Musical Interlude
Lizzy knew that she should make allowances for Lydia's youth; she knew she should be patient with her new roommate. After all, it was tough for a seventeen year old to leave home and start college early, but sometimes, it was just so hard to be nice. Jane was just so much better at it.
"Lydia, have you seen my black, wraparound sweater?" Lizzy asked. Actually, she already knew that Lydia had it (she saw it in Lydia's room, on top of the dresser), but Jane had said that accusations weren't helpful. "I'm trying to pack, and I can't find it."
On the couch, Lydia looked away from the TV where a talk show host was laughing at the joke of some new rising actress with huge hoop earrings; then Lydia turned slowly, her shoulders scrunched up to her ears and eyes wide. "I borrowed it," she said cautiously.
Jane had also told Lizzy that questions—Socrates-style—were preferable to yelling, so Lizzy next asked, "Lydia, didn't I tell you to ask before you borrowed my clothes?"
"I did ask," Lydia insisted. "Last month, before my date with Bobby."
"All right," said Lizzy, taking a deep breath. "I'd like to ask me every time you'd like to borrow something; you can't ask me once and assume it's yours to take whenever."
Lydia nodded. "Are you mad?" she asked, brown eyes still wide.
"Well, can I have it back please?" Lizzy said.
"Uh, well, Bobby took me to an Italian restaurant, and I ordered spaghetti, and—"
"You got it dirty," Lizzy said, reminding herself that this sweater was black after all; marinara sauce wasn't going to stain it.
"I was going to wash it!" Lydia insisted. "I just didn't get around to it, yet… Are you mad?"
Lizzy sighed. "I'm just frustrated; I don't have time to wash it before I leave."
"I'm sorry," said Lydia with her best sorry face.
"Can I please have it back?" Lizzy said evenly. "I'll pack it dirty and wash it when I get to Charlotte's."
"Yeah," Lydia said, bouncing to her feet and running into her room.
Lizzy had edited some of Lydia's papers, so she knew Lydia was smart. It was just that sometimes Lydia didn't seem to have any common sense. Jane kept telling Lizzy that it was just a phase and that Lydia would grow out of it, but since Jane had brought Lydia back from Boston in January, Lizzy felt like the apartment hadn't had any peace. If it wasn't the string of boys that Lydia was dating and bringing home (and on one infuriating occasion, into Lizzy's darkroom), it was Lydia's TV with cable—bought and paid for by good old Aunt Vicky, Lydia's mother. If it wasn't Lydia's TV blaring The OC or MTV or whatever at almost full volume, it was Lydia talking about The OC or MTV or her hair or Ashlee Simpson's hair at almost full volume. Lizzy hoped the phase would be over soon; the only thing that stopped her from losing her temper with Lydia was Jane, who was upset enough already without having to settle roommate squabbles.
From her place leaning against the couch, Lizzy could see Jane sitting at her desk, in the pink flannel bathrobe she'd received on their fifteenth birthday. Her book was open in front of her, a picture of a heart colored red and blue, but Jane had pushed it to the corner of the desk, so far away from her that it teetered off the edge. Her long, red hair was tangled and probably not as clean as it might have been.
From the speakers of Jane's laptop, Charlie's voice was singing in a sweet, encouraging whisper; a guitar (probably Darcy) was plucking out a harmony. Lizzy leaned against the couch, crossed her arms, and listened.
Let us melt, Charlie breathed, and make no noise.
No tear-floods, nor tempests move.
It was a profanation of our joys
To tell them of our love.
The moving of the earth
Brings harms and fears.
Men reason what it meant
But these rumbles of our sphere,
Though strange, are innocent.
Because she'd googled it, Lizzy knew that this song, "End Where I've Begun," hadn't done very well on the charts (it'd peaked at 89 or something), because it was too wordy for radio. Some crotchety old men in tweed had also denounced it on Good Morning, America for altering John Donne's word choice in "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning," which hadn't helped its popularity much.
Of course, none of that bothered Jane. Ever since Jane had gotten back from New York, both of B.F.D.'s albums had been playing almost nonstop, and "End Where I've Begun" was the track that Jane skipped to the most often.
Our two souls, therefore
Are one.
Though I must go,
Endure.
If they be two,
They are two so
As stiff
Twin compasses are two;
Your soul the fixed foot
Make no show to move,
Except if the other do.
Dull lovers' love
(their souls are sense)
cannot admit absense.
It does remove what created it.
But we,
By a love so far refined,
That ourselves did not know
What it was—
We assured of the mind,
Care less
Of eyes, lips, hands
To miss (to miss).
That dull lovers' stanza never failed to remind Lizzy of that day in February, when Jane stopped insisting that she'd simply misread Charlie, that she'd imagined that he loved her, that he was only a very good friend and nothing more. That was the day when a moving van pulled through the Netherfield gates and when Lizzy found Jane watching by the window, her hands over her mouth. It was the first time Jane had cried.
"I should've told him I loved him," Jane sobbed, face red as her hair and streaming tears onto Lizzy's shirt.
Lizzy had held her twin, because she didn't know what else to do. "No," she told Jane, because she didn't know what else to say.
"I should've slept with him that night; no guy wants a prude."
Lizzy shook her head over Jane's hair. "Charlie's not like that."
"Then what's wrong with me?" Jane asked, curling her face into Lizzy's shoulder.
Our two souls, therefore
Are one.
Though I must go,
Endure.
If they be two,
They are two so
As stiff
Twin compasses are two;
Your soul the fixed foot
Make no show to move,
Except if the other do.
Lydia came out of the bathroom just in time for the guitar solo, holding Lizzy's sweater above her head triumphantly. "Found it! It took me a while, though." She placed it into Lizzy's hand and saw her watching Jane. "You know," she said, "we've probably heard this song a million times, and I still don't know what it means."
"It means…" said Lizzy softly, as she folded the sweater so that the dried and crusty spaghetti sauce was on the inside. "It means I know you, and you're my rock. For everywhere I go, you're the place that I travel from. Even though I have leave you now, I'll always come back to you; I'll 'end where I begun.'"
"Then why didn't they just say that then?" Lydia asked, and Lizzy laughed at Lydia's expression, head slightly tilted and mouth slightly open (she could've been an extra in Clueless). "She really likes B.F.D., huh?"
Lizzy knew that it had less to do with B.F.D. and more to do with hearing the sound of Charlie's voice again, and Lydia probably guessed it, too. Lydia wasn't stupid, but she wasn't above acting that way as a means to try to trick Lizzy into saying something. Lizzy was sure that Lydia had heard the campus rumors still buzzing from the Netherfield Ball about the rock-star and the pretty pre-med student, and she knew how much Lydia wanted to know more. But the Bennet twins had made the decision not to tell Lydia about Jane and Charlie (luckily Lydia had been on a date that day in February when Jane cried, and Lizzy didn't know what to say). They'd never hear the end of it if they did. There wasn't much point in telling a story without a happy ending anyway.
On Jane's speakers, The guitar solo ended abruptly, and Charlie came back acapella. Lizzy could hear the smile in his voice.
And though it,
In the center sit
Yet when the other
Far does roam
It leans and
Harkens after it,
And grows erect
As that comes home.
(comes home
comes home
comes home)
Lizzy couldn't help but smile a little as the guitar solo picked back up, and Charlie's voice rose in a crescendo.
Such will you be to me,
Who must
Like the other foot
Obliquely run
Your firmness makes
My circle just
And makes me
End where I begun
(End where I begun
End where I begun
End where I begun
End where I…begun)
The song ended after a few more power cords, and Lizzy sighed when she heard her sister rewind the track and start it again but it didn't stop her from standing up and returning to her room to finish packing.