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closed doors.”
    My mouth dropped. Did he really just say
that? All I could get out was, “Um, okay.”
    I sat at my desk, the one I had been at for
the last two days. I unzipped my backpack as he continued working
at his computer. Pride and Prejudice would
suit me just fine for the remainder of the time. A good love story
was all anyone needed to feel right with the world again. It wasn’t
near as depressing as Jane Eyre , even though both end
pretty happily. Ah, what went through those Victorian ladies’ minds
when they wrote these eclectic novels? They must have gone to high
school at Jimmy Carter, for the mood swings of their characters
matched the inconsistency of many of those that would sit around me
in a few moments, especially Jody. Of course, everyone needed drama
in their life, didn’t they? But how much can life be worth living
if that is all your life is about? I guess Austen knew about drama,
too, but she also knew that in the end, when you got down to the
nuts and bolts of things, you really just needed to find someone
that would love you for who you were. Maybe that was why Jody was
so mad at me. Maybe she had found the love of her life and feared
anything that might get in the way, even the new girl that
accidentally did so. Maybe she knew how much romance was to come
between her and Brad and wanted nothing to change that. Or maybe
she was just a witch for lack of better terms.
    Still, I guess that was a cool thing when you
thought about it. You know, fighting for your man and all, even
though there was no fight to begin with. I wasn’t looking to hook
up with Brad. I didn’t even know him besides him being a cute high
school boy. Boy, did he look good, though. But I was nothing to him
and he was nothing to me. When I put my mind to it, I was nothing
to anyone now. My “anyones” were dead, taken in the blink of an
eye, and I really didn’t feel like trying to fill that void in my
life with a Brad or a John or anyone. I just wanted to be left
alone. Just Jane and me. We would be fine.
    “Oh, Jesus, are you reading that?” I must not
have noticed when Mr. Peet moved away from his desk and up to his
podium. Did he really say Jesus in class? Can’t
someone in Texas be stoned for doing such a thing? But I thought I
would take the bait and see where it took me.
    “What do you have against Austen?”
    “Oh, not much, except she’s a man-hater.
Everything that goes wrong in all her books does so because
of men. I mean, do women not make mistakes in life?”
    I smiled. I couldn’t help it. Maybe he had a
point. Mr. Darcy, Edward Ferrars, both of them just couldn’t seem
to figure out what they wanted in life, even though it was right
there in front of them. Or maybe they just didn’t have
the...bravado to make such a step until there was nothing else to
lose.
    “Well, you start wars based on nothing, you
take this when you really wanted that, and let’s not even get
started on your egos. I mean, out of the two sexes, yes, it’s your
entire fault.”
    I could tell he was surprised at my answer
and conclusion. Hadn’t anyone ever given him a direct response
before? Oh, wait. If I was to measure his first two classes with
that statement then no, no one ever had. But I could see his wheels
spinning, trying to come up with something to defend himself and
his sex.
    “Well...you know it’s cause we’re just trying
to impress you. Think about wars, we do it because we really want
to hand over a big hunk of land to our wife and say, ‘Taa-daa.’
Also, chicks dig scars.”
    “Touché,” I relented and shook my head with a
smile. I started reading again until I thought about furthering the
conversation. “I met your daughter yesterday, Lizzy. We had lunch
together.”
    He finished his sentence on whatever he was
writing. “You mean, Elizabeth? She always shortens it, thinks it
sounds too, well, like your book there: Victorian. So did she tell
you not to pay any attention to my goading or that I