Read Online The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet by Bernie Su, Kate Rorick - Free Book Online Page B

knew.
    “Oh, my God, guys, this is Ben from school! Ben, my sisters Lizzie and Jane.” Lydia dragged a nice-looking guy over to our table. “Hi—my name’s David,
actu—” he said, extending his hand to me. But before he could finish, Lydia cut him off.
    “Bing! Ben and I were just talking and we decided that it would be
so awesome
of you if you threw a party. Like an end-of-semester thing. Your house is perfect, and Ben’s
band could play.”
    “But, I don’t have a—”
    “Whatever, I would be the cutest groupie you ever saw.” Lydia gave David-not-Ben a once-over. “It’s too bad I didn’t bring my stethoscope with me,” she
sighed, her words beginning to slur. “So, what do you think, Bing?”
    Bing was a couple of beers in at this point, and I didn’t blame him for it. After all, he’d survived dinner with my mom, and he had a driver. But this made his eagerness to please
susceptible to those who always had an angle. Like Lydia. “You know what, a party sounds like a great idea, Lydia. Thank you for sush—suggesting it.” Then he turned his smile back
to Jane. “Would you like to come to a party at my house?”
    She smiled back at him, and they were lost in their own little world.
    “Yes!” Lydia fist-pumped, taking this drunken agreement as the full-on promise she would inevitably force it to be. Of that I have no doubt. Then her eyes hit on something on the far
side of the bar. “No way! When did Carter’s get Whac-A-Mole? Come on, Ben! Let’s play!”
    “It’s David—” But Lydia didn’t seem to care, as she dragged him off toward the game.
    I turned around. In my rush to get us here and out of the house, I hadn’t noticed that Carter’s had really spruced up the joint. There was new felt on the pool table, and yes, a
Whac-A-Mole game, and . . .
    “Oh, Lizzie,” Charlotte said, eyes wide. “Is that Just Dance?”
    I am a sucker for Just Dance.
    “Oh, my God.” I grinned. “Char, play with me.”
    “Hell no. Not in public.”
    “Oh, come on!”
    “If you want to embarrass yourself, go right ahead. I’m fine right here.”
    Embarrass myself? As if. I
rule
at Just Dance.
    “If you like, I’ll—” Darcy cleared his throat, but I didn’t catch the rest because I was digging in my purse for quarters.
    “That’s fine,” I said, pulling out three bucks in quarters, my emergency parking-meter money. “I’ll just play against the computer. And kill it. Like I always
do.”

    I didn’t kill it.
    In my defense, the computer on Carter’s game must be different from the computer on the home game, because it started doing some beyond-crazy steps. Did I accidentally hit the setting for
cephalopod? However, I had a good time, and by the time I got off the machine I was laughing, and Charlotte, Jane, and Bing cheered me when I finished.
    But Darcy? No, Darcy had removed himself to the wall. The dark shadows that are his natural habitat. He was talking to Caroline. Charlotte walked by and she immediately shut up, so I know they
were talking about me and my spectacular failure. So I looked Darcy dead in the eye, just to let him know that I knew he was talking about me.
    And what did he do?
    He started texting. Fake texting.
    As well he should, the little snob. (Okay, the tall snob.)
    I rejoined the table after that, and after laughing at my Just Dance prowess, I told Charlotte what I did to Darcy.
    “Uh, that’s not what they were talking about,” she said.
    “Then what was it?” I asked.
    “Well, they were talking about you, but not in the way you think.”
    “What way
were
they talking about me, then?” Could they have been discussing something worse than my dancing? Was my bra strap showing or did my skirt flip up?
    Charlotte was about to answer, when the bartender, the aptly named Carter, came over to our table.
    “Hey,” he said, glowering. “You need to get your sister out of here, or I’m calling the cops. This is a public place.”
    Jane and I whipped