Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet (9781476763248) (35 page)

I smiled back, and leaned up to meet him again.

“Lydia?”

Or not.

“Jane!” I yelped, stepping back away from Milo.

She and Bing were standing a few feet away . . . watching . . . awkwardly . . .

The shock on her face lasted several seconds before she morphed back into sweet, kind Jane—or at least, an outward clone of her. Internally, I wasn't so convinced.

“Who's your friend?” she asked, moving closer to us, and inspecting him quizzically as she did. “Have we met?”

“Yeah, in the park, I'm—” I nudged him not too gently, but certainly not quick enough.

“Oh,” Jane said, recognition washing over her.

He looked over at me, not sure what to do now, but finally just came out with it: “I'm . . . Milo.”

“Milo. Right. Bing! Have you met Lydia's new friend Milo?”

Bing stepped forward and offered up his hand, completely friendly and not at all secretly hiding a layer of questions and anger under his smile like Jane very possibly was.

“Hello, Milo,” he said.

“Hi . . .”

“You've got glitter,” Jane said, her voice tight, looking at me. “On your face.”

I swiped at my face. Of course I would end up catching glitter-face from a sparkly boy on my doorstep while my family
watched in disapproval. So much for low-budget cable movies—this was turning into a weird YA novel. I wasn't sure which was worse.

“We should probably get inside for dinner,” Jane continued. “It was so nice to see you, Milo.”

She didn't wait for me to respond as she marched inside, Bing following along looking a little lost.

“Bye,” I whispered to Milo, unable to stop the smile that flitted across my face despite whatever confrontation waited for me inside Jane's apartment.

“See you later, Lydia,” he said, and I hoped he was right.

Though if Jane had her way, I may not see anyone ever again after tonight.

“Lydia, it's fine, really,” Jane said as we entered her apartment. “I just wish you'd told me, is all.”

“I don't see what the big deal is,” I replied, stomping in after her. “Milo's nice. They're a good group of people—”

“Oh, so there's a group?” Jane asked, her smile tightening by the minute.

“Yeah, I've met a lot of really nice people,” I said. “They're great. They . . .”

They what? Don't treat me like I'm fragile, for one. They accepted me straight off the bat.

Bing left us when we got to the door. Jane begged off from dinner, saying she was a little tired and wanted to spend this last
night with her sister. Bing either took that at face value or was smart enough to realize the ruse. Either way, he left me to Jane's devices. Her sweet, overly concerned devices.

“I'm sure they are,” Jane replied, reaching out to touch my arm. Then . . . “Would you like some tea?”

You know how I said Jane uses food to both soothe and avoid? We're in the avoid section.

“No, I'm good,” I replied.

“I wouldn't mind some,” Allison said from the couch.

Oh, okay. There was an audience for this. Granted, that audience was watching a political commentary show and reading her tablet at the same time, but I'm betting the sight of Jane even mildly disconcerted was more interesting than anything from the TV talking heads.

“Sure!” Jane said too brightly.

She rummaged in the kitchen for a couple of minutes, came out with tea for her and Allison.

“So,” she said, sitting down at the tiny table. “Tell me about Milo. And his friends. You should have invited him up; I'd have loved to get the chance to talk with him.”

“Why?”

“Because he's your friend, sweetie,” Jane said. She hadn't stopped smiling since we got into the apartment. Not in the normal Jane “I'm so happy” way, but in a “My face is frozen because I don't know what will happen if I move it” way. “And I'm sure Allison and Shea didn't get to meet him, either.”

She turned her weird smile to Allison, who shook her head.

Or maybe we weren't in the avoid section. We were in the passive-aggressive section.

Hoo-boy.

The thing is, Jane doesn't get mad. She doesn't fight. She just gets tighter and tighter until she looks like she's going to pop.

I didn't get why she was getting tight with me. And I didn't get was why she was getting tight with me
now
. Over this.

And quite frankly, it pissed me off.

“Yeah, but I don't need you to, like, approve my friends. And I don't need your roommates to approve them, either. Everyone keeps telling me I'm an adult, making adult decisions.”

Allison
finally
cottoned on to the idea that there was a fight going on and rose from the couch. “Yeah, I'm going to finish watching this later. . . .”

But Jane didn't seem to notice as Allison walked not into her room, but into Shea's. “Of course you are. I just . . .” she said. “I really wish I hadn't gone to Miami.”

“That doesn't have anything to do with this!”

“If I hadn't abandoned you, maybe you wouldn't feel the need to lie to me about your friends.”

“Are you kidding me?!” I said. “You don't mean my ‘friends.' If it was Kat—another one of my friends—downstairs with me you wouldn't have minded. It's the fact that Milo's a guy.” A glitter-covered guy.

“Well . . . to be fair,” Jane said, “you have to be careful. This is New York; it's a very intimidating place. It's safer if people know who you're with. And you haven't dated anyone since—”

“Since George?” I shot back. “Actually, I have.”

“You . . . you have?”

“Yeah, I have.”

“Okay,” Jane said, putting up her hands. “So why didn't you tell me? About Milo or about this other guy, or about . . . anything? I thought you came here to—”

“I came here to see you, Jane. To figure out my life, but not to have you try and solve it for me. And not to have you pity me and pet me, either.” I threw my bag on the couch. “Not everything gets solved by a cup of tea!”

“Okay . . .” Jane held up her hands again, her eyes wide. At this point, I'm betting she realized we were on the verge of a solid fight and, never actually having been in one before, was retreating.

I, however, was seeing red on the edges of my vision and, for better or worse (worse), dug in.

“And you know what? I
have
been trying to figure out my life—and they've been helping me do that. They're the ones who took me on a tour of the school, not stupid tourist attractions. They're the ones who made me feel welcome, not your roommates—definitely not the one who thinks I'm gonna call her for bail money.”

A gasp sounded from Shea's room, but I couldn't care about that.

“Well, I'm sorry you didn't want to go see tourist attractions,” Jane said, her voice breaking a little. “If you would have told me, we would have done something else. I just wish you would talk to me. I worry about you, Lydia. I'm not mad, I'm worried.”

“
Well I wish you would be mad!
”

Now I was
sure
I heard whispering coming from Shea's room. But there was Jane sitting in front of me, looking like I'd slapped her. Or like I'd slapped her puppy.

“Why is no one ever mad at me?” I cried to the room. “You, Mom and Dad, Lizzie. Everyone's so goddamned
careful
. You sigh and are disappointed and sad and it's like you're climbing this mountain and you're carrying me but it's okay because you're used to it.

“You don't blame me! But I'm the one who screwed up this summer. I'm the one who didn't do my application. And I'm the one who made it so you just left—”

“I told you I'm sorry about Miami.”

“Not Miami, San Fr—”

San Francisco.

I froze. Clamped my mouth closed, afraid more words would come spilling out.

She just left. Mary, I mean. I did something terrible to her, and she just left. She even put me to bed after I came home drunk, and didn't stay to yell at me in the morning. She just walked away. Disappointed. Sad. But not mad.

Even her texts—they're not angry, or stiff. They're just . . . resigned.

And if anyone deserved to get mad at me, it was Mary. Instead, she just moved on.

Over my dead body.

“Oh my God,” I murmured, shaking my head.

“Lydia?” Jane's voice was small. “I'm sorry, but . . . I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about.”

“No, Jane, I'm sorry,” I said, coming over to hug her. “I didn't mean to fight with you. In fact . . . I think I'm supposed to be having this fight with someone else.”

She put her arms around me, a little hesitant at first, but then holding me fiercely.

We stayed there for a while; I don't know how long. Long enough for my breathing to go back to normal and my nose to start running with unshed tears.

Finally, I heard, muffled against my shoulder, “Do you think you'd like some tea now?”

I laughed a wet laugh. “Sure.” I sniffled. “And I'll tell you all about Milo.”

“And school?” Jane asked. “You said you went on a tour?”

“Yeah . . . um, I'm thinking about applying to New Amsterdam. They have a good psych department.”

“So does Central Bay College,” Jane said. And I don't blame her. I have a Darcy-shaped in there.

“Yeah, but NAU feels different.” I don't know why it feels different, but it does. Maybe it's the city. Maybe because in New York, I could be something other than someone's little sister (even though Jane's here), or cousin, or charity case. And feel less like I'm being watched. The act of observing something automatically changes how that thing acts, after all. I want to be able to grow into myself, without all that. “It feels . . . more right for me, right now, than anywhere else.”

“Well.” Jane smiled—her real smile this time. “I can't wait to hear all about it.”

Bing, smart man that he was, sent Jane and me in the town car to the airport by ourselves. He must have known that we needed our sister time.

We were silent for most of the ride, having talked through the night. About all the stuff that was going on, and also about a lot of nothing, and we drank our weight in tea. Instead, we just leaned against each other in the car. I kept my eyes out the window, watching the city go from bunched together to more and more spaced out, until we found ourselves pulling up to the curb of the airport.

“You got your bags?” Jane asked.

“Yeah, I'll manage,” I said, hoping there was one of those carts, because four bags is no joke.

“So . . .”

“So . . .”

“I'm sorry that I lose it sometimes. I get that from Mom, I think,” I said. Jane wrapped her arms around me.

“I'm sorry that I sometimes hold it in,” she said. “I get that from Mom, too.”

“I'm surprised she held in the fact that I was seeing Cody,” I said, pulling back, brushing the hair out of my eyes. “I thought she would have gotten on the Bennet family phone tree with that one. Guess she wanted to not spread my disappointingness to others.”

“Mom wouldn't do that. Be disappointed in you. They support you; you know that, right? No matter what.” She hugged me one last time. “And so do I.”

I had a long flight, and a layover in Denver, to think about what Jane said.

And it made me realize that Mary wasn't the only person I needed to talk to.

Luckily, when I walked through the front door of the house, before I even put down my suitcases, I had my chance.

“Baby, come here, let me look at you!” Mom cried, as I came in. She moved a little slowly, but once she negotiated past my bags, she pressed me against her.

“Hi, Mom. Where's Dad?”

“He's picking up your car, good as new.”

Good. I was going to need it tomorrow.

“It's good to have you home,” Mom said. “Kitty missed you. I kept trying to get her to come out into the living room when we watched TV at night, but she just wanted to sit on your bed and stare out the window.”

“Awww, poor Kitty,” I said, gently running my nails over her back as she purred her appreciation.

“She's going to have to be sad a little longer,” I told Mom. “I'm going up to San Francisco tomorrow.”

“Oh, wonderful! Are you going to see Lizzie?”

“Probably. But I need to talk to Mary about some things; I'd just rather do it in person,” I said.

“Maybe you could tour the college while you're there? See if anything . . . clicks?” Mom suggested.

“Maybe,” I agreed. “I don't know if I'm going to be there that long.”

“Well, no pressure, dear,” she said.

More eggshells. More dancing around what people really wanted to say to me.

I'm fully prepared to have it out with Mary when I go see her tomorrow. I know what buttons to push to get her to admit she's upset with me. But I don't want to do that with my
mom
. Making your parents upset isn't any fun.

And maybe my mom figured that making your kid upset isn't any fun, either.

“Mom?”

“Hmm?”

“I know you and Dad aren't exactly . . . pleased that I messed up going off to college this fall. Especially on top of everything else this year. I know you'd hoped we'd all finally be out of the house by now,” I said quietly. “I'm trying to figure out what I need to do to make that happen.”