The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet (39 page)

And I was left to sort out my feelings.

There’s no way Gigi would lie about her brother, so it has to be true. Darcy bought an Internet porn company, and dismantled it, to stop my sister’s sex tape from being released.

I can feel that familiar queasiness in my stomach, as I am once again dancing on that thin line between dread and hope, thinking that Darcy might have done it for me.

But if he had . . . I would know, right?

Wouldn’t he call me?

Maybe he’ll call.

No, Lizzie. Stop being foolish.

. . .

. . .

Still, I should make sure my phone is fully charged. And the ringer on. Just in case.

You know, I kind of hoped we were done with drama in the Bennet household. Things have been much calmer with Lydia taking some time to heal and Jane and Bing on the East Coast.
Dad comes home after work every day and hangs out with his daughters. Mom is happily occupied dreaming of the day Bing and Jane get engaged and deliver her grandchildren, and I’m keeping my
nose to the grindstone, writing my thesis and last independent study concurrently. So, all in all, things have been pretty calm around here.

All of that changed yesterday, when Caroline Lee barged into the den and confronted me.

Yes, confronted me.

About what, I’m still not sure. But she was incredibly angry when she came in and accused me of ruining her brother’s life by encouraging him to run away with Jane, and now ruining
Darcy’s.

Let’s put aside the fact that I have absolutely no say or influence over Bing’s life—or my sister’s. And I told Caroline as much. But to say that I ruined Darcy’s
life, when I have almost nothing to do with him at this present point in time, is frankly ludicrous.

But Caroline has been watching my videos. And she blew it out, point by point.

She said it was my doing, and my doing alone, that had Bing quitting school and running off with Jane. Jane wasn’t strong enough, and Bing had never made a decision of that magnitude in
his life, according to her. Of course, Bing didn’t even find out about my videos until after he quit school, but in Caroline’s mind, that’s neither here nor there.

She also said that Darcy taking time away from his business
to go solve my younger sister’s crisis looks extremely bad to his financiers. Especially his aunt,
Catherine De Bourgh. Caroline claimed she was thinking of withdrawing her support, but since I worked at Pemberley, I know how well they are doing, and a businesswoman as savvy as Ms. De Bourgh
wouldn’t make such a decision on such a flimsy excuse.

Caroline kept going on and on about how terrible I was for her brother and Darcy, how it was
my
influence that was making them make terrible decisions.

Oh, yeah, Caroline? Decisions like making your brother break up with my sister?

That was when I decided to pull out the big guns. It was time to finally ask Caroline about Jane’s supposed “indiscretion” the night of Bing’s birthday party. Because if
Jane has no idea, Bing wasn’t sure, and it seemed like Darcy wasn’t entirely sure, either (although he’s the one who saw it), then Caroline is the only one who’s left.

“You mean your sister never told you she kissed another man?” she said so smugly, I knew that if Jane
had
kissed another man, then it was Caroline who orchestrated it. After
all, she’d been in Jane’s company the whole night.

And she didn’t deny it.

What Caroline did do was, at Bing birthday party, somehow fix it so that Jane was kissed by one of Bing’s drunk friends, and Darcy saw, misinterpreting it as a betrayal of Bing.
That’s it. That’s the big mystery. One that could have been cleared up by PEOPLE TALKING TO OTHER PEOPLE. Since I’m one of the people who often has trouble with such
communication, I shouldn’t judge, but I can’t help but think of all the heartache that could have been saved had Caroline not been so desperate to get her brother away from Jane.

She had the audacity to say that she was simply doing what was best for the people she cares about. She “helps them.”

And there she was, accusing me of interference!

I was so angry, and honestly exhausted by the whole thing, I did the only thing I could. I told the truth. With everything I had in my power.

“Well, let me help you with something. You know who’s in charge of Darcy’s life? Darcy. And you know who’s in charge of mine? Me. The same goes for Bing and for
Jane.” I took a deep breath. “And now, despite the fact that you’ve come into my house and insulted me, and my family, again, please consider yourself welcome to stay for
dinner.”

I’m particularly proud of that last part. My mom’s southern hospitality is born and bred in us, and it had the pleasant side effect of making me look like the better person.

She turned me down. And walked out.

It took only about five seconds for me to start to feel bad. And to feel like we weren’t done. I mean, why does Caroline think she gets to control my life? Because that’s what she
was doing—she was there to make me feel terrible for her brother and my sister being happy together, and to make sure that I kept my greedy mitts off of Darcy. And if she’s been
watching my videos, she knows there is no call for such a warning, because he doesn’t want anything to do with
me
anymore. But that didn’t stop Caroline.

Yeah, we definitely weren’t done.

Quickly, I jumped up and followed her out to her car.

“Caroline,” I called out, stopping her from opening the door. She kept her curtain of shiny black hair in front of her face, blocking me from her view.

“You know, if you think you can barge into my life and start ordering me around, then—”

Her head whipped up then. She was . . . crying.

“Obviously I
can’t
,” she spat at me.

“Caroline,” I said, much softer.

“You get your own life. Darcy gets his own life. Jane gets hers, Bing gets his.” She blew out an angry breath. “
THEN WHAT DO I GET?!?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” I replied, shocked. “I think you have to find that out for yourself.”

She looked for a second like she was about to say something else, but she just ended up mumbling under her breath, “Of course,” before climbing in her car and screeching out of the
driveway.

When I turned around, Lydia was standing in the doorway.

“What was that all about?” she asked, wrinkling her nose at the car fading into the distance.

“I’m not totally sure. It’s complicated.”

Lydia crossed her arms. “Explain it to me over fro-yo? I’ll drive.”

So I did. Over red velvet cake fro-yo with coconut shavings.

“It doesn’t even make sense, right?” I said when I was done. “Her coming here and throwing all that stuff at me. Especially the stuff about Darcy. I mean, I know Caroline
has a crush on him, but it’s not like—”

“Yeah, that’s not what this is about,” Lydia said, swallowing a spoonful of yogurt.

“It’s not?”

“It’s about how everything was going fine in Caroline-land up until a year ago, then it all started to fall apart when Bing quit school.”

“Wait . . . Bing quit school only a couple of months ago—not last year.”

Lydia shot me a glance over the top of her sunglasses. “The first time he quit school, I mean.”

I blinked. “The first time he quit school?”

“Lizzie, med students don’t get five months off in the summer to just hang out. And people who aren’t like in the midst of a
total
identity crisis don’t just up
and buy a house in the middle of nowhere. Bing dropped out of school. And Caroline and Darcy were sent up here to get him back on track.”

Little puzzle pieces were beginning to fall into place in my head. Bing being able to simply leave LA and buy Netherfield. The looks his parents gave him at his birthday party. And toward the
end of summer—all the pressure on him, the flying back to LA for “interviews,” the lack of communication between him and Jane. He’d quit school. And he’d been
pressured into going back.

“But if Caroline saw her brother was unhappy . . .”

Lydia shook her head. “Lizzie, if I told you I’m quitting school, starting a rock band with Mary, and moving to Mexico, what would you do?”

I answered without hesitation. “I’d lock you in your room until your passport expired.”

“Well, damn, there goes that life plan,” she smirked at me. “I actually really feel bad for Caroline. As bitchy as she is. Especially about me.” She furrowed her brow.
“Scratch that—I don’t feel bad for her at all.”

“Yeah you do,” I replied, watching Lydia carefully. “Why?”

My sister shrugged, and focused on her yogurt. “I dunno. It’s just . . . she’s not the golden child. People don’t have expectations of her. And that can really suck.
Finally, she was asked to do something important and she proved herself. It was hard enough the first time to pull him away from Jane, but to have him go back—and quit school
again
—means she failed.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked after a moment.

Lydia just gave me a look that spoke volumes about my current stupidity. “Because I watched them. Duh.”

I let that settle over me as my yogurt melted. Meanwhile, Lydia finished hers and lobbed the cup toward the trash can in a perfect arc.

“Anyway, all the Darcy stuff stems from that. She can’t get her brother to listen to reason, she sees her crush Darcy following the same path, and suddenly she doesn’t have
anything.”

“Okay, all the Bing stuff makes sense,” I reasoned. “But Darcy’s not following the same path. He’s not running away, or wildly altering his life to be with . . .
someone.”

“Right—’cuz most people buy companies for no reason.” Lydia just sent me that smirk again. “You keep telling yourself that.”

“He didn’t—”

Lydia just eyed me and stood up from the table. “Whatevs. Are you done with that or do you want to grab a lid for it? Either way, I’m not letting you in
my
car with an open
drippy yogurt.”

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. About what Charlotte said, about what Caroline said, and about what Lydia said.

And I’ve come to absolutely zero conclusions.

Maybe because I haven’t spoken to the one person in this situation that matters—Darcy.

I keep saying that Darcy and I are not involved, that it was a moment of possibility that passed. But I recently finished my rewatch of all my videos, and . . . maybe we are.

But if we were involved, why haven’t I heard one word from him? Especially when he went through so much trouble to save my sister.

Unless he didn’t want me to know.

Darcy has managed to completely bewilder me. Yet again. Go figure.

At one point, I thought I knew him, and I dismissed him. Then I got to know him, and I realized there was so much more.

I just don’t want to sit here passively, wondering forever. Which means maybe I should take matters into my own hands.

“He hasn’t called back yet, has he?” Charlotte asked immediately when I opened the door.

“Happy early birthday to you, too,” I replied. “Why don’t you come out of the rain before you start the inquisition.”

“It’s barely drizzling,” Charlotte said, but she stepped inside and shook off her jacket. “And, happy early birthday!”

Tomorrow is Charlotte’s and my mutual birthday. Our mothers went into labor at the same book club meeting, and delivered us about three hours apart. I don’t think book club has ever
been as interesting since.

Not many people can say that they’ve known each other their entire lives, but Charlotte and I can. Hence why Charlotte thinks she’s earned the right to bombard me with personal
questions the minute she walks in the door.

Which she probably has.

“So . . . did Darcy call back yet?”

Yes, amazingly, over the past couple of weeks I managed to forget that I don’t live in the nineteenth century. And while I was biting my nails over the fact that I hadn’t heard from
Darcy, and wistfully cyber-stalking him, I conveniently forgot that telecommunications work both ways. (I blame the movies for this little gendered slip-up.) So, finally, at my wits’ end, I
gave Darcy a call. And ended up leaving a message.

“Hey, Darcy. It’s Lizzie . . . Um, if you could call me when you get a sec, I’d like to . . . chat.”

I don’t think I’ve ever been lamer. And trust me, I’ve been very, very lame in my time.

That was three days ago.

“No, I haven’t heard back from him,” I told Charlotte. “Why do you have what has to be the entire freezer section of Ben and Jerry’s?”

“I was hedging my bets,” she replied. “Either you would be miserable over the lack of Darcy calling, or he would be here and you would be making out, in which case I would just
go eat this all by myself on the way to the SPCA to pick out a cat. Maybe a ferret.”

“It’s the former,” I said, taking a pint of Cherry Garcia.

After three days, a girl can take a hint. I don’t know what I’d hoped for when I called Darcy. But I know that the idea of hearing his voice again got my heart beating faster, so the
fact that I haven’t can only be a disappointment. It’s so strange. Not six months ago, I thought Darcy was snobby, rude, and stuck-up. I thought he was convinced that he was better than
everyone else and that I in particular was beneath him, and worthy of scorn. So I scorned him right back.

But now my feelings have changed so much. Now I know he’s shy, and strong, and loyal. Yes, a little socially awkward, but it makes his efforts all the more endearing. Now, I know he
doesn’t feel that he’s better than me. But I know that he
is
better. And if I could go back in time, I would do everything differently.

So, yes, I’m a little sad. But I have plenty of other things to worry about. My final independent study, building out my prospectus based on my own fictional web video company, and
finishing my thesis. The videos will have to end sometime soon so I can put the whole project together.