Being Mary Bennet Blows

by Mary Strand

  “Besides the fact that Mom would kill you?”

  “Liz!” Jane glared at Liz, who didn’t look repentant. “There’s absolutely nothing the matter with you, MB. I think Liz is just trying to say that, well, you’re perhaps a little less experienced.”

  “Stop. Please.” I waved a hand in her face before she kept going. A little less experienced? I’ve never even had a guy for a friend.

  “I don’t mean it badly.” Jane patted my arm. “You’ve just always been more into books and—”

  “Overalls.” I cringed, catching sight of my old overalls in a heap on the floor of my closet. “I admit I’ve never bothered to try snagging a guy. But . . .” I trailed off, not sure how to explain it.

  “But you were afraid Jane Austen left you high and dry in that department, no matter what you did.”

  I wrapped my arms around my upturned knees. “Not exactly. Okay, that’s part of it. It’s just that, uh, I have no idea about guys.”

  Jane and Liz just stared at each other, silent.

  I wondered what they were thinking. “I mean, I’m not sure what they want. And what I’m supposed to do.”

  Jane nodded. “New clothes and a new haircut don’t begin to answer that question.”

  Liz looked up at me from her position on the floor and didn’t laugh hysterically the way I’d expected. “And you don’t go to a lot of teen movies or read the normal teen books or magazines.” She held up a hand when I started to object. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Documentaries and Hermann Hesse just aren’t the norm in high school.”

  “I had to read Hesse for English.”

  “Demian, right?” Liz pointed to the copies of Siddhartha and Narcissus and Goldmund stacked on my desk. “And then you kept going. Which is fine. I read those, too.”

  “But you—”

  Liz shrugged. “Like I’ve said before, we’re more alike than you think. But I like things besides just school.”

  “And I don’t?”

  Liz glanced again at the stack of books, then at the poster of the periodic table I’d taped to my closet door. And raised her eyebrows.

  “I got it for a chemistry exam.”

  “Wasn’t that last year?” Liz rolled her eyes. “You could give a lecture on Euclid’s life history, but you don’t have a clue which celebrity couples hooked up last week.”

  “Liz, don’t pick on her.” Jane gave Liz a warning look, but for once I listened to Liz. Even if it stung.

  “Who cares which celebrities are hooking up?”

  “That’s just an example.” Liz glanced at Jane, who pursed her lips. “Honestly, I’m not trying to pick on you. I’m just saying that most of us first learned about dating and sex from books and movies and magazines.”

  Jane nodded. “We certainly didn’t learn it from Mom.”

  “Or Dad.” Liz winced, and we all laughed.

  “So what do I do?” I glanced at my Hesse books, which enthralled me and disturbed me in equal parts. “Do I really have to start reading other stuff and going to stupid movies?”

  “They’re not all stupid.” Liz glanced at Jane, who nodded. “Tag along with us tonight. Jane and I are going to catch a movie. A classic, even.”

  I had a feeling that Liz’s concept of “classic” was very different from mine. “Right. You guys and Charlie and Alex. No, thanks.”

  “The guys aren’t going.”

  Jane nodded. “After all, we don’t want to spend all our free nights with them.”

  I smirked. “Since when?”

  I blinked as we walked out of the theater. “Wow.”

  Liz nodded. “Now you know why all the girls go nuts over Chris Hemsworth. Even Mom thinks he’s hot, although I suspect she hasn’t mentioned it to Dad.”

  Chris Hemsworth? “I thought Chris Evans was the hot one.” In a sweet, good-boy-trying-to-be-bad sort of way.

  “He’s cute, but—”

  Jane patted my arm. “I’m with you, MB. Chris Evans is the hot one.”

  Liz snorted. “Which is why you like Charlie.”

  Jane stuck out her tongue at Liz, then glanced at me and smiled. “To each her own, right? And you like a skateboarder we haven’t even seen yet. I take it he’s more like Chris Evans?”

  I frowned. Who was Josh like? “I don’t think he’s like any of them. He’s definitely not like Robert Downey, Jr.”

  Liz hooted. “Good. As Mom would say, RDJ is too old for you.”

  I didn’t want to think about Mom and RDJ. Or Mom and Chris Hemsworth, for that matter. “Then he’s too old for you, too.”

  But age didn’t matter. I was out of the running with every guy, including Josh. Not that I kept thinking about Josh.

  Not at all.

  “He’s too old for both of you.” Jane gave a long-suffering sigh as we headed out into the parking lot toward the Prius. “Could we possibly change the subject? Where do you guys want to go now?”

  I glanced at my watch. Nine on the dot. “I should—”

  “Go home and study? No way.” Liz grabbed my arm. “We’re working on corrupting you, remember?”

  Jane rolled her eyes as she unlocked the car and we all climbed in, me in the back seat. Some things didn’t change.

  She glanced over at Liz, then in the rearview mirror at me. “Does that mean we’re dragging her to our usual house of corruption? The DQ?”

  “Oh, nothing as wild as that.”

  I held my breath, waiting for Liz’s command, since it seemed like Jane was as helpless as I to obey her.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of Kowalski’s.”

  Jane’s head whipped in Liz’s direction, but she turned the key in the ignition. “The grocery store? And that would be because . . . ?”

  “Because Mary has the most limited taste in reading materials I’ve seen in a long time.”

  I frowned. “What’s the matter with the classics?”

  “Not having a clue what you want to do with Josh, that’s what.”

  “I told you.” Not that Liz ever listened. “Josh just wanted to work on the roller coaster project.”

  As Jane pulled out of the parking lot, I heard her groan. Exactly how I felt.

  “Fine. He didn’t make a play for you. Which is good, since you were passed out cold.” Liz twisted to look at me in the back seat. “But what Josh wants has absolutely nothing to do with what you want.”

  Right. I wasn’t that big an idiot. “I may not get out much, but even I know it takes two to tango. Or tangle. Or however that goes.”

  “Which is why you have to know what you want. It might be Josh, or it might be some other guy, but you should think about what you want before you’re sprawled on top of a guy’s bed.”

  Jane whapped Liz in the arm. Twice. With gusto. “You keep making it sound so sordid. MB hadn’t eaten all day, and she fainted.”

  Liz snickered. “Like the time last year when you got drunk and passed out at Charlie’s condo.”

  “I didn’t pass out! It was late, and no one was sober enough to give me a ride home.”

  “I saw you the next morning, babe. I’ll go with my ‘passed-out’ theory.”

  Jane glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Pay no attention to her, MB. As you’ve probably realized by now, Liz has a vivid imagination.” A corner of her mouth turned up as she looked at Liz. “But I suspect Alex likes it that way.”

  “Zing!” Liz clapped a hand over her heart. “Et tu, Brute?”

  “You only say that to make MB believe you do read the classics, even though Julius Caesar was ninth grade, not to mention required reading.” Jane swung into the parking lot at Kowalski’s, the behemoth of a grocery store where Mom bought all the takeout dinners she claimed to have cooked. “If you have to torture MB by buying her some lurid reading material, at least humor me. Let’s grab something at the Starbucks here.”

  She got out of the car and slammed her door, but Liz ran ahead of us into Kowalski’s.

  I caug
ht up to Jane. “Thanks.”

  She turned, surprised. “For what? For insisting on grabbing a late-night snack when you’d rather be home studying?”

  “For—” I gulped. I still wasn’t used to hanging out with Jane and Liz, and I felt like a third wheel, and a flat tire at that. “For calling me MB. You’re the only one who does. Except maybe Josh, sometimes.” I still wasn’t even sure I liked it, but Jane was saying it just because I’d asked, and I definitely liked that. “Thanks for trying to help me.”

  “It’s not so much that you need help. You just need a little friendly advice, and not from Mom.” Jane patted my arm, making me feel both her equal, bizarre as that was, and three years old. “You’re also going to be eighteen next week, and maybe it’s time you hung out with Liz and me a bit more.”

  I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I’d, um, love to.”

  Jane slowed her steps. “I admit I’ve always thought of you and Cat and Lydia as the ‘younger kids’—sorry—but when I realized just how far gone Lydia was, and how far she’d dragged Cat down the same path, I couldn’t—”

  She broke off suddenly. And didn’t continue.

  “Couldn’t what?”

  She pursed her lips. “I couldn’t leave you alone anymore. Especially once I saw how sad you seem.”

  I bit my lip, trying to blink back the idiotic tears that threatened.

  Jane laughed as she put her arm around my shoulder. “You really are like Liz. She refuses to cry, too. Two tough chicks.”

  “I’m not at all like Liz. She’s fierce.”

  “Not as fierce as you think, but, yes, fierce when she needs to be. Like when she’s afraid someone might hurt her sister.” Jane squeezed my shoulder. “If I were Josh, I’d be nervous.”

  “She wouldn’t!”

  We reached the entrance to Kowalski’s, where Liz stood, arms crossed and tapping one foot.

  Jane smiled. “She brought Charlie back after all those months, and I think she’s the main reason he basically tossed his own sister out of his life. She is fierce.”

  Liz glared at us. “Who’s calling me fierce?”

  Jane walked right past her into Kowalski’s. “Certainly not me.”

  “Good. Because I’d—”

  Jane looked over her shoulder at me as I held my breath and slipped past Liz. “See what I mean, MB? A tough chick.”

  Liz shrugged. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  Jane headed for the Starbucks corner of the store. “Not on you, and not on MB.”

  Was I a tough chick? Not in this lifetime!

  I stayed up past midnight reading a couple of the teen magazines Liz bought for me, and now I stood bleary-eyed at my locker before first period, wondering what Jennifer Lawrence or 5 Seconds of Summer possibly had to do with my love life, or lack thereof.

  I should’ve trusted Jane when she told Liz the magazines were too young for me. As Liz paid for them, she told Jane I had some catching up to do before I moved on to Cosmo and actual discussions of s-e-x. Jane blushed and I stammered and Liz plunked down cold, hard cash for the teeny-bopper magazines, and at the time it seemed like the right thing.

  Besides, Zac Efron is kinda cute.

  “Hey.”

  The face belonging to the voice that greeted me wasn’t Zac’s, though. Or Chris Pine’s.

  “Josh.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Great.” I smiled brightly, the way all the teenage girls in those magazines smiled, at least when they were looking at Zac Efron. But I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Did celebrity girls actually say anything to guys, or did they just strike a pose like one of the Kardashians? Would I be better off reading The Wall Street Journal? “Thanks for the ride home.”

  “I was worried about you.”

  “I’m fine. Really. I just, uh, forgot to eat yesterday.” Because I’d skipped breakfast after obsessing too long over what to wear and what Josh would think, then couldn’t choke down lunch thanks to Josh and Penelope and having to watch their love affair blossom in front of my eyes.

  Basically, I’d passed out on Josh’s bed thanks to Josh. And my own stupidity.

  Josh watched me as if he wondered whether I’d pass out on him again. “We never got a chance to talk about—”

  “Oh, Josh!” Penelope strutted up behind Josh, wearing the exact same outfit I’d worn yesterday, and grabbed him by the belt loop. “Wanna eat lunch together again today?”

  As Josh glanced from me to Penelope, his smile faltering, I wondered whether I should wear overalls again tomorrow. If so, Penelope would be wearing them on Friday, and maybe then Josh would talk to her about roller coasters.

  After all, I’d be busy. Chris Evans or Zac Efron or maybe even Chris Hemsworth had to be in some movie showing this weekend. Or maybe I’d stay in bed reading Cosmo. I’d let Penelope fantasize about exactly what she wanted to do with Josh. After reading all those teen magazines, I mostly just fantasized about really white teeth.

  Josh finally turned back to Penelope, looking helpless. Helpless under her spell, or the power of her boobs, at least. “I was talking to Mary—uh, MB—about—”

  Penelope smiled, reminding me of a cat that just swiped another cat’s milk. “I’ll see you at lunch, okay?”

  She blew him a little air kiss—ew—and sashayed away, her hips swinging so wildly that anyone walking past her was in danger of getting bruised.

  Josh’s gaze followed her butt all the way down the hall. I slammed my locker door and took off for English class, my hips definitely not swinging.

  “Mary! MB! What do you want to be called anyway?”

  I glanced at him over my shoulder as I increased my speed. “Not Penelope, for starters.”

  “Penelope? Why would I—” He caught up to me. “I just hang out with her sometimes. Like I hang out with Kyle and you and, um, everyone.”

  But apparently boobs won out at lunchtime. I didn’t want to think about it. I also refused to glance down at my own boobs, which seemed perfectly fine—especially in this low-cut new top—whenever I wasn’t around Penelope.

  Reaching our classroom, I headed to my desk.

  Josh followed right behind me. Unfortunately.

  “I’d still like to get together sometime and—”

  The bell rang, Mr. Skamser cleared his throat, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe the teenage celebrities I’d read about last night cared only about white teeth and whether cameras really did add ten pounds. I bet none of them worried about whether any guy would ever look at them and not think about roller coasters.

  I glanced down at myself. I did look good. I flipped a hand through my hair, and it felt good. Jane and Liz weren’t lying. From the surprised looks on their faces when I showed up at breakfast today, I could tell I’d changed.

  Even Dad had asked if I wanted to look under the hood of his car with him after school today, but then he remembered that I wasn’t Liz; I just looked a little bit like her. Except for my glasses.

  What did Penelope have—besides boobs—that I didn’t? Did a girl have to make it crystal clear to a guy that she wanted to go out with him? Penelope seemed to be doing that, definitely. Was I? Doubtful in the extreme.

  The teen magazines and last night’s movie also hadn’t given me the answer to my basic question: did I want to go out with Josh? I still wasn’t exactly sure what it meant!

  I muddled over questions like that all morning. At lunchtime, I drifted in a fog to my usual solo table in the cafeteria. Josh was sitting there without Penelope. Of course, she might just be in the bathroom, padding her bra or inserting a diaphragm or something.

  I glanced around the cafeteria as I debated whether to find a different table. Did Josh consider my table his table now? His table with Penelope?

  “Hey. Aren’t you going to sit down?”

  There weren’t any other open tables. Sighing, I took the chair across from him, opened my lunch bag, and cringed as I peered inside. Bologna a
nd black olives on rye again, even though Mom knew I hated black olives and, frankly, the rest of it. With Twinkies. I really had to start making my own lunch. Which was probably Mom’s point.

  Annoyed, I glanced at Josh. “Where’s Penelope?”

  Josh shrugged, oblivious, as he chewed a bite of his burger, then popped a fry in his mouth. French fries. Why did I keep eating Mom’s biohazardous lunches? What was I saving my money for, anyway? More clothes Josh wouldn’t notice? An electric guitar Mom would only bash over my head?

  As Josh swallowed, I tried not to stare at the way his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. He didn’t notice. “I wanted to talk about my roller coaster design. I had this idea—”

  I rolled my eyes. “Is that all you care about? I’d think you’d at least talk about skateboarding once in a while.”

  He frowned. “Do you skate?”

  “Don’t tell me: I’m not the type.” After plucking out each of the black olives, one by one, I took a bite of my sandwich. Not because it tasted even remotely decent, but because the thought of passing out on anyone’s bed again, let alone Josh’s, drove me to eat even Mom’s sandwich from hell. “But I’m the roller coaster type.”

  I flashed him a big fake smile, even if my teeth weren’t as white as a celebrity’s.

  “You’re smart. What’s wrong with that?”

  “And—?”

  “And what? We have a lot of classes together this term.”

  Penelope walked by just then, her lower lip hanging out a foot but her butt wiggling. I could tell Josh was trying not to stare at her, but it’d probably take a crane to pull his tongue back into his mouth.

  I choked on my sandwich, but I knew I had to finish it, and Ms. Kieran would strangle any kid who dared to sully the media center with so much as a crumb.

  As Penelope swished out of sight, Josh’s glazed eyes finally returned to mine. “What were we talking about?”

  “I think you were saying that you and Penelope have a lot of classes together this term.” I smiled grimly, no longer giving a rat’s ass how white my teeth were. My teeth, not to mention my lips, were never going anywhere near Josh.