My stomach dropped. Longbourn was hosting an upperclassman reception with Pemberley Academy. The official reason was to welcome the returning students who spent last semester abroad. But I had a feeling it was the start of hunting season (the catch being a prom date).
"You promised me you would go!" Jane reminded me.
"I know, I know." I tried to sound optimistic. But unfortunately, Jane could always see through me.
"Here, try this on." Jane handed me a beautiful black dress. I always had to borrow clothes from her anytime we had a formal event. And we had a lot of formal events.
I was standing in our room, half naked, when Jane's younger sister, Lydia, burst through the door. She didn't believe in knocking ... or doing anything considerate.
After I zipped up the dress, Lydia flounced on my bed and declared, "Is that what you're going to wear?"
"Lydia," Jane scolded, "I think Lizzie looks fabulous."
I smiled. "You have to think that, Jane -- it's your dress."
"Oh, right." Lydia's face fell. "Sorry, Lizzie. It's just that Jane can lend you all her clothes, but you can't necessarily make them fit."
"Lydia!" Jane threw a notebook at her sister. "You need to be more polite, especially ..."
Jane let her thought trail off. But both Lydia and I knew what she meant.
Jane and Lydias father had been laid off over Christmas when his company had merged with another investment bank. Not that it mattered much -- he got a huge payout and money didn't seem like an issue. Although as word spread throughout campus, you would've thought Jane and Lydia came back from the holidays with leprosy.
As Jane and I finished getting ready, Lydia began whining. "No fair. Why can't I come? You better at least let me go promdress shopping with you."
Jane blushed. "Slow down -- nobody's been asked to anything."
"Yet," Lydia countered.
"The reception tonight is just an opportunity for us to catch up after the holidays."
"Yeah, especially with a certain someone returning from London!" Lydia jumped up on my bed, acting years younger than the freshman student she was, and put her hand up to her heart. "Oh, Charles Bingley, how I missed you so!" She dropped onto the bed with an exaggerated sigh.
"That's it!" Jane started shooing Lydia out the door. "Out! We need to finish getting ready." She started nervously adjusting her bracelet.
Charles Bingley had spent the previous semester studying abroad in London. Before he left, Jane and Charles had started to get close. From what Jane told me, nothing really happened, since they knew there was about to be an ocean between them. Jane generally kept her feelings close to the vest, but with Charles's imminent arrival, she had become openly giddy. Especially once her sister was out of the room.
"Oh, Charles Bingley, how I missed you so!" Jane called out, laughing. But then she clearly felt that was too much. She examined herself in the mirror and added, "I guess there is no reason for me to get my hopes up. He probably e-mailed with a lot of girls last semester."
One of the most wonderful things about Jane, besides her kindness, was that she had absolutely no idea how beautiful she was. She was completely void of vanity.
"I'm just excited to see him again," she went on. "I'm sure he'll have tons of girls fighting over him for prom."
"You're being ridiculous, Jane! Seriously! If Charles Bingley is even half the guy you say he is, he'd be a raving lunatic to not ask you to prom."
Jane had promised me that Charles was different from the other Pemberley boys I'd met. Talking to them was like being placed into conversational purgatory, with no hope of being released without significant damage to one's self-esteem. The first time I met a Pemberley guy, the first words out of his mouth were "Which mutual funds do you invest in?" When I told another Pemberley boy that I played the piano, he responded, "Is there money in that?" Another had mentioned that his father was in the Forbes 400 ("and not in the bottom two hundred, either") within a minute of meeting me. A fourth had kept his eyes on my chest the whole time we spoke. And then he moved on to the next girl's chest. For Jane's sake, I prayed she was right about Charles being unlike those guys.
Jane smiled and took me by the elbow. "You are too kind, Lizzie. Just promise me that you'll try to enjoy yourself tonight. You'll have fun. I promise."
I desperately wanted to believe that I could be accepted and treated like a normal person at school. But after last semester, I had no desire to be friends with most of the girls here. How could I be friends with the same people who found so much pleasure in torturing me?
No, I knew better. I would do my best to have an incident-free evening. My armor was up and I was ready.
Three
WE ENTERED FOUNDERS HALL ON CAMPUS, DECORATED with tiny, white lights that glistened off the floor-length windows and crystal chandeliers. Even after four months, I still wasn't used to the grandeur of the buildings here. My old high school consisted of cement blocks and fluorescent lighting, not rich mahogany and stained glass.
"So beautiful ... and this is just for a reception," Jane reminded me as we took in the view. Or at least I took in the view -- Jane was scanning the crowd, looking for Charles. "Can you imagine what they'll do for prom?" she asked.
I had heard so much about prom at Longbourn. But I tried to not think about it. I knew there would be no way that I would be able to go. Most of the Pemberley students couldn't bear to look at me, let alone want to ask me to anything. And the standards were so ridiculously high. The students in the room for the "reception" were more dressed up than any Hoboken High prom-goer. If this was casual, I couldn't imagine what formal would be.
Jane was approached by a girl with dirty-blond hair done up in an elaborate twist and diamonds, actual diamonds, dripping from her ears and wrist.
"Jane, dear," the girl purred, making it sound half like a greeting and half like a formality.
"Hi, Caroline, welcome back. How are you settling in?"
"Fabulous. I'm so sorry I haven't been able to catch up with you since I returned from London. Things have been so hectic." Caroline began to look me up and down. "And who is this?"
Jane put her arm around my shoulder. "This is Lizzie Bennet. She started last semester."
"Bennet? I'm afraid I don't know your family. Where do you vacation?"
The questions. These questions were always the start. It didn't take too long after asking questions about my family -- what they did for a living, where our second house was, the status of my father's 40IK -- that my true identity would be revealed.
"LBI," I deadpanned.
Caroline's eyes widened. "Sorry?"
I wasn't sure if I was imagining it, but I believe I detected a slight British accent. I wasn't aware that you could pick up one of those in a few months. I'd been at Longbourn the same amount of time Caroline had been in London, and I knew I wasn't speaking with an entitled accent.
"LBI. Long Beach Island. You know, on the Jersey shore? I'm a scholarship kid, so I don't get off the continent much." I decided it would be best to get it out of the way.