I'm Not Charlotte Lucas(4)

Chapter Two


Beth added an extra scoop of gummy bears to her cup of frozen yogurt before taking it to the till to pay while I patiently waited near the door, already eating mine. Blackberry sorbet with extra chunks of cheesecake was the perfect mix of tart and sweet and melted on my tongue faster than I could eat it.

“I think you should do it,” Beth said, following me outside to the small town square. We crossed the street and walked directly to the gazebo in the center of the green. Its interior was lined with old-fashioned wooden benches that had likely been there longer than either Beth or I had been alive.

I settled on the wooden slats. The bench wasn’t comfortable, but it was somewhat secluded in the privacy of the gazebo. And anyway, this was our spot. We’d been bringing snacks to the gazebo since middle school. As the shops had changed and shifted around the square, so did the treats we got. Last year it was a boutique pie shop, and a few years before that it had been an organic bakery. Both businesses had given it a good run but didn’t succeed. I hoped the froyo place was here to stay.

“You can’t ignore me forever,” Beth said, brushing her long, dark hair over her shoulder.

I focused on my ice cream. “I’m not. I just don’t think it sounds fun at all.”

“It’s not fun. It’s charity.”

Since I didn’t have the genetic makeup to lift only one eyebrow, I raised them both.

Beth spooned another bite into her mouth, shrugging. “Why not? You don’t have to pay. The food is usually great. And bonus, you can help this guy make his ex crazy jealous.”

“But I don’t even have anything—”

“You can borrow one of my gowns.” She glared as though she was offended. “And you know that.”

She was right. I did know that. We’d been borrowing each other’s clothes since middle school, and she had a shopping problem and a love of designer clothes. Not a great combination, until one found themselves in my shoes with this charity-ball situation. No, scratch that. Potential charity-ball situation.

I swallowed. Yikes. It was sounding like I had decided to go.

I spooned another bite of froyo into my mouth to buy myself a minute before answering. How was I supposed to explain to Beth the root of my concern? She didn’t get it. She was a mega-successful hairstylist with independence in spades. Boyfriends too, for that matter. At least, she usually was. She was currently going on week three of being single, and I was sure this was something of a record for her.

She lowered her voice, her dark eyebrows drawing in slightly. “Charlie, talk to me. What’s holding you back? I mean, when’s the last time you went on a date?” She paused. “Andy?”

A shudder ran through me that wasn’t from my ice cream.

Beth’s brown eyes widened. “It was, wasn’t it? That was a year ago.” She swatted my arm playfully. “That is not acceptable! You need to date. Andy was a fluke anyway. You can’t count on finding a boyfriend in a bank, Charlie. You’ve got to look for him in the real world.”

I groaned. “I don’t expect to find a boyfriend at the bank. That would probably get me fired anyway, since my job is dealing with these people’s money.”

Beth arched an eyebrow, a trait I’d always been jealous of. “That didn’t stop you from going out with Andy.”

“I didn’t meet Andy at the bank,” I clarified, scraping the last few melted bites of froyo onto my spoon. “I met him at the sandwich shop down the street, and then he just happened to stop by the bank to deal with his brother’s account. He’s not even one of our clients.”

“Because heaven forbid you break a rule.”

“Okay, you’ve officially gone off topic.”

“Right,” she agreed, glancing at her watch. “Back to this mystery hottie and the charity ball.”

Did she not know me well enough by now to realize that she wasn’t going to make me want to go more by speaking about him that way? “We don’t know if he’s attractive.”

“But we do know his grandma is rich. What is Vera worth, anyway?”

“I don’t know. It’s old money.” I picked up Beth’s froyo bowl and tossed both hers and mine into the trash can. Plopping back on the bench, I groaned. “This isn’t me, Beth. This is so the opposite of me. I don’t do this sort of thing.”

She picked a piece of lint from her black T-shirt. “Maybe now is the time to change that.”

I held her gaze, my mind running back over the events of the day and pausing on the image of Charlotte Lucas standing up to her own best friend on my television. Her actions had seemed to shock Elizabeth Bennet.

Maybe I’d been afraid of the wrong things for too long. Charlotte Lucas had chosen the difficult route, but she’d been brave. Stepping away from the comfortable life and toward something new and frightening and . . . secure. Was that all I was missing?

Well, I didn’t need to figure that out right now. Beth’s salon faced us across the street, and I could see bits of the bright letters on her sign through the dangling ivy reaching over the gazebo roof.

“Whatever happened to that man who was coming in weekly for shaves?” I asked, raking my hands through my plain brown hair and shaking it out behind me.