Fall For You [The Jane Austen Academy Series #1] (14 page)

The noise gave way to silence, except for the occasional squeak of a shoe tapping against the floor or someone sipping a drink.

“Thank you, Jasta students! I’ll only take a moment of your time.”

Anne quickly walked through the lunch room, handing out a pamphlet to each student who would take one.

“As you know, Headmistress Berg announced that the name of our academy, the Jane Austen Academy, would be changed under the new ownership.” Lizzie’s gaze flickered to Dante, who was gripping his fork tightly. “Under the school’s charter, we have a right to petition the new owners not to change the name. I know many of you haven’t been coming here long. In fact, at least half of you wouldn’t have been allowed on school grounds if you’d tried to enter last May.”

A few people in the crowd grumbled, and Lizzie knew she had to regroup quickly.

“But that’s kind of the point,” she said. “Anne is handing out a pamphlet of articles from the very first printing of the
Gazette
in 1873, when it was founded by her great-great-great-great-great-grandmother—specifically because she couldn’t find a good school that would allow her daughter on the premises.”

She could hear the rustling of paper as people bent over their pamphlets. Someone turned the page into a paper airplane, which he threw into the air. A trickle of laughter filled the room. Another airplane went flying, but Dante caught it, crumpled it, and tossed it in the trash.

Lizzie shot him a puzzled look—was he trying to help her? Regardless, she had to forge on.

“Anne’s great-great-great-great-great-grandmother chose to call our school the Jane Austen Academy, not only because that was her favorite author, but because Jane Austen wrote about the limitations imposed on girls at the time. The name of the school was supposed to be a reminder that we didn’t have to accept things the way they were. That things could change. I’m okay with how things have changed. Letting in boys was a good change.”

Somebody woo-hooed from the back and another crowd clapped.

“Yes! That’s right,” Lizzie said, clapping herself to encourage the noise. “Change is good! Change that tears down limitations and barriers is good. Change that brings in friendly competition is good. But not all change is good. Changing the name of the Jane Austen Academy means changing the values of our school, the principles upon which it was founded.”

She could hear the fast clicking of heels. Bergie was running into the cafeteria—God knew who had called her to tell her what Lizzie was doing.

“Please consider signing the petition to keep our name,” she said quickly as she stepped down from the table. Bergie reached her, arms folded across the front of another bright orange sheath dress.

“Up to no good, Lizzie?” she said.

“It’s within the school’s charter,” Lizzie said. “And what’s wrong with a little history lesson?”

“Nothing,” Bergie said with a fake, sweet smile. “As long as you realize it won’t make a difference. The new owners have the sole discretion to rename this school, regardless of the student body’s recommendation. I suppose you’ll expect me to pass on your petition?”

“No,” Lizzie said with a triumphant smirk. She hopped off the table and leaned close enough to Bergie to whisper in her ear. “I’ll just ask Georgiana to hand it over to her parents.”

She allowed herself a split second to enjoy the shock in Bergie’s widening eyes before she turned around and flounced out of the cafeteria with Anne.

* * *

“How are we supposed to cover your lunch announcement?” Georgiana asked once the entire staff had congregated in the Journalism room. “Won’t it be weird to cover the news when you were the news?”

Georgiana had no idea how weird all of this was, Lizzie realized. No idea of her part in the new school’s ownership. Why didn’t she? And why would her parents buy the school in the first place? She had since researched Dante’s record and he had been at the top of his class at Exeter—a shoo-in for Georgetown
without
the transfer.

“I’ll handle it as an editorial,” Lizzie said. “There’s too much bias to pretend otherwise.”

“I have a lot of supportive on-the-street interviews,” Georgiana said. “But lots of indifferent ones, too.”

“That’s fine,” Lizzie said. “Why don’t we go for a quick walk?”

Georgiana tried to hide her surprise. Lizzie rarely singled out any one reporter for conversation, but Lizzie knew there was a story here. She’d suspected it from day one with Georgiana, even before she knew her parents had bought Jasta. Now the instinct was practically screaming at her. She wanted to report on Dante’s parents being the new owners, but she suspected she didn’t know the whole story, and as a responsible reporter, she had to.

She waited patiently as Georgiana put on her coat and the two of them wandered outside in the light drizzle.

“It’s almost never this chilly,” Lizzie said almost apologetically, as Georgiana buried herself deeper in her coat.

“I don’t mind,” Georgiana said. “It reminds me of home. I mean…you know, my real home.”

“You miss it?”

Georgiana nodded.

“You didn’t want to leave, did you? What happened?”

Georgiana stopped, her hands in her pockets, staring at the wet grass.

“Are you okay?” Lizzie rested a hand on her arm.

She nodded, but began shaking and pressed the back of her hand to her nose as she drew in a sob.

Lizzie felt awful. She ran her hands in tight circles on Georgiana’s back, trying to be comforting. “It’s okay, we don’t have to talk about it. We don’t.” She wanted the story, but Georgiana seemed so distressed.

“No, it’s okay. I should talk about it. That’s what my therapist says—although Dante and my mom and dad would kill him if they knew. But I should talk about it.”

“Would you rather talk to someone else? If it’s too weird…with me…being a journalist and all.”

“It’s good to talk to you. You don’t treat me like a child—like Dante used to. Like I’m breakable. Although I guess that’s my fault.”

Georgiana resumed walking, leading them to a private grove of trees near the auditorium. “I got in trouble last year. You know, the kind of trouble that is a nightmare for every parent with a daughter in high school. He was cute. He was charming. He wasn’t into protection.”

“Oh.” Georgiana suddenly transformed in her eyes—she’d been seeing her as young and naïve, but apparently she was more than that. She was worldly and sad.

“My parents were horrified. They were going to send me to Europe for a year. Hide me away in the mountains. Dante beat the guy up and got expelled from his school, although I’m sure my parents managed to clean up his records.”

It explained why he’d had to leave Exeter, but still not why their parents had bought the Jane Austen Academy—there were a dozen other reputable places to send him.

“When I miscarried, the worst part of it was how happy my parents were,” Georgiana said, her voice a crack upon a whisper. “It’s not like I wanted to be a teen mom, but they were celebrating. They opened a bottle of
champagne
.” Georgiana closed her eyes.

“I’m so sorry—it must have been awful.”

“It was,” Georgiana said. “And I did want a fresh start. I couldn’t stand to be around them after they’d practically thrown a ball in honor of my baby dying. But I didn’t want to be hidden away in Europe, either. I said I wanted California. And this is the best school in California.”

“So you wanted to come to the Jane Austen Academy?”

Georgiana nodded. “The brochures—all these girls that just seemed to know what they wanted in life. I wanted that, too. It was such a coincidence that the school allowed boys the same year, because Dante swore up and down that I wasn’t going to a school without him.”

He had? Dante had insisted on going to school with his sister?

Suddenly everything clicked for Lizzie.

Why his parents had bought the school. How it ended up co-ed.

It was him. It had always been him.

Chapter Thirteen

Lizzie knocked on Ellie’s door.

It swung open. Emma stood there in a pair of silk pajamas. She opened it further and Lizzie could see Ellie in her trademark board shorts and tank top, lying on her stomach on the bed poring over a math textbook. Ellie looked up.

Lizzie flashed her clipboard. “Can I count on you guys for signatures?”

“Of course. Come in,” Emma said, gesturing.

Lizzie handed her the clipboard as she walked in. Emma scribbled her signature. “Great talk at lunch, by the way.”

“It wasn’t too much?” Lizzie asked.

“Of course it was,” Emma said. “But that’s what I liked about it.”

“You gave me the idea, you know.”

“I did?” Emma’s glance flipped to Ellie. “Did you hear that?”

“She did?” Ellie sat up, cross-legged.

“Yeah, when you gave me the book of old newspaper features, it inspired me to go back to the original issues of the
Gazette
. That’s where I read all the articles on the founding and how the original students felt when the doors opened. That’s when I realized that by trying to keep out boys, I was guilty of the same thing the original students had been victimized by.”

“Wow!” Emma grinned. “I’m like your muse.”

“Let’s not take it that far,” Lizzie said. “But I did want to say thank you.” She turned to Ellie. “And sorry. I’m so sorry, Ellie—I got all caught up—”

Ellie was off the bed and hugging her before she could even finish. “I hate it when we fight,” Ellie whispered.

“Me, too.” Lizzie pulled away, took the clipboard from Emma, and handed it to Ellie. “But it seems like it all worked out. Else we would never have gotten the Blondies.”

Ellie rolled her eyes and signed the sheet in the clipboard.

“Are you guys cool now?” Emma asked. “The world doesn’t seem right otherwise.”

“We have to do one more thing,” Lizzie said.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Ellie asked.

“Yeah—but we have to grab someone first.”

* * *

Anne craned her neck to see the very top of the oldest, largest apple tree. “Is this safe?”

“No,” Lizzie said. “That’s why we do it.”

She and Ellie looked at other and smiled. Ellie went first, scaling the tree like it was a ladder, her long arms and lean limbs easily grabbing holds along the way. Lizzie went next. Although she was shorter, she climbed this tree every year, and every year it got easier.

“I wish you’d warned me not to wear heels,” Emma called up the tree.

“Who wears heels with silk pajamas?” Lizzie called down. “Kick them off!”

“Are you nuts? These are Prada,” Emma yelled.

With each branch she gained, Lizzie felt the wind pick up in her hair. Her clothes were getting wet from the mist and the moisture off the tree trunk, but she didn’t care and she could tell Ellie didn’t, either. The ground fell further and further away. Lizzie felt heady and a little dizzy. She loved it.

She finally reached the top branch and perched up next to Ellie. Sitting like this, with their feet dangling in space, it almost felt like flying. That there was nothing above, around, or beneath them.

She heard a squeak as Anne’s foot slipped off a branch, but she held on.

“Whose idea was this?” Emma asked as she held precariously onto the trunk.

“Ellie and I do this every year,” Lizzie called down. “It’s tradition. You’re almost here.”

Ellie and Lizzie smiled as Anne and Emma grumbled beneath them, slowly making their way up.

Finally Anne reached the topmost branch. Lizzie gave her a helping hand as she shimmied to sit. Anne in turn helped Emma until the four of them were side by side on the heavy bough, their legs dangling twenty feet up.

“This is crazy,” Emma said. “And I’m sure these silk jammy bottoms are ruined.”

“We’re not done,” Ellie said.

“Please don’t say this is where we jump,” Anne said.

Lizzie and Ellie shared a secret smile. Lizzie would have thought she’d be jealous to share their first-day ritual with Anne, whom she’d always thought of as her nemesis, and Emma, whom she had always dismissed as an East Coast snob. But somehow, the ritual felt even better because they were all here together.

Ellie and Lizzie held hands. Lizzie grabbed Anne’s hand and Anne followed suit, taking Emma’s hand.

Then they held their fists up to the sky—and Lizzie and Ellie screamed at the top of their lungs.

“We will be heard!” Lizzie shouted.

Anne and Emma hesitated only a moment before joining in. “We will be heard!” Their voices lifted up to the sky, carrying up and over the grounds of the Jane Austen Academy and even echoing through the hills around Merrywood.

Their screams slowly died down to giggles and laughter.

A small crowd had gathered at the base of the tree, and a few classmates glanced up from the hill. They had plenty of time to climb down before a teacher, who wouldn’t likely be this far out this late after classes, discovered them.