by Mary Strand
I snorted. Law school had definitely knocked the Pride and Prejudice fixation out of Mom if even a guy named Charlie Bingham wasn’t right for Jane.
Mom kept blathering, even though Jane had turned her back on Mom. “Yes, he’s single, and I admit he seems fairly successful for someone who’s only twenty-one, but I—”
I tossed the Sudoku book aside. “Mom, will you quit already with the Google searches? We couldn’t care less.” As I said it, though, I caught Jane trying to grab the papers from Mom’s hand, which didn’t exactly help my argument. “And Jane isn’t that obsessed with guys, so quit worrying.”
Dad’s eyebrows rose, and he gave me a sharp glance.
Okay, Jane was obsessed, but she didn’t need Mom obsessing, too. Whenever Mom ran a Google search on one of Jane’s hot prospects, Jane tended to do the opposite of Mom’s advice. If she went after a guy named Charlie Bingham, I had a bad feeling it wouldn’t just kill my chances at an apartment. It might ruin my whole life.
“It’s for Jane’s own good. You don’t want to know some of the disgusting things I see in my practice.” Mom shuddered. She lived in terror that one of us might hook up with someone like one of her clients. “He could’ve been a creep, or a criminal, or even a Republican. So I ran a background check in case he asks Jane out. Not that I think it’s a good idea.”
Mom darted a sideways peek at Jane, as if she were trying to figure out whether Charlie had already hit on Jane. I started to wonder that, too.
The newspaper crumpled into a heap on Dad’s lap. “May I ask why you’re running Google searches? I’m sure we’d all like to help Jane find a little more, ahem, balance in her life. Right, Lizzie?” He shot me one of his Significant Looks, as if I didn’t know what he was talking about. “But unless this young man is an ax murderer...”
“Listen to you. But these things happen, and Jane is much too young.”
“Geez, Mom. Jane isn’t the one talking about it.” I shot Mom a dark look, but she was too busy shoving the Google search into Jane’s outstretched hands to pay attention to me. “Jane meets a lot of guys, and one happens to be named Bingham. Not Bingley. So what? We’re all in our teens, including Jane, and no one is planning to run away and get married any day soon. We’ll let you know if we do.”
Okay, I admit I was hoping to run away the first chance I got, but not to get married, and I’d rather not discuss it with Mom. Not until the day after I moved out. Trying to negotiate it with Dad was ugly enough.
I glanced at Jane, wishing she’d stand up to Mom for once, but her face went white as she gripped Mom’s Google printout.
“Connie.” Dad sighed. “You said he doesn’t even live here, and it sounds like the tenants in those condos turn over more often than my car in the winter.”
Dad raised his paper again, twisted his head to one side, and winked at me.
As Mom crossed her arms and glared at Dad, a sick feeling skewered the pit of my stomach. Had Charles Bingley—or, well, Bingham—found the Bennets like Jane Austen predicted? Like Mom had prayed for in high school, when she’d inhaled Pride and Prejudice and waited for her own Mr. Bennet to appear?
And why had she fixated on finding a guy named Bennet? Did she first try waiting for Darcy, but Darcy gave her the slip?
Law school had knocked some sense into Mom, but was it too late? The five of us girls were approaching the ages of the Bennet girls in The Book, and a couple of guys named Bingham and Darcy had magically appeared. Jane Austen must be rolling over in her grave. At the moment, I felt like leaping into the dirt with her.
Dad, a yoga master who reads the sports page and every book Deepak Chopra has ever written, obviously doesn’t have a clue about The Book. Mom has a clue, but she’s also bipolar, and sometimes the highs and lows of her fixations tend to smack us all upside the head. Right this moment, I wasn’t sure if Mom needed to take a pill or if I should just flush every existing copy of The Book down the toilet.
Instead, I decided to picture Charlie and Alex as dope-crazed drug runners with bad teeth. With any luck, gay to boot and therefore uninterested. Otherwise, I’m screwed. I’m a college freshman who plans to major in biomedical engineering. I am not looking for love. I just want my own apartment.
“Howard.”
Dad’s newspaper was back up again, higher than before. I think he’d given up on reading, but he didn’t respond. After twenty-three years of marriage, he should’ve known better.
“Howard, I need you to support me on this. Tell Jane not to go out with Charlie Bingham.”
The newspaper rattled, and Dad muttered something under his breath. “Has he asked her out?”
I piped in. “Since when did facts get in the way of an argument around here?”
“Quit interrupting, Liz. This doesn’t concern you.”
“Oh? Isn’t Alex’s last name Darcy?”
Mom blew out a few quick breaths, gasping between them, as if she were imitating Dad’s yoga breathing but not quite nailing it. “I’m speaking to your father. Howard, I’m serious.”
“And I’m not involved. Lizzie and Jane don’t want our advice, and Lizzie already has plenty of incentive to handle this appropriately.”
Mom frowned. “Liz? Don’t you mean Jane?”
Dad glanced from Jane to me, and Jane started frowning, too. Okay, I might not have told her about Dad’s terms for getting an apartment, even though I normally tell her everything. But she wouldn’t exactly appreciate Dad’s terms. Neither did I.
Dad finally turned back to Mom without answering her question. “Connie, you’ve already done a Google search.” At least the tenth she’d run in the last few months, and it’d been a slow period. “I think that’s enough.”
Mom’s voice approached screech level. “Enough? Who are you to say what’s enough? If it’s up to you, God knows who will prey on our poor girls.”
“It’s not up to either of us.” Dad looked over the top of his newspaper at Mom. “After all, Jane Austen lived two hundred years ago. Our girls are still teenagers, as Lizzie pointed out, and perfectly safe from any unsavory predators who happen to have the bad luck to be named Bingham or Darcy. And if they’re not, well, Lizzie will handle it. I have every confidence.”
So, once again, Dad had way too much confidence in my ability to keep Jane out of trouble—and also knew more than he’d ever let on. Jane’s jaw dropped, and I tried not to choke on my surprised laughter.
Sputtering, Mom sank into the nearest chair.
Chapter 2
“I am sick of Mr. Bingley,” cried his wife.
— Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Volume I, Chapter Two
Sunday afternoon, after staring out the window at the bright late-September sun, I finally gave up on studying economics, slipped into a swimsuit, and threw a pair of running shorts and a Death Cab for Cutie T-shirt on top. Rachel had invited me to her pool again, and I wasn’t going to say no. Just to be on the safe side, I didn’t mention it to Jane.
I’d made it to the front steps, where I was lacing up my running shoes, intent on jogging the mile to Rachel’s condo and then cooling off with several laps in the pool. My shoulders tensed when the front door opened behind me.
“Liz? Are you going over to Rachel’s?”
I never lie, not even to Mom, and especially not to Jane.
I bent my head to focus more intensely on the laces.
“You are going to Rachel’s.” I heard Jane sigh. “And you’re trying to slip away without me.”
I finished lacing and slowly turned around to glance upward at Jane. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you think I want to—” She gulped. “—hook up with Charlie Bingham.”
See, that’s the thing with Jane. Despite her constant manhunting, she couldn’t even say something like “hook up” without practically fainting. I always wondered what she did with all her conquests. Did she even kiss them?
I shrugged. “I have no idea what you want to do with Charlie. I d
on’t even know if he’s still staying in Rachel’s condo building.”
Jane started whistling to herself as she stared up into the sky, like she’d suddenly become Miss Nature Lover.
I frowned. “But I’m guessing you know if he’s staying there. Have you seen him again? How?”
“I, er, happened to run into him at Kowalski’s.”
My eyebrows rose. “Even though you stopped going to Kowalski’s six months ago. After you went out with the assistant manager.”
“Mom needed something.”
“Mom has them deliver. Or she asks me to go.”
Jane fanned herself with a hand that was shaking. Weird. “Mom was in a hurry, and you weren’t around, and I volunteered.”
“Whatever.” I wanted to believe Jane—I mean, she never lies to me, either—and the best way to do that was to quit asking questions. “So you saw him. With Alex?”
Jane shook her head. “He was alone. I ran into him in the produce aisle.”
I zipped my lips, even though Mom’s idea of produce was French fries and even though running into a guy in the produce aisle was such a cliché. Even when Jane did it.
Jane glanced down at her feet, which I noticed were in flip-flops the same moment I noticed she had a beach towel under her arm. “I guess I also happened to run into Charlie at Dairy Queen last night.”
“Last night?” I squinted at Jane. “You said you had to study at the college library, since it was so loud at home.”
“It was, and I did, but I stopped there on the way home. For a Diet Coke.”
The fact that we had a twelve-pack of Diet Coke in the fridge, less than half a mile from the DQ, didn’t seem to occur to Jane. Sighing, I stood up. “Anyway. Rachel invited me over this afternoon. I didn’t know where you were when she called, so I just told her I’d come. Alone.”
I felt awful saying it, especially when my tongue landed on the word “alone” and stayed there. Jane and I had been through everything together, always, and were even closer than Rachel and me, and it wasn’t just because we were sisters. But it’d be better for everyone if Jane didn’t come with me to Rachel’s condo.
If Jane didn’t see Charlie, I wouldn’t have to worry about whether Jane Austen was haunting us from her grave, Rachel wouldn’t have to drop me as a friend when Jane inevitably broke up with Charlie, and Dad wouldn’t have to call the phone company again. The moment he did, I could kiss all dreams of my apartment good-bye.
“No problem.” Jane went back inside but returned to the steps, her purse on one arm and the towel still under the other, before I could taste even a wisp of relief. “It’ll be okay with Rachel if I tag along, right? What a perfect day.”
I took a deep breath, then another, but I just couldn’t tell her no. This was Jane, after all. Guy crazy and a little too interested in Charlie Bingham for my taste, but still the Jane who never really caused me any trouble.
I crossed my fingers, hoping today wouldn’t be an exception.
“We’re in luck.” Rachel’s stage whisper probably carried to the basement of her condo building, even though Jane had headed to the bathroom and no one else was in sight. “Every guy in the building is in the party room watching the Vikings game. So you don’t have to worry about Jane.”
I bit off the nervous grin that threatened. “What makes you think I ever worry about Jane?”
Rachel snorted.
I glanced at the door to the bathroom, but Jane was nowhere in sight. “Does ‘every guy in the building’ include Charlie and Alex? Are they actually staying here?”
“They’re staying here, in the penthouse condo, just like my mom guessed.” Rachel shrugged. “But I haven’t seen them around much this week, and not at all today.”
Whew. “Do you have any idea what they’re doing here?”
“Not a clue. Alex dresses up more than Charlie, almost like he’s going to work, but Charlie looks like every other college guy I know. Except his pants don’t hang halfway down his butt like some of them.”
I laughed even as I tried not to picture it. “So maybe I should let Jane go out with him.”
I tossed my gym bag on the nearest chaise lounge and started to strip down to my swimsuit. My T-shirt was halfway over my head when I realized that Jane had been gone too long for a bathroom break. Uh-oh.
I yanked my shirt back down. “Rachel, where exactly is the party room? By any chance would Jane—”
She grabbed my arm and we both took off at a run.
I screeched to a halt just inside the open door to the packed party room, wondering how Jane had found it—three floors down and at the opposite end of the building—or how she knew that every guy in the building between fifteen and sixty would be here for the game. Did she have some special radar?
She sat in the middle of a leather couch in front of the big-screen TV, a guy on each side of her and a couple more at her feet. The only thing she needed was a guy feeding her grapes, one by one, and another one fanning her with a palm leaf.
A couple of other girls were in the room, but none of the guys seemed to notice them. Add Rachel and me, and that made two more invisible girls. I rolled my eyes and turned to Rachel, who stood transfixed, staring at Jane. Almost like she wanted to figure out her secret, if not take notes.
I waited until a commercial break, then waded through the crowd of guys until I got to Jane, who glanced up at me, then back at the TV. As if she’d been watching the game or, for that matter, the deodorant commercial on the screen right now.
“C’mon, Jane. You wanted to go swimming, remember? With Rachel?” I reached out a hand to help her up, but she burrowed into the couch. I belatedly recognized the guys on either side of her as Charlie and Alex.
Crap. Too late.
I grabbed her anyway. “Seriously. We have to go. Now. Rachel’s waiting for us.”
She clung to the arm of the blond guy. Charlie? He glanced up at me, offering a curious but friendly smile. I smiled back, then sneaked a peek at the other guy. Alex Darcy was cute bordering on hot, with black hair and wicked eyes and a lanky body that looked great in his jeans and polo shirt. Dang. I was hoping for someone more along the lines of u-g-l-y. Not that it mattered. His eyes barely flickered when I stood in front of him.
Meanwhile, Jane still wasn’t moving anything other than her lower lip, which stuck out in a way that guys amazingly find cute. “Rachel isn’t waiting for us. Rachel is right here, watching the game.”
Sure enough, Rachel had propped herself against a wall, her eyes fixed on the screen. I frowned at her. “Rachel?”
She waved me off. “Oh, let Jane stay. I don’t mind—”
“Yes, you do. You invited us here to swim.”
“But Jane doesn’t have to—”
I held up a hand to cut her off just as the game came back on and some guy in the back of the room told me to quit blocking his view.
I planted my feet and yanked Jane’s arm harder this time, jet-propelling her to her feet. “Jane, we’re going.”
She offered Charlie a helpless shrug and followed me out the door. Shockingly, Charlie didn’t join us, but I had a feeling my mission to rescue Jane from Charlie was only going to keep getting more difficult. After all, I’d been down this road with Jane before.
This time, she seemed to have brought Jane Austen along for the ride. Heaven help me.
A week went by, and I didn’t see or hear anything more about Charlie Bingham or Alex Darcy, which would’ve been a relief if it weren’t for the fact that I kept catching Jane smiling all the time. Like, even at Dad’s jokes.
She didn’t mention “running into” Charlie again, but I also didn’t ask. She stared at me blankly when I mentioned hitting up Dad for a rental deposit. My hopes of ever getting an apartment plummeted by the minute.
On Saturday morning, Dad whistled as he joined the rest of us at the breakfast table. Normally, at that hour, he’d still be in the lotus position in the middle of the living-room rug, his chanted “Om”s
nearly drowned out by his stomach growls. I figured something had to be up.
As Mom stood at the stove and fried five pounds of bacon for her latest doomed attempt at Atkins, she looked up, saw Dad, and sighed loudly. Dad kept whistling. He grabbed the newspaper out of Mary’s protesting hands, bent and gave each of us girls a peck on the cheek, and plopped into his chair at the head of the table. But, totally unlike Dad, he didn’t immediately bury himself in the sports section.
He smiled at me. “Is that a new top, Lizzie? I’ll bet the boys all like it.”
I raised my eyebrows at Dad, because I was wearing a wrinkled maroon-and-gold Minnesota Gophers football jersey. It was game day, yeah, but—more important—I’d run out of clean clothes.
“As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter if boys like Liz’s—” Mom turned to look at me and almost choked on the wad of limp bacon in her mouth. “—jersey? My God, Liz, weren’t you wearing that last night?”
And the night before, if we have to get picky.
Dad’s eyes twinkled. “By the way, I invited Norm and Doreen to the block party.”
Mom sniffed loudly, but maybe from the onions in the scrambled eggs burning on the stove. “Howard, you didn’t invite anyone else, did you? It’s one thing to invite the Langdons. After all, they used to live here.” She sniffed again, and this time it definitely wasn’t the onions. “But I wouldn’t put it past you to invite Charlie Bingham, just because Jane seems so fixated on him. The girls have plenty of time in their lives to meet boys.”
“We don’t need Dad’s help. We meet guys all the time at school or work. In bars.”
“Lydia! You’re too young to go to bars.” Mom missed the fact that fifteen-year-old Lydia doesn’t work, either, or, for that matter, spend much time in school.
“Yeah? Cat and I never get carded—”
“Shut up, Lydia.” Cat shot her a glare that could’ve singed Lydia’s eyebrows.
Too late, Lydia clapped her hand over her mouth. Dad frowned, and Mom looked torn between horrified and impressed, which made no sense except that it was Mom. “In any case, you shouldn’t focus so much on boys. And you’re better off avoiding certain ones altogether.”
