The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet (12 page)

Aside from the awesome weirdness of meeting people who watch my videos in real life—and
like
them—we met several people who run their own companies, who were enthusiastic
about talking to us about what we were doing and how we did it. We collected business cards out the wazoo. (“Wazoo” is the technical term.) Charlotte even arranged for us to take a tour
of the YouTube offices in Los Angeles on the way back home.

I am so, so lucky to be a part of this ridiculously weird and wonderful community.

But not every encounter was full of enthusiasm and learning experiences. There was one particular out-of-the-blue moment that was not wonderful—just plain weird.

After all, it’s not every day your second-grade husband comes up to you while you’re filming and demands that you call him “Mr. Collins.”

That’s right, Ricky Collins, the spastic kid who played the Wizard of Floss in our elementary school play about hygiene and managed to fall off the stage, has decided to become a web video
content creator. Oh, and he tricked someone into giving him money for it. Although, from what I could gather, he doesn’t know much about web video—but it’s okay, he likely has
“people” for that. People who call him Mr. Collins.

Also, he seems to have developed a fondness for multisyllabic words. I guess that’s what comes from losing the school spelling bee at an impressionable age to the ever-impressive Charlotte
Lu. And he was rather overdressed for the conference. Web video is more of a blazer-over-jeans-and-graphic-T-shirt crowd, not a Men’s-Wearhouse-oversized-suit type place. (Although
there’s a man who would appreciate a peacock-blue pantsuit on a woman. Too bad he’s engaged.)

I was so taken aback by him, I sort of brushed him off. Charlotte says I should have been nicer. More open and politically conscientious. After all, he’s a man with investors and a company
in our field. But it’s kind of hard when the annoying kid who grew up down the street from you is tumbling into your videos and demanding that you address him like he’s lord of the
manor.

But enough about Ricky Collins. I doubt our paths are destined to cross much in the future. That’s what Facebook was invented for—to keep people you don’t care to remember at a
polite distance.

For now, we are headed home . . . except we don’t have a home to go to.

Not kidding.

When Jane got back from her perfect night with Bing and Mom “decided” that the kitchen cabinets were out of date, she was apparently inspired to have the entire kitchen redone. She
justifies it by saying it will raise the value of the house—which makes me nervous that my parents really are thinking about selling the house—but I know her reasoning is deeper. More
twisted and devious.

She is using this remodel to kick us all out . . . and cleverly deduced that upon hearing our predicament, Bing would offer Jane a place to stay.

So for the next two weeks, Bing and Jane will be cohabitating, ostensibly to save her the double commute from cousin Mary’s house an hour south. But we all know the real motive. And
I’m happy to do my little part to thwart it.

What Mom didn’t count on is that when Jane asked, Bing was happy to extend me an invitation to stay at Netherfield as well.

So, instead of being squished up in Mary and Aunt Martha’s two-bedroom bungalow with my parents, Lydia, and her cat, I will be enjoying my own en-suite bathroom while playing chaperone to
the lovebirds.

I can’t wait to see Mom’s face when we tell her.

But now, instead of going home and relaxing after these crazy, exhausting, oh-my-God-I-haven’t-walked-that-much-in-years past few days, we get to go home and spend the next week moving
everything out of the kitchen and packing up the house.

Thank goodness we already filmed next week’s videos here at VidCon.

. . . Oh, no. How am I going to film my videos when I’m a guest at Netherfield?

Oh, my God. Jane just prevented a heart attack—I thought I had lost you! My diary! My precious. I thought that somehow in all the packing (and seriously, the way Mom made
us pack up the house, you would think we were going on a six-month safari, not spending two weeks inconveniencing friends and relatives within driving distance of our home), my darling diary got
lost in the shuffle. I was certain that my poor little book, with all its secrets, had been accidentally left behind and was going to land in the hands of one of the construction workers who would
read and then ridicule me privately forever. Or worse—it
had
gotten packed, and ended up in the wrong hands here.

When we arrived at Netherfield on Saturday (although the work on our house wouldn’t start until today, Mom wanted us—read: Jane—to have the time to get “settled in”
at our home-away-from-home), Bing, Darcy, and Caroline met us at the door.

“Hi,” Jane said to Bing, smiling.

“Hi,” Bing said to Jane, smiling right back. This could have gone on for hours had someone not judiciously cleared her throat.

“Er, we’re so glad you’re here,” Bing said, coming out of his love haze. “Let me show you guys to your rooms. Oh, you can leave your bags—they’ll be
taken care of.”

“Oh—no, we couldn’t . . .” But everyone was already moving inside without me.

I didn’t think at the time about my diary, possibly stuffed in a suitcase. I only marveled at the idea that somewhere, hidden in the background of this echo-y McMansion, there was someone
whose job it was going to be to carry and unpack our things, like we were visiting aristocrats to Buckingham Palace. So really, I was thinking about how embarrassing it was that I had basically
thrown my laundry basket into my bag and I was going to have to ask this no-named someone to not do my laundry, but instead let me do it myself. And then have that person show me where the laundry
room was.

Netherfield is gorgeous; I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate. We spent the morning by the pool, enjoying a late Saturday brunch buffet and the company of Bing. Caroline was very
polite and welcoming, too. Darcy was . . . there.

When Jane and I were finally led back to our
own private wing
of the house (technically not specifically built with us in mind, but instead the generic guest wing, but come on!), it was
to find that our stuff had indeed been unpacked and my laundry had indeed been taken away to be cleaned (talk about a hostile laundry takeover—I surrendered before I knew there had been a
war). But going through my other things, I knew something else was missing. And then I realized it was my diary.

Panic set in. I’ve never really been without my journal, my means to express my most private feelings and keep safe. My videos—that’s something put out there for public
consumption. That has a filter. My journal is everything else.

My brain briefly went to the construction worker, and I snuck back to the house this morning to see if I could find it—but the house was a disaster, and I couldn’t even get in the
door without a hard hat, what with all the things being torn out and moved in.

It was while I was at the library this morning researching that I remembered the nameless, faceless someone that unpacked our bags. And then I thought about my darling diary, somewhere in the
bowels of Netherfield, making its way back to the wrong bedroom . . . landing in Bing’s hands . . . or landing in
Darcy’s.

I didn’t get much work done after that.

So I came back to Netherfield and started tearing my room apart. This is where Jane saved me.

“What are you doing?” she asked, coming to the door, looking flushed and lovely after a hard day at the office (“flushed” is really as disheveled/tired/cranky as Jane
Bennet ever gets).

“I can’t find my diary,” I said. “I know I packed it. At least I think I did.”

“You did. Or rather, you gave it to me to pack, remember?”

My head came up. “I did?”

“You did.” She smiled, and beckoned for me to follow her to her room. “You needed more room for your camera and stuff in your own bag, so I took your books in mine.”

Ah, yes, my camera equipment. School lent it to me for the summer. But in case anyone here ever happens to see it (read: Bing or Darcy), Charlotte and I came up with a cover
story—I’m going to say that I’m sending video letters to Charlotte, as an experiment for one of our communications classes. Because that’s totally a thing that schools give
credit for these days.

Jane went to the little desk in her room and picked up a shoulder bag, and rifled through. “Including one red Moleskine journal.”

And now, you are in my hands, and I feel normal again.

Can you imagine if someone had read it? It’s hard enough trying to be private here—for such a large house it feels awfully crowded. Mostly since Bing is being so polite and welcoming
and trying to make us feel at home that you can’t help but
not
feel at home. But if someone had found my diary, and read all my deepest thoughts and feelings about my family? About
my future? It would be like exposing a wound.

I mean, I’m still reeling from the implications of Caroline knowing about my videos.

Yes. That’s the big news.

I was making a video yesterday, and she came in and totally called me out on my “Letter to Charlotte” ruse. Apparently, unlike anyone else in this house, Caroline knows how to use
Google, and she found the videos a while ago and has been watching.

The good:

The not so good:

Maybe I did misjudge Caroline. But that can only be a good thing, because my initial opinion wasn’t very nice. And it’s actually a little bit of a relief to have Caroline know.
It’ll make the two weeks we are here at Netherfield a lot more comfortable.

So, this is life at Netherfield:

I get up early, because sleep has never been better on 3,000-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets.

I go down to the breakfast room (yes, it has its own room) to find a buffet already arranged with piping-hot coffee (and lattes!) and every iteration of egg and bacon known and yet to be
discovered.

I am not-so-secretly glad to be the first one down, because it means I might be able to slip out of the house to the library without having to go through the rigmarole of being asked how I slept
four different times by four different people. Plus, I like to read the news on my phone while enjoying a mocha latte. I am the twenty-first-century version of my father.

I am only seventeen seconds into my news reading of the morning when my solitude is interrupted by Netherfield’s other early riser, who apparently has been in the house gym, judging by his
for once not overly fussy attire—Darcy.

If he is startled to see me, he doesn’t show it. In an effort toward good manners, and an acknowledgment of our forced cohabitation, I greet him.

“Good morning,” I say.

“Good morning,” he replies. After an awkward moment, he continues. “Did you sleep well?”

“Very much so,” I reply. “And yourself?”

“Yes.” He nods. Then, after another moment of staring, as if he can’t comprehend that I have the gall to exist, he grabs a cup of coffee and leaves the room.

I read a bit about world news and then about celebrities and their Twitter habits, finishing my latte. I then grab my bag and head out to the library, just missing the sleepy yet bright-eyed
happiness of Jane and Bing greeting each other in the breakfast room.

Study. Tutor. Study.

I come home to an already prepared evening of entertainment, be it a movie in their private theater, a five-star meal prepared by their personal chef, or a beta test of the next generation of a
video game that won’t be out for another year. (I don’t know how Darcy got that. Or why. Caroline says it must be for work, but to my mind, Darcy doesn’t do much but work on
spreadsheets on his computer while the rest of us are having a relative amount of fun. Which means I was wrong about him being a trust-funder with no responsibilities, when really, he’s a
stuffy, boring workaholic with no personality.)

I go to bed. On a new set of Egyptian cotton sheets, because God forbid I sleep on the same set two nights in a row.

Try not to notice when Bing sneaks into my sister’s bedroom in the middle of the night, and you can hear her giggling.

Repeat five times, so far.

I don’t mean to complain—after all, this is WAY better than living with Mom, Dad, and Lydia at Aunt Martha and cousin Mary’s—but I’m definitely the third wheel on
the Bing and Jane Shack Up tour. Caroline and Darcy are extra wheels, too, but they at least were here already. They had squatter’s rights.

So I escape as much as I can. Most of the time to the library, either to tutor or work on documenting my videos for my thesis (again, I am glad for my prolific writing habits—this journal
will very much come in handy). But I’ve been kind of lonely, because unfortunately Charlotte’s summer of double shifts in the edit bays and admin offices has already begun, and
she’s working harder than ever. In fact, this afternoon was the first time she managed to get away long enough for us to catch up over coffee.