such a blast! All-night slumber parties! Ragers at Carter's! Getting you to wear colors!”

“I'm not here for slumber parties or color,” Mary replied, stone-faced. “I thought you weren't ‘raging' these days, anyway.”

“I'm not,” I said. “I'm all study, all the time. I'm basically you, minus”—I looked her up and down, trying not to cringe at the tattered Evanescence shirt and cargo shorts—“all the you parts. Scout's honor.”

I was a Girl Scout once. Heavy on the
once
. Mom didn't make me go back after I realized I couldn't use the badges as currency at the mall.

But Mary's not here to jump back into the party lifestyle with me, like she said. She's here because the coffee shop next to my campus (called Books Beans and Buds—the buds are from the adjacent flower shop. Many a confused college kid has thought it meant something else) pays double what the pizza place in her hometown does. So she'll save up cash and work for Lizzie's new company remotely doing accounting stuff until I graduate and we can ride off into the sunset.

The sunset in this scenario being an apartment of our own near campus for me and near Lizzie's still-unnamed-and-somewhat-fictitious New Media start-up company for Mary.

That's the goal. I go to school, Mary is Lizzie's person in charge of numbers, and we share an apartment with Kitty, who will rule over us all.

“Girls! Dinnertime!”

And in the meantime, this gives Mom someone else to feed.

*  *  *

Dinner is one of those rare things we had always done as a family, even as we got older. Sure, sometimes Dad worked late and
sometimes Jane and Lizzie and I were out doing extracurriculars or hanging with friends, but without fail, Mom always made a meal for the whole family and anyone who was able to would stop whatever we were doing and sit down and eat. Even when she was sick. Even when no one else was going to be home at the same time. She'd call it her “mom duties,” and Lizzie would inevitably go off about antiquated gender roles, but Mom would just tell her to be quiet and warm up some leftovers later if she couldn't make it to the table when food was served.

There are three times I can remember Mom being home and
not
making dinner:

1. When she refused to step away from the TV during coverage of the Royal Wedding.

2. The week after Jane's kind-of-then-boyfriend-but-definitely-current-boyfriend Bing left town and Mom was convinced Jane would never get married.

3. The morning she found out about me and George.

When Lizzie found out, she thought I'd made the tape to get back at her, that I was proving my irresponsibility and lack of foresight. I understood why she thought that. I still do. When Dad found out, he just felt guilty. Guilty that he hadn't been paying more attention or been more involved in our lives.

I didn't know how Mom would react, and I wasn't sure I could deal with it. So I asked Dad to tell her. Maybe that was cowardly of me. But Ms. W says I have to look out for myself. She also says things about how I have to face my fears and take responsibility for my life, but all those things seemed to kind of cancel each other out in this instance, so I went with having Dad talk to Mom.

He stayed in the kitchen after breakfast one Saturday and waited for Mom to finish cleaning up. Just waited at the table. He tried to help, but she wouldn't let him. It took longer that way.

I'd been sitting on the stairs, listening, like we used to do as kids. It was the perfect place to hear things happening in the kitchen without being seen. But then Dad started telling her everything.