Chapter Nineteen

In Which Elisa Brings Charlene Up to Speed

Elisa and Camila returned home on Friday night—or, more accurately, early, early Saturday morning. Alejandra had never liked Colin much, but when her daughters told her what happened, she’d immediately gone into “mama bear” mode. She’d been happy to give him some pointers on how to create a budget. Although $5,000 was far more than she had in the bank, she understood that when you didn’t have any income, whatever money you had suddenly didn’t seem like so much. When she heard that he still had some things left in his old room at Catherine’s house, she’d downright insisted on going to retrieve them herself.

“So you can focus on getting out of your old apartment,” she said. Elisa, however, knew the truth: she didn’t want to make him see his mother.

Elisa was glad. She hadn’t asked how Colin had gotten that scratch on his face, but she could guess. Her own mother often drove her crazy, but as she watched her drive off in the minivan to go get his things from the dragon’s den that was the Burger estate, she was suddenly feeling pretty lucky.

Colin had managed to load almost everything from his apartment into his car, though it was packed so tightly, he’d had to use some bungees to hold the doors shut. It took them about half an hour of working together to get everything out. Finally, though, all the boxes were sitting on the front desk of Longbourn’s lobby, and he called his father to come and collect the car.

Mr. Burger took the keys from his son and gave him a sad look and a hug. He said, “You’ll be fine,” before driving away.

He didn’t, Elisa noticed, apologize for what Catherine had done, or make any move to stop what was happening.

Once Mr. Burger, and Colin’s beautiful Mercedes, disappeared over the horizon, they began the tedious process of moving each box up to the apartment. That took the better part of an hour, the elevator being as slow as it was. But finally, they got the last box off the counter and could start unpacking. This wasn’t how Elisa had planned to spend her Saturday afternoon, but she doubted this was how they had planned to spend theirs, either.

“We’re making two piles,” Charlene said. “Stuff we want to keep and put away, and stuff that I already have, or we just don’t need. We’ll try to sell that stuff first and give it to Goodwill if we can’t.”

“Makes sense,” Elisa replied, pushing the apartment door open with her foot. Her arms were full with a box labelled: BOOKS, NONFICTION—1/4. Colin had almost as many books as her father. She was sure there would be a bit of debate about how many he really needed to keep. Charlene was a reader herself, but, well…limited floorspace.

“Thanks for helping us out, Elisa,” Colin said.

“No problem. I’m just sorry you’re in this position.”

He sighed. “Yeah, me too. But it’s for the best. If she acted like that when we’re just dating, imagine what she’d be like wh—if we got married.”

Charlene leaned over to look in her own box, which conveniently hid her grin. “Okay, hon, do you really need the candelabras?”

“They could class up a Friday night dinner.”

“Of ramen and diet root beer?”

He considered this. “Fine, we can sell them.”

She began moving the candelabras to the “get rid of” pile, saying, “You heard from your mom at all?”

He shook his head. “Not a peep. This whole thing is a mess.” He tried to smile. “Congrats on dodging that bullet, Elisa.”

Elisa snorted. “I’d laugh if this wasn’t all shot to hell.”

He nodded in agreement, sorting through his own box (button-up shirts, casualwear). “In all seriousness—I’m so sorry about all that. About how I acted. I was a jerk.”

She patted his shoulder. “Thanks. I actually like you a lot better now that you’re into someone else.”

“Eyyy, she’s talking about me,” Charlene said with a cheesy grin in her boyfriend’s direction.

Elisa smiled then went back to the box she was digging through. “What was your mom even doing there, anyway?” she asked. “She said you could have the cabin, right?”

Colin groaned. “Ugh, I should’ve known—she’d figured out I was hiding something. I don’t know how I ever thought I’d get away with it for long. I mean, I asked to borrow our secluded, romantic cabin over Valentine’s Day. She knew something was up. That’s why she had me invite Darcy, too. She was supposed to be a spy for her, but she sort of failed at that.” He rolled his eyes, muttering to himself, “Darcy giving us a heads-up would’ve been nice, but nooo…”

“You know, I was expecting an exciting weekend, but this isn’t what I had in mind,” Elisa said. She opened a new box and found herself faced with a collection of Beanie Babies. This was somehow both surprising, and not even slightly surprising at all.

“Did you at least have fun before everything went to shit?” Charlene asked. “I’ve been so preoccupied with this, I nearly forgot there were other people there.”

“Uh, it was…interesting,” Elisa said, opening another box. “Willow and Cam sang karaoke, I lost a game of euchre, Willow told me Darcy broke up Bobby and Julieta, Darcy told me she’s in love with me, I found a stick that I could use to hit Cath—”

She was cut off by Charlene and Colin saying, “What the hell?” at the exact same time.

“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you—Darcy broke up Bobby and Julieta, and she’s in love with me.” She was trying to be casual, trying to hide how much her mind was reeling.

“She said she loves you?” Charlene said, eyes wide. “Like, her words?”

She nodded. “Her words.”

“What did you say?”

She rolled her eyes. “What do you think I said? I shot her down. Hard.” She glanced at Colin. “Congrats on dodging that bullet.”

“You shot me down pretty hard,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but compared to how I was with Darcy, I was downright pleasant.” She sighed. “She opened up this whole thing by saying she hates my family, that they’re embarrassing, that our social standing is so inferior to hers.”

“Wow, I never knew Darcy was a romantic,” Charlene said.

“And she didn’t deny what she did to Wick. Or what she did to Jules. I mean, she seemed proud of that. She’s convinced Jules is a gold digger, so she pulled Bobby away from her.”

“Does Julieta know?”

Elisa shook her head. “No. Cam and I talked about it before we went to bed last night. Julieta was already hurt by Bobby leaving. The full truth would kill her. And if Mom knew, she’d kill Bobby and Darcy.”

“I mean…would that really be so bad?”

“Only because I’d like to keep Mom out of jail.”

“Oh, please. Your mom would take over within a week, and we all know it.”

She snorted. “I’d rather not find out. So, we’re keeping it to ourselves. Cam hasn’t even told Lucia. They normally tell each other everything, but, well…if Radio Lulu knows something, so does all of Longbourn and the entirety of Steventon Public High.”

“I can’t believe this all happened yesterday,” Charlene said. “It feels like we’ve all aged about ten years overnight.”

“I knew she liked you,” Colin said, “but I had no clue about her breaking up Bobby and Julieta. I thought it was obvious Julieta really, really liked him…”

She stared at him. “You knew Darcy liked me?”

“I knew she had a crush.” He shrugged. “Willow told me.”

“Willow knows?”

“And so does Bobby.” He paused. “And Gianna, probably.”

Elisa groaned. “Wait, is that why you didn’t stop her from following me?”

He nodded, looking guilty. “I didn’t realize just how much you hated her, or what she did to your sister. I told her you wanted to be alone, but then she told me she had a present for you, and I thought, you know, if you two got together, it could be…cute.”

“You wanted someone to double-date with, didn’t you?”

“So much.”

She snorted. “Well, you’ll have to keep looking, because me and Darcy is never gonna happen.” She straightened from where she’d been hunched over a box of ceramic figurines. “Char, do you have any coffee?”

“No. I ran out yesterday.”

“I’m gonna pop over to my apartment to get some, then. I didn’t get nearly enough sleep last night.”

“Hurry back,” Colin said.

Elisa slipped out of the apartment, heading down two floors to her own.

Stepping out of the elevator, she saw just about the last thing she expected or wanted outside her apartment door.

Darcy Fitzgerald, in the flesh.

“Oh, come on,” she groaned.

Darcy jumped, glancing up. She’d been bent over and looked quite undignified as she scrambled to her feet. She shrunk away slightly as Elisa approached her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, words sharp.

“I—um, I…” Darcy stammered, which was a side of her she had never seen. “I was delivering this.”

She held out an envelope with Elisa’s name in loopy cursive writing on the front.

“A letter?” she asked, confused. She didn’t take it.

“Don’t worry. It’s not a repeat of last night’s…embarrassment. It’s just to clear a few matters up. You—you…you don’t have to take it if you don’t want to. I understand if you don’t. I just…um…” She trailed off, still holding the envelope in front of her.

Elisa let out a huff and snatched the letter from her, not sure if she intended to open it or not, but taking it would get her to leave faster. “Anything else?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“No. No. I, uh…no. Goodbye.”

Darcy began to leave, and Elisa called after her, “How’d you find my address?”

She turned back to face her. “After Willow began to sober up this morning, I told her what had happened. It was her idea that I write a letter for you, and she knew where you lived. I hope you don’t mind she shared the address with me.”

“No, it’s…fine,” Elisa said with a sigh. Dammit, Willow. “So she knows? About this whole…whatever the hell this is.”

Darcy nodded. “She actually helped me write this letter.”

“Colin told me he knew, too,” she said. “About your…feelings.”

She sighed, shifting uneasily on her feet. “I could’ve killed Willow when she told me she told him.”

“So, everyone in your…group…knew you…”

“Knew I was pining away over you? Yes.”

“I was gonna say ‘had a thing for me.’”

Darcy tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Willow said that the only reason she had not yet attempted to, quote, ‘hit that’ was because she was aware of my feelings.”

Elisa briefly considered saying that had Willow asked, she probably would’ve taken her up on the offer. Then she realized she really didn’t hate Darcy that much. So instead, she said, “Anything else? Or are you just gonna stand there all day?”

She winced. “I’m sorry. I’ll go,” she said. “Tom’s supposed to drive me back down to Columbus in an hour.”

“Have a safe trip,” she said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Thank you. I’m—I’m sorry I bothered you.”

Darcy practically ran away, leaving Elisa with the envelope in her hands. She leaned against the wall outside her apartment, debating whether to open it. She wasn’t convinced she wanted to hear anything Darcy had to say.

But the curiosity was killing her.

Finally, before she could talk herself out of it, she ripped open the envelope and unfolded the letter.