Attempting Elizabeth (12 page)

“History really is just a series of stories,” Mark continued turning back to me. He hadn’t been rude at all to the waitress: in fact, I doubted he’d even noticed her come on. I resisted the urge to shoot a triumphant glance up at her as she stood, slack-jawed, at our table for a brief moment before sidling away. “Stories of heroes and cowards, winners and losers, great men and women. What makes it interesting, what makes it powerful, isn’t the recitation of names and dates, but their stories.”

I blinked at him. I’d never once thought of history that way. I mean, the whole real people and their lives thing, yeah, but never with the kind of passion that was currently pouring out of Mark. I have to admit that amount of intensity coming out of that attractive of a guy was...extremely hot.

“Your students are lucky,” I said as I picked up my fork and dug into my shepherd’s pie. “I wish I could be that passionate about history, but real people don’t interest me as much as fictional characters do.” As soon as I said it I felt like kicking myself. Even though it was true, it sounded creepy. And rude.

“But I bet you know a lot about each of your favorite authors. How their stories fit into the pieces of history around them.”

“Yes,” I admitted. “I guess so. Although the characters in stories are almost stronger than their authors a lot of the time.”

Mark grinned at me. The single dimple on the right side of that grin slayed me. “Yeah? So who’s your favorite fictional character then? Han Solo? John McClane? Or maybe your Mr. Darcy?”

“Darcy.” I blurted out without thinking and then blushed bright red. There’d been my chance to pretend to be normal.
Swing and a miss
. “Well, actually Elizabeth Bennet,” I amended. “If I could be anyone from a book, it would be her.” Why was I still talking?

“Huh, I’ve never given much thought to what fictional character I’d like to be.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Can’t think of anyone. I mean, it might be fun for a day to be someone else. But that’s what your Halloween is for, right?”

I took a huge bite of shepherd’s pie in a last ditch effort to stop myself from blurting out that I actually
had
managed to be someone else and for much longer than a day.

“You don’t have Halloween in Australia?” I asked once the shepherd’s pie had burned its way down my throat.

“Not really, no. There are always a few kids that dress up, but nothing like here. Did you know there’s a year round Halloween Warehouse off the 5?”

“The one in Buena Park? Yeah, it’s awesome, I went there last year to get my Leia costume for the convention—” I broke off in embarrassment. That was way too much information for a blind date. What was with me and my big mouth around Mark? He could ask me for my social security and pin numbers and I’d probably hand them right on over.

Mark laughed. “Well, there you go. Not just for Halloween. There are plenty of days that you get to be someone else.”

“Not enough,” I thought. Mark looked surprised and I realized I hadn’t just thought it, I had actually said it. I winced. I could see whatever glimmer of interest Mark might have had in me fade right before my eyes.

I should have laughed it off, made a joke of it like “see this is why I need to take turns being other people, ‘cause I say crazy stuff without thinking about it.” But I didn’t. I just retreated into myself. Apparently this was my go-to response around Mark. I could never get a firm grip on myself or the situation when I was around him. Which is why if Tori had told me who I was meeting for this blind date I would have just said thanks, but no thanks.

Our conversation got more stilted. I wasn’t doing much to help it along, honestly. He asked me how my food was, and I said it was good. I think I asked him if his burger was good—they have really great burgers at McKinney’s—but I don’t remember. Around Mark I felt like I was Alice falling down the rabbit hole, but instead of ending up in Wonderland I kept finding myself in the Land of Uncomfortable Social Situations. Awkwarder and awkwarder.

He paid for dinner. I felt bad because I’d been a horrible date. I felt bad because I’d really been starting to like Mark. And then I’d totally blown it and instead of trying to salvage it, I’d blown it more.

I was starting to think that I really was destined to just always appear at my worst in front of him.

“Thanks for dinner.” I finally managed to break our silent walk out toward the parking lot. “I’m sorry I wasn’t a better blind date.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

The guy really was too nice. What was wrong with me? Here was this really amazingly smart, interesting, handsome, and genuinely nice guy that I was totally interested in. Was I going to let my own insecurities screw it up for me?

I took a deep breath. “Look, Mark. I like you. I know I come off as a total ditz sometimes, but I’m not really…well, I don’t think I really am, lately it’s been kind of hard to tell. Every time I’m around you I do and say really stupid things and I have no idea why.”

He opened his mouth like he was going to say something in response, but for some reason words kept pouring out of me. “I don’t know what Tori and Charlie were thinking. Someone like you, obviously, wouldn’t ever go out with someone like me. It’s okay, I get it—”

“Kelsey,” Mark finally got a word in edgewise. “You’re right, I probably wouldn’t have asked you out.”

“Oh. Well then, have a nice night.” I attempted to gather what was left of my dignity—honestly there wasn’t much—and turned toward my car.

“Not because I’m not interested in you,” he said quickly, “You’re smart and obviously attractive.”

I stopped and turned back around. Obviously might be overstating it, but that didn’t sound totally unpromising.

“But I wouldn’t have asked you out because you are obviously still a bit unbalanced—”

“You think I’m unbalanced?” I interrupted him. “I’m not unbalanced! I mean, I might be a little kooky sometimes…is this about the
Star Wars
stuff?”

“No,” Mark ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “I’m not saying you're actually unbalanced, I’m saying you’re still off-kilter from your breakup. Even if Charlie hadn’t told me you’d recently broken up with someone after you pissed off after the hike, I would have guessed it.”

“Pissed? Yeah, I was pissed!” I bit out.

“What? You were pissed after one drink?” he asked. “You don’t have to make excuses—“

“I’m not making excuses! What are you talking about? Sorry if I didn’t react well to seeing Ashley for the first time since she attempted to stick her tongue all the way down my ex’s throat.”

Mark stared at me for a moment before letting out a bark of laughter.

“What?” I demanded defensively.

“I think we are speaking at cross purposes,” he said. “I meant pissed off as in left quickly. I was forgetting to translate into Yank. You can react however you want to seeing anybody. I’m more talking about how you seem to run hot and cold, one minute you’re funny and clever and the next minute you’re silent and withdrawn. I’m honestly just not sure how to read you.”

He wasn’t wrong, but for some reason that made me feel even angrier. “Thanks for dinner,” I said again, just because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Mark stuffed his hands into his pants pockets, looking even more frustrated than he had a few minutes before. We stared at each other for a long minute. Finally he nodded. I turned back toward my car, fishing for my keys in my purse, and cursing myself, Tori and Charlie, and the universe in general for how the evening had gone.

“Which one are you?”

“I’m sorry?” I looked over my shoulder as I unlocked my car.

“Which Kelsey are you?” He shrugged, hands still in his pockets. I refused to notice how the movement caused his shirt to tighten across his shoulders. “Do you even know?”

I gaped at him. What the hell kind of question was that? To suggest I didn’t even know who I was?

“I—I—” I stuttered. Why couldn’t I just tell him off? Why couldn’t I just say “I’m beyond funny and clever, and you’ve officially missed out, Buddy?” I hadn’t been at a loss for words when my heart had actually been broken by finding Jordan and Ashley together. I’d been able to rip Jerkface to shreds with nothing but words. And yet here was this guy basically questioning my sanity and I had nothing. Maybe it was because he actually looked sincerely confused. Maybe it was because I was starting to realize that I had been more interested in him than I’d admitted to myself.

“Night, Mark,” I finally managed before I slipped into the car and slammed the door behind me. He was still standing in the parking lot as I drove away.

...in every respect entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others.

“You,” I said
accusingly, as I slammed the front door. “Are both in a crap load of trouble.”

Tori and Charlie looked up from the couch with twin expressions of guilt.

“It, um, didn’t go well, then?” Tori asked in a small voice.

“Yeah, ‘well’ wouldn’t not be how I’d describe the epic fail of that ‘blind date.’” I made quote marks in the air around the phrase because I knew how much it annoyed her when people did that.

“I’m sorry.” She jumped off the couch and walked toward me, a contrite expression on her face. “I really thought you guys had some chemistry, but I didn’t think you’d go if you knew it was Mark.” I continued to glare at her and she came to a faltering stop a few feet from me. “I’m really sorry; I shouldn’t have done it.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. I can safely say that if Mark was ever even slightly interested me, he isn’t anymore.”

“I’m—”

“I’m going to bed,” I cut her off before she could try to apologize again. I knew that if she did that I would probably forgive her and I wasn’t in a forgiving mood. I wanted to bask in my self-righteous anger for a bit longer.

I slammed my bedroom door behind me and huffed out an angry breath. The more I thought about it, the more annoyed I became. Which Kelsey was I? I was just me. So sometimes I was quiet and awkward and sometimes I was outgoing, and let’s admit it, still awkward. The problem was probably that I had no real internal filter. Around Mark I wanted to seem less like a goof so in lieu of a filter I just shut down.

Still, how dare he suggest I not know who I was? Argh. I could only imagine what he’d say if he knew I was literally jumping into other people’s bodies. Other people who don’t even really exist. That’d send him running for the hills.

I hadn’t even considered jumping back into
Pride and Prejudice
since last weekend’s little Lydia mishap. I picked the book up from night table and stared at it.

I was jealous of Elizabeth Bennet. She made Darcy fall in love with her without even trying. She didn’t withdraw and get all tongue-tied. She was funny and witty and vibrant. I could manage funny, but as soon as that small voice inside my head whispered that is was more likely that people were laughing
at
me than with me I veered off course, crashed, and burned.

Who was I? I was a girl who could jump into her favorite novel. How many people could claim that? And I was going to end up as Lizzy Bennet.

I flipped through the novel looking for a good scene. No more Longbourn family gatherings. If ended up as Mary I might leap off a cliff.

It took me a long time to fall asleep. I kept replaying my fight with Mark. I couldn’t stop his words from repeating in my mind.

~

I was in a well-lit drawing room, sitting on a chair near a beautiful piano, my fingers idly flipping the pages in a book I held on my lap. I could feel the soft silk of my pale lavender gown pressed against my legs. It occurred to me that it was a much nicer dress than Elizabeth Bennet should have. The thought made me start. I looked up quickly. There was Mr. Darcy a few feet away from me, writing at a desk. Just the sight of him caused an almost painful contraction in my chest. I heard a laugh and turned my head to see a man who must be Mr. Bingley standing in front of a settee, conversing with a seated woman whose face I couldn’t see.

This was my first time seeing Bingley. He had sandy blond hair and a ridiculously good chin. He and Jane would make gorgeous babies together. I leaned forward a bit so I could see who he was talking to—I still couldn’t manage to see her face but I recognized her dark curls. I had, after all, just played the part of her sister for half a day.

Once again I had managed to perform my miraculous, literary quantum leap into entirely the wrong character.

The disappointment was almost overwhelming. I took a steadying breath and looked around me further. I recognized Mr. Hurst snoring in his chair across the room, and Mrs. Hurst sitting, bored, on the piano bench looking at some sheet music.

Wait a minute.

Wait just a
damn
minute!

The drawing room at Netherfield, with Darcy, Lizzy, Bingley, and the Hursts accounted for. Which left…

“Oh, hell no!” I burst out.

Every head in the room, with the exception of Mr. Hurst, who continued to snore away, swiveled toward me in shock.

“Caroline?” Bingley’s voice was filled with concern. “Are you quite well?”

I took a moment to compose myself, searching through the frustration and panic clouding my brain for some more Austenesque phrasing. I was quite certain, judging from Darcy’s raised eyebrows and Mrs. Hurst’s slack jaw, that Caroline Bingley had never before had such an outburst. At least not in front of other people.

I managed a small smile.

“Oh yes, Charles. I do apologize; I was just reading aloud from my book. I didn’t realize I was so loud. Quite a scandalous novel.”

I glanced down at the book in my lap and grimaced.
The Sonnets of Shakespeare.
Fabulous. Well, hopefully no one had noticed what I’d been reading.

I saw Elizabeth’s eyes dart from my face to the book and back, and I realized she must know I was lying. I don’t suppose it mattered. I pretty much detest Caroline as a character, so would it really be horrible if every other character temporarily thinks that she’s gone off her rocker? I planned to spend as little time as possible in her skin anyway.

“Actually, Charles,” I said, standing up and holding the volume down at my side to conceal it with my skirts, “I confess I am feeling a bit fatigued from our earlier…” I trailed off, trying to remember what we would have been doing earlier. I distinctly remember there being walks in the shrubbery, but I couldn’t be sure which evening of the whole Jane-and-Lizzy-stuck-at-Netherfield scenario we were on. “From earlier.” I finished, lamely. “I think I shall retire early.”

Charles looked even more surprised. “I say, Caroline, are you feeling that unwell? I do hope you are not becoming ill. Here, let me take your arm and help you up the stairs.”

I tried not to pull a face. Caroline’s feet could find the way on their own very well, but Bingley looked so sincere I felt bad refusing him.

Once in Caroline’s room, after several assurances to Bingley that I would be fine, in response to his repeated expressions of concern and promises to make sure Caroline’s maid came up directly, I pilfered her desk for a paper, pen, and ink. I managed to find a few loose pieces, folded them in half to create a makeshift book, and started writing.

Kelsey Edmundson woke up in her own bed in her apartment in Anaheim, California.

Everything was as before.

Nothing had changed, and no time had passed.

I wrote it over and over until I filled up every single page of my makeshift book. I was just shoving it under one of the pillows on the bed when Caroline’s maid knocked quietly on the door. As soon as I was out of my evening dress and into nightclothes, I jumped into be. I double-checked that my head was on the right pillow and wished for sleep to come as soon as possible. Even a few hours as Caroline Bingley had been too long.

The loud whooshing sound filled my ears. I could feel the pushing and pulling as I was sucked back into the scene.

I was sitting on a chair near the piano. There was Mr. Darcy at the desk and Bingley speaking to Lizzy just as he had been before I went to sleep.

I was still Caroline Bingley.

The bolt of pure panic was like nothing I’d ever felt before. It started with a squeezing feeling in my chest and shot through the rest of my body like an electric current before settling, heavy and nausea inducing, in the pit of my stomach.

This was very, very bad.

It was worse than when I’d first been stuck as Georgiana. Then, at least, there had been the novelty of experiencing my first literary quantum leap and the steadfast hope that I had simply not hit on the right method for jumping back out of the book—that the next thing I tried might work. This time I
knew
what should work to get out, and it
hadn’t
. For some reason, I hadn’t been able to write myself out of
Pride and Prejudice
and back into my real self. I’d been popped right back into the scene as punishment for not playing it right.

Elizabeth was laughing at something Mr. Bingley said and Darcy was looking at them in a disgruntled fashion from his seat at the desk. I forced myself to concentrate.

“I see your design, Bingley,” said Mr. Darcy. “You dislike an argument and want to silence this.”

“Perhaps I do,” laughed Bingley. “Arguments are too much like disputes. If you and Miss Bennet will defer yours till I am out of the room, I shall be very thankful, and then you may say whatever you like of me.”

I breathed a small sigh of relief. It was Lizzy’s first night at Netherfield. Jane was sick upstairs, Darcy had been writing a letter to his sister, I’d—well
Caroline
—had just been insisting that Darcy include her raptures about Georgiana’s design for a table or some such nonsense. Then there was the whole discussion about how Bingley writes letters which was basically an excuse for Lizzy and Darcy to match verbal swords and for Darcy to start his tumble into love with Lizzy.

Caroline had probably been sitting here stewing during that conversation, possibly planning several horrific deaths for Elizabeth, when I’d popped right into her. And then popped right back in after messing up the scene the first time around.

“What you ask,” Elizabeth returned to Bingley, “is no sacrifice on my side; and Mr. Darcy had much better finish his letter.”

I forced myself to sit quietly. At some point Darcy would finish his letter and suggest that Lizzy and I play piano. Then I’d get to clamber all over myself trying to impress Darcy with Caroline’s awesome piano playing skills, during which time he’d just be making eyes at Lizzy and basically asking her to dance of all things. Though she’d be too clueless to get it, thinking he was making fun of her. I wondered if Caroline figured it out. Probably.

It promised to be an absolutely fan-freaking-tastic evening.

Twenty minutes later I was absent-mindedly watching Caroline’s hands fly over the keys in front of me, straining my ears to hear what I knew Darcy was saying to Elizabeth. If I could get past this part I could go straight up to bed and get on with trying to write myself out again.

And there it was: Darcy asked Lizzy about being seizing the opportunity to dance a reel (is that what I was playing?), she ignored him, he repeated the question. She was replying, “
Blah blah blah
, despise me if you dare…” I never thought I’d be irritated with Elizabeth Bennet, but really, did she need three whole sentences to get to the point? I was dying to get out of here.

“Indeed I do not dare,” Darcy said with a mixture of stiffness and surprise.

I screamed “End scene” in my mind, but I waited a good thirty seconds before stopping my fingers from their busy work and jumping up from the piano bench.

“I fear I am a bit tired. I shall see you all in the morning at breakfast. Goodnight!” And before anyone could respond I was out the door like a shot and up the stairs to Caroline’s room.

I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t been able to write myself out the first time. Just a few quick sentences had been enough to get me out of Georgiana and Lydia. But Caroline was a stronger character, maybe I needed more specifics.

Kelsey Edmundson, age twenty-three, youngest daughter of Richard and Marianne Edmundson, a grad student with way too much school debt, woke up in her own apartment in Anaheim, California.

She was not Caroline Bingley, she was Kelsey Edmundson, no time had passed.

I kissed the page for luck and then placed it between my head and Caroline’s pillow.
Please work
, I prayed as I finally slipped off to sleep.

~

It didn’t work.

I woke up in Caroline’s bed, staring in shocked disbelief at the molded ceiling above me. I tried not to panic. Really tried. Then I got up, located the chamber pot, and tossed whatever was left of Caroline’s dinner from the night before.

The page with my brief biography was still crumpled against the pillow. I grabbed it, smoothing it out, staring at the words as if they might hold the answers I needed.

“Think, Kelsey. Think.” Obviously I’d played the scene the night before well enough to move forward in the timeline of the novel, the same way I had eventually as Georgiana. But writing myself out still hadn’t worked. Why?

I stood up and paced the length of the room then squeezed the paper into a ball and tossed it into the fire crackling merrily in the grate. Some poor servant had already been up and in Caroline’s room before I’d woken up. That had always creeped me out as Georgiana, knowing people were walking around in my room while I was asleep. Now I was too frustrated to be creeped out.

I’d been feeling really annoyed the whole time I’d been Caroline, actually. I wondered if it was just because I so desperately didn’t want to be here as her, or if just inhabiting her body meant that her permanent bad temper was rubbing off on me.

I stopped mid-pace. Was that possible? Could Caroline be a strong enough character that her irritation would affect me? Now I really
was
creeped out. I didn’t really have an answer. But I did know that what I’d written earlier wasn’t as strong as Caroline Bingley. I mean, honestly, just reading her lines in the novel makes me want to smack her. How could I think a simple paragraph about who I was and who my parents were could overcome that

So I sat back down at Caroline’s small desk and pulled out two clean sheets of paper. This time instead of filling up the pages with the same paragraph over and over I wrote out the story of my life. I included everything, from my birthday, to my first crush, to my novel-jumping adventures, to my fight with Mark. I wrote in tiny, cramped, sentences, filling both sides of each piece with as much information as I could.