Backstage Romance: An Austen-Inspired Romantic Comedy Box Set by Gigi Blume (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📕

for a moment to think of a good ultimatum. When I was sixteen, it took her an entire weekend to decide my punishment for staying late at a party. Finally, she grounded me—for the entire weekend. My sentence was over before it began. I didn’t have that kind of time to hear what she had to say.

“If she doesn’t call him,” she decided. “I’m taking back the Volvo.”

The Volvo that had been sitting in the garage with no engine for ten years--which I paid to fix.

“Hmmm.” Dad got up and cleared the empty Coke bottles. “You have a tough choice, Lizzie. Your mom will take away the Volvo if you don’t call Charlotte’s boyfriend.” He put the bottles in the sink and rinsed them. “So I’ll just buy you a new one.”

I couldn’t help but laugh a little. That was Dad for you: always messing around. Mom wasn’t happy about it one bit. Dad blew her a kiss, and she stormed out of the kitchen. She’d get over it eventually.

“Can we make it a Honda?” I joked.

Dad winked. “You got it, kiddo.”

Mary, who hadn’t gone to bed as she was ordered, watched with eyes as big as saucers while Mom left the room. I half-expected her to offer another one of her insightful, philosophical extracts, but she waited until Mom was completely gone and looked between me and Dad, silently asking if this was all a bad joke. I just shrugged and picked up the plates to join Dad at the sink, and that’s when Mary shouted at the top of her lungs, “You ate all my kettle chips!”

Oops.

16

At Common Sense She Gaily Mocks

Beth

If I were the type of person to hold a grudge like some people who will remain anonymous (whose name rhymes with kill), my friendship with Charlotte could have suffered damage of momentous proportions. But as I wasn’t like a certain someone (whose name rhymes with kill), Charlotte and I were on good terms by the following morning. I don’t remember who called who, but I can tell you we both stretched out the proverbial olive branch and laughed about it.

Over the course of our conversation, I gathered that she did indeed like Colin, although I couldn’t imagine why. As far as I knew, he’d won her over by a little tactic used by men called the wounded lover syndrome, or the old but rather effective victim of unrequited love schtick.

After I left the lodge on Thanksgiving, a moment I care not to remember as I was covered in yams and stripped of my pride, Sir William Lucas offered Colin a meal on the house and an open invitation to return any time he desired. Colin, being quite respectable and overly grateful, sat at the bar, letting out all his woes to Charlotte, the receptive bartender—and we all know bartenders are a poor man’s shrink. Charlotte listened intently, poured him more Shirley Temples, and offered her sage advice as was her Charlotte way. Then, as I already knew, he spent the evening at the Lucas house, whereas Mrs. Lucas referred to him as Boy George.

It must have had a profound effect on him because he returned the following day, unbeknownst to me, to seek the company of Charlotte and her serene ability to listen to hours of nonsensical yammering. And if there was one thing Colin was good at, it was nonsensical yammering. In short, it appeared to be a match made in heaven. He couldn’t stop talking, and she had no reservations to listen all day.

And so, although I couldn’t understand the mystery that was Colin/Charlotte, I was happy they both found a partner in this big, scary world.

My mother would take a little more convincing, but for the time being, I felt it was best to just avoid her calls and incessant Facebook messaging.

When I arrived home from my parents’ house, it was close to two in the morning. Not that avoiding my roommates by staying away was successful at all. After the drama with Mom, I could face anything. As it turned out, Jane was awake, checking online trade magazines.

All I wanted to do was lie my weary body down on my bed, but my legs betrayed me and sent me to the couch to sit by Jane. She smiled at me from behind her laptop screen and asked me how my day went in the gentlest of fashions. Her tone of voice was calm and… dare I say content. It was almost as if her heart hadn’t been put through a meat grinder less than two weeks before.

Although Charlotte had been my longest and dearest friend, Jane was more like a sister. Someone I could confide in. I supposed by telling her all about the Colin loves Charlotte story, it would bring her a welcome distraction. I still couldn’t help but think she was sweeping her feelings about Bing under the rug. Or had the telenovelas helped her cope? She’d gone cold turkey, so I was a wee bit concerned.

When I was done blabbering about Colin and Charlotte and then Mom’s reaction, she was able to find humor where I hadn’t before, and in seeing it through her eyes, it made me laugh. It was quite ridiculous and silly when I thought about it.

But then in a tone a little more somber, she said, “I don’t want you to worry about me. I’ll be fine, and everything will be the same as before.” She must have read the disbelief in my features because she added, “You don’t believe me. I’ll always remember Bing as the nicest man I’d ever met, but that’s all he’ll ever be to me. I read more into it than there was in the relationship. I’ll get over it.”

“Jane, I’d have to be blind to not see how much he liked you. You didn’t ‘read into’ anything he wasn’t writing all over the place. If there’s anyone to blame, it’s him.”

“I don’t blame him for anything,”