The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet

Chapter Five

Dinner

"You're here!" I squealed as I came into the house. Mary was busy unpacking her ugly army duffel bag into Jane's old dresser. Unlike Lizzie's room/Mom's new Zen garden/aquarium/whatever, Mom had kept Jane's room exactly the same, like a shrine to everything Etsy.

"Okay, I can't breathe now," Mary said, squished beneath me.

It's possible I tackled her. You can't prove anything.

"I'm just so glad to see you!" I said, helping her up. (She could have just fallen over in her excitement to see me. You still can't prove anything.) "We're going to have such a blast! All-night slumber parties! Ragers at Carter's! Getting you to wear colors!"

"I'm not here for slumber parties or color," Mary replied, stone- faced. "I thought you weren't 'raging' these days, anyway."

"I'm not," I said. "I'm all study, all the time. I'm basically you, minus"—I looked her up and down, trying not to cringe at the tattered Evanescence shirt and cargo shorts—"all the you parts. Scout's honor." I was a Girl Scout once. Heavy on the once. Mom didn't make me go back after I realized I couldn't use the badges as currency at the mall.

But Mary's not here to jump back into the party lifestyle with me, like she said. She's here because the coffee shop next to my campus (called Books Beans and Buds—the buds are from the adjacent fl wer shop. Many a confused college kid has thought it meant something else) pays double what the pizza place in her hometown does. So she'll save up cash and work for Lizzie's new company remotely doing accounting stuff until I graduate and we can ride off into the sunset.

The sunset in this scenario being an apartment of our own near campus for me and near Lizzie's still-unnamed-and-somewhat- fictitious New Media start-up company for Mary.

That's the goal. I go to school, Mary is Lizzie's person in charge of numbers, and we share an apartment with Kitty, who will rule over us all.

"Girls! Dinnertime!"

And in the meantime, this gives Mom someone else to feed.

                                                                                     * * *

Dinner is one of those rare things we had always done as a family, even as we got older. Sure, sometimes Dad worked late and some times Jane and Lizzie and I were out doing extracurriculars or hanging with friends, but without fail, Mom always made a meal for the whole family and anyone who was able to would stop whatever we were doing and sit down and eat. Even when she was sick. Even when no one else was going to be home at the same time. She'd call it her "mom duties," and Lizzie would inevitably go off about antiquated gender roles, but Mom would just tell her to be quiet and warm up some leftovers later if she couldn't make it to the table when food was served.

There are three times I can remember Mom being home and not making dinner:

1. When she refused to step away from the TV during coverage of the Royal Wedding.

2. The week after Jane's kind-of-then-boyfriend-but-definitely- current-boyfriend Bing left town and Mom was convinced Jane would never get married.

3. The morning she found out about me and George.

When Lizzie found out, she thought I'd made the tape to get back at her, that I was proving my irresponsibility and lack of foresight. I understood why she thought that. I still do. When Dad found out, he just felt guilty. Guilty that he hadn't been paying more attention or been more involved in our lives.