Every Guy Wants To Be Darcy
"Why on earth would you want me to come here to help you guys with your project?" Dorothy Ann asked both Carlos and Ralphie, as soon as she was sitting in Ralphie's room. Papers and various copies of Pride and Prejudice - that famed literary work of Jane Austen, who was widely regarded as one of the best English authors of her time - were scattered, a testament to the boys' nonchalance of literary work. For her part, Dorothy Ann wasn't a leisure reader, but even though she wasn't a voracious reader or romance and fiction, she could at least discern the superiority of Austen's work as compared to her other female contemporaries, such as Fanny Burney. Austen was one of the few fiction readers she could tolerate, after Ayn Rand. After all, Dorothy Ann liked her reading to contribute to the 'expansion of her mind'.
The boys, obviously, didn't even like reading, nor did they even care for reading. And, as usual, they expected her to help them step by step with the work, like babies.
"You should have asked Ms. Frizzle. She'll help you. Take you on a trip back to the Regency era," Dorothy Ann muttered, not as inaudible as she thought she was. "Might do you guys some good to do something yourselves."
"Ralphie was the one who wanted you to come and help him with the work. He just doesn't trust me," Carlos folded his hands and rolled his eyes. It was true. Ralphie had artfully planned everything, displaying an unexpectedly considerable amount of forethought in doing so, including reading up on Pride and Prejudice on Wikipedia and watching one of the movie adaptations of the book so that he would seem as ignorant as he knew he must seem at times. Now, if only he could get rid of Carlos -
"Carlos, you look like a girl when you do that," Ralphie barked.
"Hey, it's not my fault you're getting Cs for English," Carlos shook his head.
"Yeah, well, how are you doing much better. I saw that essay - you were scoring a four out of ten!"
"Not my fault that the teacher has a grudge against me," Carlos muttered, almost childishly.
Dorothy Ann wanted to smack them both. Time was precious, and they weren't going to waste hers by this asinine argument. She wondered when Carlos and Ralphie had begun arguing so much - they were generally sports-freaks who agreed on everything, although Ralphie was generally a football/basketball jock while Carlos preferred soccer and athletics. But for some reason, they'd taken to arguing. It unnerved her, and she was worried about them. But right now, it irritated her more than it worried her. She stood up.
"That's enough!"
Okay, she didn't mean to yell.
Carlos and Ralphie stared at her. Composing herself, she sat down and continued, "We don't have much time. When is the project due?"
"Friday," the two of them said unanimously.
"But today is Thursday! When did you guys get this project?"
"Tuesday," the two of them said together again.
Dorothy Ann could not speak for horror. If it were up to her, she would be proofreading her project by now, tweaking it to perfection.
Well, she didn't have a 5 in AP English Language and Composition for nothing, after all.
"I think she's about to faint, Carlos," Ralphie said, as both guys stared at her pale face.
"Way to state the obvious," Carlos rolled his eyes.
"What's with the rolling eyes?" Ralphie asked, yelling and nearly deafening Carlos.
"Stop it! I can't stand it! You guys have only one day to finish this project! What have you being doing since Tuesday - wait," (Dorothy Ann shook her head) "I don't want to know." She really didn't. Junior year was most the most stressful year for them, but somehow, the guys still managed to hook up with scores of girls.
Although - she didn't hear Carlos or Ralphie boasting about their latest conquests - or even having any latest conquests, for that matter.
Why on earth was she even thinking about Carlos and Ralphie with other girls? They had an English project due tomorrow!
"All right. Now that we're all settled down," (Actually, Ralphie and Carlos were giving each other the evil eye) "We should start. What is the question for the essay you guys have to write?"
"Wait, I have it right here," Ralphie said, rummaging through the flurry of papers, while Carlos picked one from the table and read in a monotonous voice, "Describe, compare and contrast the symbols of romance and courtship in Austen novels to today's."
"Symbols of romance?" Dorothy Ann asked. "You're asking the wrong person. I'm leaving."
"Dorothy Ann, you can't go now!" Ralphie pleaded, grabbing her wrists, as Carlos blocked the doorway.
"Let go of me," Dorothy Ann ordered, trying to yank her hand away from Ralphie.
"How about - no?" Ralphie grinned wolfishly. Dorothy Ann stomped on his foot, causing him to wince in pain and let go of her. Dorothy Ann, satisfied, made her way to the door.
"Carlos, don't let her get away!"
Carlos, surprisingly not arguing, lifted her up, swinging her over like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder, before plopping her onto a seat. Dorothy Ann, too disoriented from the sudden movements, said nothing, while Carlos began, "Look, Ralphie wants your help, so can you help us?"
"If you guys stop your juvenile behaviour, then yes, I'd consider, but, otherwise," she trailed off, feeling quite uncomfortable with Carlos leaning over her shoulder.
"We promise we won't be so childish," Ralphie's voice boomed, almost causing her to knock into Carlos as she literally jumped in fright. Ralphie was also leaning over her shoulder on the other side. His seriousness startled her, but -
"Why are you guys standing so close to me!" She shrieked. Ralphie and Carlos jumped five feet away from her. Good.
Pretending she hadn't scared the boys with her shrill shrieking voice, she opened a copy of Pride and Prejudice, and asked, "So how much of it have you guys read?"
"Not much," was the - you guessed it - unanimous answer. It was a lie on both their parts, of course.
Dorothy Ann groaned, having never been good at detecting lies. She regretted having finished all her assignments freakishly early. This was going to be a long evening.
It took one hour before Ralphie threw the book against the wall, earning him a lecture from Dorothy Ann. Sighing, she said, "Well, when Carlos finishes, he'll tell you." She went back to studying for her AP Physics B test.
She couldn't concentrate, not when Ralphie was staring at her.
"What do you think you're doing?" She asked, through gritted teeth, trying not to yell.
Ralphie was rendered inconveniently speechless. He forgot about Dorothy Ann's volatile temper, that was obvious.
"He's bored, DA. He wants something to do," Carlos said, before telling Ralphie, "Go and play with your Gameboy if you've nothing better to do."
Ralphie ignored him and sat by Dorothy Ann, watching her. This disconcerted Dorothy Ann, but she was determined not to let it show. She could be a stubborn person when it suited her.
"Don't flirt with DA, Ralphie," Carlos said, a short while after.
"Carlos, flirting is an expression of sexuality and a common form of social interaction whereby one person obliquely indicates an interest towards another. Ralphie is just sitting by me," Dorothy Ann said, scribbling more notes.
"Yeah, Carlos, don't be jealous that DA lets me sit by her instead of you," Ralphie grinned. Dorothy Ann turned towards him, exasperated.
"Ralphie, I swear, if you don't want to read, don't disturb me!"
"Weren't you here to help us with our English project?"
"Only if you've read it!"
"But I haven't! And it's so boring!"
"How you guys have never heard of Pride and Prejudice is beyond me; Phoebe talks about romance day in and day out."
"Well, in Phoebe's dream world, she's dating Arnold, as opposed to stalking him," Ralphie muttered. Dorothy Ann frowned, and muttered about how boys nowadays were so dense, and that if only they had the good sense to tell the girl how they truly felt, then there'd be no such thing as all this romantic nonsense.
Carlos, who heard her, immediately got down on both knees and knelt in front of DA. In a heartfelt voice, he began, "In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you."
Ralphie, who was sitting on the other side of DA, saw DA's eyes widen, and her hand drop the pen. Carlos grinned, and continued, "I make a pretty good Darcy, huh. But then, you make a pretty good Elizabeth. See, the next words in the passage are 'Elizabeth's astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent.'"
"Carlos, what does that have to do with your English project?"
Carlos shrugged. "Nothing, except that if Arnold said that to Phoebe, she'd be swooning in his arms. You're not very romantic, DA. Not like Phoebe."
"And you are testing my patience, Carlos! Finish up the book!"
"I have finished reading it."
"In an hour?" Dorothy Ann asked incredulously.
"Well, er, I actually have read it before," Carlos replied, hesitantly. Dorothy Ann stood up so suddenly, upsetting her stack of papers on the table, and cried in dismay, "Carlos!"
All that time wasted sitting around -
"We just wanted you to, you know, hang out with us," Ralphie pleaded. "We already finished it - we just thought it would be interesting to hear what you thought."
"Both of you!" Dorothy Ann began. Her words were incoherent after that, but she packed up her bags and left immediately, muttering what the boys thought were expletives under her breath. The boys didn't dare stop her; Dorothy Ann was giving off a murderous aura. The door slammed, and the two were left alone.
Several minutes passed, before Ralphie broke the silence.
"Nice way to confess, Carlos," Ralphie muttered, sourly.
"I had to do something. I wasn't about to let you flirt with her."
"I wanted to be Darcy," Ralphie said, pacing the room, agitation evident in his face. Carlos laughed, eliciting an angry 'What?' from Ralphie.
Carlos picked up the book. "'He sat down for a few moments, and then getting up, walked about the room.' Like what you're doing now." Carlos began to laugh.
"That isn't funny, you know," Ralphie said, somewhat petulantly to Carlos' ears, only causing the Latino boy to laugh louder. "Besides, whoever heard of a Latino Darcy?"
"What, you're the only one who looks like Darcy?"
"Hey, Colin Firth was considered gold-standard in his portrayal. And you have to admit it, I look a lot like him." Ralphie paused. "I really like her, man," he added in a softer voice, filled with emotion.
Carlos frowned but said nothing. He was wondering how Dorothy Ann could be insensible to such a proclamation of love. Girls could be so confusing sometimes. Why couldn't they all have been born Darcys and got the girls they wanted? It would have been less taxing on their emotions. No one really knew how hard it was to get the girl. Mr. Darcy, after all, had made it look so simple.
Fin
Author's Note: This was supposed to be different - very different. I wonder how I made it into a C/DA/R triangle, with DA oblivious. Puts a different spin on things though. It's going to be a one-shot, because honestly, writing this was amusing, but I don't think I can do justice to it, and besides, it would go C/DA too soon (I heart C/DA, after all), which would sort of suck, because Ralphie needs love too, and if he wants DA, he should be at least allowed to fight for her. But I couldn't resist Carlos-quoting-Austen. He's spontaneous this way. :P