I'm Not Charlotte Lucas(21)

“You got home pretty late,” Mom said, clearly trying and failing to sound nonchalant.

“Liam had to make sure the VIP guests got off all right before we could leave. He felt bad about keeping me there, but I had fun.” I wasn’t sad about watching celebrities chatting and saying goodbye to one another before getting in their various cars to leave. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me.

Mom’s eyes lit up. She was hungry for a wedding, and I was her only ticket there until Mariah grew up.

She clutched my yellow polka-dot sweater to her chest. “Are you going on another date?”

“Yes. Well, no—not with Liam.”

Her shoulders literally rose and then fell in a physical representation of her hopes soaring before being obliterated. “What do you mean? Did you meet someone else?”

How would she take this news? She had liked Andy. She was disappointed when we broke up. But I didn’t want to raise her hopes again if I decided tonight that we just didn’t suit.

“I really need to get going, Mom. I’m so late.”

I escaped into my closet, flipped the light switch on, and began changing out of my grungy sweats into grungy yoga pants and a T-shirt. I was going to be digging in dirt; I didn’t need to look good.

“I don’t understand why you don’t tell me things,” Mom bemoaned, and I steeled myself against the guilt seeping under the door and threatening to grab me. “I can keep a secret.”

First off, false. Second, it wasn’t about whether or not she would tell Mariah, Dad, and every one of our neighbors. It was about keeping her own feelings from going through unnecessary anguish if Andy and I didn’t work out. Again.

She sighed. “Mariah told me all about the boy in the play she’s crushing on. Apparently, he texted Amy to ask if Mariah was dating anyone.”

Case in point. Revealing Mariah’s secrets wasn’t the best way to get me to open up about mine.

Wait. I stuck my head out of my closet door. “The boy in the play? Did Mariah hear back about the parts?”

Mom’s smile was triumphant, and I wasn’t sure why. I still hadn’t told her anything. “She got the part for Elizabeth Bennet. And her crush is playing Mr. Darcy.”

Even my younger sister was an Elizabeth. I was forever going to be the Charlotte. “Hopefully that works out for her.” I pulled on a faded Giants baseball T-shirt and found an old pair of Converse in the bottom of my shoe pile. Passing Mom, I sat on the edge of my bed to pull my socks and shoes on.

“I’m heading to the club to set up for bunko,” she said. “So I’ll be out for the rest of the day. You joining us tonight?”

She’d been trying to get me to join her bunko ladies’ group ever since I’d moved into the attic. I was steadily holding out against dipping that far down into spinsterhood. I hadn’t quite given up on myself yet.

“Maybe next time,” I said as I brushed past her, running down the stairs. I grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and peeled a banana, throwing the peel into the trash before skipping out the door.

I ran across the lawn, shoving the fruit into my mouth, the bright sun rising steadily in the sky and reminding me of my tardiness. Knocking a few times to warn Vera, I let myself into the house.

“Vera,” I called, “I’m here.”

“In the kitchen, dear,” she said, and I followed the familiar route down the hall. This house screamed money, from the ultra-white floors, walls, and furniture to the massive, expensive paintings dotting the place. Sometimes when I house-sat for Vera, I would select a painting, plant myself comfortably before it, and stare, measuring the lighting and the thickness of brush strokes. Mariah caught me doing it once, and now she liked to tease me, but yes, I was one of those people who went to museums and stood in front of paintings for inordinate amounts of time. So sue me.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” I called, pausing in the hallway where a painting was now missing. “Your grandson kept me out way too late last night, and my mom had to wake me up. What am I, sixteen?”

“Charlie,” Vera called, amusement evident in her tone.

“Yeah? Where is your Vienna Canal?” I rounded the corner before halting abruptly, my thumb hitched over my shoulder in the direction of the empty wall. Heat soared through my body, racing up my neck and into my cheeks. I was blushing so hard my forehead was probably scarlet.

I swallowed. “Oh. Hi, Liam.”





Chapter Ten


Would I forever be that girl who shoved her feet into her mouth and said idiotic things? Liam looked amused, and if I wasn’t so mortified I would have appreciated the charming resemblance between Vera and Liam when they were equally entertained.

If only I wasn’t the person entertaining them.

“Did you just ask about a Vienna Canal?” Liam asked, leaning against the counter, his arms folded over his fitted Henley T-shirt. Did he strike that pose to make his arms look bigger, or was that just an added benefit?

I cleared my throat, facing Vera, who was slicing lemons at the kitchen island and dropping them into water glasses. “Water, dear?”

I lifted my eco-unfriendly water bottle, and she nodded. “The painting of the Vienna Canal,” I explained, still hovering awkwardly in the space between the kitchen and the breakfast nook. “It was hanging in the hall, but now it’s gone.”