First Impressions: A Modern Pride and Prejudice Adaptation

Chapter 31

"Guess who's going to Vegas!" Lydia cried from the doorway, doing a little dance as she sashayed into the kitchen. There was a pamphlet in her hand and she shook it at Liz's face, as she was closest to the door, moving it too fast for her to read properly. "It's me!" she crowed before anyone else could speak. She fell into a chair with a delighted little huff. She flung the paper onto the table and Liz immediately snatched it up.

"Harrie and I were talking at the party—she felt so bad she had been ignoring me!" She laughed happily, as if the idea of anyone purposefully avoiding her was nonsense. "But it's totally okay, because you has a business opportunity for me! Isn't that so cool? I can make my own money in a way more fun way now!" Her face shone with joy, her eyes bright and triumphant.

The corresponding expressions of her family were not quite so vivid. Cat stared openly, her head cocked slightly to the side. Her freezer waffle hovered in her hand half way to her mouth. Mrs. Bennet was nearly as confused, but her gaze was more credulous; she seemed almost ready to smile. Liz took the opposite approach, narrowing her eyes and slightly raising one shoulder as if to shield herself from Lydia's often poorly-founded excitement. She lowered her spoon and crept out one hand to take up the pamphlet from where it had fallen between the jam pot and the butter.

Mr. Bennet appeared, more than anything, to be annoyed at the interruption of his morning newspaper. He pursed his lips and watched her over the tops of his glasses, taking in her broad, beaming smile and casual slump in her chair. "Would you care to elaborate, my dear?" he finally asked in a mild tone when she seemed unlikely to elaborate further.

Lydia jutted her chin out as if he had insulted her. "I would."

Liz looked down at the paper in her hands. It was just ink on home printer paper, with a dry and barely glossy finish. Although it had white guidelines, the folds were slightly crooked, with one corner overextending past the edge of the page. It was crushed in until it lay flat against the rest of the pamphlet. She tried to straighten it a little on the surface of the table as she flashed her eyes over the atrocious font and garishly bright text color.

"Join my team!" it read, the letters curling all the way to the edges of the fold. There was a picture of Harrie Forester and two other women Liz didn't know, all smiling with their arms around each other. The logo of the company was plastered on the front, overlapping with the bottom of the picture.

She flipped it open. The first thing that caught her eye was a header in bright purple, splashed across the top of both pages. "Your time, your money – make as much or as little as you want!"

There was a short paragraph of information about the company with the light beige backdrop attached to the text in the way that only comes from copying the words directly from a website. Along with the list of products was a short description of the different levels one could attain in the company. The ranks, each with a name more ridiculous than the one before it, were compiled neatly into a in a chart with an amount of money next to it. The header of the chart also cheerfully informed her, "Make commission off your sales—and your team's sales!" There was a tiny asterisk next to each dollar amount leading to an even tinier disclaimer at the bottom of the page that the numbers were not in the least representative of earnings one should expect to make. She looked back at the chart again. The numbers in the bottom seemed very small, even if they were supposed to be monthly earnings... Especially when compared to the price of the products! The lipstick and face cleanser were priced like luxury goods—nothing that had ever been purchased in the Bennet household, only the object of from-afar adoration behind beauty counters and computer screens. While some of the sisters had grown out of their fantasy lust, Lydia certainly never had.