The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet (8 page)

But then I heard my mom laugh again, a little trill that told me their brief disagreement was over.

“Lizzie? Where are the rest of the bags?” she called out, after I heard my dad move down the hall and close the bathroom door. (If Dad’s not in his den, he’s in the
bathroom. He told us a long time ago that it’s a man thing.)

I plastered a smile on my face as I came out of the den, carrying the rest of the groceries. I couldn’t think about the money issue any more. At least not today. Because my mother was
strapping on her apron and beginning to flutter all over the kitchen, and it wasn’t even ten in the morning yet.

I figured if I could just focus on getting Mom through the dinner, everything else could wait.

“Now Lizzie, do you think I have time to learn how to make sushi? It’s not as if I have to cook anything, right?”

Tonight is going to be a doozy.

3 a.m. I can’t sleep. Not because I’m wide awake, but because there is literally no room. Lydia is hogging all corners of my not-exactly-spacious double bed. Oh,
and when Lydia drinks, she becomes a thrasher in her sleep. Seriously, I was about to try and climb in next to her, when she kicked wildly and gifted me with a healthy bruise on my shin.

Suffice to say, the evening did not proceed even remotely as planned. Oh, Bing and Caroline came over for dinner. Bing brought a bottle of wine, which was a lovely gesture. (But by the way my
mom fawned over it, you would think such a thing was rare and exquisite, and that we didn’t live within driving distance of the entire Central California wine valley region.) And yes, Mom
cooked food. And she only asked Bing and Caroline once if they minded that she didn’t use soy sauce. But sometime around the appetizers, things started to go awry.

We were all sitting in the formal living room—which is really just Dad’s den, but Mom forced him to hide all his papers and desk stuff and move the “good” couch from the
regular living room in there. Then she made him feng shui the entire space. (Another aside: I know formal living rooms are a relic from when people “paid calls” on each other and sat
sipping tea, but when did we stop having formal living rooms? The eighties?)

Mom had also demanded that her daughters dress appropriately. For my mother, “appropriately” means something akin to a debutante ball. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had lace
parasols in a closet somewhere, ready to be pulled out at a moment’s notice. Luckily, Jane got home from her work in time to bring some fashion expertise and sanity to the situation, and we
all looked normal, if a little dressy.

“You look amazing,” Bing said to Jane, as he sat next to her. “Is that new?”

“Oh, my, is it from Marc Jacobs’s fall collection? You have samples at your store?” Caroline fawned, reaching forward to touch the skirt.

“No, actually—this is a vintage dress I altered,” Jane replied.

While that made Bing light up with admiration, I couldn’t help but notice that Caroline dropped the material instantly.

“My Jane can make a ball gown out of sack cloth, if she puts her mind to it,” my mom said, sitting on the arm of my dad’s chair. “She is so talented. And smart. If only
that job of hers appreciated her skills. To be honest with you, I think her employers are using the economy as an excuse to keep her pay low. Why, with a little more money, imagine what Jane could
do—start her own clothing line, move out on her own. Of course, you don’t need to imagine, Bing, you
know
.”

“Erm,” my father interjected, picking up the bottle Bing had brought. “Shall we try this wine?”

Whatever conversation my dad had with my mom earlier, it must have been extreme to have unsettled her like this. Because my mother would never—
never
—talk about money in
front of new acquaintances. Especially ones she wanted to impress.

It’s also possible that she’d been taking nips of some cooking sherry in the kitchen. Sometimes the cooking itself isn’t enough to de-stress her.

But Bing didn’t seem to notice anything untoward, launching into a polite conversation about the wine with my father, how they had picked it up at a local winery, and venturing that
perhaps he and Jane could go there sometime, make a day of it.

From there, we repaired to the dining room (we only have the real one, thank goodness), where Mom served everyone an . . . international array of cuisine. The evening was still going okay at
this point, which was when Lydia decided to make herself known.

I can only guess that she was pretty bored and no one was paying much attention to her.

“So, um, Bing,” she started, scooting her chair closer to his. As I was Mom’s assistant in the kitchen, I had to be near the kitchen door, and thus was not able to position
myself to block Bing’s non-Jane side from familial intrusion. “You’re, like, a med student, right?”

“Yes,” Bing smiled, a little cautious. After all, he’d been thoroughly questioned already about his medical studies at UCLA, his choice of specialty, and the weird growth on my
dad’s big toe.

“Do you, like, examine people yet?”

“Not yet—I still have another year to go before we see patients on our own.”

“Then, how do you, like, practice? Do you—oh, my God—play Doctor with your fellow med students? You’d have to, like, look at their privates and stuff. That would be so
crazy. You’d have to see them
naked
.” Lydia’s eyes went wide. “And I just got the
best
idea of how to pick up guys.” She turned back to Bing.
“Do you have a stethoscope? Can I borrow it?”

“Actually—”

“OMG, can you imagine the number of guys I can get to take their shirt off, just by saying I need to listen to their heartbeat? Good way to find out if they are too hairy to take home
first, am I right? Caroline, you
must
have tried it before. No? Bing, please can I borrow your stethoscope? Please?
Pleaaase?
”

“Lydia,” I warned, kicking her under the table.

“What?” Lydia answered with a responding kick. “What did I say?”

That’s Lydia for you. She has no idea when she’s gone too far for fancy-dinner conversation. Or for regular conversation. Even my mother, who usually indulges Lydia’s
enthusiasms (after all, boy-crazy is only one step removed from marriage-crazy), had turned a mottled shade of pink.

Swiftly, I tried to adjust Lydia’s line of questioning to something more palatable. “So, Bing, when do you head back to school?”

“Oh. Um . . .”

“My grad program is on a trimester schedule,” I continued. “When we get off in June, I actually don’t have to go back until October.”

“And sometime in the middle of September, Lizzie will start to go stir-crazy without lectures to attend and papers to write,” Jane finished for me, giving me a smile from across the
table.

“Usually, it’s August,” I replied.

“Well, I have some time,” Bing answered. When Caroline cleared her throat, he continued. “Until I have to go back to school, that is. And I’m lucky that my sister could
take time from her own work to help get me settled.”

Caroline smiled graciously at him. “And decorate! Which is really why I came—Bing’s idea of furnishing is an armchair and TV. Besides, who wouldn’t like to paint on a
blank canvas?” she said to Jane, who giggled.

“And does Darcy like to decorate, too?” I asked. I couldn’t help it.

“No, decorating’s not really his thing.” Bing laughed. “He’s just hanging out with me. He doesn’t love telecommuting, but he can still pop up to San Francisco
when he needs to.”

Yeah, I highly doubt that. More likely, he inherited his business, and it’s run by people who actually know what they’re doing so he can take weeks off at a time to “just
hang” with his buddies.

“But whatever are you going to do about that gorgeous house of yours?” Mom interjected. She fanned herself lightly, the picture of Southern fragility. She was stuck on the idea of
Bing going back to school—i.e., leaving without her having secured him for Jane. “It’s not meant to be a summer house. It’s meant to be a family home, with children and
dogs, and . . .”

“My brother’s a very busy young man,” Caroline jumped in, saving us all from Mom dropping her widest hints. “But don’t worry, if there’s anyone who can handle
the rigors of being a medical student and then a doctor along with the joys of homeownership, it’s my brother.”

“You know, there’s an excellent medical program right here . . .” my mom tried again, but thankfully she was stopped this time by someone with a little more force.

“Well, my dear, I believe it is time for dessert!” my dad said, rising from the table. “She’s been putting together something special for tonight—she wouldn’t
even let me see what it was.” He smiled at the guests.

“Oh, yes! You all stay right here—I’ll be back in a moment!” Mom said brightly, bringing attention back to where she (read: we) were comfortable having it: the food. It
was admittedly delicious (which is standard for my mom; she really knows how to cook), but in a terrifyingly overelaborate way (which is not standard, and you will see the terror it invokes in a
moment).

My mom trotted off to the kitchen, and after refusing assistance from her appointed helper (me) came back with a wheelie cart.

And a blowtorch.

“Bananas flambé!” she cried. “Girls, this is how I snared your father.”

My dad looked a little taken aback, but he played along. “Yes, she was training to be a table-side dessert chef at a restaurant when we met.” There was a brief pause. “Thirty
years ago.”

“And I remember exactly how it goes—don’t you worry, honey.” My mother smiled, and turned on the blowtorch.

I think you can guess what happened next.

I doubt we will ever get the smell of burned bananas out of the dining room drapes.

Once we’d put out the tablecloth—Dad fetching the fire extinguisher and Bing smothering the flames with a casserole pot lid; I like to think they bonded during this small
crisis—Mom looked ready to break down in tears.

My dad only had to shoot me one look for the appointed helper to spring into action.

“Jane, I have a thought,” I said. “Why don’t we go out and grab a drink?”

“Oh, yes!” she said gratefully. “The night is still young.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” Bing approved, with visible relief. “Carter’s Bar?”

“I’ll text Charlotte, have her meet us.” We would need reinforcements to get over the trauma of dinner.

“And I’ll tweet Darcy,” Caroline added, her fingers already flying on her phone. Which I had actually seen her do a couple of times during dinner. Great—that meant
chances were Darcy was informed of the Great Bennet Dinner Debacle already (™ the Universe).

I had been trying to do a video update during this dinner, running up and down the stairs to film short snippets in my room as the meal spiraled out of control. (Considering the number of times
I excused myself to “use the bathroom,” I can only imagine that Bing and Caroline now think I have an incontinence issue.) I wanted to see if immediacy added to the energy of my posts
(boy, did it!), but I had to abandon the story half told to go to Carter’s.

Where the second half of the evening was, if you can believe it, even more interesting than the first.

And once again, Lydia played her part.

At first things were going well. The addition of Charlotte and the atmosphere of Carter’s helped to normalize everyone. Also, alcohol.

Darcy, of course, kept to himself. Even when he was sitting at the table with us. His mouth shut and his chin pushed back in a look of complete condemnation of anything, you know,
fun
.

Saturday night and the bar was packed, so of course Lydia would run into someone she knew.

“Oh, my God, guys, this is Ben from school! Ben, my sisters Lizzie and Jane.” Lydia dragged a nice-looking guy over to our table. “Hi—my name’s David,
actu—” he said, extending his hand to me. But before he could finish, Lydia cut him off.

“Bing! Ben and I were just talking and we decided that it would be
so awesome
of you if you threw a party. Like an end-of-semester thing. Your house is perfect, and Ben’s
band could play.”

“But, I don’t have a—”

“Whatever, I would be the cutest groupie you ever saw.” Lydia gave David-not-Ben a once-over. “It’s too bad I didn’t bring my stethoscope with me,” she
sighed, her words beginning to slur. “So, what do you think, Bing?”

Bing was a couple of beers in at this point, and I didn’t blame him for it. After all, he’d survived dinner with my mom, and he had a driver. But this made his eagerness to please
susceptible to those who always had an angle. Like Lydia. “You know what, a party sounds like a great idea, Lydia. Thank you for sush—suggesting it.” Then he turned his smile back
to Jane. “Would you like to come to a party at my house?”

She smiled back at him, and they were lost in their own little world.

“Yes!” Lydia fist-pumped, taking this drunken agreement as the full-on promise she would inevitably force it to be. Of that I have no doubt. Then her eyes hit on something on the far
side of the bar. “No way! When did Carter’s get Whac-A-Mole? Come on, Ben! Let’s play!”

“It’s David—” But Lydia didn’t seem to care, as she dragged him off toward the game.

I turned around. In my rush to get us here and out of the house, I hadn’t noticed that Carter’s had really spruced up the joint. There was new felt on the pool table, and yes, a
Whac-A-Mole game, and . . .

“Oh, Lizzie,” Charlotte said, eyes wide. “Is that Just Dance?”

I am a sucker for Just Dance.

“Oh, my God.” I grinned. “Char, play with me.”

“Hell no. Not in public.”

“Oh, come on!”

“If you want to embarrass yourself, go right ahead. I’m fine right here.”

Embarrass myself? As if. I
rule
at Just Dance.

“If you like, I’ll—” Darcy cleared his throat, but I didn’t catch the rest because I was digging in my purse for quarters.

“That’s fine,” I said, pulling out three bucks in quarters, my emergency parking-meter money. “I’ll just play against the computer. And kill it. Like I always
do.”