Jane Bites Back (18 page)

“Don’t tell me there’s another hottie in the picture,” said Lucy.

An image of Kelly’s face popped into Jane’s mind. “No,” she said. “I just don’t know that I’m ready for marriage. Then there’s the whole … well, you know,” she concluded. She pushed her teeth out, her canines protruding over her lower lip.

“If you ask me, he wouldn’t care,” said Lucy.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Jane said. “There’s already been enough excitement for one day.”

“That’s true,” Lucy agreed. “I guess I have to get used to being your Alfred.”

“My what?”

“Your Alfred,” Lucy repeated. “As in Batman?”

Jane looked at her blankly. “Batman?” she said.

“Alfred was Bruce Wayne’s butler,” Lucy explained. “He knew Bruce Wayne was Batman, but he kept it a secret.”

“Ah,” said Jane. “I see. I hadn’t looked at it in quite that way.”

“We need a Batcave,” Lucy said. “A secret lair.”

“I think this is it,” said Jane, indicating the inside of the store. “I’m not a superhero.”

“You must have
some
powers,” Lucy insisted. “What are they? Ooh—can you fly?”

“No,” Jane answered. “Nor can I turn into a bat, so you needn’t ask.”

“Come on,” said Lucy. “Nothing? Really?”

“I don’t get cold,” Jane admitted. “I see very well, and I don’t have to sleep, although I can and do. My body heals itself quickly, at least for minor injuries. I’m strong enough that I never have to ask for help getting the tops off of jars. Other than that, no, there’s nothing extraordinary about me.” She didn’t mention her glamoring ability, and felt guilty about it, but she worried there might be a time when she would need to use it on Lucy.

“Except the part where you get to live forever,” Lucy suggested.

“Yes, except for that,” said Jane. “But believe me, it comes at a cost.”

Lucy made a face. “Can we at least have costumes?” she suggested.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying this,” said Jane. “But do try to remember that this is my life.”

“Sorry,” Lucy apologized. “It’s just that you’re my first vampire. And you’re Jane Austen. It’s hard not to be a little excited.”

“I may be those things,” said Jane. “But I’m still your boss, and this is still a bookshop. Let’s see if we can get some work done, shall we?”

She set Lucy to work reorganizing the children’s section, and went into the office to collect her thoughts. Everything had changed overnight. For the first time ever, someone besides Byron and a few other undead knew her identity. She was putting herself at great risk trusting in Lucy to keep her secret.
She’s young
, Jane thought.
She could make a mistake
. She wondered if maybe she should leave Brakeston after all. Then if Lucy said anything, everyone would just think she was crazy.
I couldn’t do that to her
, Jane thought. She also couldn’t leave Lucy or Walter exposed to the danger posed by Byron. Even if he really was gone, he could always come back.

No, she would have to stay and she would have to trust Lucy to keep her promise. It was the only honorable thing to do. But what about Walter? He knew nothing. Was it fair to keep the truth from him when Lucy knew? She knew it wasn’t. Yet she also knew that she couldn’t tell him.

“You’re a coward, Jane Fairfax,” she said. “You’re afraid he won’t love you if he knows.”

It was true. Although she wasn’t sure that she could ever marry Walter, she wasn’t ready to give him up. It was a horrible thing to realize about herself, but there it was. Once more Kelly’s
face appeared in her thoughts. Yes, there was that as well. She did find him attractive, and she still believed that he was worldly enough to accept her for what she was. But he’d shown no romantic interest in her at all.

I really am living inside one of my novels
, she thought.

Her moment of self-pity was interrupted by the arrival of the mail carrier. “Here you go, Jane,” Paula said, handing her a stack of mail. She held up a white envelope. “This one was dropped in the box at the station. No stamp, and just your name on it. Technically, I should charge you the cost of the postage, but I’ll let it slide this time.” She winked as she gave Jane the envelope.

“Thank you, Paula,” Jane said. She placed the stack of mail on her desk and looked at the envelope. As Paula had said, her name was written in black ink across the front of the envelope in spidery script. She slid her finger along the back and withdrew a single sheet of paper.

Byron’s signature was scrawled across the bottom of the page. Jane read through the note one more time, then crumpled it up and threw it into the trash.
Only one battle
, she thought.
Who does he think he is, Charles de Gaulle?

Chapter 19

W
INTER GAVE WAY TO SPRING, AND EVENTUALLY
J
ANE STOPPED
looking for Byron everywhere she went. She still did not tell Walter about herself, and after nagging her for weeks about it Lucy stopped, but mostly because she had something else to torment Jane about. The announcement of the publication of
Constance
appeared in
Publishers Weekly
the first week of March, with a full-page ad trumpeting it as “the must-read book of summer.” The cover was featured prominently, along with a photograph of Jane, which against her objections Nick Trilling had insisted they use. There were several flattering blurbs, and a box at the bottom announced a fifty-thousand-copy first printing.

“When were you going to mention this?” Lucy asked Jane the day the magazine arrived. “When I opened the box of books?”

Since then life had been a whirlwind. First the galleys arrived and Jane spent two weeks going over them. Several times she’d called Kelly in tears because she was convinced the novel was dreadful and should never be published. Each time he’d talked her down, assuring her that it was a very good book. After that had been the unpleasantness of the author photo, which Walter had taken with his digital camera and which Jane thought made her look like a woman who spent all her time knitting scarves and doing acrostics. Nick had proclaimed it just the thing, which did nothing to allay her fears.

There was a lull from March until the middle of April, when the first reviews began to appear. That was when people other than Lucy and Walter began to realize that there was an author in their midst. Soon Jane was something of a minor celebrity in town and could walk no more than a few blocks without someone stopping her to congratulate her on her first book. She quickly adopted a standard response (“That’s so kind of you”) and perfected the art of appearing thankful yet busy (“I’d love to chat, but I must get to the bank before it closes. Yes, we’ll probably have a party when it comes out”).

“If I’d known how exhausting this would be, I never would have sent the manuscript in,” Jane complained to Walter one evening after dinner at her house. “Having to be relentlessly cheerful is making my face cramp.” She massaged her cheeks and sighed.

“It’s the price you have to pay for literary stardom,” Walter joked.

Jane began to say something about how things had been easier when her books were published anonymously, but caught herself
in time. It was becoming increasingly difficult to remember what she could and could not say, and to whom. She had begun to cherish the freedom she felt when she was talking to Lucy. Having to watch herself around Walter always put her on edge.

“Kelly sent me an early review,” she told Walter. “From a newspaper in Chicago, I think. It’s quite nice.” She handed Walter the clipping, which he read silently.

“Nice?” he said when he was finished. “Jane, they compared you to Inez Gossford. That’s not just nice, it’s fantastic.”

“I suppose it is,” Jane admitted. “She’s rather
popular
, isn’t she?”

Walter wagged a finger at her. “Don’t you start that,” he said.

Jane looked at him. “Start what?” she said.

“The whole popular-versus-literary thing,” Walter said. “I hate it when people try to say one is better than the other. Like books people enjoy reading are somehow beneath books that literary snobs approve of.”

“Where is this coming from?” Jane asked. “I’ve never seen you so annoyed.”

“Oh, it’s just a particular peeve of mine. Whenever I mention that I like certain novels, someone has to say something snide about how although they may be popular, they aren’t
real
novels. It’s stupid. Then they get all put out when I remind them that some of the books we consider classics today were considered popular fiction in their time. Dickens, for instance. Even Austen.”

Jane felt herself tense up, but Walter didn’t seem to notice. He continued talking. “Where are all the ‘literary’ novels from that period?” he asked, using his fingers to emphasize the quotes. “And what about Trollope? His Barchester books are basically soap operas, yet today they’re considered great English novels.
And do you know what the critics of his time said about him? They said that his work couldn’t be taken seriously because he wrote
too much
and admitted that he wrote for money. Like authors are supposed to languish in drafty garrets waiting for inspiration to strike.”

Jane didn’t know what to say. Of course she
did
know what the critics had said about Trollope. She had been outraged when the man’s delightful books had been so cruelly treated. She herself had weathered some terrible notices. But nobody remembered those now save for some academics who insisted on recording every tiny thing about a person’s life. What people remembered was that her books were
read
and that they were
enjoyable
.

“I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful,” she told Walter. “I do like Gossford’s books. I suppose I’m just afraid I won’t be taken seriously.”

“I take you seriously,” said Walter. “Your friends take you seriously. Do you honestly care what some critic who doesn’t even know you thinks?”

Jane thought for a moment. “Well, yes,” she said. “I’m afraid I do. Oh, I know it’s shallow of me, but I can’t help it. I do care, Walter. This is my first novel. I want people to love it as much as I do.”

“Well, so far no one has said a bad thing about it,” Walter reminded her. “I’m sure someone will—”

“Thank you,” Jane interrupted. “That makes me feel immensely better.”

“But they’ll be wrong,” Walter concluded. “You just have to remember that.”

She knew what he said was true. It was, however, difficult to keep herself from looking to see what was being said about her book. In addition to the reviews Kelly sent her, she had taken to
looking herself up on the Internet. As the book was only available as a review copy, there was not a lot she hadn’t seen, but she had found a handful of blogs and such in which she was mentioned. As with the reviews, most of the things written about her were positive, although a couple had been less than flattering.

One in particular continued to bother her. It was a blog called the Constant Reader. The writer was Violet Grey, the Brontë scholar, and she apparently fancied herself an expert on what she referred to as “novels of the heart.” She had recently posted an item about
Constance
—which she admitted to not yet having read—in which she made snide comments about Jane’s author photo and expressed doubt that “a woman with such a bland face could pen something filled with passion.” In a fit of pique Jane had left an indignant comment (anonymously, of course) on the post, suggesting that Miss Grey confine her remarks to the work at hand. She had not received a reply.

“What do you want to do on the big day?” Walter asked, drawing her back to the moment.

“Big day?” said Jane, trying to remember if she’d forgotten an imminent birthday or holiday.

“The day your book comes out,” Walter explained. “We should do something to celebrate.”

“I haven’t thought about it,” said Jane. “I suppose we could make a display in the window.”

“I don’t mean at the store,” Walter said. “I mean what do
you
want to do?”

“Let me think about it,” Jane told him. “I may be all booked out by that point.”