This is not a Darcy and Elizabeth chapter, but I anticipate we will get back to them by the end of Chapter 15. I leave Chapter 14 on a bit of a cliff hanger and I am very curious as to what you think will happen next. Let me know your thoughts. As I have not written the next part yet and am still mulling over possibilities, you very well could give me the perfect idea.
Chapter 14
At around 3:30 pm on Black Friday, Anne was awake but hiding in the closet of the guest room. She wished she was still asleep, rather than pretending to be quiet as a mouse, her heart thundering in her chest like a herd of wild horses as she hid curled up in the laundry basket she had grabbed from the bedroom, the blanket pulled on top of her in what was meant to appear haphazard. Surely if she hid well enough, her mom wouldn't find her and would give up and go away.
Anne had come out of the guest room closet earlier, shortly after Darcy and Elizabeth left, and visited the kitchen looking for some food. She stood in front of the refrigerator with the doors open until five minutes had passed and the open door alarm started to beep, beep, beep. Anne was having trouble trying to figure out what to eat.
Caroline, hearing the beeping, went into the kitchen to investigate and saw Anne, who was dressed in a bright yellow Pikachu union suit with the hood up, staring into the open fridge. Caroline had seen the pajamas the night before, but had just noticed it as bright yellow rather than having realized what it was then. Caroline had to pull her eyes away from the things on Pikachu's head: His, her, its (Does it have a gender? Caroline wondered) large pointed things tipped in brown (Are those ears or antenna? Caroline couldn't decide), black eyes with a dot of white in each and round red cheeks to pay attention to Anne herself.
Anne had just decided to eat cookies with cocoa instead of going to the trouble of sorting out what to eat and was closing the fridge when Caroline asked, "Do you need something, Anne?"
Caroline still felt bad about upsetting Anne the night before and wanted to do better by her. Even the day before, Caroline might have tried to be nice for the sake of impressing Darcy, but having seen him with Elizabeth, Caroline was pretty sure that it was too late and surprisingly, at least for today, that seemed okay. The idea of Darcy, of being respected and admired because of him, had always made Caroline feel like she would have shown the world what she was worth, but in reflecting upon it, she wasn't sure how she really felt about him. It left her feeling out of sorts and uncertain what exactly her future looked like, but she certainly did not want anyone feeling sorry for her.
Anne responded, "I know I should just eat some left overs and I can heat them in the microwave, but I am not sure for how long or if I need to heat them separately. I don't really cook and I thought I would really be a good cook if I tried as my mother always said I would but yesterday I tried to open the can of dough with a can opener and you didn't like my roll-snowmen, so I guess I am a little scared to try cooking again."
Caroline restrained herself from rolling her eyes when Anne described making crescent rolls from a can and microwaving as cooking. Anne reminded her of a little child for all that she was in a woman's body. Caroline could not remember wearing any character anything since her first visit with her father and Mimi, when she was made to understand when being taken shopping what was acceptable and what was not. A tiny embroidered Izod crocodile, or a Vineyard Vines whale was okay; cartoon characters were not. Did Anne never get that memo from her mother?
"Haven't you ever fixed yourself a plate of food before?" Caroline did her best to keep all judgment out of her voice.
"Well," Anne tried to explain, "I've been sick a lot, so I've had a permanent nurse aide for years, Jenny Jenkinson. And when I haven't been sick, Jenny still does all sorts of things for me because that's her job."
"Oh, I see," Caroline replied and she did see, she saw how Ms. de Bourgh had made her child wholly dependent on others, kept her a child. Does Anne not see how strange her whole life must be? The world could easily chew her up and spit her out, Caroline thought. Caroline took pity on Anne and told her, "My favorite thing to eat on the day after Thanksgiving is turkey sandwiches. Can I teach you how?"
Anne nodded and listened intently as Caroline demonstrated and explained how to shred the turkey, mix it with mayonnaise and put it between two pieces of bread. Caroline made one sandwich and then had Anne try. She still had to walk her through it, but after Anne successfully made a sandwich, Anne said, "This is fun," and started to make another sandwich. By the time Anne had made her fourth sandwich, Caroline said, "Let's see who is hungry for turkey sandwiches before you make any more."
It turned out that everyone left wanted a turkey sandwich and Caroline and Anne worked together to make the rest. As they worked, Anne told Caroline, "Yesterday I thought you were kind of mean, but today I think you are nice."
Caroline didn't know what to make of this comment, so she ignored it and made no reply, but it made her think about Margaret and her children, in the airport line and on the plane. Caroline tried to recall, Didn't Margaret say something about me being kind? That's basically the same thing as nice, right? And then she wondered, Is there some sort of innate niceness in me underneath everything? Some core Midwestern value that I haven't yet overcome?
Caroline recalled a story her mother used to tell about how some older girls in their neighborhood used to pick on Caroline and once pelted her with some rocks. Her mother said, "I didn't want Caroline to keep getting picked on so I told her, 'The next time they throw rocks at you, go ahead and throw rocks back at them.' I'll never forget how Caroline looked up at me, her eyes wide, her bottom lip trembling like she was about to cry and said, 'But Mom, that wouldn't be nice!'"
Caroline then thought back to the basketball team sleepover. Caroline was pretty sure she had been trying to be nice when she tried fixing Mercy's shirt to cover up the racist words, but Mercy had gotten mad and after that Caroline had tried to be more savvy over just being nice. Where had nice ever gotten her anything?
A few minutes later, everyone was sitting down and eating together. After she had taken a couple of bites of sandwich, Louisa announced, "I want to do some Black Friday shopping. I checked Google and there is a decent sized mall about an hour away. Does anyone else want to go? I was thinking it might be fun to have a girls outing."
Gigi saw the opportunity to give Anne another adventure, remembering how enthused she'd been about the convenience store stop, and suggested, "Let's go with her, Anne."
However, Anne was still tired from staying up much of the night and, like Darcy, wasn't much for crowds. "I'm not sure I would like Black Friday shopping," Anne responded, pulling her hood a little further over her head and tilting her head down so that Pikachu's head showed more than her own.
"Oh, okay," Louisa responded. "What do you think, Caro? Are you up for it, Jane?"
Caroline responded first. "I don't really want to go wearing the same clothes from yesterday. How soon do you want to go? The airline is delivering my luggage sometime between three and six."
"I think I saw something about the forecast calling for rain," Louisa responded. She pulled up her weather app on her phone. "It looks like a storm is coming up at around five. I don't really want to be driving around on unfamiliar roads if it is pouring down rain. I'll take you shopping tomorrow if you like."
"Okay," Caroline replied. She felt a stab of disappointed to be missing out on time with her sister, but when her luggage arrived, the first thing she wanted to do was take a long shower using all her own products and dry her hair with her own special hair dryer.
"I hope Darcy and Elizabeth are back before it rains," Jane noted. She texted Elizabeth a quick note about the forecast but didn't worry too much, Elizabeth was generally good about paying attention to the weather conditions. "As for me, I think it'd be fun to go," Jane said, looking over at Charles for some sort of permission.
"Of course you should go," Charles encouraged her. "Maybe Q and I will do some foraging closer to home, too. I noticed that the liquor is a bit low and I wouldn't mind picking up some steak to grill tomorrow."
In the end, because Jane was going too, Gigi agreed to go after making sure that Anne was alright with her leaving her behind. Anne said, "I'd rather stay here. Maybe Caro and I can play a game."
"Okay," Caroline agreed, "I'll do that until my luggage gets here and then I am going to take a long, hot shower."
Anne asked, "Jane, do you have Monopoly?"
Jane responded, "Sorry, I don't. I don't really have games, but I have a great Christmas puzzle that you can work on together."
Gigi consoled, "Monopoly doesn't really work well with two people."
"Oh, I didn't know that," Anne said. "I've never played it before, but it looks like fun from commercials and when I have seen it in movies."
Jane brought them a 300 piece puzzle with oversized pieces that showed five cats wearing Christmas hats.
Charles commented, "You are lucky, that's an easy one; Jane's completed 5,000 piece puzzles before. That one took over our kitchen table for almost three weeks."
The other women left a few minutes later and the guys started watching TV, leaving Caroline and Anne to work on the puzzle at the table. Caroline hadn't put together a puzzle in years, but remembered well enough how to do it, while Anne seemed to have never really done one before. Caroline had to show her how to separate the edge pieces, sort by color and compare the pieces to the picture on the box. Caroline felt like she did more teaching to Anne than really getting to become absorbed in the activity herself.
As they worked, Anne asked Caroline, "Do you think that having that allergic reaction made you nice? I mean if Spider-man can get all sorts of spider strength from a spider bite, maybe your allergy worked the same way."
Caroline did her best to give a serious answer even while she was inwardly laughing. "Do you think niceness is something I could get from eating pecans? I didn't know that pecans made people nice. If that's true, I know a lot of people who should be eating a dump truck full of them." Then Caroline explained, perhaps a bit condescendingly, although she tried to keep her voice light, "You know Spider-man and all those super heroes are just pretend, right?"
"Of course I know that," Anne told her scornfully, "It is not as if half of the people suddenly vanished from the world like in Infinity War but still, it would explain a lot just now."
Soon enough, the guys ended up going out, too. Q volunteering to Charles, "I'll help you pick out the liquor."
When Caroline's suitcase was dropped off, she happily excused herself from puzzle-making and she embarked upon her showering plan. She lingered under the hot water, hoping that Anne would magically have finished the puzzle while Caroline was gone. Caroline had just gotten out of the shower and was still only wearing a towel, with another towel on her head, contemplating whether to apply a sheet mask and perhaps inviting Anne to try one, too (as an alternative activity to puzzle making), when she heard the doorbell ring.
Caroline didn't worry about it as surely Anne would get the door and likely it was just a package being dropped off. But when the doorbell rang a second time and then knocking followed, Caroline stuck her head out the door and shouted, "Aren't you going to get that?" Then, hearing no response, a sudden thought struck Caroline. Could Anne have somehow locked herself out?
After tightening and tucking her towel more securely around herself, Caroline hurried to the door which was still being banged upon. She wondered, How is Anne able to knock so loud? Given the urgency of the knocking, Caroline flung open the door without bothering to check the peep hole first.
"Ms. de Bourgh?" Caroline asked as the older woman barged past her without even a hello and started yelling, "Anne, Anne, Mama is here," and then commenced walking around, searching.
Caroline stood dumbfounded in the entryway as a balding, overweight man followed Ms. de Bourgh inside. At least he had the decency to say, "Excuse me, is this the Bingley residence?" but then he gave her no time to answer as he proceeded to rapidly explain, while averting his eyes from looking at her at all, "Ms. de Bourgh is a very dedicated mother, the best there ever could be. I am sure she is sorry to just come in without a proper invitation, but she is terribly worried about her daughter, Anne. You see, Anne is very ill and certainly shouldn't be gallivanting around with her cousins. I am sure Mr. and Miss Darcy mean well, but Anne didn't even bring all her medicines."
When Will Collins paused to take a breath, Caroline responded, "You've got the right house, but the Bingleys are out. I'm their sister. The last I saw, Anne was working on a puzzle at the dining room table. If you will excuse me, I will go get dressed."
Caroline entered the guest room where her clothes were and as she was turning to lock the door, Ms. de Bourgh burst in, calling once more, "Anne, Anne, it is Mama." She then turned to Caroline, narrowed her eyes and asked in the coldest tone possible, "What did you fiends do with my baby? I'll bring you up on charges of kidnapping and extortion, Mann Act violations and anything else I can throw at you."
Caroline felt like she was the victim of a flash drama, although she knew Ms. de Bourgh would never be involved in such a thing. She was a bit annoyed that Ms. de Bourgh did not seem to recognize her.
"She's not in here," Caroline declared. "Now please get out and let me get dressed."
Ms. de Bourgh ignored Caroline and proceeded to open the closet door, flick on the light and peer inside before turning the light off and closing the door once more. She then bent down and looked under the bed. Without a word, just a "Humphft," Ms. de Bourgh left and Caroline quickly closed and locked the door.
Caroline heard Ms. de Bourgh open the next door and smiled to herself in imagining what kind of a show Ms. de Bourgh would have gotten a few hours earlier if she had walked in on the Hursts. Their loud canoodling was what had gotten Caroline to get up that morning rather than lay in the bed and continue to ponder her future. Who did that and so loudly, too, at someone else's house in the middle of the morning?
Caroline had only gotten her underwear on when she heard the squeak of a door and instinctively grabbed the towel from bed and tried to cover herself. To her surprise, when she looked the bedroom door was still closed and from behind her a small voice said, "I'm sorry."
Caroline whirled to see Pikachu's face peep out from the closet doorway. In a tiny whisper Anne pleaded, "Please don't tell Mom I'm here!"
"Okay," Caroline agreed in a whisper, still clutching the towel to her front, "but I told that guy she was with that you were making a puzzle so I can't just play dumb completely."
Anne asked, "Can't you tell her you just remembered that I left with the girls? Maybe she will get tired of waiting and give up and go home?"
"Anne, you are a grown woman. There is no need to be afraid of your mom." Caroline paused and then considered, "I know your mom can be scary, but you had every right to go away for the weekend."
"Maybe," Anne allowed. "It would be different if Darcy was here, but he's not and she will get me to leave. I know she will and then I won't have any fun ever again."
"But I'm here, I'll support you." Caroline told Anne. "You'll have to face her sooner or later and I don't think regardless of what I tell her that your mom that she will just give up and go home. That's what, a several hour drive from here, right?" Caroline countered.
"You won't be enough," Anne responded. "I guess I'll sneak out the window." She didn't say it, but Caroline felt like she was omitting an added, "and run away." There was a large window in the bedroom they were in which faced the back yard and given that they were in a one-story ranch it did not look difficult to climb out of onto the grass.
"And then what?" Caroline asked.
"I'll cut through the yard and find a good place outside to hide, and then I'll call Darcy to come back from his walk and get me."
As plans went, Caroline did not think it was a very good one. A question then occurred to Caroline, "How did you keep your mother from finding you in the closet?"
"I hid in the laundry basket under a blanket. I can curl up really good."
Caroline said, "Let's think this through and in the meantime, let's get dressed."
Caroline got ready in the bedroom while Anne got ready in the closet. Anne emerged wearing some stretch pants topped by a hot-pink sweater and her ermine coat with her purse which was shaped like a whale slung over her shoulder.
"Shoes?" Caroline asked.
"I didn't pack any. I think I left them in the living room from last night. Do you have any shoes that might fit?"
It turned out that Anne was a size six and Caroline was a size seven, so Caroline removed her athletic shoes (not looking forward to squeezing her feet back into her heels if she had to go somewhere) and let Anne put on them on.
"Is your phone charged?" Caroline asked.
Anne took it out of her purse and looked, "50%, that's good enough."
"Put my number in your phone and text me so I have yours," Caroline instructed, spelling out "Bingley" for Anne. Anne had just finished imputing Caroline's number and the phone was still in her hand when there was a knocking at the bedroom door.
Anne squeaked and rushed to the window, making no effort at staying quiet. She unlocked it, threw up the sash, slid up the screen and climbed out.
"What is it?" Caroline asked the knocker, almost 100% sure it was Ms. de Bourgh. Caroline made sure she sounded annoyed. "I am still getting dressed." She quietly walked over to the window, closed it and lowered the blinds.