by Mary Strand
Lydia groaned to her feet, and Cat followed. Dad held out a hand. “No, Cat. Lydia doesn’t need you following right now. In fact, I’ve decided to make a few room rearrangements.”
“Yeah?”
My eyebrows rose. Jane and I shared a bedroom, as did Lydia and Cat, and Mary had her own room. It didn’t make much sense from an age perspective, since Mary was in the middle, but no one wanted to share a room with Mary.
Dad nodded. “I’m sorry to have to do this to Mary, but I’m going to put her in with you, Lydia. You, Cat, will have Mary’s room for the time being, unless I decide to have Jane or Lizzie oversee your own behavior.”
Please, God, no.
Cat looked stunned and pleased. Lydia looked furious. When she stamped her foot, I finally noticed she was wearing the Uggs she must’ve bought with my charge card. A putrid shade of sickly greenish gray. “No way! I’m gonna tell Mom about—”
“About what, dear?” Several heads whirled toward the front door, where Mom stood, laden down with grocery bags.
Lydia shrieked and ran to her, throwing her arms around Mom’s waist and knocking the bags onto the floor. I heard a sickening cracking sound. Perfect. Scrambled eggs for dinner.
Dad just sat back in his chair and lit up a cigar.
“Mom! Liz is the worst! Make her stop!”
Mom shot a dark look in my direction. “Liz—”
“That reminds me.” Dad stood up and walked over to me, giving me a quick, awkward hug—the kind that dads give their daughters after they grow up and acquire breasts. “I haven’t properly welcomed you home, Lizzie. I’m so glad you’re back. We’re all glad. Isn’t that right, Connie?”
He turned and gave Mom a pointed look. Lydia still clung to Mom like a five-year-old, and Mom looked utterly confused. “Er, yes, yes, of course we’re glad. But what have you done to Lydia? I’ve never seen her so upset.”
Dad took off his reading glasses and jabbed them in Lydia’s direction. “I think the proper question is what Lydia did to Lizzie. Isn’t that right, Lydia? Do you want to tell your mother what you did with Lizzie’s charge card?”
Mom turned to Lydia. “Is this true?”
Lydia shook her head. “I meant to pay Liz back after I won the lottery, and I should’ve won.”
Dad shook his head. “Everyone should win the lottery, and few do. Did you or did you not use Lizzie’s charge card?”
Lydia’s head drooped, but she offered up a slight nod.
Mom gasped and hugged her. “You poor dear!”
Unbelievable.
“My sentiments exactly.” As Dad spoke, my head snapped up. “Lydia will be quite poor for the foreseeable future. I’ll repay Lizzie, and Lydia will repay me. She’s also grounded until the end of the school year, at which point she’ll get a summer job.”
Lydia started wailing again. “Mom!”
Mom rubbed her back and ran a hand through Lydia’s hair. “I’ll talk to your father, dear.”
“Excellent. We can discuss what else Lydia should do to make up for her behavior. You can start, however, with an apology to Lizzie. Now. In front of all of us.”
“Mom!”
Dad shook his head at Lydia. “Now, young lady.”
Lydia glared at me. “I’m sorry I got caught and I’m sorry I didn’t rack up a bigger bill, you big jerk.”
After she spat out the words, stunning even Mom, she flounced up the stairs before I could kill her.
Dad turned to me. “Sorry, Lizzie. It appears I have to work on Lydia’s skills at apologizing, too.”
I shrugged. “You’ve got your work cut out for you.”
I figured Lydia would be miserable about being grounded, not to mention sharing a room with Mary. So I blinked when she practically bounced down the stairs the instant Jane arrived home, safe and mostly sound, from New York.
After a few quick hugs, we sat down to dinner. Jane’s eyes looked dead and her skin oddly puffy—was she pregnant?—but something else felt wrong, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. It wasn’t just that Lydia had no shame, let alone remorse. Lydia, who considered potato chips a vegetable, was munching on a carrot. And no one seemed to notice.
“Jane!” When Lydia squealed, I groaned. “Have you seen my new Uggs? Aren’t they the coolest?”
Jane gave Lydia a puzzled frown. “Uggs? Where did you get the money?”
I nodded. “My point exactly.”
Dad shook his head. “Not now, Lizzie. We’re trying to eat.” Trying being the operative word. The meatloaf that landed on our plates had come out gray.
“Then no one should look at Lydia’s boots. The color reminds me of a serious case of diarrhea.”
“Liz, that’s enough.” Mom threw down her napkin. “Lydia already said she’s sorry—”
“Actually, Mom, she didn’t. Don’t you remember?”
Mom bit her lip. “Well, she’ll suffer enough for her mistake, and we don’t all need to suffer at the dinner table.”
“Since when is grand theft a mistake?”
Dad held up his hands. “Lizzie. Please.” He turned to Mom. “But let’s not defend Lydia’s conduct. I wouldn’t call it a mistake, either. I also wouldn’t call her boots, uh—”
He stared down at his plate. Come to think of it, the color of the meatloaf wasn’t too far off the hue of Lydia’s boots. Groaning, Dad pushed back from the table. “I think I’ve lost my appetite.”
Lydia, who’d been pushing her own food around her plate with her finger, peeked under the table at her Uggs-clad feet and frowned. She munched thoughtfully on yet another carrot, then looked at Jane. “Have you heard? The circus troupe is leaving in a month.”
“Excellent.” I smiled grimly, thinking of Justin. Even before my talk with Alex, I’d known he was a player. Unfortunately, he played with me a little too publicly. I couldn’t wait to see him leave town.
Lydia scrunched her nose. “They’ll spend the summer in Wisconsin Dells. Wouldn’t that be a super place to go? The Dells! It costs hardly anything, and they have all those waterparks. And we never go anywhere fun.”
She should talk. She hadn’t just spent a week in Fargo.
Dad frowned. “You haven’t been interested in Wisconsin Dells since about age ten. Maybe twelve. No one has.”
“Oh, but I’m so interested! Hey! You said I had to work this summer, Dad. I could get a job there.”
“Out of the question.”
Lydia’s head whipped in Mom’s direction. “Mom?”
Mom sighed, but she patted Lydia’s hand. “This isn’t the best time to ask your father, dear, but we’ll discuss it.”
Dad groaned to his feet and headed for the living room. “I’m happy to discuss it, but the answer will still be no.”
“Mom!”
She looked sideways at Lydia and put a finger to her lips, but her eyes held a twinkle. “It does sound rather exciting, doesn’t it? Just think. Your very first job in Wisconsin Dells, not at McDonald’s or some such place.”
I snorted. “They have a few McDonald’s in Wisconsin Dells, too. I bet it’s the same uniform that they wear here. Maybe you can wear my Uggs.”
“My Uggs.” Sniffing, Lydia looked pointedly at me. “But that’s not all the news. I bet you want to know what’s up with Justin Truesdale.”
I sucked in a quick breath, only because all my sisters—well, except Mary—were staring at me, waiting for my reaction, and they didn’t even know what I knew about Justin. I felt like throwing up.
“C’mon, Liz, you liked Justin.” Lydia winked for emphasis.
I blushed slightly as I remembered how stupid I’d been. Not that I’d done what Justin claimed. Kisses and mild gropes in a closet don’t count, do they?
I finally glanced at Lydia and yawned. “Justin? Nope. Definitely not interested.”
Even Jane coughed slightly into her napkin.
Lydia laughed. “Yeah, right. Well, Justin isn’t dating Tiffany Hale anymore. She transferred mid-semester to
some snooty school on the East coast.”
“Lucky girl.”
“You wish Justin actually paid attention to you, like he used to.”
She fluffed her hair, and I was tempted to rip it out by the roots—until I noticed that Jane’s face had gone white, and she got up and slid quietly out of the room without excusing herself. Whatever had happened in New York couldn’t be good.
Lydia shook her head. “I worry about Jane.”
I rolled my eyes. “Maybe you should spend more time worrying about yourself. Like, studying? Finding a summer job?”
“I told you. I’ll get a job in Wisconsin Dells.”
Dad muttered something vulgar from the living room.
Lydia just kept talking, unfazed by reality. “But Jane. I mean, she’s obviously bummed she can’t, like, hook a guy.”
“She’s hooked a lot of guys. But being humanitarian, she let them go. You know, the catch-and-release program.”
“Ha ha.” Lydia snorted. “You should talk. Engineering? Talk about not wanting to get laid.”
“Lydia!” Even Mom was appalled.
I pretended to be amused, but I couldn’t help calculating in my head how long it’d been since my last actual date. If I didn’t count Justin or turning Alex down and then kissing him anyway, it’d been almost a year. Was Lydia right?
I tried to remind myself that she was an idiot, which wasn’t too hard when she kept blathering. “Zach Fletcher got married. Like, to this really sweet girl named Bunny. I didn’t even know they were dating. Maybe he met her, like, when they did a show, and now she’s pregnant.”
Thank God Jane had already left the table.
“Lydia!”
That was the trouble with Mom. She actually paid attention to Lydia, while the rest of us tried to ignore her.
“But, actually, Bunny has really tight abs. She wears these cropped shirts that show off her stomach, which is probably how Zach noticed her.”
Considering the rolls of flab around Lydia’s own middle, I wondered if she was just jealous.
“Anyway, Bunny told me all about Wisconsin Dells.” Lydia glanced sideways at Mom, a saccharin smile on her face. “I could take off the last month of school and go there. We never do anything in school the last month.”
“Except take exams.” I snorted. “Get over it. Dad said no. You’re barely sixteen, and it’s an adult troupe. Nobody wants to babysit you.”
Lydia shoved back from the table and shot to her feet. “Like you know anything, Liz. They all like me.”
“They probably like small children and cute furry animals, too. Get real. Dad isn’t going to let you go.”
Mom slapped the table. “Hush, both of you. Lydia, I’ll talk to your father about Wisconsin Dells.”
Everyone scattered at that point, and I started to head upstairs, stopping when I caught a whispered conversation between Mom and Dad. Wisconsin Dells. I strained to catch their words, and it sounded like Dad was actually saying no. Repeatedly, but in Dad’s obtuse and wishy-washy way. So Mom, of course, kept wheedling.
Shaking my head, I sprinted up the stairs to my room. Time to talk to Jane.
Chapter 17
“Lydia will never be easy till she has exposed herself in some public place or other.”
— Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Volume II, Chapter Eighteen
I couldn’t find Jane anywhere. Not in our room, not in the bathroom, not even holed up in the basement rec room with old movies and a box of Kleenex. Finally, I looked outside. Jane’s car was gone. On Easter Sunday evening. What the—?
Well, I wouldn’t figure out anything tonight. I yawned, slipped into my pj’s, and turned out the light. Another wild night at the Bennet house. Almost made a girl yearn for Fargo.
Not.
Monday morning, Jane was out the door before I even heard a toilet flush. I didn’t catch her until a little after five, when we got home from class at the same moment—in separate cars, since I’d been forced to swipe the Jeep. I grabbed her elbow and dragged her inside, prepared to hold her hostage until she confessed what was going on. She tried to jerk her arm back and muttered something rude. Too bad. I’m stronger.
A minute later, armed with a package of double-stuffed Oreos and a couple of cans of Diet Coke, we headed upstairs.
I plunked down on my bed, forgetting my open can of Diet Coke until it sloshed over my hand. Jane wrinkled her nose, probably because she never makes messes. Well, except for the Charlie thing.
After licking the Diet Coke off my hand, I waited for her to say something about Charlie. Had she seen him? Had she told him? Had she decided what to do?
Before I could ask, she shook her head. “I never saw Charlie, Liz. I tried to, but I guess he was busy.”
I frowned. “Too busy for you to tell him about—”
Jane waved her hands in the air to stop me. Even though the door was closed. Even though Mom wasn’t home from work yet.
She glanced at the door and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I couldn’t tell him over the phone. And it’s not like I’d ever run into him. New York is just too big.”
Unlike Woodbury? My mind burned with questions I couldn’t ask. Had she stalked Charlie in Woodbury? Had she done it in New York after Christmas? Or was Alex just a paranoid, self-absorbed jerk who thought every girl in the world wanted to stalk Charlie and him?
“You could’ve called him to say you had some news, but you had to tell him in person.”
Jane blanched. “Liz! He’d know what the so-called news was. He’s not an idiot.”
Alex didn’t think Charlie could handle a sweetie like Jane on his own, though, which had to be the definition of stupid. It made me wonder why Alex was friends with Charlie. I wouldn’t want to hang out with an idiot.
I looked at Jane, sizing her up. I’d freak if I were pregnant, not to mention pregnant and not even talking to the guy who’d gotten me that way.
“So...what do you plan to do?”
She shook her head, her hair swishing into her face and half covering it. “I-I’ve decided I’m over him.”
“What?” I glared at her. “I meant, what are you going to do about—?” As Jane started to hold up her hand, I pointed at her stomach. It didn’t matter; I couldn’t say the word out loud anyway. It only made this whole mess seem even more real.
Jane shrugged. “I’ll be fine, Liz. Don’t worry.”
Right. Even though I’d spent half my life worrying about Jane, obviously with good reason.
“Jane, I have to—”
“You don’t have to do anything. This is my problem, Liz. You’re always trying to clean up all my messes, whether I want you to or not.”
Was she reading my mind? “But I like to—”
“I appreciate it, but no.” She smoothed the covers of her bed, even though they were already pristine. “Anyway. Tell me about Fargo.”
Unbelievable. I should tell Jane about my life when she never told me anything about hers? “Well, I didn’t have sex with anyone, as it turns out.”
I thought of Mrs. Parks and the shotgun in the front hall closet, and a small laugh escaped me. “But someone did ask me out on a date.”
Jane gasped. “Bill? Poor Rachel.”
“Definitely not Wild Bill.” I rolled my eyes, then told her. About Alex asking me out, me being a bitch right back.
Jane shook her head. “Poor Alex.”
She wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about him if she knew. But how could I tell Jane that, oh, by the way, Alex thought she was a stalker? “Alex? As if!”
“But he must’ve thought you’d go out with him. I mean, who wouldn’t?”
“You.”
She looked...sad. And not like the old Jane at all. “Seriously, Liz. He’s hot. Sure, he must know it, but that only makes it more shocking. No one turns him down.”
“Are you saying I shouldn’t have turned him down?”
“Of course not.” Jane gave me a sly smile. “But you might have reco
nsidered the part about slamming the door on him.”
I grinned sheepishly. “What can I say? I got caught up in the moment. Besides, Alex dealt with it, in true Alex fashion.”
“Oh? He slammed a door in your face?”
I pictured the deadly serious look on Alex’s face during our long talk. I remembered my frozen butt even better. But I still couldn’t work up the nerve to tell her what Alex said about Jane and Charlie, so I told her about Justin.
“No way.” She straightened the covers beneath her—again!—as she shook her head. “There must be some mistake.”
“No mistake.” I felt my face flame as I imagined how many guys must’ve heard what I supposedly did with Justin. “Unfortunately for me.”
For a minute, Jane just looked stunned. “Justin seemed like such a nice guy.”
“Nice?” Was she confusing him with Charlie?
“Well, charming, anyway. And poor Alex. He stood up for you like that, and you turned him down and yelled at him about Justin.”
“You act like it’s my fault. It’s Justin’s fault.” I crammed four Oreos in my mouth and chugged a huge gulp of Diet Coke, choking on it. Once I could breathe again, I took a moment to think. I finally shook my head. “When Alex told me what Justin had done, I felt so horrible, so stupid, and I didn’t have anyone I could talk to about it. No Jane. No Mom.”
Jane’s lips twitched a moment before we both broke into hysterics. Even Jane wouldn’t talk to Mom about something like this. I was lucky she’d talk to me. Except that, since getting home, she hadn’t. Not about Charlie.
I took another swig of Diet Coke, dribbling it down my Metallica T-shirt. Still, I felt a bit better, even though I hadn’t told Jane about Charlie. I told myself she wouldn’t want to know. Looking at her face, though, pale and drawn and totally unlike Jane, I wasn’t sure. Charlie was in New York, but he was also right here. Like, 24/7.
I wanted to do something about it. But what, short of flying to New York and dragging Charlie back with me? I’d already tried calling him—a month ago—and he’d never called back. Another thing I’d never told Jane; the list was growing.
