My Jane Austen Summer (27 page)

Randolph worked around my shawl, "What do you look like under all this?" he whispered, searching for the zipper of my gown. He found the secret seam under my armpit. He held at the top and tugged with his other hand. "Any calls while I was out?" He smiled, removing my sleeves from my shoulders, but had to stop there since I crossed my arms in front of me. "Lovely." He bent to kiss the breasts bulging over my folded arms. I held my clothes on, resisting the urge to fall into this familiar place, to please a virtual stranger. And things around me weren't transforming. My shoes wouldn't stop being real. The chair and desk remained firmly real and the bowl of cherries sat there slowly rotting. I felt a little pressure behind my eyes, a touch of nausea, and I began to understand how I would feel when this ended.

"Just one call," I answered automatically, before registering his smile and the joke that he was undressing his secretary. "But it was a fax."

He grew sober and left me to fetch his fax. I pulled the gown back over my shoulders as Randolph lifted the paper from the fax trough. The soft light shone on the floral bedspread, recalling the chintz sofa where my mother read to me. Here I was at last, the roses, the soft light, and the prince, all for me. Randolph pursed his lips the way Omar did when he read books on Shaw, the way Willis did when he typed. Randolph signed the paper and loaded it back into the fax machine. He looked up the number and pressed the buttons. The signed document went flying back to Tony Palmer. Then he stood and removed his trousers, throwing them on the chair. "Come now, forget about all that." He reached for me, "Let me help you out of that tangle of clothes."

He would sell Newton Priors. Without even telling me. He pulled the floral bedspread down, the prince bedding Rapunzel. My mother knew. Of course she knew.

"Come now, forget about all that," Randolph repeated, reaching for my hand, no longer smiling. But without "all that" I was just a face, just a body--how little he understood me; my total lack of artifice. I wasn't Rapunzel and he wasn't the prince. Everything about me was the same as always and I could see that after this ended, I would feel bad. Randolph took the shawl from my arms and tossed it at the foot of the bed. Tears pooled in my eyes as I stood, confused. He sat on the bed and searched my face, clearly at a loss with my behavior. But I was
better
than Maria Bertram, who fell for Henry Crawford every time we played the scene. We play it over and over, five times a week, and she never evaluates her situation; she never thinks about approaching her life with a different end in mind. She can't learn from her mistakes because she
is nothing but ink on a page. Fanny Price got in my head.
A sensible girl would flee.
Sounded so familiar, my own words, unheeded again and again.
Fear like yours is not normal
.

"Is something wrong?" Randolph asked.

"Yes," I said. "I'm not a professional actress."

"I know. I Googled you; you're an address in Texas," he said. "Vera's little friend." I remembered now: The Look Randolph and Philippa had shared across the hospital bed when Vera announced I was an actress. The information held particular significance for the three of them. He reached to pull down my sleeves, but I grabbed his hands and pushed them to his lap, holding them there. "We don't know each other," I said. Reaching for the zipper of my gown, I pulled up, catching tender flesh. I saw myself returning my Regency gowns to the costume wardrobe, folding the undergarments and tucking them into their drawer before Suzanne arrived. "You're going to sell Newton Priors, aren't you?" I said.

He smiled, falling back on a pillow, his palm on his forehead. "Do you
really
care?"

"I care very much. So do Nigel and Vera and a lot of others."

He sighed, staring at the ceiling, and I recognized the look of someone planning the best way to deliver bad news to me. "The truth is I can't afford Literature Live," he said, sober. "My accountant has reviewed everything, including your ideas, and advised me to sell the estate if I want to avoid ruin."

"When were you planning to tell us?" I asked.

He paused, rubbing his temples. "Perhaps this is a disappointment to you. But, believe me, Nigel has known for some time." He turned on his side, propping his head on his elbow, patting the bed next to him. "I want you," he said.

I threw the shawl around my shoulders and gathered my business plan. "No," I said.

"That's it? The house is out--so now you're going?"

"Of course not." I could see myself leaving this hotel and leaving Newton Priors, as if I stood on the roof watching myself go, a normal girl. "I've realized something that actually has nothing to do with you."

"So we can still have fun together."

"I'm afraid not." I lifted Vera's fringed bag from the chair, willing to concede a civil good-bye, sparing bridges for the good of the organization. But then he wrapped his arms around a pillow and lowered his voice to a whisper.

"Just think what you can tell your friends when you get home."

I walked to the door and paused; turning to face him, I saw his cell phone in his hand. He slipped it behind his thigh and out of my view, assuming an innocent expression when our eyes met for the last time. "Call me when you grow up," I said. I walked out before he could punch the next girl's number in my presence. 9:06
P.M
.
Texas Girl Escapes London Hotel.

V
era answered her door. "Lily, you're back," she said; a bright smile lit her face, the room behind her somber, perhaps kept dark for Nigel's benefit.

"Can I come in?" I asked. I'd had enough time alone in the station and on the train to be conflicted over everything that had seemed so neatly resolved when it happened. Now that I had to deliver the bad news to Vera, I considered returning to the scene of the crime and retrading the deal for her sake, offering my body for a lease agreement. Anything but inform her that Newton Priors--Literature Live for the past thirty years--was gone.

"You can't imagine how distracted I've been, thinking of you, wondering how it went with Randolph," she said, searching my face for a sign.

"Not well, I'm afraid." The dream had ended not only for Nigel, but for me. The train ride to Hedingham was my last trip "home" to the festival. Next time, home would be Texas.
My new self would return to my old self, even though my old environment no longer fit. Back to a job in a gray cubicle where people don't care what Jane Austen thinks. No lectures, no scenes, no endless stacks of books. My Jane Austen would melt in Texas.

Vera dimmed her tone. "Is there a problem? Come in," she said, arching her eyebrows as she opened the door enough for me to enter. Clearly, I had never been invited into Vera's rooms because a visitor had no place to go. Things cluttered all horizontal surfaces of the tiny apartment used by a dorm mother during the school year. Boxes of Nigel's worldly goods filled the room awaiting further instructions. Perhaps without Literature Live, Nigel would be homeless, like me. The bedroom door remained shut but pillows and blankets lay on the sofa, a good indication of where Vera had slept all summer. I moved a box to the floor, making room for myself on a chair.

Vera sat among blankets on the sofa, her lips pursed. "So, we're all going home, are we?" she asked, not meeting my eyes, fidgeting with the hem of her blanket. Blinds closed, a cock-eyed lampshade directed light onto Vera's lap where a book would usually sit. A tablet of paper--Vera had been composing a list with Claire's name at the top--sat on the lamp table. Crumpled paper, distractingly similar to the trash I'd recently searched, littered the table. The suitcase she dragged through Heathrow waited near the wall.

"
I
am," I said.

Inhaling deeply, she shaded her eyes, and I noticed a tremor in her little finger. "What went wrong?" she asked.

Her question implied I'd messed up the drills she'd carefully taught me. Anger released a hit of adrenaline. "It's not about anything going wrong," I said, a bit too loud, noting the crux of the problem with Vera--always insisting dissimilar
things fit together, her own brand of reckless creativity. "It simply wasn't meant to be," I said. "
Ever
." If I was not careful, I would break down. Not about Randolph, but the whole summer, about the lost possibility of connecting with an ideal life. I tried to remember how I had planned to tell her about the house but I lost my way and then the door opened and Nigel walked in.

Vera raised her hand. "Lily's back."

"Hullo, Lily." I was sorry he was here; now I'd have to deliver the bad news to both of them.

"There's a message from John Owen on your bureau," Vera said, sitting up straight, moving her blankets to make room for Nigel on the sofa. "But come and sit now." She patted the cushion next to her. Nigel opened the little refrigerator in the tiny kitchen casting light into the room. All those years of working to build an organization; who was I to tell him it had ended? Surely, someone could find another house.

"What, Lily? Tell us what happened." Vera's arm braced the sofa. Nigel concentrated on the refrigerator's interior as I did whenever the nurse gave me a shot; don't look and it will soon be over.

"Randolph's accountant has advised him to sell Newton Priors; he has hired a broker."

Vera struck herself in the heart. "I can't believe it," she said.

"Yes," Nigel said, his face still turned away.

"We assumed"--Vera clutched her throat--"that Randolph would require changes, perhaps even major changes in funding and direction such as Magda had pushed, but I never really anticipated he'd sell the house from under us."

"I did," Nigel said, retreating to his bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Vera leaned forward. "What happened with Randolph?"
she asked, her eyes narrowed, seeking a place to lay the blame. "He asked if restoring old houses was the sort of thing you wanted to do, only a few days ago." She frowned. "He seemed so interested."

"Interested yes," I said. "In one thing."

"But he invited you to dinner. What happened to make him change so quickly?"

I stared at her. "He Googled me."

"Really."

"You told him I was an actress, remember? He discovered the truth."

"So much has changed since I was your age," she said, backing off now that her share in the crime lay exposed. "I don't understand romance these days."

"No, Vera," I said. "Things have not changed. They never change. Have you read Jane Austen?" I asked. "Inheritance laws change but human nature
never
does. Even dead, Jane Austen understands that." My voice grew too loud as desperation crept in. Why was Vera's recklessness only now clear to me? I deserved blame for not reading her more closely. "You knew. But you fed me to him anyway, like a throw-away orphan, hoping he'd let you stay in the house a few more years."

"Lily, what are you talking about?" Vera's face became ugly. "I wanted this for
you
." She spoke very slowly. "I desired with all my heart that it would work out for you--
somehow
--this time."

Tears came and I felt hopelessly tangled in my own losses.

"Lily," Vera said, rising, coming to my side.

I held up my hand. "Don't talk to me," I said. She tried to put her arm around me but I stood.

"We're all upset," Vera said as I walked out.

∗ ∗ ∗

The next night I had dinner with Omar. Tomorrow, he would be gone, along with Archie, Magda, Bets, and Willis. And My Jane Austen. We met in the pub, Omar looking spiffier than usual in an oxford cloth shirt, his rough hair watered down and combed.

"I brought you something." He handed a book across the table.

"Omar, how sweet," I said, regretting I had not thought of a gift for him. I read the cover.
English Manor Houses
. "It will remind me of our summer," I said, aware it wasn't a straightforward gift; some irony existed that I was too anxious to grasp.

"Read the inscription." Omar smiled so hard his cheeks pushed his eyes into little slits behind his glasses. He waited for the punch line to occur to me, optimistic that it would.

To Lily, Repeat often:
People live in houses, not novels.
People live in houses, not novels.
Omar

"Very funny," I said, failing to match his mirth, turning the pages. I wouldn't be able to focus on the gift until much later, alone in Texas. We walked to Newton Priors and sat on the steps of the house in the twilight. "I once assumed Jane Austen was mistress of a grand house like this," I said. "One of my early mistaken impressions."

"Now you know," Omar said, smiling.

"Wouldn't you love to see all the letters Cassandra destroyed?" I asked. "Knowing what she
really
thought might solve your Jane Austen problem."

"Nah, I'd be disappointed, as usual." Omar shrugged.

"Probably," I agreed.

We were watching bats fly overhead, little black specks that surely slept in my attic during the day, when Mrs. Russell appeared. I almost missed her, dressed as she was in twenty-first-century jeans. "We're saying good-bye to the house," I said.

"Oh my dear," she said. "You'll miss the ball."

"The ball?"

"You didn't hear? Nigel called me last night and I rushed right over"--she indicated her attire--"dressed as I was"--she covered her mouth--"with a toothbrush in my purse." She laughed confidentially. "I slept upstairs last night," she said. "I've no time to turn around. The ball's Sunday and we're all pitching in to make it happen."

"I'm so glad," I said. "You've worked for it so long." Nigel's parting gift to the volunteers.

"Now or never." Mrs. Russell shrugged and I realized how alike she and I were, each of us projecting ourselves into dead Jane Austen. Mrs. Russell's need illuminated my own need to create my personal heroine. The real Jane Austen was unknowable. She was not the creature of perfection the family memoirs put forth, their lack of particulars allowing us to imagine her in our own image. I considered giving Mrs. Russell a copy of Magda's textbook.

"You know what I think I learned this summer?" I said, after Mrs. Russell left us.

"You can act," Omar said.

"Besides that."

"What?" Omar turned to face me, expecting something really interesting.

"I think I'd never make it in a Jane Austen novel; the experience might be worse than real life."

"Congratulations, Dorothy. You can tap your ruby slippers and go home now," Omar said.

"For example," I said, setting the book on the step in front of me and hugging myself in the evening chill, "Henry Crawford could crook his little finger and I would be a ruined woman before the story had a chance to begin."

"No you wouldn't," Omar said. "Not anymore."

I turned to look at Newton Priors in the waning light. How long would its details remain crisp in my mind? How would it appear from the distance of my humble gray cubicle? "I used to imagine myself as the protagonist in every novel I read," I said.

"Don't we all? Hard work being a protagonist."

"You can say that again."

"Hard work being a protagonist."

I socked him in the arm.

Omar smiled big and patted my knee. "Lily, I'm going to miss you."

"I'm going to miss you, too, Omar." My eyes filled with tears.

∗ ∗ ∗

Omar departed for Michigan; I didn't see him again. I had hoisted my suitcase onto my bed packing everything I would not need before departure, when a knock sounded on my door.

"Can I come in?" Vera asked, her voice flowing over the transom. We had not spoken since my meltdown and I knew we needed to reconcile before I left. I'd been rehearsing potential lines in my head. Vera sat across from me on Bets's bare mattress, and from the way she leaned forward I sensed she had an agenda.

"What will you do, Lily?"

"I'm going home peacefully," I said. "I'll probably stay with my friend Lisa until I get a job," I added.

"But what will you
do
there?" Vera repeated, irritation in her voice I found out of place, considering.

"I haven't figured that out yet," I said. "For starters, I'll probably gather courage to deal with my new wicked stepmother and then hope a gray cubicle offers me a paycheck and benefits." I waited. "Why are you asking?"

"I've been thinking," Vera said. "And I have a couple of ideas." I watched from my bed as Vera stared into middle space. "The first idea is rather ambitious, really." She looked at me. "Perhaps we could move this whole thing to Bibliophile Books--do it in Dallas." Vera's eternal creative optimism surprised me as she waited for my reaction, the old spark waiting to connect.

"Produce Literature Live in your bookstore?" Perhaps the problem was not Vera alone. Perhaps the combination of her eternal creative optimism with my indiscriminate hopeful longing equaled danger. She hadn't meant me harm; she was reckless and I was naive. I sat up straight. "You're right," I said, "that's very ambitious."

"Yes." Vera rested her chin on her fist. "And I'm needed here," she said, looking at her feet, clearly expecting me to understand her meaning.

"Is Nigel okay?" I asked.

"No," Vera whispered. She looked up and shook her head, eyes glistening.

"I'm sorry," I said, my voice catching, my own eyes filling with tears. Perhaps I'd used her just as much as she had used me, casting her as my new mother, expecting her to lead me to a safe place where I could belong to someone again.

"I can't keep him alive, no matter what I do, no matter how hard I wish it away," she said, clearly worn down by the resistance campaign she'd mounted over the last months.

"I'm so sorry," I repeated.

"Nigel is going to stay in Hedingham and I would like to stay with him," she said, stopping to compose herself. "You know"--Vera looked at the ceiling, wiping her tears with her hand--"our marriage wasn't ideal," she said, "but I never imagined being in the world without him. And I'm quite beside myself."

I searched my drawers for a tissue. "Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked, handing her a towel I pulled out of my suitcase.

"Well," Vera said, wiping her eyes, "that brings me to my second idea." She paused. "And that is--why don't you manage Bibliophile Books for me?"

I imagined leaving my gray cubicle to spend entire workdays in the stacks.

"You remind me so much of myself at your age," Vera said. "You know, I married Nigel with the understanding I'd never have children. But if I'd had a daughter, I'd want her to be like you."

"Thank you," I said, touched by the tribute, but still thinking about a day job surrounded by books, talking about books, touching books; freely reading through my lunch hour. Working in a bookstore would be an all-day party with a diverse guest list: Natasha Rostov and Prince Andrei, Daisy Miller and Miss Havisham, Nick Adams and Captain Wentworth. Jane Austen might join us.

She looked at her hands. "Nigel and I will be sorting through the books here, deciding which to send to the store," Vera said.

I imagined Nigel ending his days scanning the titles of hundreds of books, opening his favorites and reading a line to Vera, saying good-bye to old friends. I thought of them
sharing this distraction, quite happy, in a way I didn't have the experience to understand.

"Some will be sent to Texas as inventory for the store. It would be very helpful if you could be on the other end to receive them. Chutney can't cope with large shipments."