Roman Candle
"I said I didn't want gravy on my mashed potatoes and look at it – it's slathered in gravy! My steamed vegetables aren't steamed enough and you call this steak medium rare?! What the hell kind of service is this, lady!"
Lizzie was having what could only be described as an emo moment. She hadn't sunk as low as to torture her ears with a Hawthorne Heights record and she wasn't gazing at box cutters and lady Bic's with tears in her eyes and awful, pretentious poetry in her tortured heart.
She was, however, having a major pity party.
It was a pity party that took over every aspect of her life; it forced her to subject herself to a matinee of Fried Green Tomatoes and Brian's Song (back to back), it made her fill her iPod to the brim with Elliot Smith and Bright Eyes, and it was the reason why she felt compelled to pick up book six of Harry Potter and skip directly to that bit about Dumbledore (yes, that bit).
When the miserable became too much to bear and the time on the clock grew nearer to the hour when she was expected to do her part as a slave for minimum wage, Lizzie grabbed said iPod and its sad-shit music, and decided to take the scenic route to work.
There was something about long walks that made her world seem a little less bleak – Lizzie loved them. The quickening of her heart with every step. The way the pounding of her sneakers against the pavement found perfect timing with the beat of the music blasting in her ears. She found solace in being just another face in a sea of faces moving through the city streets; it made her aware of herself. And just for those thirty minutes it took for her to reach the TGI Friday's that regretfully employed her, Lizzie's head was clear. She didn't dwell on the baby or stupid Darcy or that stupid contract, or any more of her stupid mistakes. Lizzie's feet found that perfect rhythm to Elliot Smith's Roman Candle and she was just another face in a sea of faces.
Unfortunately, all of this new found serenity was crushed by the fiery hell that is customer service.
"Are you even paying attention to me?!"
Lizzie pursed her lips; outwardly she was the epitome of calm and professional, on the inside, however, she was busy coming up with thirty-six ways to kill a man. "Of course I am, sir," she replied politely.
"How in god's name did you get this job," he spat nastily and Lizzie felt her patience snap in half. The swell name tag on her garish shirt required she follow the 'customer's always right' motto and be a smiling puppet head for a restaurant where license plates were considered hip decorations.
"I seem to recall some sort of slack interview process," she told him with a sardonic smile curling on her lips.
Much to the detriment of this gentlemen, Smiling Puppet-Head Lizzie was currently throwing back shots of jagermeister at the bar.
"I'm terribly sorry about your order, sir," she continued her voice dripping with false sincerity. "If you'd like, I can have them unslather your mashed potatoes, steam your vegetables into a puff of smoke, and to make sure your steak is as rare as possible there's a cow and a .38 Special if you'd like me to bring it out…"
It was a tiny victory getting this man who'd sent ten plates of food back to the kitchen (each time claiming his order was wrong) to storm out the door and Lizzie celebrated with a mental dance of joy.
"Give me four very good reasons why I shouldn't fire you right here, right now."
Smiling wearily she turned around to face her manager. "One: you love me very much and wouldn't wish homelessness upon me…"
"Uh-huh."
"Two: that guy was a complete ass and you have to admit, what I said about the cow and the .38 was pretty funny…"
"It wasn't cost me forty bucks and a customer, funny."
"Three: we're best friends and roommates, Charlotte. You fire me and you'll never be able to sleep with your door unlocked again," Lizzie grinned from ear to ear.
"You're Satan in human form, aren't you?"
"And four: I'm the only one who knows it's you in that herpes medicine commercial."
Charlotte's eyes widened to comically huge proportions and she let out an audible gasp. "You wouldn't."
Lizzie laughed like a villain and made the motion of twisting the ends of a nonexistent mustache ala Snidely Whiplash.
While the thought of living with one's boss might be the driving force behind one swan diving off of the Empire State Building, such was not the case with Lizzie and Charlotte Lucas. The pair met as struggling eighteen year old actresses up for the part of Infected Girl Number 3 in a Valtrex commercial (the part and embarrassment ultimately going to Charlotte). The second Lizzie leaned over to let a panicking Charlotte read off of her script, a friendship was born – the type of which might've included handmade bracelets and the letters B.F.F. scrawled across their respective yearbook photos had they still been in high school. Instead, they accompanied one another on auditions which varied between degrees of pretty shitty and completely shitty. With neither one of them kicking Reese Witherspoon's ass on the big screen, the natural next step was to take on a waitressing job like all struggling actors before them.
When Charlotte grew tired of living with her head in the clouds (and with roaches in her apartment), she simultaneously moved in with Lizzie and Jane, and enrolled in TGI Friday's management program.
Lizzie, wasn't so quick to let her dreams die.
Charlotte rolled her eyes and smoothed out her pony-tail. "Don't make me rule with an iron-fist, Bennet." She grinned.
"Get fist-y all you like, Lucas," Lizzie folded her arms over her chest and tried her best to look tough, "you don't scare me." There was a pause and Lizzie scrunched her face. "Um, that didn't come out quite the way I wanted it to…"
Charlotte laughed as she helped Lizzie clear the booth of its dishes. "So, you never told me what went down yesterday. When I walked in the door I heard Hugh Grant's voice booming from your bedroom, so I assumed it couldn't have been good."
Lizzie stiffened at the mere mention of yesterday's horrors and as if on que, the hostess loudly snapped her gum and announced she had a visitor.
Darcy looked like a lamb who'd been led to the slaughter. Yes, his face was devoid of all emotion, but the fear was apparent in his eyes. They darted quickly from one knickknack hanging on the wall to another and Lizzie swore she saw his upper lip quiver when he spotted the snow shoes and heard a customer ask for the jalapeno party poppers.
The man was a snob and a half. "It's just a chain restaurant, dear. You can't become middle-class from touching anything."
He seemed to snap out of whatever trance TGI Friday's had put him in and blurted out, "You work here?!" with just the right amount of 'truly appalled' in his voice to piss Lizzie off.
She blinked. "No. I'm undercover."
Darcy looked down at his shoes.
"Hi, I'm Lizzie's friend Charlotte." Charlotte practically shoved her hand in Darcy's. "It's nice to um…meet you... again."
"Will Darcy," he muttered.
"Well, I think I'm gonna leave you two alone." Charlotte smiled tightly and took the dishes from Lizzie's hand. "It's time for your break anyway."
"Your sister told me I'd find you here," Darcy said after Charlotte had disappeared around the corner. Lizzie slid into the booth and watched amused as he hesitantly did the same, but not before wiping at the seat with a stray napkin.
"Note to self," she said, "find a way to become an only child."
"My friend, Charles, is having a get-together tonight," he sighed. "His sisters are…well, horrible shrews to be honest, but they're horrible shrews who flew an ungodly amount of hours to get here from Japan and they'd rather party than deal with jet lag like normal people. I'll pick you up at eight."
Lizzie's eyebrows practically shot to the top of her head. "I'm sorry was there a polite request for my presence in there somewhere?"
Darcy frowned. "I mean, it would be nice if you came. You've already met Charles, but Caroline and Louisa will never believe our relationship if we're married before they even see your face." A beat. "Besides, your sister already said she was coming…"
Lizzie looked appropriately horrified. "She what?!"
"You can't make me."
Jane peeked around the corner while furiously wrapping the curling iron in her hair. "It's just dinner."
She folded her arms and huffed in a perfect imitation of a put-out five year old. "It's just my soul, Jane."
"You're being dramatic," the other Bennet chuckled and disappeared back into the bathroom. "Charlie seems nice…"
Lizzie cocked an eyebrow. "Charlie?" she asked teasingly and could practically hear her sister blushing.
"I mean, Charles – um, Mr. Bingley, seems very nice and I'm sure his sisters are as well," she continued sounding slightly embarrassed.
The words 'horrible shrews' rang through Lizzie's head, but she took a moment to consider the prickly source of that comment. Fitzwilliam Darcy – who's high and mightiness rendered him powerless in casual dining restaurants and probably required he throw rocks at homeless people.
Jane peeked around the corner, this time busily jabbing at her eye with her mascara brush. "You're still not dressed yet!" she shrieked. "It's almost 7:30!"
"What makes you think I'm not dressed?" she asked staring down at her T-shirt and ratty jeans.
Her sister's look of disappointment was so much like their mother's it sent a chill down Lizzie's spine. "Aside from the holes in your jeans…" Jane began.
"Hey, I paid good money for these holes."
"I don't think a shirt with F-ing Classy written across it can be considered appropriate dinner attire." Jane shook her head. "You really need to stop shopping at Spencer Gifts."
Lizzie giggled – the glorious F word was spelled out in full across her chest and yet her twenty seven year old sister felt the need to censor herself. It was a level of cute she previously didn't know existed. "I dunno, I think Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy would be insanely happy to see the mother of his child is just as classy as he loves to believe he is."
"Lizard…" the tone of Jane's voice said she definitely meant business and Lizzie threw up her hands in defeat.
"Okay, okay. I'm getting dressed," she sighed heavily. "But first, I'm grabbing a cup of coffee. If I'm going to put up with Darcy and company all night without the luxury of being able to drink alcohol, I'm gonna need a little lovin' from Juan Valdez."
"I really think you should be getting ready!" Jane shouted. "And go easy on the coffee! Too much isn't good for the baby!"
"And I really think you should chill out!" Lizzie called back over her shoulder as she headed toward the kitchen and its promise of those magical coffee beans. "Not everyone is as annoyingly punctual as you are, Jane. I've got plenty of time."
When the doorbell rang while Lizzie was in the middle of an exhausting search for the coffee filters (she seriously needed a map and a search party to navigate those kitchen cabinets), she didn't think much of it. She figured Charlotte had forgotten her key for the thousandth time or some kid was busy playing ding-dong-ditch.
It never occurred to her that Darcy could be standing behind that door with some perfectly sculpted, waspy looking creature wrapped around his arm, but that's exactly what was waiting on the other side.
Lizzie followed the pair's eye line which happened to end on her chest.
"You're early," was all she could manage to say.