"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a girl with nothing better to do, must be in want of a Jane Austen novel," I mused as I picked up Pride and Prejudice from the bedside table. I folded one leg under the other and fell backwards onto the bed.
It was Monday morning, Will was at work, Fiona was upstairs doing her classes via correspondence and Mrs. Mayfair, having prepared a late breakfast to coincide with my late rising, disappeared off in the direction of the laundry, where she said much cloth and linen awaited her. Not venturing to enquire after the current occupation of Mr. Mayfair, I had trudged back up the stairs and unthinkingly returned to my room, where Jane Austen simultaneously mocked and beckoned me, all from the ease of the bedside table.
Pages turned in relative silence, only broken by the occasional chuckle at Mr. Bennet's dry wit.
Then along came the dark-haired stranger, with ten thousand a year.
"If I could only have but ten thousand a year!" I declared. Even two hundred years of inflation later and I still wouldn't have minded Mr. Darcy's annual income, it sure beat my student's wage of negative six thousand dollars in University fees.
Further pages turned, and Elizabeth Bennet the character was fulfilling everything I remembered of her – playful, witty and still well-mannered.
I bet she never joked about serial killers.
Closing the book, I sighed, frustrated. We should never be compared, I thought, Elizabeth Bennet and I. It's just not fair, she's a character that can do no wrong and I'm messy and awkward and say the wrong things all the time and insult perfectly fine rich men.
I let my head rest back against the wall with a thud.
Urgh.
"Lizzie?" interrupted the sweet muffled voice of Fiona.
Rolling over to face the door and appear cool, calm and collected, I instead overshot and scarcely managed to not roll completely off the bed.
"Come in!" I cried as I scrambled to pull myself to standing.
The door inched open.
"Hi…" purred her unsure entrance, a face peering from behind the door. "Are you busy?"
Mentally, I took an inventory of my overall appearance - unbrushed hair, still in my pyjamas and holding a book behind my back, fingers precariously wedged between pages.
"Ah, no." I smiled, "not at all."
With Fiona's studies completed for the day, the afternoon blitzed by, filled with laughing, stories and the relaxed joy that comes from the simple chilling with a friend.
Twilight was soon upon us and as I stood on the front veranda looking out towards the path of the driveway, I inhaled the sweet scent of evening nature mixed with sizzling garlic. Mrs. Mayfair was cooking. My stomach was rumbling.
"Calm down, stomach," I mumbled, patting the guilty organ in a soothing motion. "We'll eat soon."
"I found it!" came the cry from inside as, turning around, I saw a flash of Fiona run past the hall through the doorway. I pursued her blurred form back inside and through to a stately sitting room.
Hello, formality.
The two mahogany leather couches looked down their formal noses at me and the prominently hung photographs on the far wall added to the condescension.
"Really?" they asked. "You're in here? You better not break anything."
I gulped, and entered carefully.
Fiona was sitting cross-legged on the floor and I joined her as she poured over a faded brown leather photo album.
"Here!" she pointed proudly. Following her extended arm, my gaze rested on the laminated photograph of a little brown-haired girl in a pink leotard and a flowing chiffon skirt. Her hair was pulled tightly into a bun and a silly happy grin shone forth from her face. It was hard not to smile along with the girl, so I didn't resist.
"My first ballet photo, Dad said I was three when this was taken."
"And you've been dancing ever since?"
Fiona nodded, absent-mindedly flicking through a few pages to more photos of a slightly older brown-haired girl in pink leotards. "I really like ballet, only…"
A hint of disappointment filled her eyes and I went for a stab in the dark. Well, a logical stab in the dark, considering the input of her family that I'd heard.
"The better you get, the more people expect from you?"
Earnestness spread across her face as Fiona reached for my hands and held them. "Yes! That's exactly it." Withdrawing her hands, she turned away. "When I was a little girl, ballet was about twirling and pretending to be a princess and wearing pretty costumes… and I liked to dance. But now…" she sighed and blinked away threatening tears, "now sometimes I feel like all ballet is about is getting into the right academy and watching what I eat and how many hours I practice." A half-smile. "Sometimes I just wish I could go back to feeling like a princess for awhile. Just twirl." Hand to the mouth and tears vanished, she stifled a giggle. "Does that sound silly?"
"Nah, it sounds beautiful. In fact…" I lowered my voice to a whisper, "You should do it now. Just spin."
Her eyes widened.
"In here? So close to dinnertime?"
I laughed. "I happen to know for a fact that pre-dinner twirling is very good for the appetite."
"Will you join me?"
"Sure, although let it be known that as a kid I dressed up as a dinosaur, not a princess..."
Grabbing her hand to help her up, I slid the photo album to the side and counted her down.
"Three, two, one… spin!"
And there, under the condescending gazes of the hung photos and the disapproval of the leather couches, we twirled.
Well, Fiona twirled, and I spun around twice before the very definite and legitimate decision to sit down was upon me. Dinosaurs never were great twirlers.
But Fiona twirled. And boy, was she happy. Giggling and laughing, arms spread wide open, her eyelids even fluttered closed.
I silently prayed that she wouldn't crash into the condescending photographs.
As she continued, sporadic squeals and giggles emerging from her lips every so often, I pulled over the photo album I'd kicked aside. With a flick, the pages flipped over and the album shut softly.
However, my mind didn't register the album or the spinning or the rumble of my stomach. My mind, prone to distraction as it was, was frantically processing something I'd just seen -the instantaneous glimpse of an image.
Could it be…?
Snapping back to reality, I grabbed the album and raced back through hardened pages.
Nope, nope, nope…
There.
Blood ran from my face as I absorbed the photo: Fiona, not much younger, smiling innocently for the camera; a man with arms wrapped around her, the intention on his face, much less innocent.
That man was Jimmy Reilly.
Long after the Mayfairs had headed in and Fiona bid her goodnights, I sat on the bay window of my room and watched for the headlights of Will's jeep to come coursing around the hill.
We needed to talk.
Jimmy Reilly was once again invading my life, this time as the extremely unwelcome houseguest of my inner mental sanctum, and very soon after dinner, I vowed to myself that I would not ask Fiona about the photo.
Not Fiona, not since she was young and naïve and completely ignorant as to what had transpired between Will and I and Jimmy. They were, in fact, perfectly good reasons to leave her out of it.
Plus, in the photo, she very much had the look of a girl in love, and girls in love are not prone to much sense-making, usually.
But Will, on the other hand, was the perfect punching bag for the frustrations of my brain. Why hadn't he told me? How long ago was the photo taken and who took it and what did it mean and where on earth was he at this hour doing who-knows-what instead of answering my questions!
I slumped against the wall with resignation and stared dejectedly out the window.
Dotted stars and a waning moon blurred into my night vision; minutes passed and the stars began their lingering trek across the night's sky.
Tiredness set in, and in an effort to stay awake, I hummed to myself. Somehow, it continued into a low-level musical.
"Oooooooklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain…"
I sat on my hands.
I pulled my hands out again and braided my hair.
I began reciting the periodic table.
"Hydrogenheliumlithiumberryliumboroncarbonnitrogenoxygenfluorine…"
Then, I recited it backwards, as much as I could.
I rubbed my eyes.
Still no Will.
So I yawned and wandered into my loving bed.
A/N - A Will-less day. Sad face. And hello and welcome, Jimmy Reilly, back into the story. We've missed you. (Kidding, you can go get stuffed, JR.)
Shout Outs (because why not, you guys deserve some author lovin')...
BooRadley - The Raf asked me to tell you hi and 'espero que disfrutes tu dia.' True story.
Ansujali - I had no idea that would be so funny, but I'm super glad you thought it was.
kmart92 - girl, you are just something else! (...that happens to be very good).
...UNTIL TOMORROW, MY LOVES.
Wow, that's totally creepy. Uh, I mean, like, see ya tomorrow or something. Whatever. I don't even care, you know.
M. xoxo