Text to Deidre Waites:
I saw your comments section. It was jam-packed with comments from readers all over the globe. You have a serious following, Sister. Capitalize on it. Write a book from Queen Victoria’s perspective.
Text from Deidre Waites:
I would not know where to begin.
Text to Deidre Waites:
You begin with a title.
Text from Deidre Waites:
Ha. Ha.
Text to Deidre Waites:
What if you wrote a manual on how to raise children, like one of those What to Expect books, but in the queen’s voice? You could call it A Very Nasty Object because that is what Queen Victoria called her baby.
Text from Deidre Waites:
I love that idea! You are bloody brilliant.
Text to Deidre Waites:
Yes, I am. You’re welcome.
Text from Deidre Waites:
Good night, Emma Lee.
Text to Deidre Waites:
Good night, Your Majesty.
I click out of my text screen, enter the words monetize and blog into my search bar, and scroll though the hits until I find a Forbes article about ten wildly successful blogs that earn outlandish incomes. I send a copy of the article to Deidre, urging her to monetize her blog.
My daddy always said, Your head will rest squarely on your pillow, and you’ll sleep a whole lot easier, Emma darlin’, if the balance of your daily deeds includes more positive than negative. Tonight, my balance sheet is in the black, and it feels fab!
I wish I could call Daddy to tell him about my day. I know he would be mighty proud to hear I talked Lexi down from her emotional ledge and conquered my fear of death by AGA explosion. I know he would approve of my plan to befriend and empower Miss Deidre Waites. Still, it would be nice to tell Daddy about my day, to hear the reassuring puh-puh sound of him sucking on his pipe while he listened to my prattling.
I reckon I could tell Miss Isabella when I see her tomorrow. Miss Isabella! Shoot! I lift the massive leather book off the ottoman and flip to the table of contents. I got so caught up in Deidre’s blog, I plum forgot about my reading assignment.
I look at the clock: 9:42.
I might-could knock it out tonight. How long could it take to read one little old Jane Austen novel? An hour or two? Three, tops.
Let’s see. Emma starts on page 657 and ends on page 915. Sweet lawd! That’s over two hundred and fifty pages! Two hundred and fifty hardback pages, not teensy paperback pages. Two hundred and fifty hardback pages of teensy-tiny print.
I groan and close the book. I have a flashback to sophomore year statistics class, to reading the textbook (over and over) and feeling hopelessly lost in the gobbledygook terminology and theories of inferential statistics. Efficient estimators, root mean square errors, transposed conditional fallacy. Mwah-mwah-mwah. Charlie Brown teacher-speak. That’s what I hear in my head whenever I attempt sustained reading. Mwah-mwah-mwah.
I stare at the cover, at Jane Austen’s name stamped in swirly silver font, and feel a pang of guilt. My momma loved reading so much, she named her babies after her favorite novels. Manderley was named after the hero’s home in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, Tara was named after Scarlett O’Hara’s plantation in Gone with the Wind, and I was named after the heroine of Jane Austen’s Emma.
Manderley can recite huge passages from Rebecca.
Tara has watched Gone with the Wind so many times, she knows the entire movie word-for-word.
Me? I haven’t read Emma. Not one word.
Manderley would say my refusal to read Emma is a manifestation of the deep psychological distress I suffered from losing my momma while I was still in Pampers. Invisible wounds to the psyche and all. Sure. That.
Or—
Maybe it doesn’t go that deep. Maybe I don’t have the attention span to sit through 157,887 words (just Googled it, y’all)! Maybe I have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or dyslexia, or maybe I am just flighty.
Or—
I might-could have a few teensy-tiny blemishes on my psyche. Teensy. Tiny. Maybe I haven’t read my momma’s favorite books because it would be like giving her a voice. Right now, Momma is this mute ghost of a woman who inhabits a small room in the attic of my mind. She is a picture in the family photo album, a distant relative we remember on holidays. I know she existed because people tell me she did.
I have kept my momma at a distance because letting her in, gathering precious memories of her, and holding them close, would only remind me of what I lost, what I never really had.
Maybe I keep myself busy with a dizzying swirl of activity and fill my life with a dizzying number of friends because I am trying to keep my momma’s ghost in the attic. Ghosts do not haunt busy houses, do they? They haunt quiet houses, houses inhabited by sad, solitary people.
Chapter Seventeen
Emma Lee Maxwell’s Status Update:
I am in love, y’all! I started reading Jane Austen’s Emma last night and now I have a major lady crush on Emma Woodhouse. Talk about #goals. She is so sweet and generous to everyone she meets. She befriends Harriet Smith, even though Harriet is fashionably challenged and dumb as a packet of Pop Rocks. I got to the part where Emma wisely advises Harriet against marrying Mr. Martin (the uneducated farmer) and suggests, instead, she consider Mr. Elton (the sociable village vicar). Clever girl, Emma! I like Mr. Elton!
I am applying my fourth shade of red lipstick and daydreaming about Knightley—Mr. George Knightley, Emma Woodhouse’s old and intimate friend—when the sound of the iron knocker pounding against the wood door echoes down the hall.
I blot my lips with a Kleenex, brush some illuminator on the apples of my cheeks, then spritz Viva La Juicy into the air and walk through the vanilla-berry scented cloud.
I open the front door and find Knightley standing on the steps—Knightley Nickerson, my new and not-quite-intimate friend. Bingley is striding up the path, dressed in charcoal utility pants rolled up at the ankles, a gray cashmere hoodie, high-top leather trainers, and a slouchy checked coat. He has a scowl on his handsome face and is patting his errant curls.
“Hello, Emma Lee.” Knightley smiles, and my tummy feels the same way it did when the squad would toss me up in the air—a momentary tensing and then a sense of weightlessness and joy. “You look awfully happy today.”
“Do I?”
“Your smile could chase the darkest clouds away.”
My teeth ache the same way they ache when I drink too many glasses of sweet tea. My smile chases away the clouds.
“That is the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me,” I say, smiling even bigger, even brighter. “Like, ever.”
Bingley climbs the steps.
“Hello, Emma Lee.”
“Hello, Bing—”
“Are you seeing what is happening up here?” He waves his hand around his head. “This humidity is wreaking havoc with my hair. My curls won’t behave. They look positively barking. Would you mind if I borrowed a spritz of that Morrocanoil Frizz Control Mist you have in your bathroom, the one I used yesterday?”
I step back into the foyer. Knightley and Bingley follow.
“I might-could let you have a spritz or two.”
“Ouch!” Bingley presses his hands to his ears. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“The offensive sound that came out of your mouth?”
Offensive sound? Did I make an offensive sound? Confused, I look from Bingley to Knightley. Knightley rolls his eyes and shrugs.
“Look at you”—Bingley gestures toward me—“in your Burberry trench and statement red lips, working this foyer like Gigi working the runway in Milan. Love the trench, love the lips. I even love the military red Hunters, despite the brand-suffering massive prole drift ever since Kate was photographed in those French-made wellies.”
“What is prole drift?”
“Prole drift is a fabulously snooty term to describe when posh items become popu
lar with the middle or lower classes,” Bingley says, nudging the toe of my boot with the toe of his trainers. “Hunter wellies, Molton Brown soap, embroidered slippers, signet rings. Prole drift, love. Prole drift.”
I look down at my beloved and long-coveted wellies, freshly polished and gleaming in the subdued foyer light.
“What’s wrong with my wellies?”
“Nothing,” Knightley says.
“Bingley says they’re not posh.”
“Sorry, love. Hunters are not posh,” Bingley says. “They’re just plain naff.”
“Naff?”
“Common, drab,” Knightley explains.
“Drab?” I cry, resting my hands on my hips and giving him a serious face. “Darlin’, I am a Southern woman. There’s nothing drab about me!”
“You’re missing the point,” Bingley says. “You’re a picture, darling, a veritable masterpiece, until you open your mouth. Don’t do that.”
“Bloody hell, Bingley!” Knightley growls. “You venture too far.”
“Sorry-not sorry.” Bingley grins at me. “Mum told me to treat you as a sister, Emma Lee. Do you think I, Bingley Nickerson, would let my sister say anything as uncouth as might-could?” He links his arm through mine and pulls me with him toward the bathroom. “Have you been to the Louvre?”
“No.”
“So, you haven’t seen the Mona Lisa?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“I have”—he sniffs—“and it was one of the most anticlimactic moments of my life, a crushing disappointment. First, the canvas is only about this big”—he makes a small frame with his fingers—“and it hangs on a wall behind a wooden railing, too far for proper observation. It’s offensive, really.”
“Your point?” Knightley calls after us.
“Mona Lisa is a beauty, a work of genius. Now, imagine if by magic or miracle, she was animated and given voice—”
“Like the portraits in the Harry Potter movies, the ones hanging in the gallery at Hogwarts?”
“Exactly.” Bingley strides into the bathroom, seizes my bottle of Moroccanoil hair mist, and begins spritzing his curls. “You are standing in the Louvre, marveling at her sphinxlike beauty, when she opens her mouth and lets out a massive belch.”
Knightley groans, the sound carrying down the hallway. Bingley continues to spritz his hair with the oil until the curls are slick.
“You are the Mona Lisa, Emma Lee”—he stops spraying and points the bottle at me—“and your might-could is a massive belch.”
“I will make you a deal.” I wrest the Moroccanoil mist from Bingley’s hand and put it back on the counter, then grab my can of dry shampoo and spray his overly misted curls, fluffing them until they look normal again. “I promise not to say might-could if you promise not to say prole drift. Deal?”
Bingley looks in the mirror and grins.
“Deal!”
* * *
We are driving to Welldon Abbey when my Ed Sheeran love ballad/ringtone begins playing. Hearing the happy computerized xylophone beats makes me want to tap my feet. Then Ed makes the same throaty moan I make when I eat Cane’s chicken, mmm-mmm-mmm, and sings about putting his hands on someone’s body, and Knightley looks over at me, eyebrow raised, lips curved in a half smile, and the song suddenly sounds nasty, something a naughty girl would choose as her ringtone.
I pull my phone from my purse and push the Mute button. The car is quiet again, a loud quiet. I look at the screen. Oooo! It’s Johnny Amor calling me back! I look over at Knightley.
“Do you mind if I answer this call?”
“By all means.”
I tap the screen and press the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
“’ello. Emma Lee?”
Johnny Amor has a gravelly, rock-star voice, as if he has spent his life gargling whiskey and singing Stones tunes. I imagine him in his pink velvet suit, sprawled out on a black-leather couch, a cigarette dangling from his bottom lip.
“Yes!” I sound girlish, giddy. “Is this Johnny Amor?”
“The one and only, love.”
“I am so glad you called!”
Did my voice just squeak? I think my voice squeaked.
“Of course I called, love,” he says in his growly, gravelly voice. “Grand has been banging on about the pretty American girl he met at the airport. He is gone mad for you, barking mad, love.”
Bingley leans forward from the backseat, resting his arm on the back of my seat and staring at me with unabashed curiosity.
“Aw!” I stare out the windshield, ignoring Bingley. “Thank you for saying that, Johnny Amor! I am gone, too. Totally gone. I was supernervous about traveling alone to a foreign country and—”
“—and Grand granded you, right?”
“Right!”
“He has adopted grandchildren from Chelsea to Changzhou.”
“Seriously?”
“There is a sous chef slaving his little fingers to the bone in the kitchens of Traders Fudu Hotel so he can earn the money to send Grand a Boxing Day gift.” He chuckles. “True story.”
“How great is that?” I laugh, because Johnny Amor and his grand Grand make me feel happier than computerized xylophone beats in a naughty Ed Sheeran song. “Goal: I want to be William Amor when I am older.”
“You want to be a tweed-wearing septuagenarian ornithologist? Groovy, love. Groovy.”
“Orin-what?” I laugh.
“Ornithologist.”
Bingley taps my shoulder. I look at him, and he mouths the word bird-watcher. I shift my phone to my other ear and glare at Bingley. He sits back.
“Oh,” I say. “You mean bird-watcher?”
Johnny Amor laughs.
“Did you just Google ornithologist?”
“No.” I laugh. “My extremely nosy, extremely literate friend is creeping on this call. He told me what it means.”
“He? This just got infinitely more interesting.” Johnny lowers his voice. “Did the pretty American take a British boy as her new lover? Grand will be devastated.”
“Lover?” Did my voice just squeak again? “Oh my sweet heavenly lawwwdd! Bingley Nickerson is not my lover!” I laugh, a squeaky, high-pitched laugh that makes me sound as if I just sucked helium from a balloon. “No. Bingley Nickerson is not my lover. What is the opposite of lover?”
“Hater?”
“That’s a tad too strong. Do you have a little brother, Johnny Amor?”
“Yes.”
“Is he annoying?”
“Abso-bloody-lutely.”
“There you are,” I say. “You have an annoying little brother, and I . . . well, I have a Bingley.”
“Are you hearing this, old bean?” Bingley leans forward, sticking his head between the front seats. “Should I be offended? I am feeling offended.”
I put my hand over the phone mic and tell Bingley to hush, then say a silent prayer that Johnny Amor doesn’t ask me about old bean. Old Bean? Who is Old Bean? Is he your lover? Knightley Nickerson might not be my lover, but he might-could be. Sweet lawd! I did not just say that (in my head), did I?
“I have a confession to make,” Johnny says.
“Already?” Thank you, Jesus! Johnny Amor did not ask me if I was bumping uglies with Old Bean Nickerson. “I am not sure I am ready to hear your confession, Johnny Amor. We just met.”
“Don’t worry, love,” he growls. “I only confess my dark deeds to someone who can offer absolution, like my vicar. I was just going to admit that I did a little creeping myself.”
“Creeping?”
“I internet-stalked you before calling you back. Had to make sure you weren’t a nutter.” He takes a deep breath. I hear ice clinking against glass and imagine him mixing an old-fashioned, splashing bitters over a sugar cube, squeezing an orange, pouring whiskey over the ice. “Love your Facebook profile. Supersexy pic, love.”
“Thanks,” I say. “So, you could tell I wasn’t a nutter from my profile photo?”
“Profile phot
o, Insta feed, and some great snappies on a sorority blog.”
“You found the Kappa Kappa Gamma blog?” I whistle. “Wow! You went deep.”
“That is the only way to go, love. The only way.” Bingley groans and leans back. A bubble of nervous laughter rises in my throat, pops out of my mouth. Is Johnny Amor flirting with me? Or is this part of his shtick, his rock-star-on-the-rise, yeah, baby, yeah shtick?
“This is so not fair! You went deep into me”—Knightley clears his throat and my cheeks flush with humiliating, mortifying, please Lawd, let-me-die-right-here, right-now heat—“Yikes! That came out wrong. I meant, you internet-stalked me and probably found a bunch of embarrassing photos from my Kappa days.”
“Like the one of you in that hilarious bunny costume at the Reading Is Fundamental fund-raiser?” Johnny Amor must be swirling his old-fashioned because I can hear the rhythmic clink-clink-clink of ice hitting glass. “Who were you supposed to be, Peter Rabbit?”
“Bridget Jones.”
“Bridget bloody Jones?” He laughs. “In a flannel onesie?”
I remember the costume. Red flannel penguin pajamas, high heels, tall satin bunny ears, and puffy white tail. Thank God Knightley didn’t fall down the internet rabbit hole when he was searching for my Clemson cheer vids and land on those tragic photos!
“We were supposed to dress as our favorite literary character.”
“And you went as Bridget Jones?”
“Bridget Jones happens to be one of my favorite literary characters.” I lift my chin and raise my attitude. “Ain’t no shame.”
“Chick lit?” Johnny Amor asks.
“Chick lit?” Bingley cries.
“What’s wrong with chick lit?” I glance at Knightley, but he is staring straight ahead, his fingers wrapped around the leather steering wheel. “Chick lit is about the four Fs: friendship, fabulous shoes, funny moments, and finding yourself.”
Badly Done, Emma Lee Page 15
