Cat Bennet, Queen of Nothing Read online

  Cat Bennet, Queen of Nothing

  A Bennet Sisters Novel

  Mary Strand

  Contents

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  About the Author

  Also by Mary Strand

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Triple Berry Press

  P.O. Box 24733

  Minneapolis, Minnesota 55424

  * * *

  Copyright © 2017 Mary Strand

  Cover Credits

  Cover design: LB Hayden

  Jeep: Off-Road 4x4 @ Malchev (6535737)

  Zebra pattern: Fashion tiling pink animal print pattern @ BEEANDGLOW (3124107)

  Microphone: Vector microphone with curved cable on white background @ RealVector (27031009)

  Editor: Pam McCutcheon

  Logo credit: LB Hayden

  All rights reserved. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without the author’s express written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Electronic ISBN:978-1-944949-05-1

  Paperback ISBN:978-1-944949-06-8

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Dusty and Swave,

  two of my favorite musicians and pals since practically forever

  With all my thanks to:

  * * *

  Pam McCutcheon and Laura Hayden, collectively also known as Parker Hayden Media, LLC, who put up with my books and me, but especially me.

  * * *

  “Swave” Dave Schrader, who patiently told me everything I needed to know for this book about drums and drummers and garage bands, and who was my own drummer son’s first big drummer hero.

  * * *

  Dave (“Dusty”) Engedal, who helped me with guitar stuff and garage bands for this book and who inspired me more than anyone else to play guitar. I will note that Dusty is not like Kirk in this book’s band. Well, maybe a little. But in a cute way. lol.

  * * *

  Laura (Hewitt) Colombe, who gave me oh-so-helpful advice about college parties and high school bands and songs sung by girls.

  * * *

  All the people who provided critiques or edits or beta reads, including Brenda Hiatt Barber, Kate Fraser, Tom Fraser, and Just Cherry Writers.

  * * *

  Ann Barry Burns, who helped me see Cat Bennet more clearly than I thought I could.

  * * *

  My own high school teachers at Eau Claire Memorial, a few of whose names I used in this book out of great fondness. In the name of Cat Bennet I took teasing liberties in this book in particular with Ms. Mickel, who taught my eleventh-grade English class and introduced me to Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and other brilliant writers. I’ve always appreciated that class.

  * * *

  Jane Austen . . . because, well, duh.

  Chapter 1

  [T]he luckless Kitty continued in the parlor repining at her fate in terms as unreasonable as her accent was peevish.

  — Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Volume II, Chapter Eighteen

  I don’t know what Jane Austen was smoking when she wrote Pride and Prejudice, but I wish my mom had never read The Book, as my sister Liz calls it. On bad days, I even wish Dad had never met Mom. And I really wish Mom had discovered bipolar meds before she married a guy named Bennet, had five daughters, and named them Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Catherine, and Lydia.

  Because I’m Cat Bennet. And my life reeks.

  I’ve never even read The Book, which is, like, two hundred years old and therefore totally lame, even if it weren’t about a family named Bennet with five daughters who have the same names as my sisters and me. My mom has read it a million times. She claims she got over it when she went to law school, but she still keeps a beat-up copy next to the toilet in the upstairs bathroom. My three older sisters all moan and groan about The Book, even though they all have perfect lives. Even Mary! The biggest loser I know suddenly has a new wardrobe and a boyfriend and a scholarship to some major geek college.

  Not that I’m jealous of Mary. She’s annoying, sure, but I really just miss Lydia, who’s now stuck in reform school in Montana, thanks to the world’s worst dad. Ours.

  Lydia isn’t just my twin; she’s my BFF. She has this way of catching the spotlight wherever she goes, and she always shared the spotlight with me. But then she snagged a job in Wisconsin Dells last summer with a circus troupe and didn’t even try to rope me an invitation. When Lydia left, the spotlight vanished, too.

  So why is everyone suddenly staring at me?

  I admit I missed whatever Ms. Mickel was droning about, but let’s face it: English 11 is pretty pointless if you couldn’t care less about writers who lived a bazillion years ago.

  “Cat?” As I looked up from my doodling, which I frantically tried to cover with my English textbook, Ms. Mickel rat-a-tat-tatted up to me in her four-inch red heels. “Don’t you, of all people, have an opinion?”

  I have a lot of opinions, but none I wanted to share with Ms. Mickel or the sea of faces watching me.

  “Uh . . .”

  Ms. Mickel rolled her eyes. “With your last name, and the first names of you and your sisters?”

  Oh. Crap. I had a bad feeling, and it got worse when I saw the stack of paperbacks on Ms. Mickel’s desk, and way worse when the guy next to me snickered. But how would Jeremy Fisk know that Jane Austen had a sick fetish for a family named Bennet and my mom fell for it?

  Jeremy, the class clown? A guy who dyed his spiked hair orange and purple this week? A total joke?

  Ignoring Jeremy, I looked at Ms. Mickel. She wore a red silk skirt that matched her heels and barely met the dress-code length rules for skirts worn by students. Besides, it’s the end of January in Minnesota, and I don’t need to mention how stupid short skirts look on women over thirty, if not forty.

  Worse, right this moment, she was staring at me from two feet away and tapping the pointy toe of her red stiletto.

  “I’ve, uh, never read it.”

  Jeremy snorted with laughter until Ms. Mickel told him to try to act a little less juvenile. Since Jeremy and every other guy in class had the hots for Ms. Mickel, partly because she wore short skirts in January when they weren’t seeing much other skin, Jeremy shut up.

  Ms. Mickel turned back to me. “I happen to know your older sisters have read Pride and Prejudice. Haven’t they ever talked about it? Even after—”

  As a low chorus of murmurs went around the room, my mind flashed to Lydia. But there’s no way anyone writing two hundred years ago could’ve foreseen what happened to Lydia, which totally wasn’t her fault. A guy led her astray. It happens.

  I stuck out my chin. “It’s not exactly something we talk about. Like, it’s not about us.”

  I felt my fa
ce flushing, knowing how much my mom and older sisters did talk about The Book. I wished Ms. Mickel would find someone else to pick on. Like Jeremy. Or maybe Drew Mitchell, who kept refusing to meet my gaze no matter how much I looked at him. What was up with that? The minute you kiss a guy, or hook up with him, or whatever, he never wants to talk to you anymore?

  Ms. Mickel turned to call on someone else, but her toe kept tapping next to my desk and we both knew she was just biding her time until she could nail me again.

  Fine. I wasn’t gonna cave in, even if Jeremy laughed and Drew ignored me and my best friend other than Lydia, Tess O’Halloran, kept giving me weird looks. My life had been sliding downhill ever since Lydia left, but it felt different today. Worse. But why? Before, I was always with Lydia, in the thick of it, popular and cool. Now, it’s like I’m totally on my own. Shut out. Pointless. The queen of nothing.

  But not invisible, unfortunately.

  Ms. Mickel turned back to me. “So, Cat, you really mean to tell me that you and your sisters are named after the five sisters in Pride and Prejudice, but the subject has never come up in your house?”

  “I never said we were named after them. Maybe we just happen to have the same names.”

  “In the same order. Except that you and your sister Lydia are twins.”

  We were in the same birth order, since I’m six minutes older than Lydia, but I didn’t feel like pointing it out. By now, half the class was nudging each other and whispering.

  I hate Ms. Mickel.

  She drew in a deep breath, as if it was torture just talking to me. I felt the same way about her. “But your family never noticed the, er, coincidence.”

  One call to my mom and she’d know the truth. Fine. Let her call. I crossed my arms over my chest. “Nope. No clue what you’re talking about.”

  Ms. Mickel shook her head as she returned to her desk and the dreaded pile of paperbacks. “Well, perhaps it’s time you acquaint yourself with the story of the Bennet family. The other Bennet family. Cat, would you please come up here and distribute the books to the class?”

  The room erupted, my face felt like hot lava, and I slammed my hand against the top of my desk as I jerked to my feet. “It’s not about us. And I’m Cat, not Kitty.”

  Ms. Mickel whirled on me, smiling smugly, as I clapped a hand over my big stupid mouth.

  Busted.

  I wandered into the cafeteria at the end of third period, humming to myself, feeling on top of the world again. Mr. Dillingsworth hadn’t picked on me in U.S. History class and gave us a night without homework to “celebrate” the first day of the new term. Even better, a senior guy who hangs out with Mary’s boyfriend, Josh, sat next to me and kept “accidentally” knocking my stuff on the floor and picking it up. Cute.

  I drifted through the food line, grabbing a salad with wilted lettuce and tomatoes that were probably laced with chemicals. I put a chocolate chip cookie on my tray, too. An instant lunch-fixer. Perfect.

  None of my closest friends were in U.S. History class, so I didn’t know if they had lunch the same time as me, and I’d been so upset after English class that I hadn’t asked Tess. I headed in the direction of our usual table and sucked in a relieved breath when I saw my gang. Then I saw two new additions: Jeremy Fisk and a girl I didn’t know, who’d laughed at me in English class today almost as much as Jeremy.

  Tess gave me a little wave, then pointed at the new girl. “Have you met Chelsea Anderson? She just moved to Woodbury. Chelsea, this is Cat Bennet.”

  Chelsea slid me a once-over, her pointy nose crinkling, and just nodded.

  She was next to Jeremy, which was poetic, since her short, spiky, bleach-blond hair complemented his purple-and-orange spikes. But Drew sat on the other side of Chelsea, their chairs practically fused together, and he looked so into her that I stared down at my tray and wanted to vomit all over my salad. Even though Chelsea wasn’t that cute. And even though Drew was the same dark-haired, smoky-eyed, gorgeous guy I’d fallen in love with on the first day of sophomore year, when he said hi and I lit up like a Christmas tree.

  He didn’t say hi now. In fact, he didn’t even seem to notice me as I wedged myself into the last empty chair at the table, next to Amber Tomlinson, who was chatting up Tess so intensely that neither of them glanced at me again, let alone included me in their cozy little conversation.

  Jeremy looked over at me and grinned, so I shot him a tight-lipped smile, even though I’d really wanted to swat him ever since English class. But no one else at the table said a word to me. Next thing I knew, my salad and cookie were gone and the warning bell for fourth period rang. When Tess and Amber turned their backs on me and left the table together, I just watched them walk away.

  What the hell? Was I invisible?

  Fifth-period Drawing class gave me a reprieve from Let’s Diss Cat Day, but I didn’t really know anyone in the room. Okay, I knew who most of them were, but they weren’t part of my crowd. Not cool, not even jocks. A lot of art geeks, no surprise, with some quiet types and nerds thrown in. They might be perfectly decent kids, but I had my own friends. At least, until today. But there had to be a good reason why my friends had suddenly gone missing. I just didn’t have a clue what it was.

  I leaned back in my chair and doodled sketches of our teacher, Mr. Reiman, as he droned on about art supplies. An hour later, the bell rang, startling me.

  I looked up at the clock, blinking, as my hand kept moving over my latest sketch, of a quiet kid in the front of the room. Frankie Vaughn. He had Coke-bottle glasses with black frames, wild tufts of red hair sprouting all over his head, and a totally angelic smile on his face that almost made him glow. Entranced, I’d forgotten all about time, where I was, and even that my friends would take one glance at Frankie and call him a loser. He actually seemed sweet.

  I finally packed up my stuff and shuffled out of the art room and headed to Gym class, my sixth and last period of the day.

  Tess wasn’t in Gym, but I spied Amber in the locker room and waved, relieved to see a friend.

  “Hey.”

  She glanced at the girl she was talking to—Chelsea—before looking back at me, a tiny frown creasing the center of her forehead. I shook my head. Chelsea must be clueless, thinking she could barge in and hang with our gang at lunch and now in Gym. But I’m a lot less snotty than Amber is about new kids. I mean, we’ve all been new at some point, right? I’d probably even ignore Chelsea’s pushiness if she hadn’t glommed onto Drew in the cafeteria today. I mean, seriously.

  Before Amber could ditch Chelsea and talk to me, Ms. Gonzalez strode into the locker room, calling for us to change into gym clothes quickly. I rolled my eyes as I peeled out of my street clothes, then pulled on a pair of U of M sweatpants and matching sweatshirt and laced up my sneakers.

  As Ms. Gonzalez clapped her hands and tried to hurry us, I thought about my not-so-great day. But English was an aberration. Lunch had to be an aberration. On the plus side, I had that cute senior next to me in U.S. History, and I liked Drawing, a chance to doodle without getting yelled at.

  The instant I laced my second sneaker and slammed my locker shut, I went to grab Amber, but she turned her back and walked into the gym with Chelsea.

  “Amber? Wait up.”

  She must not have heard me, because she kept walking. Sure, Ms. Gonzalez was two feet from her now, clipboard in hand, so Amber couldn’t exactly stop and chat. But she could’ve turned around or said something. Right?

  “Class? We’ll start today with fitness assessments, then do some basic yoga poses before running a mile in the gym.” Ms. Gonzalez’s gaze swept the perimeter of the gym. “I see a few of you forgot your yoga mats today.”

  Shit.

  Amber pointed at the purple mat under her arm and lifted her eyebrows at me. Shrugging, I grinned back. So I forgot a mat. Big whoop. God knows I see enough yoga mats at home, thanks to my dad, who left his engineering firm a few years ago when his midlife crisis “called” him to run a stupid yoga cen
ter.

  Ms. Gonzalez blew a whistle. “Let’s pair off for the fitness assessments. Line up with your partner, and I’ll walk you through it.”

  I didn’t care about the assessments—I could skip the hassle and just tell her I wasn’t my sister Liz and I didn’t work out—but it’d give me a chance to talk to Amber. I walked over to her right away.

  “Amber? Wanna pair up?”

  She glanced at me, looking sheepish. “Geez, I’m sorry, Cat. I told Chelsea I’d pair up with her.”

  “But you and I—”

  “Sorry.” She smiled, but in a fake way, and not at all like the girl I’d hung out with ever since Tess and I, along with Lydia, became best friends in seventh grade and Amber joined our inseparable little group. “Maybe next time?”

  Stunned, I turned to walk away but heard Amber and Chelsea laughing behind me. I froze, even though I knew they couldn’t be laughing about me. Amber was my friend. Not as close as Lydia and Tess were, but my friend. Always.

  At least, until today.

  My sister Mary was waiting at my locker after school, the keys to the Jeep dangling from her fingers. She tossed them to me. “I’m catching a ride with Josh. See you later.”

  As she strutted away, my jaw dropped. Even a couple of months later, I still couldn’t believe the transformation in Mary from geektoid of Woodbury High to girlfriend of Josh Lawton. I mean, a semi-cool skater dude and brainiac wants to kiss Mary? And no one is kissing me?

  At least I had the Jeep. Dad painted it hot pink last year when he claimed he wanted to know where Lydia and I were at all times, but a hot-pink Jeep is better than a bike. Or my own two feet. Or a ride from Mom or Dad.