A/N: Thanks to all you lovelies who reviewed, it made my day complete, especially because everyone did longer ones than they usually do. As for my typos: Yeah, I made a big one there, it was supposed to say "Dad liked Charlie" but it didn't go that way unfortunately. Also, I agree with the whole Boston horn honking thing, but it was for story purposes, so what the hey.

I loved Harry Potter 6. Some people were like "it was all talk and no action," but that was the point. Up 'til now we've had a lot of action and a lot of plot advancement, and this was a break from that, plus all that information that was totally necessary and really interesting.

With the whole "Marvel" thing, I was talking about Marvel comics, not Marvin the martian. Sorry about that.

I live northwest of Boston in a strip-mall suburby town called Bedford. It's in between Concord (pronounced like "conquered" for all you out-of-New-Englanders, never "Con-cord" like the jet) and Lexington. Not many people know there actually is a town between Concord and Lexington, but I swear to God it exists. We are not the Brigadoon of the Greater Boston Area.

And with more ado than I should have had and less ado than I could have had, here we are…

Here I am, once again, at

Chapter 37: Jeremiah was a Bullfrog

I let myself in the house quietly, not wanting to disturb any studying/lovemaking/Baby-Einstein-Reading shenanigans that were going on. I expected those to be going on. What I didn't expect, however, was seeing Charlie kneeling down in front of Jen, who was crying and saying "yes, yes, yes" like Faith Hill in The Stepford Wives.

Obviously, I missed something.

Also obviously, I was intruding on something. I tried to sneak into the kitchen, but for all that they're called "sneakers," they don't actually help with sneaking in any way, shape, or form.

"Lizzy!" Jen said, and I turned around to stammer something along the lines of "I'll never do it again, just please don't hurt me," when I remembered two integral things:

Firstly, that this was Jen, who would cry if she killed an ant by accident;

And secondly, that both she and Charlie were smiling insanely. Oh, and Charlie had been on his knees and she'd been saying "yes" a lot, which unless she was auditioning for a shampoo commercial soon, was big.

BIG.

"You—you two—No way—this is…Holy crap!" Was pretty much all I could manage, but at least I didn't need to be eloquent just now. Jen burst into laughter again, and hugged me, and jumped up and down, and hugged me, and I smiled at Charlie over her shoulder, and took his hand, and all in all it was one of the happiest moments of my life so far.

"Wait, Jen, let me see this beast," I said, reaching for her left hand and holding her still. The ring that had been slipped on was definitely a Jen kind of ring: sparkly, pretty, diamondy, slightly pink, and not too big. "This is fantastic,' I said, and I meant it, even though I wasn't really talking about the ring.

"Thank you," they said together, and then embraced each other like there was no tomorrow.

Cute, huh? Really chick-flicky, and marvelously cheesy and romantic, but adorable and sweet, too.

Being a third wheel is weird, not to mention uncomfortable. But eventually they peeled themselves off each other and had come back to earth enough to look sheepish and insanely happy, and I said, "Charlie, our mom is outside in the car, maybe you want to take her the news yourself. I think if you send Jen you'd have to scrape mom off her with a spatula."

"Okay, Lizzy," he said eagerly, then smiled at Jen and muttered a quick "goodbye honey," before leaving, like he wasn't going to be right outside for two minutes.

Like I said, cheesy, but cute.

When he was gone, Jen and I smiled at each other, and Jen said, "Oh Lizzy, I'm so happy! He said he's loved me all this time, and he missed me when he was away, and he didn't know anything about me being in New York or he would have gone to see me immediately, and he couldn't stop thinking about me! He loves me, Lizzy, he really does, and I can't believe how lucky I am! I wish everyone could be as lucky as I am, or as happy, or as—I have no idea what, but this is the most incredible thing that has ever happened to me!" She threw her arms around me again and I pulled her in for another hug, and we stood there, laughing and crying and although I was ridiculously jealous of her happiness, of her marrying the man she loves, I wasn't sprouting horns or turning green. This was about her, not me, and her joy could never in any way be seen as reproaching mine. She was my beautiful, kind, generous, warm, and loving older sister who deserved happiness and love just as much as I did, if not more because of her honorary position as Permanent Good Samaritan of the World.

"Jen?" I said, when I could breathe again.

"Yeah?" she wiped the tears out from under her eyes.

"Just promise not to make your bridesmaid's gowns bright yellow or lavender or sea foam green, okay? Because as much as I love you now, that's how much I'll hate you if you pull a Charlotte and put me in pastel."

"Done. No lavender and green theme, I got it."

"You know I'm happy for you, don't you? You know this is fabulous for everyone? Because it's amazing, Jen."

She smiled down at me and kissed me on both cheeks and said, "I know. Without you having to say it, I know. And don't be sad, Liz. You're not alone. Take it from me," she added, spreading her arms wide and then letting them fall, "good things do happen to those who wait."

I know that was really Disney and packed a whole lot of "if you believe in yourself, anything's possible," for modern day living outside of Pleasantville, but you have to give the girl a little bit of credit. First of all, she had correctly read the tiny hint of jealousy and sadness on my face, and hadn't tried to explain it away the way she usually did. Secondly, she was delirious and giddy and speaking in odd, rambling sentences that didn't have subjects or verbs or, in some cases, words. Third and lastly, she's my sister, and if you don't give her some slack, I'll reach over and smack you.

Yay for families.

So again there was wedding bustle, because having been apart for so long made them suddenly need to be married right away, which meant flower appointments, dress searching, church bookings, and the bane of my existence, wedding planners.

Now I'm fully aware that some of you out there are familiar with/are related to/are wedding planners and though I'm sure you're really nice at home, being the maid of honor is like being a butler when it comes down to it. After we finally chose one, it was "Lizzy can get this," and "Lizzy'll do that," and "You wouldn't be willing to quit your job so that we can spend seventeen hours watching a guy arrange flowers for center pieces, would you Lizzy?"

I'm going to elope.

Needless to say, I did not quit my job, because as much as I love my dear sweet sister and her dear sweet husband to be, I do have a life that does not involve chiffon and place settings and veil lengths.

And that life is known as Captain Skippy's Happy Fun House Restaurant and Playroom (Where Playing Becomes Fun!). Yes, this may be the saddest thing you've ever heard, but please don't yell for Pa to get the shotgun just yet. My life does get better.

I promise.

So, amidst all the wedding/baby hustle and bustle, I was able to ground myself in the painfully familiar:

The Fa-la-la Birthday Song.

"Fa-la-la-la-la It's your Birthday,

doo-de-doo-de-doo

Tum-diddy-um-tum-tum, Happy Birthday,

And lots of gifts for you.

We strum and play and sing, nonny-nonny,

And share this happy tune,

Fa-la-la-la It's your Birthday

Happy tweedledee-dum to you !"

There. Now you have a copy of your very own to sing to your boyfriends/girlfriends/little siblings/mothers and fathers/worst enemies. Enjoy.

In fact, it was this very song to which a previously (and for damn good reason) forgotten (read: blocked-out) acquaintance (a word which here means "someone whom we have met before but never really liked") whom I'd never hoped to see again suddenly reappeared.

I used "whom" twice in one sentence.

God, I'm good.

Or disgustingly anal. Take your pick.

So anyway, to be absolutely anti-climactic and refuse any sort of cliff-hangery nonsense,

the basic gist of what I was going to say is that while I was singing the "Fa-la-la Birthday Song" on a cold, lonely afternoon, Catherine de Bourgh suddenly appeared in the doorway.

At first, I thought I was hallucinating, that she was a kind of mirage you'd have if you hadn't had enough water in the desert, and you were dying, and you thought you saw water or a pond or something, but it was a figment of your imagination.

Only I can't think of anyone who'd dream of Catherine in the desert if they were dying.

Then again, I've met Stephen Baker, so I'm totally lying.

There's always an exception to any rule.

She walked in, leaning on a cane for dramatic effect (old and wizened, fine, but there was nothing wrong with her legs). My first thought (after my other totally irrational first thought) was to panic and run for the fire alarm and save all the poor, rich, defenseless, annoying children from being turned into stone. Then the small part of my brain that governs logic clicked on, and I thought "hey, I'm wearing a big cow head with googly eyes and twenty yards of felt. You could release the hounds and still not find me."

Slow I may be, but I get the job done.

Unfortunately, either she had that laser vision that I covet like nothing else on this earth, or Manny the manager (ironic, and yet scarily stereotypical) had ratted me out for the feeling of a smooth, crisp twenty in the palm of his hand.

Or she'd threatened to kill his first born child (read: all his D&D handbooks) and key his car (read: burn all his Magic cards).

She stalked right up to me where I was pretending to strum a guitar-ukulele-hybrid and looked me right in the eyes (not the googly felt ones, which are situated somewhere near my forehead), and said, "Get in the car now."

The party had come to a standstill, with twenty-five seven-year-olds, plus Cloppy the Horse and Swimmy the Fish and Waggy the Dog and Duchess the Cat and Captain Skippy himself stood watching Daisy the Cow being abducted by an old woman in a seven thousand dollar tweed suit and hair coiffed out to infinity.

To explain why I didn't tell her to let me change first, I'll have to quote from the Employee Contract Manual.

Removal of Captain Skippy's trademark symbol uniform:

Removal of costumes or uniforms is prohibited during shifts at Captain Skippy's Happy Fun House Restaurant and Playroom, and any removal or readjustment of uniforms will result in immediate termination of employment contract. For a list of acceptable times and places in which to change or remove uniform, please turn to page 74. Also note that while uniforms are in place employees are required to remain in character and above all silent.

This is the kind of world we live in, where even Cloppy the Horse's neighing gets outsourced to recordings played over loudspeakers.

So, if I wanted to keep my job, I knew that I needed to do two things. First, shut up, and second., not take the stupid google-eyed head off.

In order to stay alive and/or preserve my sanity, I needed to run as fast as my scrawny cow legs would let me.

So I followed her to her limo all Daisyed-up, with my eyes wiggling and my ears bouncing and my stupid cowbell ringing with every step. She didn't give me time to attempt a runner, because the passenger door opened and a guy built like Andre the Giant meets Mount Everest stepped out and cracked his knuckles threateningly.

And you thought that only happened in Indiana Jones.

I bet his name's Ivan, too. Or Phineas the Baby-Eating Bone Masher.

So I climbed into the car, trying to have some dignity and not hit my head on the door.

As Ivan-Phineas helped Catherine into the car (it figures that I was the one who had to slide over, doesn't it?), my mind raced, trying to fathom why the hell she had gone through the trouble of leaving behind her posse, driving to Boston, found where I worked, actually gone into a kids' Restaurant and Playroom with working class mothers and blue collar employees to take me away in her limo complete with its own walking, order-obeying mountain range.

Because it looked to me like she was making a bit of an effort if she just wanted to tell me she hated me and never wanted to see me again. If that was what she wanted, then she could have stayed at Rosings and never have had to worry about me again.

So my brilliant deductive mind concluded that she wasn't here to tell me she hated me.

Or, that wasn't the only thing she wanted to tell me. But I had no idea what the other stuff was.

"I think you know why I am here, Elizabeth."

Well, that fit in perfectly with what we were talking about.

"Nope."

"Don't be smug, I have no patience for it."

"Why don't we go somewhere else we can talk. I don't know about you, but I was taught that arguing in a car is uncivilized."

Okay, so that was totally untrue, but it made her swell up with anger in an extremely satisfying way. "I find it preposterously laughable that I am being given lessons in etiquette by a rude, unattractive working class girl in a cow costume who wouldn't know good breeding if she walked into it."

"Laughable, yes. Picturesque, definitely. But it does have a certain ring of truth, doesn't it? If you want to talk to me about anything, Cathy, then you'll take us somewhere where we can be frustrated without the threat of fisticuffs."

I could hear her teeth grinding from where I was sitting, and if she hadn't spent the last seventeen years of her life complaining about arthritis in her hands, I think she would have liked nothing better that to strangle me and dump my body in the Charles river, counting on twenty years of cheap fabric to weigh me down.

Me, I was just happy I got an excuse to use the word "fisticuffs" in an argument, something I've wanted my entire life.

The driver, who looked like a Peep compared to Jorgen Van Strangle next to him, pointed the car downtown, got lost twice, and eventually, after twenty-five minutes of frosty silence, stopped outside the Common on Boylston Street, and as soon as the car came to something resembling a stop, I jumped out of the car, taking my cow head with me.

But Catherine's voice stopped me dead.

"Elizabeth Bennet! Stop this instant!"

An Ella Enchanted for a New Age, that's me.

"What do you want, Catherine?" I asked, turning around to find her about three inches from me. For an old broad, she moved pretty fast, but unless I was recruiting for a rec basketball team, this was not a good thing.

"I recently received an alarming report," she said quietly, supposedly trying to throw me with how calm she suddenly was, "from a dear, and very trustworthy friend of mine. I immediately started planning a trip to this disgusting city to confirm once and for all that it is impossible, and that it will never be possible."

"Whoop-de-doo. What's that got to do with me?"

"I heard that your sister is going to marry Charlie Bingleton very soon. It seems one of you, at least, achieved what you're doubtlessly aspiring to at this moment. But then I heard that you were also very close to a similar engagement."

"What, I'm suddenly going to marry Emma? She's not really my type."

"Shut up, you moronic child! I'm not talking about Emma, and if continue to interrupt me, then I will do everything in my power to make sure that you never speak to anyone again!"

"What are you going to do? Buy me a nice pair of cement shoes? Is Ivan over there a member of the Russian mob under your control? You may be rich, Miss de Bourgh, but you have no power to intimidate me."

"What I am saying, Elizabeth Bennet, is that there are people in this world who believe that you are engaged to William Darcy!"

"…I see."

"Is it true?"

"You just told me it was impossible, so why are you worried?"

"Will Darcy is engaged to my daughter, that's why I'm worried! If even a hint of this gets out, reputations could be ruined!"

"Meaning your reputation as the greatest manipulator of our time? If Will is engaged to dear little what's-her-face, then you could have no worries about me."

"When I said engaged, I meant that it was planned from their births by his mother and myself. It is not official."

"Then I guess I should congratulate you two for keeping arranged marriage in the Western world. Unfortunately for you, Will Darcy is twenty five and able to choose for himself. But this has nothing to do with me."

"Do you have any idea what a marriage to you would do to him? His credibility, his life's work? Do you have any notion about how embarrassing to his relatives and friends to see you as his wife? It would be a disgrace! Your name would never be mentioned by any of us"

"First of all, anyone who is worth being a friend wouldn't care how wealthy I am if I'm what Will wanted. Secondly, I think you're counting yourself as one of his relations a little too early, because as far as I'm concerned, the only one he has worth mentioning is his sister, and last time I checked she had no problem with me."

"Stupid, useless girl! It would be the biggest mistake of your life if you thought you could possibly give him everything he wants! Stick to where you're better acquainted; I hear that Manny is just out of a relationship, he may be looking for someone just like you."

"Since when does money marry money by law? Where is it written that the only person you can marry is as wealthy as yourself? How can there be any kind of change for the better if we abide by a feudal caste system, this 'us' you spoke of? If I married Will, I would consider it a good match. He is a kind, warm, loyal man, and I am a fully functional, thinking human being, and if he has no problem with me, then the rest is none of your business!"

"But what are your talents? Who do you know? Who are your parents? Don't think me ignorant enough to be unaware of the nothing you really are!"

"Again, lady, if he doesn't care, then what does it matter to you?"

"Tell me, you ridiculous idiot! Are you engaged to him?"

"No." She smiled, revealing teeth. I'm not sure why that should creep me out any more than it made me angry that she'd won.

"And will you promise me that you never will accept an engagement with him?"

"Of course I won't. And I'd appreciate it if we ended this now." I turned around and headed back for the car, and I heard her feet stomping the ground behind me.

"Not so fast, there! I have another complaint! Your roommate Lydia's illegitimate child! Is that the kind of person you'd want William to associate with? And your sister's engagement is nothing but a gold-digger's dream come true! You are all conniving, insolent, disgusting girls and I am ashamed of you! To think that you define womanhood more than my own daughter does! You are determined to ruin him, aren't you?"

"That's enough, you ludicrous old hag. There isn't one way you haven't insulted me in a way totally beneath the class you pretend to possess. Being wealthy or powerful is no excuse to treat people like they don't matter. I am ashamed of you, and I always will be, because not only do you not know what womanhood is, but you can't even remember your own daughter's name. I have an excuse, I don't know her. You don't."

"Why you—"

"And furthermore, I am not determined to do anything beyond ensure my happiness without being intimidated or bullied by you or anyone else who has nothing to do with me, and never will." And I opened the door and she climbed in. I was damned if I was going to sit in a car with her for the twenty minutes it took for Peep to find his way around, and I had the feeling that that was mutual.

" I never want to see you again, Bennet. I won't tell you to take care or have a good year or even goodbye. You deserve nothing of the kind."

I slammed the car door, and watched as it drove away, Ivan cracking his knuckles in the rearview mirror into the distance.

Turning around, I adjusted the cow head under my arm and set off for home.

A/N: So here's the next chapter, and I have something to tell you guys. First, Thanks for reviewing, all you new names and such, and if you haven't done it yet, there's still time, it'll be fun, I promise. Also, I'm going to New Hampshire for two weeks, and I won't have computer access for all that time, so the next time you'll hear from me is in September after school starts. I'm really really sorry, but it will be good, I promise, because I'll be revising the end in New Hampshire, so it'll be really good.

I've actually thought about doing another Jane Austen fic (Emma), and I would like to do it eventually, but I want to take a break from it and make up my own think for once. I have a Civil War fic in the making right now, but the amount of research is ridiculous. Any other ideas? I need something to take my mind away from college apps.