A Summer Thunderstorm

By Karen Ann

The Beginning, Next Section

Part 1: Home Again, Home Again

Posted on Friday, 8 March 2002

You'll find better love
Strong as it ever was
Deep as the river runs
Strong as the morning sun
Please remember me

Elizabeth feels like her bare thighs are beginning to fuse to the leather seats of her rental car, a bright blue Toyota. She lifts her now limp brown bangs off her forehead and holds her sweating face in front of the vent. The air conditioner broke two miles out of Milwaukee, which is, Elizabeth thinks, a bad omen. She has had a bad feeling about this trip since she first received the embossed invitation in her mail back in California. The unbearable heat and broken air conditioner increases this feeling ten fold.

"This bites," her daughter says from the seat next to her. Marianne folds her arms across her chest and pouts as she looks out the window, watching cars on the wide open interstate pass them by.

Elizabeth leans over and pats the girl's knee. "We'll be there before we know it, and I'm sure the hotel will have air conditioning." Both of them are more used to the dry heat of California. Even Elizabeth, born and bred in Wisconsin, reacts to the brutal humidity like a foreigner.

Elizabeth eases off the interstate on the next exit. As they glide down the ramp, Marianne gets her first glimpse of the place her mother had called home for eighteen years. She snorts, "So, this is Davenshire?" She shakes her dishwater blond head. What a hole. What a pit. What a bore. She can think of so many places she would rather be doing. She can't wait to get to the hotel, since her mother promised fifteen miles back that she could call her best friend, Fanny Price, first thing when they checked in.

Elizabeth comes to a complete stop in front of a stoplight. She remembers so clearly when he gave her a ride home from work. They had stopped at this exact spot, but he wasn't watching traffic. No, he was watching Elizabeth. Elizabeth had tried to ignore it, just as she tries to annoy the nagging, breathless feeling that she has been here before, that she is walking, eyes wide open, into a world where she shouldn't belong, the place where her heart was waiting to turn the hour glass of time back eighteen years. She wanted nothing more than to turn the blue Toyota around and drive back to the air port as quickly as humanly possible. At the same time, she couldn't even force herself to do it. No, she must go on and face whatever it was on the road ahead of her, be it a pot hole or the true love of her life.

She sits in silence at the stoplight, her heart throbbing inside her chest. She tries her hardest to hide the fact that she can't seem to catch her breathe from her daughter. She tries to force herself to forget the fact that the chill that is traveling up and down her spine has anything to do with the fact that he is close by, but it is impossible to explain the fact that she suddenly feels very cold on a day when it's ninety-five degrees in the shade without any reference to him.

"Mom!" Marianne shouts at the same time the driver behind them leans on his horn. "Green lights means go!"

Elizabeth blinks as she wakes from her reverie. She steps on the gas and speeds across the road, feeling like a teenager once again, just learning to drive. She remembers when he let her drive his truck down the empty country roads, laughing and telling her to step on it. She feels her mouth go dry as she recalls driving his fathers Ford Mustang down to the clearing overlooking the interstate.

This is the reason she never came back. She always knew returning would bring back memories she didn't want, memories that would damage her marriage. Long ago, she had mentally dug a deep, deep hole in the back of her mind, and buried all those memories, both painful and good, and swore never to dig them up again. But sometimes late at night, when she dreams, they come back to haunt her. Sometimes, she will wake up from her dreams and reach across the king size bed, praying silently that he is there. She always hides her gross disappointment when she feels Ryan's all too familiar soft, warn plaid boxers and his worm body. Elizabeth puts an arm around him, pretending he's the one she had dreamt about all night; pretending the dream she had was about him, rather than his best friend.

Marianne scrunches up in her seat as the hot wind blows through her open window onto her overheated face. Her red eyes are covered with dark sunglasses so her mother won't see that she has been quietly crying. She has been crying off and on the whole trip, which would explain the ten trips to the bathroom during the flight. "I'm just feeling a little woozy," Marianne had explained to her mother after her seventh return to the bathroom. "That's all," she repeated, as she pushed her sunglasses further up her nose, gripped by the fear of the hell that would break loose if her mother happened to see her red-rimmed eyes or the tear that she was fighting a losing battle against. "I'll be back," she said, quickly rising form her seat.

Now, however, there is nowhere to escape when the tears begin to flow once more. She is in love, and she is afraid. She's afraid of how powerful and uncontrollable her love has become. Two weeks earlier she had been the only fifteen year-old girl that had never gone to the new drive-in off Plum Street. She had been the only girl in her class who had never sat in a booth at McDonalds, sharing a Diet Coke and looking lovingly into someone else's eyes. She had never danced close to a boy or felt the heat of his body against hers; never kissed a boy, never felt his lips, soft against hers as his fingers ran through her hair. She had been an outsider when it came to love. She was only able to guess how it felt to reach out and touch a boy who wanted her to reach out and touch him.

That had been two weeks ago, though. Now Marianne knows the heat a touch could generate, and she can still feel it if she just closes her eyes. Two weeks ago she met the man of her dreams; John Willoughby. After deep kisses filled with the wild passion Marianne had only dreamed of before, Marianne is in love, and she is haunted by the fear that while she's gone, John will find someone else, someone better, someone who doesn't go weak at the knees after one glance as they wait in line at the movie theater.

Just thinking about it makes her begin to cry again. She pushes her sunglasses up once more, and turns her face away from her mother as she silently prays she hasn't already seen the tear escape from her eye and slip soundlessly down her cheek.

"Don't worry, hon," her mother says, patting Marianne's knee again. She can only guess what her daughter is thinking, and she is remarkably close to the truth. Although Marianne hardly talks to her mother lately, Elizabeth is more aware than she thinks. Perhaps she is just extremely perceptive. Maybe it has something to do with accidentally finding a pink diary on the porch swing. It could be seeing Marianne and that boyfriend of hers disappear over the edge of their seats in the darkened movie theater. One thing is certain, though. Elizabeth is worried about her daughter. John scares her. He's much older than Marianne for one thing. Marianne thinks it's a secret, but Elizabeth knows John is a junior in college. She doesn't trust Marianne's boyfriend, which is part of the reason she dragged Marianne on this trip. Maybe new sights and sounds will take the girl's mind off John. At least it will put Elizabeth's mind at ease for the time being.

The reassurance in her mother's voice turns Marianne off, and she goes back to slouching against the leather car seat and gazing through her dark glasses at the dim world around her.

Elizabeth pulls the Toyota up in front of the Comfort Suit, a large new hotel, the first chain hotel to dare to enter Davenshire, a town mostly populated by old, broken-down Ma and Pop hotels with leaky roofs and group bathrooms or rickety inns with broken windows and doors that don't lock. Elizabeth spent a good eighteen years of her life in Davenshire. Being enlightened, she opted for the new Comfort Suit.

Elizabeth and Marianne unload their suitcases from the Toyota and make their way to the front doors of the large brick hotel. Inside is a large lobby with pink couches and chairs and a small, severely polished coffee table. Elizabeth and Marianne ignore it, though, and walk to the reception desk.

On the desk sits a small bell next to a sign that reads, "ring bell for service." Elizabeth gently taps it, and the two wait until a short woman with blond hair hurries out from a little room behind the desk, trying her hardest to swallow down a large gulp of the chicken sandwich she had packed for her lunch.

"I'm so sorry," she said as she choked down what was left of the bite she had taken before she heard the little bell ring. She seated herself behind the desk. "I hope you haven't been waiting long?" She reached a hand up to touch her hair, which was tied into a tight bun at the back of her head. She had been so pleased with it when she left for work that morning, but now, compared to Elizabeth's dark brown curls, she felt a little ridiculous.

"No, we just go here," Elizabeth says quickly as she digs through her purse in search of her Discover Card.

The receptionist is studying the sheets of paper Elizabeth sighed. "Elizabeth Fitzwilliam?" she asks. Elizabeth nods. "I knew you looked familiar!" she cries, enthusiastically. She stands up and puts a hand out. "It's Louisa Hurst ... from senior year Home Ec. Mrs. Fulton. Third hour."

Elizabeth smiles. She has no clue who this woman is, but Elizabeth is a good bluffer. "Oh yes!" she says, laughing a bit. "How could I forget Louisa Hurst? Those were some good times."

Louisa smiles placidly. She is evidently pleased. "I'm surprised you remember me. Back then you only had eyes for--"

"Did you say which room we'll be staying in?" Elizabeth interrupts, not wanting her daughter to hear about him. Net yet ... not ever, if she has the choice. She instantly regrets bringing Marianne with her. But it would be so hard to face him alone. She wishes Ryan was with her. At the same time she's glad he's not. She caresses her wedding band with her right hand. She and Ryan knew what they were getting into when they after they were married, but some how, now, that didn't make her feel any better.

Louisa gives Elizabeth her room number and two keys, one for Elizabeth and one for Marianne.

As they turn to walk to their room, Louisa calls out. "Excuse me, Elizabeth."

Elizabeth turns, but Marianne is still walking. She wants to get her things to the room as quickly as possible. She has some serious television watching to do."

How old is your girl, there, Liz?"

Elizabeth cringes at the name. No one has called her Liz since she moved off to college. She had been so determined to turn over a new leaf, be somebody different. She was always a different person when she was away from Davenshire. In Davenshire, though, time stood still and people would always be the same. It was only those who managed to get out that changed and grew up. Those were the ones who made something of their lives, who wouldn't be sitting on the front porch every single night, straining their ears to hear the cars rumble across the interstate as mosquitoes sang in their ears and humidity stuck to their faces and bodies like the plague. The ones who got away were different until they came back. The sticky summer humidity held them close, hugging their bodies and making them feel like they had so many years ago.

"She's," Marianne turns to glare at her mother, "seventeen," Elizabeth lies. Marianne smiles gratefully at Elizabeth. Marianne is really fifteen-and-a half, but she feels more respected when people think she's older.

"My daughter is sixteen," Louisa says. She jabs a thumb behind her. "She just lives in the house right behind this building. I think you two would get along fine. I'll send her over later."

Marianne silently grits her teeth. She wants to be antisocial. She would rather die than be befriended by a local.

"Thank you, Louisa," Elizabeth says, jabbing Marianne in the gut with her elbow. "Be polite," she mumbles under her breath.

"That would be lovely," Marianne says, giving Louisa a prissy smile. She turns on her heals and Elizabeth waves to Louisa and follows her daughter down the dimly lit hallway toward their hotel room.

*Please Remember Me by Tim McGraw

Part 2: Silver and Gold

Posted on Friday, 8 March 2002

I want you to want me
I need you to need me
I'd love you to love me
I'm begging you to beg me

Charlotte Collins drives her beat up Chevy 4x4 into the Comfort Suit parking lot and parks next to a blue Toyota. Charlotte is short and thin, scarcely 4'10" and almost one hundred pounds. She has to sit on a pillow to give herself an extra boost, and even then she can only just see over the top of the steering wheel.

She hops out of the air-conditioned interior into the wicked heat and stifling humidity, but she deals with it like it just like she has for the past thirty-six years. By ignoring it. Her graying blond ponytail bobs in the motionless air as she pulls a baby car seat out. She rubs her sleeping baby's cheek gently. This is the moment she has been waiting for three months, ever since Jane told her Elizabeth was coming back. Her baby has been so excited all day, giggling and laughing and drooling, but now he's just plain pooped out. Charlotte forgives him, though. At least now she will get some time to catch up with Elizabeth.

She walks quickly into the hotel. After dealing with the humidity for as long as Charlotte has, she believes it is an evil curse and air conditioning is a divine gift from God. Who is Charlotte Collins to disregard a divine gift?

"Hello, Louisa," Charlotte grins. She can't help but smile. She loves the attention that comes from carrying a baby.

"Oh!" Louisa cries, jumping up from behind her desk. "Is this your little one?"

Charlotte nods, pleased. "That's him, all right."

"He's not so little anymore. Why, the last time I saw him, he was only this big." Louisa puts her hands about a foot apart. "He's gonna be a big boy, isn't he? Aren't you. Yes, you are," Louisa coos.

Charlotte holds her baby, smiling, as she eats up her son's attention.

"I suppose you're hear to see Elizabeth?" Louisa says, finally stepping back. She's still looking at Charlotte's baby, though.

"Yup," Charlotte says. "It's so exciting that she's finally back."

"I know," Louisa says, dropping her voice to a low whisper. "What's it been? Sixteen years?"

Charlotte shakes her head gently. "Seventeen, maybe eighteen," she says. "Does she look different?"

"Very different," Louisa says. "She only looked familiar until I read her signature. 'Elizabeth Fitzwilliam'." Louisa shakes her head. "I hope Will's moving back doesn't effect her."

Charlotte cringes. She wishes Louisa hadn't mentioned his name. Even a whisper of it seems to foretell bad luck."

She's strong," Charlotte says, standing up for her best friend. "And she has Ryan now."

Louisa agrees, but as an after thought, adds, "I hope you're right."

As Charlotte makes her way to Elizabeth's hotel room, even she isn't too sure of herself. She remembers the damage Will Darcy had created in the past and can only guess the damage he will cause in the future.

Before she can lift her fist to knock on the door, it flies open, and two teenage girls rush out. One, she recognizes as Louisa Hurst's girl, Elinor.

The other looks remarkably like Ryan Fitzwilliam, with her thin dishwater hair and pail complexion and pointed nose. This girl, Charlotte thought, must be Marianne Fitzwilliam.

"Marianne!" Elizabeth, an older version of the Elizabeth Charlotte had grown up with, shouts, hurrying toward the door. The thin haired girl stops in her tracks and turns around. "You forgot your key," Elizabeth says in a softer voice.

Marianne rolls her eyes, as if being with her mother is a chore in itself, and saunters back to the hotel room and take the plastic key from her mother. "Thanks," she mutters, keeping her eyes low so she doesn't have to say anything to Charlotte. She knows her mom will make her say hello anyway, but everything is worth a try.

"Oh, and I want you to meet someone," Elizabeth says, taking her daughters elbow. "This is my best friend from high school, Charlotte," she pauses for a moment, "Collins." The last name sticks to her tongue and clings to the roof of her mouth like peanut butter, and she bites her lip and looks to the ceiling as if praying Charlotte didn't notice how she had to practically spit the name out with a vengeance.

"Hello," Marianne says in a tone of voice that shows her mother and Charlotte how thoroughly bored she is by this whole situation.

By this time, Elinor Hurst has walked back. "Hey, Char!" she says, happily. "Oooh! Did you bring little Billy with you?" She bends her head over the sleeping boy and wraps his little fingers gently around her pointer finger and smiles as he squeezes it with all his might.

Charlotte grins, once again basking in the glow of her son. Finally, though, she turns to Marianne and squeezes her shoulder. "I'm glad I finally got the chance to meet you," she says quietly.

Elinor stops cooing over Billy soon, and she and Marianne disappear. Elinor is going to give Marianne the grand tour of the town. Elizabeth and Charlotte are finally left alone to discuss seventeen years of missed history and the eighteen years that lead up to them.

William Darcy, the recently added partner of Hurst, Bingley & Darcy Law Offices squints as he looks out the window of his tiny office. He had never meant to come back after he left. After he spent nearly sixteen miserable years away. He had become rich, far richer than he had ever intended. At first he set out to make enough money to pay back everyone he had borrowed money from in Davenshire and marry Elizabeth. After he heard Ryan Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth were married, he got married also and settled down with a woman he didn't love. Making money was the only thing that kept him happy and sane. Money, that is, and his son, Brandon.

He wasn't really happy. How could he be happy when all he had was loads of unaffectionate pieces of paper and a son who hated him with a passion? In a way, he left for the same reason Elizabeth had, to keep his mind off what might have been if he were smarter.

"Earth to Will," Charles' Bingley says from the open doorway of his office. Its lines like that that make Will's son, Brandon, cringe. He says no one talks like that back in New York.

Will jumps and turns around, smiling meekly at his friend. Charles pulls up a chair in front of Will's desk. "I can guess what you're thinking about," he says. After being the Portage County's top lawyer for eight years, he's pretty good at reading what people, even hard-to-read people like Will, are thinking.

Will frowns and sits down in his chair. "I wasn't thinking about her, Charles," he says, pretending to be intensely interested in an old photo of his wife that sits on the far right hand corner of his desk. The picture doesn't sit there because he loved her. The only reason he has kept it is to remind himself what happens when he lets himself believe he and Elizabeth will never get back together. They will, and he knows it. And he's sure she knows it, too.

"Ah!" Charles says, leaning forward in his chair. A coy smile crosses his face. "Then you won't care when I tell you Louisa called. She told me Elizabeth already checked in at the Comfort Suit."

Will frowns. He knew it. He could feel her presence. It takes all his strength to keep himself from grabbing his keys and dashing for his Porsche that very minute. His body longs to run to the hotel, knock on her door, and beg for her forgiveness, to beg for her love. Love, however, is the one thing he won't have to beg for. She still loves him. He knows.

Will gets up from his chair and goes back to the window. He can see the Comfort Suite from where he is standing. He wonders if somewhere in that building, Elizabeth isn't looking out a window, thinking about him.

"She's married," Charles reminds him. He is leaning back in his chair, thoroughly enjoying watching his friend cringe.

Will grits his teeth. "Don't remind me," he says, flopping back into his chair. "Don't remind me," he repeats. He thinks back to the day he introduced Ryan and Elizabeth. He remembers the way he felt when Charles wrote to tell him Elizabeth ran off to California to be with Ryan. Ryan used to be a friend, but now Will looked at him as a rival. He viewed him as an enemy, as someone to be reckoned with.

Will hadn't actually seen Ryan or Elizabeth since he left Davenshire after he graduated from high school. For years, every Christmas Ryan sent him a Christmas card with a picture of his family. Will always cut Ryan and his daughter out and saved the picture of Elizabeth in a shoebox in the corner of his closet. He always pretended that Elizabeth was the one who sent the picture, not Ryan. Only when he sat locked in his study, looking at the pictures, did he believe it was true. Then, Anne and Ryan were nonexistent and nothing, not even the entire United States, could separate him from Elizabeth.

"Have you heard from Ryan lately?" Charles asks.

Will shakes his head. He hadn't heard from Ryan in three years, since Anne died.

At that time, Anne had been doing "major cleaning." She went through every closet and box, leaving nothing unturned. Not even the shoebox tucked carefully away in the dark corner of the closet. She had found the box; she saw the pictures. She had jumped into her car and drove recklessly to confront Will, when she got into her car accident. When Will arrived on the scene he saw a wet tear still on her cheeks and all those picture clutched tightly in her hand. Will hated himself, because he had killed Anne, he and his Christmas pictures.

Love, Will thinks, was a silent, deadly killer, but it was also what kept him alive. The thought that Elizabeth was alive somewhere, breathing, kept him alive. The hope that the air flowing through his lungs at any certain moment had touched her kept his heart pounding in his chest.

"Did she come ... alone?" Will asks, hopefully. If she were alone, it would be easier for him to think of her as single.

Charles shakes his head. "Nope, she brought her daughter ... what's her name? I can't remember."

"Marianne," Will says. The name sticks to his tongue like glue and he has to practically spit it out. She's Ryan's child. In all the pictures he threw away she looked like Ryan. And Will was glad, too. He didn't think anyone should be allowed to look as beautiful as Elizabeth. Not even her daughter.

"That's right. She seems to be a very pretty girl ... takes after her father a little too much, but very pretty, anyway."

Will snorts and wheels his chair around so he can look out the window at Comfort Suit again. Just looking puts him at ease again. She's there, waiting. And he's here, waiting. She would be here for at least week, and there was no point in hurrying fait, Will thought.

This is why Will came back in the first place. He wanted to be somewhere where Elizabeth was sure to return one day. He lied when he told why Brandon they were moving to Davenshire, Wisconsin. He told Brandon the small town would benefit him. he told Brandon it would be a good learning experience. He told Brandon he would be more popular. He told Brandon they would be happier. He told Brandon everything but the truth. The truth that the woman he was absolutely crazy about would one day return to Wisconsin and into his waiting arms. Well, lies didn't matter now, because Elizabeth was back. And so was the truth.

*Cheep Trick - I want you to want me

Part 3: Lasting Impressions

Posted on Friday, 15 March 2002

Didn't want to leave you
With the wrong impression
Didn't want to leave you
With my last confession
Of love
Wasn't trying to pull you
In the wrong direction
All I wanna do is try and
Make a connection
Of love

Brandon Darcy drums out a rhythm on the counter of the Big Frankies while he waits for the waitress to make her way over to him. He knows for a fact that she was avoiding him. It has been like this for weeks, going on a month and a half. He sighs unhappily as he watches her flirt and giggle with some older guy. Love stinks, this Brandon knows. Before he left New York, he vowed he would never fall in love, but Liza was ... well... Liza. There was nothing not to love.

Except that she is avoiding him like the plague. He can tell when a relationship is over, and this one is over with a capital FOREVER. He pulls a napkin out of the dispenser and occupies himself with folding yet another origami goose.

"Hi, can I take your order," Liza's tentative voice asks. She expectantly holds a short pencil over a white pad of paper. After ignoring him for so long, Liza is sure Brandon has taken the hint that it was over. Brandon, she thinks, is cute. But he is peanuts compared to most of the guys she has dated. She's ready to move into the big leagues, but, quite frankly, Brandon is only T-ball practice.

"Yeah," Brandon says. His dark eyes sparkle so beautifully that Liza almost has to catch her breath. "I'd like a tall order of Liza Bentfield."

Liza can't even pretend to be offended. She was flattered that he still wanted her. She scoots herself up on the counter and leans back to give him a kiss on the cheek. "It's over," she whispers in his ear.

Brandon's brow furrows. "Why?" he asks, pretending he never even saw this coming.

"Because," Liza thinks for a moment, carefully calculating how she's going to break his heart. "Because you're not my type," she says, finally.

"Your type!" Brandon knows about the guys Liza has dated. "Liza, you don't have a type," he blurts out.

This time, Liza is offended. "Well, look who feels all high and mighty, now," she says. She grates her teeth and narrows her eyes. "I never, ever want to see you again." Liza begins to walk away, but turns around to glower at Brandon one more time. "Ever." she repeats.

The word echoes through Brandon's mind. "Ever." Even though he knew it was coming, he still feels shocked. He gets up from his chair and makes his way to the door and leaves without giving Liza another look.

Brandon and Liza were about as different as peas and grapefruit. Liza was considered easy until she met Brandon. Since they fell apart, though, the word has come to be associated with her once more. Brandon is stiff and shy while Liza is easy-going and outgoing. Brandon is a morning person while Liza is a night person. Everything about their personalities clashes. It just doesn't make logical sense that they got together. That they stayed together for so long is even more illogical. That they broke up was so logical that even Spock would agree with it.

Inside the cafe, Liza watches Brandon walk slowly down the street with a tear in her eye. She really is going to miss him, but... she fishes in the pocket of her apron for the note she has been carrying around with her for weeks. Finally, she pulls it out and carefully reads it.

Dear Liza,

I'm sorry about what happened. Come back to me, and we'll make it work.
Love,
John

Liza wishes Brandon away and focuses on the future. Her future with John. All the trouble and pain is over. Forever. She is going back to John, back to the love of her life. And she knows it will all be good.

Elinor watches the boy on the riding lawn mower. Her eyes are pasted to his skinny body, clad in a pair of too-small umbros, and a tight wife-beater, which showed off his strong farmers tan. To any other girl, he would be just another guy mowing his parent's lawn in the middle of an extremely hot day, but to Elinor, he is something all together different.

"What?" Marianne asks, waking from one of her I'm-not-thinking-about-John spells.

Elinor jumps. "I'm sorry," she says. She looks as if Marianne just caught her stealing cookies.

"For...?" Marianne doesn't understand Wisconsin folk. They confuse her.

"What?" Elinor asks, her cheeks are turning red and she's biting her lower lip as if in anticipation.

"I don't know," Marianne says. She shakes her head and silently glowers. She has had nothing but one bad conversation after another since she met Elinor. She's beginning to wonder why she is even trying anymore.

"I hope he sees me," Elinor says to no one in particular. "No, wait. I hope he doesn't see me."

"He who?" Marianne asks, and Elinor jumps again.

"Oh," Elinor says, trying to come up with a plausible reason for what she had said. "No one, I was just, you know..." She hopes Marianne knows.

"No," Marianne, who is more perceptive than she lets on, says. "But are you talking about the guy mowing the lawn?" He is the only "he" she sees anywhere

"Nooo..." Elinor says, turning her eyes away. Marianne elbows her for the truth, though. "Yes," she says finally.

Marianne grins. She loves gossip, and her favorite sleep over game, bar-none, is Truth or Dare. "Who is he? Do you like him?" she asks, her eyes glitter with excitement.

Elinor frowns and chews on her lip some more. In all the time she has liked him, she has never told anyone. She's not sure she wants to tell a perfect stranger. On the other hand, maybe a perfect stranger would be just the person to tell.

"He's this guy I know and..." Should she tell? "He's..." Could she trust Marianne? "He's..." Marianne is studying her, waiting for an answer and knowing full well what the answer will be. "He's really nice," Elinor finally says.

"Oh," Marianne says, disappointed. "Really nice." She's smirking now. "You do like him, don't you?" she presses.

Elinor swallows hard. "He's the nicest guy I know," she says, resolutely, and goes back to watching him as he slowly wheels his mower across the brownish-green lawn. She sighs. If life was fair and things worked out the way they should she wouldn't have to lie to Marianne, because he would be her boyfriend.

By the time Elinor and Marianne are twenty feet away from him, Elinor has every thing she's going to say to him worked out, but she never gets a chance to say it.

"Who's that girl?" Marianne asks, as a girl with hair so dark it's almost black walks across the lawn. She is wearing a skimpy halter-top and short jean shorts. The boy stops the mower when he sees her and leans over for a kiss. Elinor shakes her head and sighs again. Life just isn't fair.

"That's Lucy Steele," Elinor whispers, "His girlfriend."

Marianne can almost feel the pain in Elinor 's eyes, and can feel tears welling up in her own. She turns away to look at the happy couple who broke Elinor 's heart just in time to see the boy look at Elinor with the most intense longing she has ever seen. She smiles now, because she knows something neither Elinor nor Lucy knows. The boy is in love with Elinor.

Elizabeth walks slowly over to the window of her hotel room and looks out, squinting her eyes in the bright sunshine. When she looks hard enough, she can just see the sign for his law firm. She shivers and catches her breath quickly loudly.

"Are you okay?" Charlotte asks. She's bouncing her baby gently on her knee. Shortly after Elinor and Marianne left, little Billy woke up. Charlotte has been trying to get him back to sleep ever since. He giggles happily, not knowing that his mother wants him to sleep again so she and Elizabeth can talk. "Ssh..." Charlotte says, pressing her finger to her lips. Billy reaches up and pulls on her finger. She lets him bring it down to his mouth and he starts chewing one it. "He's teething," Charlotte says to no one in particular. She knows Elizabeth isn't listening, but she has to do something to break Elizabeth's Darcy-reverie and bring her back to Earth and Ryan.

Elizabeth turns around and sits gently on the other bed. "So how's everyone?" she asks, vaguely.

"If you're talking about Will Darcy, he's fine," Charlotte says coldly.

Elizabeth shivers again and tries to laugh. "You read me like a book," Elizabeth says.

Charlotte snorts. "What are friends for?" she asks.

"He's not ... seeing anyone, is he?"

Charlotte looks up from her baby. Her expression reads, "You have got to be serious!" Charlotte shrugs. "Every women, available or not, wishes he was seeing her," she says.

"But he's not..."

"Who's to say?" Charlotte asks, shrugging. She's not quite sure if she should break the news that Will sees a new girl every night. Maybe the gossip is exaggerated?

Elizabeth sighs. "Well, it doesn't matter, right?" Deep down she knows better than that. It really does matter so much she can barely breathe.

"Nope," Charlotte agrees, shocked by the incredible amount of maturity her friend is suddenly displaying.

"Because I'm married," Elizabeth says, more for her own benefit that for Charlotte's.

"So I've heard," Charlotte agrees. Then she sighs. "Give it up, Liz. You love him. You haven't always, though. Go back to when you hated him. Please, Liz. For me and Ryan?"

Elizabeth bites her lip. She's loved Will for so long she doesn't even remember how to hate him.

Flashback ... Friday, November 18, 1972

Will Darcy had begun second grade at Davenshire Elementary that very morning, and the teacher sat him right next to Elizabeth Bennet. He immediately liked Elizabeth, with her dark, frizzy curls and laughing brown eyes. He also liked her 64-pack of crayons that sat neatly over the 17-20 section of her number line. He liked how she carefully put every crayon back in the right place after she used them, when they had coloring time right after snack. She was coloring in all the #1 spots on a big clown paint-by-number picture with a deep red crayon. Then, when she was finished, she put the red away and pulled out and pretty green. Green was decidedly Elizabeth's favorite color. That day she wore her favorite green turtleneck with her worn out green corduroy skirt. No pink for Elizabeth Bennet, that's for sure.

Will hadn't done any work on his picture yet. He was too busy watching Elizabeth, wracking his little brain for a way to get her attention. He picked up the glue bottle from the edge of his desk along with his well-sharpened #2 pencil and began the hard work of sticking the pencil diagonally through either side of the bottle. He spilled the white paste all over his picture, but as long as the cute girl next to him noticed, he didn't care. When he had finished, he healed it away from him and studied his beautiful work of art. It was perfect, but not perfect enough for Elizabeth. She snuck a peek while putting away the green and thought it was incredibly dumb.

All the girls in class were in love with Will. Even Elizabeth thought he was cute. He wore a brown and green striped shirt and brown pants, but what Elizabeth and all the girls liked the most about him was the brown rat tail traveling down his neck. None of the girls had ever seen anything like it before. It was special, which must mean he was special.

Will was getting frustrated. By the end of coloring time he had destroyed his glue bottle with his only pencil, had cut his crayon box into shreds with his little red and white child-safety scissors and had shaved all his twelve crayons to little stumps with his plastic pencil sharpener. And still, Elizabeth would not give him the slightest look. Other girls turned around and admired his creations and gave him shy smiles, but Elizabeth was determined to be completely absorbed in her coloring.

Finally, Will had had enough. He couldn't take it any longer. He wanted her attention and he was determined to get it. He licked his lips as he slowly twisted the orange tip of his glue bottle and lifted it up, over Elizabeth's head. He squeezed the little bottle until there was no glue left. At the first drop, Elizabeth had turned to him, and the whole time he was pouring, she glared at him. When the bottle was empty, Elizabeth was glowering at this ugly boy next to her. She stiffly raised her little hand in the air. "Teacher!" she said in her best tattle-tail voice. "Teacher! Will Darcy just poured his whole bottle of glue in my hair!" She burst into tears as the teacher barreled over to their corner of the room. As if to add insult to injury, Will leaned over and kissed her softly on the cheek, and sat back in his chair, grinning like a loon.

"Will Darcy!" the teacher cried, outraged that one of her students could do such a thing. "Bad!" she scolded him like a dog. She grabbed him by the arm and took him to the office to call his parents.

Elizabeth sat silently in her chair, her little hands folded in her lap as she watched the teacher and Will leave the room. Just before they rounded the corner, Will turned around and looked at Elizabeth. He gave her a big smile, and walked out of the room and her life for a good nine years.

After that day, Will Darcy never returned to Davenshire Elementary. His parents drove him all the way to Derbyshire every morning and picked him up every afternoon, because Davenshire didn't like little boys who poured glue in little girls' hair.

It was almost an hour before anyone got around to noticing Elizabeth. Her wild frizzy curls were plastered to her head with dry glue. Dried glue covered her skirt and sweater. At first she had rubbed her fingers through her hair, trying to get rid of the glue. When this failed, she wiped the glue all over her desk and chair. Some how some of the glue had managed to get on the carpet. That day, a huge mess was made of the second grade classroom, a mess that wouldn't soon be forgotten by Elizabeth Bennet.

*Natalie Imbruglia - Wrong Impression

Part 4 ~ The Way Things Are

Posted on Tuesday, 19 March 2002

Why do (good girls) like bad guys
Knowin that bad guys tell mad lies?*

Elizabeth sits down on her bed and brushes her hair in front of the full-length mirror behind the TV. She's bored. Marianne isn't back from her tour with Elinor, and Charlotte left when little Billy started to get cranky. Besides all that, there is nothing good on TV ... nothing that would take her mind off her inevitable run in with Will, anyway.

She gets up again, and walks across the room to the tiny, off-white bathroom and sets her brush back down next to the sink. As she does this, there is a knock at the door. Elizabeth shakes her head and sighs, thinking Marianne probably lost her key. She rushes to open the door, anyway, and is surprised at who she sees.

"Elizabeth!" Jane squeals. "I still can't believe you came!" She throws her long, thin arms around Elizabeth's neck in what seems like an attempt to bridge the gap of seventeen years. Elizabeth stands motionless as her sister wraps her in a bear hug and pats her back and kisses her cheek. She feels like it is a stranger hugging her. The silky blond ponytail rubbing against her cheek seemed foreign to her. The glint in Jane's smile is no longer familiar. She feels like it should be, but somehow it isn't.

Elizabeth smiles, but her smile isn't half as excited as Jane's. "I couldn't miss your wedding, Jane. Not in a million years."

Jane smiles prettily and gives her sister another big hug. "Mmm ... It has been too long, Liz."

That nick name again. Elizabeth shudders slightly and pries herself out of Jane's second hug. "Yes, it has," she says. "But things are so busy, you know how that goes." She feels like she's telling a lie, and, worse, that her sister can read right through it. She has been busy, hasn't she?

Jane nods; pretending to know what Elizabeth is talking about. It's been so long since they've talked, that she feels the distance that has grown between them so keenly. "Seventeen years is too long," Jane says. "I'm sorry ... it's my fault. I never should have tried to control your life."

Elizabeth looks down and inspects the soft bluish-green carpet. "I've been so rude," she says suddenly. "Come in, if you like." She steps back from the door and allows Jane to pass into the clean smelling room.

"I hope you can forgive me for what I did," Jane presses, when the door is closed behind them and the TV is off.

Elizabeth takes a seat on one of the twin beds and nods absently. "It's forgotten," she says, although both of them know that isn't true.

Jane doesn't want to drop the subject as much as Elizabeth does, though. "Sometimes I think you ran off just because I was against it," Jane says. "I was so in love with love back then ... I just wanted you to be happy, but now I can see--"

Elizabeth had wanted Jane to be happy, too. "You were right, though," Elizabeth says, softly. It's the first time she has admitted this in seventeen years. "I had love and I threw it away like a used Kleenex. I was so silly back then." She runs a hand through her brown curls, and thinks about the past, the past that is supposed to be as dead and buried; gone and never to return to haunt her.

Jane leans closer, concern filling her blue eyes. "Are you saying you and Ryan aren't getting along?"

Elizabeth gives a nervous little laugh. "No, no!" she says. "We're getting along great. I love Ryan!" It's just that she loves someone else more ... even after all these years.

Jane pats her sister on the arm. "I was sure you did," she smiles reassuringly. "And I'm so happy for you."

"So," Elizabeth says, more than ready to change the subject. "Did you come here to stay for a while, or did you have other things to do?"

"Well," Jane says, slowly, "I was on my way to pick up Charles from the office ... you can come too, if you want. I'm sure Charles would love to see you."

Elizabeth hesitates. She knows Charles and Will work at the same office, and she's not sure if she's ready to see Will yet.

"He's not going to be there," Jane reassures her, as if reading her mind. "He never works this late."

Flashback ... Thursday, June 14, 1984

Elizabeth stood in the middle of the small bedroom she and her sister Jane had shared their whole lives, up until the day almost a year earlier when Elizabeth had left home for college at UW La Crosse. Things had changed so much in a year. The room had changed. Jane took it over, painting it pink and scattering her childhood toys all over the bookshelves and dressers, and there wasn't even enough closet space for Elizabeth's clothes anymore.

None of this mattered now, though. Elizabeth didn't care anymore what her sister did to her room, because this was the last time she would be seeing in it. She promised herself that. Even with Jane's things scattered all over the place, the room still brought back memories, undesirable memories, at that. She was starting a new life, now, and she didn't want to be living in the past. She was ready to live for the future.

She began throwing all the important things, shoes, clothes, toothbrush, into a knap sack on her bed. She didn't want to bring anything with her that might remind her of Will or her past. In a few minutes, that would all be behind her and the freeway would be ahead of her.

Suddenly, she heard Jane's heavy shoes walking slowly up the stairs had down the hall toward their room. Elizabeth's heart started throbbing against her chest. She had hoped she could somehow get away with a hastily scribbled note apologizing and saying goodbye. She hated goodbyes, and she knew she would miss Jane more than anything. Besides that, Jane would be the last person on earth who would understand her reasons for leaving so suddenly.

Jane opened the door and gave Elizabeth a strange look when she saw the stuffed knap sack and the toothpaste sitting next to it on the bed.

"Going somewhere?" she asked casually.

Elizabeth frowned slightly, but tried to look perky, like she knew exactly what she was doing. "Yeah," she said brightly, "I'm running off with Ryan."

Jane laughed, and smacked Elizabeth on the arm. "You're always so funny! You. And Ryan Fitzwilliam, is it?" She laughed again, but Elizabeth kept a straight face.

"I'm running off with Ryan," she repeated resolutely. She bit her lower lip nervously, forgetting to breathe, forgetting to blink, forgetting everything but the pain. This was what she had to do. Had to.

Jane stopped laughing and blinked her blue eyes at her sister. "You aren't serious."

"As a hear attack," Elizabeth said. She picked up the toothpaste and twisted it around in her hands. She pretended to be suddenly interested in reading the ingredients and the directions, anything to keep her from looking at her sister.

"But..." Jane's eyes filled up with tears. "But what about William? I thought you two were going to get married. Live happily ever after."

"I could never really be happy with him when I think--" No, Elizabeth couldn't tell Jane. It would break her heart.

Will had introduced Elizabeth to Ryan a year earlier in April. Ryan had been Will's best friend from his old high school in Derbyshire, a best friend whom Will had never actually gotten around to telling he was dating Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Ryan had hit it off from the start, and had been even more please when they found out they would both be at UW La Crosse.

"It's for the best, Jane," Elizabeth said, comfortingly.

"No. You love Will," Jane insisted, still crying.

Elizabeth gave a bitter sort of laugh. "Love?" she asked, jestingly, "Love is dead."

Just then, she heard a whistle from outside her bedroom window. "That's him," Elizabeth said. She gave her sister a hug, the last for seventeen years. "It's the right thing to do."

As Elizabeth climbed out the bedroom window, she gave one last look to her sister. "I love you, Jane, and I wish you the best."

The best she thought, as she threw her knap sack down to Ryan's waiting arms. The best was already gone, gone with Will.

Charles and Jane had dated all through high school. When Will came to Davenshire at the beginning of his junior year, he and Charles had become good friends. He never approved of Jane, though. Jane, he thought, was low class. She would always be "trailer trash," and she would pull Charles down to the low class life along with her.

Charles went to Harvard the following year, leaving Jane behind. A year later, Will followed him. Charles swore on stack bibles that he would write Jane every week, every day if possible. As the second year went on, however, the amount letters gradually decreased, until the last three months, when she didn't hear from him at all. Finally, on June tenth, Jane got a short, one-line note from Charles.

I'm staying w/ some friends & won't be back this summer.
Charles

Elizabeth would always remember that letter. It brought her sister so much pain. Jane wasn't brought down by it, though. She swore Charles would come back to her soon; she would just have to wait.

Ryan Decided to surprise Elizabeth with a visit a few days after that. As they walked through the humid summertime air, Elizabeth worked Charles into the conversation. There were things she needed to know, and she knew Will would never tell them to her. But Ryan was his friend.

"Have you met Charles Bingley?" she asked.

Ryan scowled. "Yeah," he said.

"What's that look for?" Elizabeth asked. She wondered if Ryan didn't like him. No one hated Charles!

"Just Will," Ryan said, rolling his eyes. "I guess Charles was dating some girl Will didn't like, so he 'saved him' from her. I think it's all just a bunch of bull. Let Charles love who ever he wants, it's 1980, not 1880, after all."

Elizabeth rubbed her hands together. "Are you sure? Did Will tell you this?"

Ryan nodded. "Yeah, he's really pleased with himself, too."

"I need to go back home," Elizabeth sighed, rubbing her head. "I don't feel very good all of a sudden."

"I'm sorry," Ryan said, concern crossed his face and he ran his thin fingers through his blond hair. "Let's get you back home."

Elizabeth couldn't sleep a wink that whole night. All she could think about was her sister, and Charles. Charles loved Jane, Elizabeth knew that much. But how could Will tear Charles from her sister because she was so low-class, but still write her every week, telling her how much he loved her. How could he call her and tell her he's going to marry her one day, when he knows her sister is standing in the background somewhere, wishing Charles were telling her he wanted to marry her. If Jane was low-class ... wasn't Elizabeth?

On that Tuesday morning, though, Ryan came back. He and Elizabeth walked slowly down the street, the same way they had before. Elizabeth couldn't help but think of Jane, and all her pain. How could Elizabeth marry the man who caused the pain? It was impossible.

"Elizabeth," Ryan was suddenly standing in front of her, her hands clasped in his own and something ardent and real flooding form his eyes. "Elizabeth," he repeated, as if he loved the way her name rolled off his tongue. "I think I've loved you since the day I met you. I don't have much to offer you, except that." He pulled a crackerjack ring out of his back pocket and held it in front of her. "Will you marry me?" he said. "I'm leaving for California in the morning. Come with me."

At first Elizabeth knew she must refuse Ryan. After all, she was in love with Will. But then she realized that marrying Ryan would save her from marrying the man who ruined any chance of happiness for her sister. Elizabeth was willing to destroy her own happiness for Jane. She knew now what she had to do.

She pulled Ryan tight, and closed her eyes as she brought her lips to his. She ran her fingers through his thin, dishwater blond hair, pretending it was thick and dark like Will's. She ran a hand down his arm, imagining his scrawny arms away, and Will's biceps in their place.

When she finally pulled away, Ryan was smiling. "Should I take that as a yes?" he asked.

Elizabeth smiled bashfully. "Yes," she said sweetly.

In the heat of that night, Elizabeth jumped from her roof and plunged into her new life with Ryan. Together they drove to Las Vegas, where they were married in a little wedding chapel. Then they went to California.

Elizabeth grew to like her life very much. She and Ryan moved into an apartment and attended college part-time and worked full-time. Marianne came along soon after that, leaving very little time to think of Will or what her life might have been.

Marianne checks her watch as she and Elinor walk slowly along the cracked sidewalk, toward Elinor's house. It is a little after seven o'clock. Marianne wonders if her mother is worried about her, but it doesn't bother her enough to stop by the hotel to tell her mother where she is going. Her mom probably knows Marianne can't get into any trouble here in Dullshire ... er, Davenshire, anyway.

"I heard Brandon Darcy was having a party tonight," Elinor says quickly. She isn't sure if Marianne was the partying type. She seems very quiet, deep in thought, maybe. Elinor doesn't really like parties that much, but she knows Alex Farris will be there, and she needs a good excuse to see him again.

"Are parties here any fun?" Marianne asks skeptically. So far she doesn't think the kids around here know how to have a good time. If she were back home, she would probably have her lips permanently glued to a bottle of bear in her boyfriend's dorm room. That summer, John was taking summer school just because he didn't want to go back and live with his parents. Marianne also thinks he wants to spend more time with her, but he's to shy to say so. She hopes that is one of his objectives, and she's fairly convinced herself of it, but in the back of her mind there is always a gnawing feeling of doubt; doubt of everything he has told her and everything she has ever hoped.

"I haven't been to one in a while," Elinor lies. She has never been to one, unless she counts the birthday party Lucy Steele invited her to in the sixth grade. It had later been discovered that Lucy's mother had made her invite Elinor because she was in the same sowing club as Elinor's mother. After learning that, Elinor had shied away from parties for fear of rejection.

"Well, let's go check it out," Marianne suggests. She grins at Elinor, who smiles back nervously. "Is that nice boy going to be there," Marianne asks mockingly, as her eyes and lips crinkle into a smile.

"Maybe. I don't know." Elinor is shocked. She wonders how she will ever be able to look at herself in the mirror after all the lies she has told today. "There will probably be a lot of guys there."

An hour later, Marianne and Elinor met in front of the Comfort Suit, dressed and ready to go. Marianne is wearing a short flowery skirt and a wgute tank top with a pair of black platform shoes with a single strap across the top. John once told her he thought she looked hot in that outfit, and it had been her favorite ever since. She thinks John had a good fashion sense, although in a short time she will feel like burning the skirt.

It's a long walk to Brandon Darcy's house, and by the time they get there, Marianne has taken her shoes off and is limping and moaning with pain at every step. Elinor can pat herself on the back, now, because she wore a pair of comfortable sandals with straps on the back.

"Well," Elinor says with a heavy sigh. "Here we are."

"This is where he lives?" Marianne gasps. It is the most beautiful house she has ever seen. It's a big brick house, with deep red trim around the edges and the windows and a red tinted roof. A large staircase with at least ten concrete steps leads up from a brick path to a large, wooden front door with stain-glass windows and a large, golden knocker. On either side of the staircase is a planter, filled with red flowers that almost match the trim.

"Are we just gonna stand here?" Elinor asks. She wishes Marianne would say yes. It would save her from the inevitable run in with Alex and his girlfriend.

"Let's go in," Marianne says, leading the way toward the beautiful front door. As they near the door, they can hear loud music and laughing. They can see silhouettes of shapes and bodies through the curtains. It looked like people are having fun. Marianne finds it difficult to swallow as they come to a stop in front of the door. She feels like she's disrespecting her relationship with John. How could she possibly think of having fun without John?

She didn't have time to think much past that point, or let the uncomfortable feeling overtake her like she usually managed to. Elinor reached over and rang the doorbell. The girls can hear the soft ring from inside, and things get a little quieter suddenly. Marianne could hear a long stride, hurrying toward the door. "I'll get it!" a girl shouts, and suddenly the door is thrown open and a blond girl who looks scarily older than Marianne stood there looking at them disdainfully.

"Elinor Hurst," she snorted. She couldn't believe Elinor had actually shown up for one of Brandon's parties. She has never much liked Elinor. She is too goodie-goodie, too quiet, to stiff, even.

"Liza Bentfield," Elinor says. She has to force herself not to roll her eyes. They had been best friends when they were little, but things have changed, and now they can't even stand to be in the same room as one another. When Elinor lets herself think about it, it makes her sad. She remembers sitting on Liza's back porch playing with Barbies until Liza's mother came looking for her and Elinor's dinner was cold and uneaten, still sitting at her place on the table. There had been homemade presents carefully wrapped and placed inside her desk in elementary school. There had been notes passed about how cute their teacher, Mr. Rich, was during Earth science in junior high. And then there had been the monumental fight that ended the friendship when they started high school. It was the fight that brought two would-be friends to the point they were at now, the point where even tolerance was impossible.

Liza notices the girl with Elinor, whose outfit is remarkably similar to hers. "Who's your friend?" she asks.

"Oh, this is Marianne Fitzwilliam. She's from California," Elinor says proudly.

Liza studies Marianne with interest. "I suppose Brandon'll let you in," she says slowly. She steps aside and lets the two girls walk past her into the house.

"Hey, Brandon," Elinor says to the dark haired, dark eyed boy standing by the door with his arms folded across his chest, glowering at Liza. She bites her lip and looks longingly towards the door as she realizes that she probably just doubled that amount of words she had ever spoken to Brandon Darcy.

"Hey," he grunts. He doesn't even see Marianne, because he's too busy trying to read Liza's mind. A few hours earlier she was dumping him and now she was at his party, playing hostess. "I need to talk to you, Bentfield," he says, and takes her by the arm to the kitchen.

"That was Brandon Darcy and Liza Bentfield. They've been going out since he moved here, but I think they're breaking up, or something."

Marianne shrugs. "He wasn't that great. I'll bet there are a hundred million better looking guys in California." She is only thinking of one guy, though, and she's right. He is better looking than Brandon. John had blond hair and dark eyebrows. He had a pointed nose and a self-satisfied look in his deep green eyes. There was no one in the world, in Marianne's mind, that could ever compare to John. John, John, John

Elinor looks down, feeling embarrassed by the obvious lack of good-looking guys. Funny thing is, she never thought the guys who lived around her were that bad looking. Sure, she had never actually left the great state of Wisconsin, but she had always assumed the guys weren't that bad.

Elinor shivers a little, and tries to shake the bad feeling she has in the pit of her stomach away. She feels nervous, and she has been blaming the feeling on Marianne. As she looks across the room and sees Alex, standing next to Lucy, watching her, she knows the feeling has nothing to do with Marianne, never has, never will. "Well," Elinor finally says as she tries to pry her eyes off Alex, "I'll introduce you around."

*Good Girls, Bad Guys~DMX

Part 5: Run and Hide

Posted on Tuesday, 18 June 2002

So if you go
You should know
It's hard to just
Forget the past
So fast
It was good
It was bad but
It was real and that's
All you have
In the end
Our love mattered
If you feel like leaving
I'm not gonna
Beg you to stay
Soon you'll be finding
You can run
You can hide
But you can't
Escape my love
You can run
You can hide
But you can't
Escape my love*

Brandon shuts the kitchen door behind him as Liza scoots up on the counter, and gives Brandon a saucy little smile.

"So what's this all about?" Brandon asks. His voice is so stiff and brittle that Liza can almost hear the thin strain of stress in his words as he struggles to contain himself.

"What's what all about?" Liza asks innocently. She begins to rub her pointer finger across her lower lip, one of her most obvious nervous habits. To a casual observer, she looks perfectly calm and collected.

"You know, Liza," Brandon says, his brow furrowing in anger that he has to explain everything to her as if she is a small child facing the big, amazing world for the first time ever.

"Oh," Liza says, pretending a light bulb suddenly went on in her head. "Are you talking about how we..."

"Broke up," Brandon says almost encouragingly, feeding her lines like mushy baby food from a jar.

"Broke up," Liza repeats slowly and softly, squinting her brown eyes and gazing at the ceiling fan, as if trying to recall a distant memory. "Oh," She says again, returning her gaze to him. She tugs his shirt and brings him closer and closer to her. Brandon can feel his heart start to pump vigorously as his body, his face, and his lips, get closer to her. His palms begin to sweat as she closes her eyes. His breathing quickens as she begins to bring her puckered pink lips to his. And then, without knowing quite what he's doing, he pulls himself away from her, out of the tight grasp of her perfectly painted nails.

Liza hops off the counter and gives Brandon an all-knowing smile. "You want it to be over just as badly as I do, Brandon. Otherwise you wouldn't have pulled away."

Brandon narrows his eyes at her and chews the side of his bottom lip. He feels like he has been set up. Of course he wants to be with Liza! Doesn't he?

A sad smile crosses Liza's face. "You'll thank me one day for this, Brandon. I can promise you that much."

She starts walking to the kitchen door, but turns back to him at the sound of his voice just before she touches the doorknob. "Can you at least tell me where you're going? Don't I deserve to know that much?" Brandon asks.

"I'm running away to California," she says, lowering her gaze to avoid eye contact, "to be with an old boyfriend."

"Oh," Brandon says, not knowing what else to say. So the old boyfriend had won? Funny, Brandon hadn't even known there had been a battle.

"Goodbye, Brandon," Liza says, fighting back tears. She needs to be strong so she can walk away from the boy who has made the biggest impact on her life, without letting on that he had any effect on her at all. She clenches her fists tightly behind her back and bites down hard on her lips to keep the tears that are beginning to well up in her eyes from spilling over and down her cheek. She turns around once again to leave. She has to get away from Brandon before her tears flood her eyes.

Just before Liza disappears, Brandon jumps at the door and pulls her back. Once she's in the kitchen again, he holds both her arms as if he's afraid she's going to run away before he can say what's on his mind.

"Liza," he says, as a bubble of courage rises from the pit of his stomach. "If you ever need anything, if you're ever in trouble, you can call me."

Liza can't pull her gaze away from him. "You really mean that, don't you," she says softly.

Brandon can only nod.

Liza wraps Brandon into a friendly bear hug. "Thank you," she murmurs into his chest. Brandon can only turn his head up towards the ceiling and wonder if he will ever feel her arms around his neck again.

Jane's ancient Chevy pulls up in front of Hurst, Bingley & Darcy Law Offices, a small brick building with a large, clean front window, showing the lobby with a tidy secretary's desk and a hallway with three doors, one on either side and another at the end. Elizabeth can see a light shining out into the hallway from one of the open office doors.

Jane silently leads Elizabeth into the office building. As they enter a little bell jingles, alerting whoever is left inside the office of their presence.

"Jane?" an almost familiar voice from inside the lit office asks.

"It's me, sweetie," Jane says, grinning at Elizabeth. "And I brought someone with me."

"Really?" he asks. Elizabeth can hear the smile in his voice. "Who is it?" Charles Bingley walked out of the office.

"It's me," Elizabeth says, smilingly.

Charles gives Elizabeth a friendly hug, then pulls away to look at her. "It's been so long since I've seen you," he says. He glances at Jane, a hint of sadness creeps into his eyes. "Eighteen or so years, huh?"

Elizabeth nods. This is the first time she has seen him since he left for college at Harvard.

"We're so glad you could make it here for the wedding, though," Charles says. "It just wouldn't feel right without you here."

"Well, I'm glad I'm here," Elizabeth says. "I wouldn't miss this for the world."

A few minutes later, Jane and Charles disappear behind the door of the lit office, leaving Elizabeth in the lobby to entertain herself. Now that she knows Will isn't around, she feels very much at ease. It's a nice office building with comfortable chairs, and no sign of Will, except for a picture hung up behind the secretary's desk, next to one of Mr. Hurst, Louisa's husband, and Charles.

Elizabeth's eyes are torn from the picture when she hears the little bell above the door tinkle softly, quieter than she can remember it being before. She can't quite make out who the intruder in the darkness is, and wonders why she never thought to turn on the lights. She shutters at the thought that it might be him standing there waiting for her to make her move. Her heart throbbed at the thought that Will Darcy could be standing there in front of her, observing her.

"Looks like rain," and unfamiliar voice says.

Elizabeth looks out the large picture window. She can just make out deep, dark clouds making their way across the twilight sky. "Yes," she says, slowly, still wondering who this man is.

"Is Charles still here?" he asks, after a long, uncomfortable pause.

"Oh, yes he is. He's with Jane right now."

Elizabeth can almost feel this man roll his eyes. "Love birds," he says. "Wait till they've been married ten years." She can hear him shake his head.

"I'm Elizabeth Fitz--"

"Fitzwilliam," he finishes for her. "I know. Everyone's talking about you. You met my wife, I believe, at the Comfort Suit today."

Now Elizabeth realizes she is talking to Mr. Hurst, Louisa's husband. "Everyone's talking about me?" Elizabeth asks. She has her suspicions as to why everyone would be talking about her.

"Well, you know ... you've been gone to California for years. Now you're something really special."

"Oh," Elizabeth says. She's glad he didn't say they were suspicious that she was there to snatch Will away.

"And my sister-in-law is jealous," he adds, as an afterthought."

"Jealous?" Elizabeth repeats. Who was his sister-in-law, and why would she be jealous of Elizabeth?

"Yeah, you remember Caroline Bingley, Louisa's twin sister? She's had this thing for--"

"For Will Darcy for years," Elizabeth finishes for him. She shakes her dark head and chews on her lip,. "Well, you can tell her not to worry, because I'm not here for Will Darcy. I'm here for my sister's wedding."

Mr. Hurst laughed a little. "I'll be sure she knows," he says. "Although I don't think it'll do a bit of good."

Flashback ... Wednesday, September 8, 1981

Elizabeth flashed her good friend Caroline Bingley a smile, as she carefully scanned the food items for an elderly customer. She and Caroline had both decided to get jobs at the Red Owl at the beginning of the summer. Now that school had started up again, the money still came in handy.

Caroline smiled back as she made her way into the break room at the front of the store. As Elizabeth read off the total to the woman, she glanced up, toward the end of her long line of customers. She was glad Caroline would be out in a minute. She always felt bad when customers had to wait in long lines because there was only one cashier on the floor. As she took the check the woman had neatly printed the total and her signature on, she looked up again, just in time to see Will Darcy step in line behind a young mother, scarcely older than Elizabeth, trying to balance her two babies and a basket filled with baby formula, canned tomatoes and bananas. Will glanced at Elizabeth, his eyes tentative, as if feeling out the situation. Then he did something Elizabeth would never have expected in a million years. He reached out and gently took the basket from the woman.

"Miss?" the elderly woman said in a soft voice. "Could I have my receipt, please?"

"Oh!" Elizabeth cried, and fumbled with the receipt. She felt very foolish, having been caught watching Will Darcy, of all people. "There you go, have a nice day," she said. She felt her voice waver as she said it and her hand shook as she held the receipt out to the woman, who smiled gratefully and took it.

Caroline walked out of the break room, and hopped onto the register next to Elizabeth. "I can take somebody on register two!" she shouted. Elizabeth smiled her thanks, as Caroline looked to the end of Elizabeth's long line. She spotted Will and turned to Elizabeth. "Oh my god," she mouthed. Her eyes sparkled with excitement.

Will helped the young mother in front of him into Caroline's line. Caroline turned and gave Elizabeth a sly smile, as if to say, "He's mine now." But the next moment, Will was back in Elizabeth's line, patiently waiting his turn.

Caroline had a crush on Will. She had fallen for him the first day of school, when he sauntered into her Algebra classroom. He was the most beautiful boy she had ever seen; wavy dark hair, dark eyes, and enough muscle to satisfy even Caroline. Now, the first time she ever got even a faint glimmer of a chance to talk to him, he insisted on waiting in Elizabeth's line. The truth was obvious to Caroline. Will had a thing for Elizabeth. Life just was not fair.

Caroline kept her eyes and ears open. Once it was Will's turn, she didn't want to miss a syllable of his conversation with Elizabeth.

"So," he said, when he finally made his way up to the front of the check out.

"Is there something you want to say to me?" Elizabeth asked, eyeing him curiously. She was more ready to forgive him for all his flaws after seeing him help out that poor woman.

"Yeah," he said, working up his courage. There was something in her eyes that told him she wasn't going to blow him off. Not this time, anyway.

"What's that?" Elizabeth asked, as she slowed down her scanning. She didn't want to cut him off short because she had to read him the total.

"Do you drive here?" he asked.

"No," Elizabeth pouted. "I don't have a car."

"I can give you a ride," he said quickly, too quickly. Caroline cringed at his enthusiasm. "When do you get off?"

"Elizabeth checked her watch. "In about a half hour," she said. "But you don't have to give me a ride. I like walking home."

"And I like doing my homework, but I'm giving you a ride anyway."

A few minutes later, Elizabeth read him his total. "Here's your change and your receipt," she said smilingly as she handed it to him.

He grinned back, feeling like he had just won the battle of the century. "I'll be waiting for you outside," he said, as he took his bag and walked out the door.

Caroline had stopped checking out the customers and just listened to the conversation. Had Will just asked Elizabeth out? Had she missed something? She watched as Elizabeth went back to checking out the customers as usual, as if something great hadn't just happened. She glanced up at Caroline and smiled, but Caroline only turned away. She felt like her heart had just been broken. Why couldn't Will have noticed her?

When Elizabeth left her register a half hour later, Caroline followed her into the break room. She needed to find a few things out.

"So what? Now you and Will are going out?" she asked in a snippy tone.

Elizabeth turned and gave her a strange look. "Will and me? are you serious?"

Caroline nodded. "Of course. Can't you tell he's crazy for you?"

"No, he isn't," Elizabeth laughed. "He's just giving me a ride home."

"Just a ride?" Caroline scoffed. How she would love to have a ride home in Will's truck!

"Just a ride," Elizabeth reassured her. "He's just trying to make up for being such an idiot."

Caroline frowned. Will was a lot of things, sexy, smart, funny, and an idiot was not one of them. Caroline turned away, angry that Will liked Elizabeth, who didn't even seem to appreciate the significance of that.

"I'll see you later," Elizabeth said, as she picked up her backpack and walked quickly toward the door. "I don't want to keep Prince Charming waiting, right?"

Caroline smiled weakly and nodded slowly. Oh why couldn't Will be sensible and choose her?

Elizabeth walked out into the fresh fall air. She breathed in the aroma of freshly fallen leaves and wished she were walking home. Cars were fine in their place, but the were out of place on days like this.

Will hopped out of his truck when he saw her coming, and walked around to the passenger side to open the door just as Elizabeth walked up. She was a little taken aback. She loved it when guys were gallant like that. Most of the guys she had dated just reached over and unlocked the door for her. She smiled warily as Will climbed into the drivers seat. She was not going to like him. She had to hate him. She must not fall for him. Never. Ever. This was Will Darcy, after all. The biggest jerk ever born ... who helped a woman who needed it. Who apologized for the glue. Who was giving her a ride home. But he was still a jerk.

"This doesn't mean I'm going to stop hating you," Elizabeth said as she buckled her seat belt.

Will shrugged and his eyes sparkled as if he knew something she didn't. "I didn't think you would," he said. He shrugged again, as if pretending he didn't care.

They were silent, as Elizabeth made herself comfortable in the leather interior. It smelled like a new car. Elizabeth always loved that smell. It reminded her of her father who was a car salesman before he died almost a year earlier. She could feel a tear working it's way to the edge of her eye as she thought about her father. She cringed slightly. She would not cry in front of Will.

"So are you going to the homecoming dance?" Will asked finally.

"Maybe," Elizabeth said cautiously. She didn't want him to ask her. That was for sure.

"Is that a maybe yes or a maybe no?"

"Both," Elizabeth said.

Will turned to give her a strange look. He hated it when girls were so un-readable, and he was starting to think cryptic was Elizabeth's middle name. There was so much he wanted to know, and so much she wouldn't tell him.

The truck rolled to a stop at an intersection just as the light turned red. Will turned his attention from the road and onto Elizabeth. He was breathing hard and his chest rose and fell quickly, as if he was just running. He reached out a hand and carefully ran it through Elizabeth's curls and then down her chin. He wished Elizabeth would open her pretty mouth and say something that he desperately wanted to hear.

Finally, Elizabeth blinked her dark eyes at him sweetly, and opened her lips. Will could feel his heart begin to pound faster and faster in the excitement and anticipation. "The light is green," she said in a sugary tone.

*Enrique Iglesias~Escape

Part 6: Keep On

Posted on Wednesday, 17 July 2002

And I meant every word I said
When I said that I loved you I meant
That I'd love you forever

And I'm gonna keep on loving you
'cuz it's the only thing I wanna do
I don't wanna sleep
I just wanna keep on loving you*

Will backs his Porsche into a shadowy spot in the darkest corner of the Comfort Suit parking lot and kills the engine. He had turned off the lights a block away, because he doesn't want Elizabeth to look out her window and see him. He thinks this is more secretive.

He gazes into Elizabeth's window. He somehow convinced Mr. Hurst to press his wife for information about which room was Elizabeth's and where it was located outside, and now that he is sitting there in his car, he knows he's at the right window. In the room, every light is lit and he can see purples and reds from the TV bouncing off the walls. He sees Elizabeth, his Elizabeth, sitting on the bed, eating Chex Mix as she gazes blandly at the TV screen. He checks his watch, and realizes it's two in the morning. He wonders what Elizabeth is doing still up.

Will sits back in his seat, gazing into the window. To him, she is even more beautiful than she was the last time he saw her. She is even more beautiful than all those Christmas photos put together. He sits quietly with his windows rolled down, listening to the crickets chirp, and smelling the sticky, humid air as it whispers past his nose. The smells and sounds even remind him of Elizabeth and of dim years past.

His thoughts drift back to the last time he heard Elizabeth's voice. After Jane told him Elizabeth had run off and married Ryan, he had been miserable. He hated Elizabeth and everything connected to her, and he wished he had never met her. Out of spite, he married the supermodel, Anne De Bourgh, although he didn't love her. Not like he loved Elizabeth.

After the wedding, Will finally came to terms with Elizabeth's marriage, and began searching for her. Finally, he found a number. At a payphone, he carefully dialed the number he had scratched out on a scrap from a napkin.

"Hello?" a familiar voice asked. Will's pulse jumped at the sound of her voice. There was a pause. "Hello?" she asked again. After a long stretch of silence that seemed to last an eternity, the line went dead.

For years, this was how Will coped with life. When his wife was pregnant, when his son was born, when he graduated from college, Will picked up the phone and dialed the number he had memorized. He felt soothed just by hearing her voice. "Hello?" Even listening to the answering machine message she had recorded put him at ease.

The years had passed, Anne had died, but Will kept calling Elizabeth. He told himself he would stop, but couldn't. He was addicted to her voice, to its relaxing quality.

One day, three years earlier, Will was sitting at home, doing some paperwork, when the phone rang. "Hello, Darcy residence," he said.

"Hey, Will," the voice on the other end said. "This is Ryan Fitzwilliam."

Will cringed. He had made an art of avoiding Ryan since he married Elizabeth. When Ryan answered the phone, Will always hung up right away.

"I just wanted to call and ask how you are. It's been a while since I've talked to you," Ryan said. There was something off in his voice, something that sent up red flags to Will. Something bad was going to happen, but Will resisted the urge to hang up the phone.

"I'm fine," Will said, trying to sound casual.

"I'm glad to hear it," Ryan said.

"So how are you?" Will asked, trying to do the impossible and relax.

"I'm great," he said. "We're updating our house right now. Just got a cordless phone and Caller ID. It's amazing how technology has changed over the years."

A chill went up Will's spine. Ryan knew he had been calling. "Caller ID, huh?" Will said, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

"Yeah," Ryan said. "It's really nice."

"I'll bet," Will said. "You know what, though? I have to go."

"Okay," Ryan said. He didn't sound too upset. "Bye."

Will sits forward in his car now. He feels guilty all of a sudden, just like he had when Ryan called to tell him about the Caller ID, because he was watching someone else's wife.

"Hello?"

"It's me, Ryan," Elizabeth says, softly, gripping the phone. She is worried, very worried, but something about her husbands voice always makes her feel like all is right in the world. Perhaps it was that effect that made Elizabeth more than happy to become friends with him back in college at UW La Crosse.

"Elizabeth," Ryan says. Elizabeth can hear the smile in his voice. Simple things like this make Ryan happy. Elizabeth silently wishes to be more like him. "How was your trip?"

"It was good," Elizabeth says. "But I almost forgot how humid it gets here. Marianne and I aren't used to it."

"I'm sorry," he says, and Elizabeth knows he means it. Ryan would air condition the entire world if he knew it would make Elizabeth happy and comfortable.

Elizabeth shrugs, but realizes he can't see it. "We'll survive somehow," she says, quickly.

"So how is everyone? Have you seen your sister or Charlotte yet?"

"I've seen both of them. They're good. Char's baby is growing. You should see him." As if as an afterthought, Elizabeth adds. "I haven't seen Will yet, though."

A dark could suddenly passes across their conversation, and Ryan doesn't want to say anything. This is why he dreaded letting Elizabeth go to back to Wisconsin without him. He is afraid of losing her. He isn't a jealous man, he just doesn't know how he can live without Elizabeth. At times like this, he got a brief taste of life without her, and it was empty and flavorless.

"D-Did you go back to your old house yet," Ryan asks, finally.

During the long silence, Elizabeth had been slapping herself for mentioning Will. When they got Caller ID a few years earlier, Ryan had finally figured out her relationship with Will. What had never been all that clear to him suddenly became blatantly obvious. Elizabeth and Will were in love. He wanted to know if Elizabeth wanted a divorce. More importantly, he wanted to know why Elizabeth had chosen to marry him over the man she obviously still loved. Elizabeth told him just enough to satisfy him. She told him she didn't want a divorce and promised she would never leave him.

"No," Elizabeth says, glad Ryan changed the subject, "I haven't seen the house. I don't want to, either," she adds. She shudders when she thinks of the countless memories the house will stir up. Memories of bringing Will home to meet her parents, of meeting Ryan for the first time, of sitting in Will's truck too long in the driveway. She tries covering up the truth, by telling Ryan the painful memories come from losing her mother and father, that Will has nothing to do with it, but both of them know the truth. In that house is her old diary from her senior year and first year of college. There are Prom pictures and notes written during biology lectures. There are letters and dried flowers and formal dresses. And there the ghost of Will and Elizabeth are living life, happily ever after as it should be, but isn't.

"Is Marianne around?" Ryan asks, finally finding a subject that has no relationship with Will.

"No," Elizabeth says. "And I'm worried. She left with Louisa Hurst's daughter this afternoon when we got it."

"What time is it there? Two?"

"Yes," Elizabeth says. "I thought this trip would do her good, but she's back to her old stunts. If she comes in drunk--"

"Don't worry, Elizabeth," Ryan says. Elizabeth is sure that if she were home right now, Ryan would put his arms around her and nestle his nose in her curls as he whispered his words. "This to shall pass."

"I know," Elizabeth says with a heavy sigh. "But I wish it would pass faster. I get nervous."

Ryan chuckles. "Well, we'll just have to hope that one day she has a daughter who is--"

"Just like her," Elizabeth says with a conspirator's cackle.

Elinor picks a red flower from the planter in front of Brandon Darcy's house and twirlers it between her thumb and middle finger as she plops down on the stoop, waiting. She wishes she were actually waiting for bread to mold, because she would probably be long gone by now. As it is, she's waiting for Marianne to leave the party.

Someone sits down on the stoop next to her and pats her on the head. "Well, having a good time, Elinor?" Alex asks.

Elinor turned and gave him a weak smile. "Are you?"

Alex laughs a little. "Well, the drive home should be interesting, anyway. I'd offer you a ride, but Lucy'll be sick."

Elinor shifts uncomfortably at the mention of her name.

"She drank way too much tonight. I think she's sick in the bathroom right now, actually." He rolls his eyes, as if being with Lucy is a real chore. "Sometimes I wish Lucy was," he pauses and looks off into the street. "More like you," he finally says with a heavy sigh.

Elinor wishes she could tell him that he should stop wishing his girlfriend was a copy of her and start wishing for the real thing, but she's too shy. Luckily, Marianne walks through the front door before Elinor beats herself up too badly for not having enough courage to tell Alex how she feels.

"Ready to g--" Marianne begins, but stops herself when she sees Alex gazing intently at Elinor, as if he was about to say something important.

"Yes," Elinor says, standing up and brushing her off her skirt.

Marianne isn't ready to go. Not until Alex and Elinor's relationship has made some definite strides.

"Was Lucy still in there," Alex asks, standing up, and taking a step away from Elinor.

"Yes," Marianne says. She grins inwardly at the evil she has planned. "She was in the bathroom making out with that one guy ... Ralph Farrell, I think."

"Robert Farrell?" An angry look crosses Alex's face.

"That' right. Robert Farrell," Marianne says sweetly.

Alex turns to Elinor, unsteadily takes one of her hands in his, and says, "I'm leaving. Do you want a ride?"

Elinor motions to Marianne. "I came here with her, though."

"Well, she can come, too," Alex says. The disappointment in his voice is unmistakable, though.

Marianne only gives them a simple smile. "No, I'd like to walk, actually," she says. She grins at Elinor, who gives her a dirty look before she lets Alex lead her to his red '92 Ford Escort.

Marianne walks alone down the dimly lit street, past decrepit houses and broken down trailer parks. After a few minutes, a car drives by, pulls to a stop and drives back. Marianne starts shaking. Suddenly, she's afraid she's about to be abducted by a rapist and taken to his mobile home and murdered.

A window winds down, and a somewhat familiar boy sticks his head out. "Hey," he says.

Marianne studies him, trying to place his face. "Hello," she says, not ready to give him an inch.

"You probably don't remember me. I'm Brandon Darcy. You were at a party at my house."

"Oh, it's you," Marianne says, laughing at herself forever being worried. She recalls thinking that boy--Brandon, was it?--wouldn't hurt a fly.

"Do you ... need a ride, or something?" he asks.

"I'm staying really close by," Marianne lies. The Comfort Suit is at least another mile and a half down the road, and she isn't quite sure she's walking in the right direction.

"That's all the way across town," Brandon informs her. "I know you probably don't trust me, and that's okay, but ... it's dangerous walking alone at this time of night."

"I know how to handle myself," Marianne says. She begins walking again, but Brandon continues to drive along side of her.

"I'm not saying you don't," Brandon tells her. He reaches across the passenger seat and pops the door open. "But I'd definitely feel better if you'd let me give you a ride. I don't want to read about something terrible happening to you in the paper tomorrow, knowing I could have helped you."

Marianne reluctantly climbs into the front seat, eyeing him carefully. Bandon may not hurt a fly but that doesn't necessarily mean Brandon wouldn't hurt a human, did it?

The two of them drive in silence across town to the Comfort Suit. As Brandon pulls up into the parking lot of the comfort suit, he sees a Porsche that looks remarkably like his father's, parked neatly next to a blue Toyota. He feels a blush rising in his cheeks when he sees his dad sitting in the front seat, gazing into a well-lit window at a woman sitting on her bed, talking on the phone.

"Well, thanks for the ride," Marianne says, shortly. She climbs out of the car, and walks quickly across the parking lot to the hotel entrance.

When Marianne is safely in the hotel, Brandon pulls his car up next to the Porsche, and rolls down his window. "So dad," he says. "Come here often?"

Will jumps and turns to stare at his son. "What are you doing here?"

"Dropping someone off. The more obvious question is what are you doing here?"

"I'm ... I'm..," Will is at a loss for a plausible explanation.

"Just what I thought," Brandon says shaking his head. "You're Peeping Tom."

"Who did you bring here?" Will says, trying to change the subject.

"This cute girl from California. Marianne--"

"Fitzwilliam," Will finishes for him in disgust. The kid. He turns his eyes back to the window as a girl with thin hair and a pointed nose walks into the hotel room. Speaking of the devil, Will thinks. He chews on his lip, firmly believing that the only reason Marianne came along was to keep Elizabeth from him. She and Ryan are in cahoots. Or else Will has been up too late and isn't thinking clearly. He turns the key in the ignition and puts the car in drive. "I'll see you at home, son," he says in an unfamiliar, fatherly tone, and squeals his tires as he drives out of the parking lot.

Elizabeth walks quickly to the window. That sound was so familiar. It brought her back to a time all those years earlier when Will was trying to impress her. Sometimes he would squeal his tires just to get her attention. She smiles when she thinks of the glue incident now. In retrospect, all the little boy had wanted was her attention.

She looks out the window just in time to see a silver Porsche shoot out of the parking lot onto the road. Her heart races. Had Will been waiting there ... for her?

Part 7 ~ Daylight

Posted on Thursday, 25 July 2002

Daylight, I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I mustn't give in
When the dawn comes tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin *

Brandon walks into the house. It's quiet and feels eerily empty. For a brief moment, he wonders if his father is home. In the silence of the house, surrounded by empty beer cans and the pungent smell of cigarettes that hangs in the air, Brandon closes his eyes and prays he's alone, that maybe his father made a U-turn back to the hotel to watch the mystery lady some more. Of course, it creeps him out that his dad was watching strange women in their hotel rooms, and as much as he doesn't want his father doing this, Brandon feels the sick hope that his father isn't home yet.

"Dad?" he asks, as he almost trips over the coffee table that had once sat in the center of their living room. It now sits sadly sprawled out and broken across the floor in front of the door. He has to remind himself to clean up the mess sometime soon, but he knows his father doesn't care. He never cared before, why would he start now?

Brandon is on edge this morning, though. He has a sick feeling that his dad is on another one of his discipline kicks again. He cringes at the thought of the last one, when he

"What?" Brandon hears his father's gruff voice from the kitchen. Brandon has to shove past Lucy Steel, who is passed out in front of the kitchen door.

"Dad," Brandon repeats as he finally gets the door open enough to squeeze in. His dad is sitting at the kitchen counter with a cup of coffee. The morning paper is in front of him, but he isn't looking at it. He's gazing into space, a dazed expression on his face. It's almost as if he is in love. But Brandon knows his dad better than this. Love was not in his chemistry. Genetics hadn't willed the right to love to this cold, unfeeling man. The only thing Brandon has seen his father love more than money is himself. Himself, himself, himself.

"What?" Will asks once again. His voice sounds somewhat disconnected from the world, unnaturally soft and thin like he is physically answering his son, but mentally he's not. The dazed expression disappears from his face, though, and he finally turns his attention on his son.

"Who was that woman at the hotel?" Brandon asks.

Will shifts uncomfortably on his stool. He can't decide whether or not to tell his son the truth. Without much thought, the truth slithers off his tongue "She's Jane Bennet's sister," he says, naming Brandon's European History teacher. Miss Bennet had been one of Brandon's favorite teachers right away when he moved to Wisconsin. He learned more from her in a week than he learned at his old school in a semester.

"I guess she's here for the wedding," Brandon says.

Will sighs. "That's probably one of the reasons she's here."

Brandon sniffs, "What? And the other is to see you?"

Will scratches the back of his head. A pained expression settles on his face. "We dated for three years," Will finally says.

"Oh," Brandon nods his head as if he understands his father perfectly. "And she still wants you bad?"

"Wants me bad," Will repeats. The dazed expression returns to his face, but he shakes himself, rises from his stool and starts walking for the door. "Clean up this mess, would you? And get that girl away from the door," Will says, as he squeezes out the door and makes his way to his room. He hopes Elizabeth wants him, but it was so difficult to know when it came to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth drives the blue Toyota rental car up the driveway of an old house. White paint is pealing off the siding, displaying rotting wood. Trim droops at the edges and a few roof shingles lay in the brown, overgrown lawn, which is mostly clovers and quack grass. As she steps out of her car, she heaves a heavy sigh. Home sweet home.

"Liz!" Jane cries. The screen door squeals open and Jane hurries out and wraps her sister in a big hug. "I'm so glad you came. I was starting to get worried you chickened out."

Elizabeth shook her head. "Well," Elizabeth says, as Jane leads her in through the front door. "I guess we have a lot of work ahead of us."

Jane agrees. "We have a lot to sort through."

Elizabeth studies the ragged carpet and old, moth-eaten sofa and chair seated around the scratched coffee table. What a sty. She remembers the disrepair of the house when she was a girl, but now--now it was decrepit.

"I know what you're going to say," Jane says as she carefully seats herself on the sofa. She chews her lip as she looks around the house, as if for the first time, seeing what Elizabeth sees. "I haven't done real well with the up keep. It's just, well, things have been so busy with going to college then getting a job and working part-time and taking care of Mary... then Charles..." her voice trails off.

"Don't worry about it, Jane," Elizabeth says, giving her sister a comforting smile. "We'll clean it up. Together. How is Mary, by the way? Is she here?"

Jane plays with the edge of her T-shirt. "No," she says. "She's at physical Therapy right now. You'll get to see her soon, though, Liz."

For the first time since she got back to Davenshire, Elizabeth doesn't cringe at the use of her old nickname. In fact, she doesn't even notice it until later, after she has climbed into a relaxing bubble bath back in her hotel room at the Comfort Suit. That's when she will realize Jane used it all day. For now, however, Elizabeth is oblivious.

"I'm so glad you could come a week early," Jane says, as they begin to sort through a closet full of shoeboxes and photo albums. "I don't think I could go through all this on my own. It stirs up so many memories of mom and dad." Jane shivers a little.

"And other people," Elizabeth says. She opens a photo album filled with Homecoming pictures of Jane and Charles posing under the tree that used to stand in the back yard. It was struck down by heavy winds four years after Elizabeth left, though. As Elizabeth flips to the end of the photo album, she finds one picture of her, wrapped in Wills strong arms, wearing a pair of tight, stonewashed jeans. Her hair brown curls are unkempt and blowing in the autumn wind. Will is dressed in a black tux with stripes down the legs, a black cummerbund and a neatly tied bow tie. She can remember that day so clearly, as if it were yesterday.

All day long, Jane had been rushing around, doing her make-up and hair, putting on the pink pouf dress that made her look like a giant stick of cotton candy. Elizabeth had just been walking around, trying to help when she was needed, but mostly feeling sorry for herself. Will had tried asking her to Homecoming several times, but Elizabeth had always distracted him or somehow managed to changed the subject at a crucial point, just before the question slipped past his lips.

That day, however, Elizabeth was kicking herself for not letting him get the question out. She could think of a million things she would rather do, but at that moment the only thing she wanted was to be in the middle of the dance floor, her arms around Will's neck, as some slow song softly lulled them into a trance.

At seven o' clock exactly, Charles drove up and stepped out of his father's car. He whistled as he walked up the driveway and up to the front door. He smiled tenderly at the pink rose corsage he bought for Jane. Pink roses were Jane's favorite. For years after Charles left, Jane couldn't look at a pink rose with out tears tingling at the corner of her eyes.

For a half-an-hour, Jane and Charles posed in as many cute ways as they could think of. Hugging, kissing, kneeling, sitting. Everything. Elizabeth only watched with sadness in her heart. Why hadn't she let Will ask? It wasn't like he was the only boy to ask her. Ben Collins asked her to. He was popular and handsome. Elizabeth convinced herself that the only reason she turned him down was her best friend, Charlotte Lucas, had had a crush on him since elementary school.

Finally, when Elizabeth decided she couldn't take it anymore, she turned to walk into the house, but instead hit something hard and solid. She looked up to see Will smiling down at her.

"Will!" Elizabeth said. She tried to do the impossible and hide her relief. "Shouldn't you be with your homecoming date?" For weeks it had been rumored that Will was going to take Caroline Bingley, who was now ignoring Elizabeth like the plague.

A shrewd smile covered Will's face. "Who says I'm not?" he asked.

"I think Jane already has a date," Elizabeth said, carefully motioning to the happy couple. Jane was perched on Charles's knee, smiling beatifically.

Will shifted uncomfortably. Although he was probably the only person in the history of the world to be able to say it, Will couldn't stand Jane. There was just something about her that rubbed him the wrong way. Of course, he wouldn't taken the time to get to know her until years later. "I actually meant... you," Will said, smilingly.

"Me," Elizabeth said. "I don't even have a dress."

"Well, at least let me spend the evening with you," he said, hoping he didn't sound like he was begging.

Elizabeth smiled, thrilled that she no longer had to spend the evening alone. "I suppose so. I have nothing better to do," Elizabeth said sweetly.

After that, Elizabeth and Will had one picture of them taken under the tree. That was all, because, Elizabeth said, it wasn't going to be a very memorable evening. Like usual, though, Will proved her wrong. Nineteen years later, she still remembered it so clearly. Closing her eyes, she can still feel his body against hers as they posed for their one picture. She can still feel the heat of her blush under his gaze. She can still smell his cologne. She can still taste his lips when he bent his head down and gave her a quick kiss before he left. A kiss, she still remembers, that sent her to the moon.

After working all morning, Jane and Elizabeth finally take break to eat lunch. They sit down at the old table that Elizabeth can remember sitting around with her family whole family as a little girl. She can almost see all her sisters and her parents sitting around her, talking, laughing, chewing their burnt food (Elizabeth's mother had been a terrible cook).

The summer after Elizabeth's Senior year of high school, her parents died in a car accident that paralyzed one sister, Mary, and left Elizabeth and her four sisters alone. After Elizabeth went off to college, the family crumbled even more. Her sister Lydia dropped out of high school and ran away. No one had seen her since. Katie is a year older than Elizabeth. She had joined the army and fled Wisconsin only to return when it was absolutely necessary. Mary lives with Jane in their small, dingy childhood home.

"Is Katie coming for the wedding?" Elizabeth asks, as she twirlers spaghetti noodles around her fork.

Jane grins like a person carrying a big, important secret, and leans across the table and clutches Elizabeth's hand. "Yes. Isn't that great?"

"It is," Elizabeth says. "Is she still in the army?"

Jane wipes her mouth with a paper napkin, then places it neatly in her lap. "No," she says. "She's actually married with two boys, living in Minnesota now."

"Well, that's great," Elizabeth says. "I can't wait to see her. It's been years."

Jane nods, then turns back to her food.

"Jane, I'm sorry," Elizabeth says.

Jane looks up at her sister, feigning confusion. "For what?" she asks, pretending to be dumb.

Elizabeth plays with the corner of her napkin. "For leaving you here. Alone. It was wrong of me."

Jane gives Elizabeth a small smile. "It's okay, Liz," she says. "You did what you thought you had to do, and I made the best of it."

"Jane--"

Jane holds up a finger to silence Elizabeth. "Say no more. I'm happy, Liz. I moved on after you left. I still hoped Charles would come back, but I stopped waiting. I went to college. I started teaching at the high school, and I was actually happy. And then Charles... well, he came back, and we fell in love all over again. I can't hold your leaving against you, Liz, because I think I know why you did it."

Elizabeth looks at her food in silence, then looks back at her sister. "Thank you, Jane. I wish I was more like you."

Jane laughed a little and leaned across the table to squeeze Elizabeth's hand again. "I'm so glad you're back, Liz," she whispers.

---