The Austen Escape

by Katherine Reay

  I envisioned Roman citizens on expat assignments to England sitting on the surrounding stone slabs, lounging, dipping in the baths, and partaking of the waters with their wine—all while they debated where to send the army next and which culture to pillage and destroy. Maybe this was where they lamented their repeated and failed attempts on Ireland.

  Costumed characters stepped out onto the stones. Nathan and I looked at each other, stifled a laugh, and moved to the next room. We’d had enough of costumed characters.

  “Come try this.” He pulled a cup from a dispenser and filled it at an ornate copper drinking fountain. “Careful.”

  The paper cup felt soft from the liquid’s heat. I touched it to my lips. “Bleh and it’s too hot.”

  He took a sip. “And these are the waters everyone was so mad about?” He tapped the placard. “Forty-four degrees Celsius.”

  “Why would anyone think they could cure—Whoa . . .” I stared at the sign. “Look at that mineral content—no wonder—and 44 Celsius, that’s 111 degrees Fahrenheit. That hot right from the spring?”

  “Did you convert that in your head?” Nathan tipped forward and kissed me.

  I have enjoyed every moment with you. That is all I wanted. Herman’s words to Helene on my gig ride played through my mind. I had thought they were terribly romantic then. Now they made me blush.

  “What’s that for?” Nathan brushed my cheek.

  I took a quick breath and jumped. “I am enjoying every moment with you.”

  He tipped forward again, with an answering smile. “Okay then.” This time his lips touched mine in a lingering brush.

  We wound our way out of the Roman Baths complex and onto the square. The restaurants drew my attention. Through one plate glass window I saw sleek metal tables, colored glasses and chairs, and a highly polished wood counter circling the room—and only a few empty tables. I stepped to a menu posted outside another restaurant’s red front door. The trendy interior boasted prices to match.

  “I haven’t really eaten today. Isabel did kind of ruin the tea.” I turned back to Nathan. “But to be honest, I’m not up for Celeriac Soup with Roast Hazels and Hazelnut Oil or Smoked Salmon with Pommery Mustard and Dill Mayonnaise. That’s right up there with tea sandwiches and Regency dresses right now. Do you want to find something normal? A beer and a burger?”

  “Yes.” He smiled like that was the perfect meal—or I was the perfect girl. “Follow me. I saw a place called the Marlborough Tavern on our way to the Assembly Rooms.”

  Within minutes we were resting on rickety wood chairs at worn unfinished tables. The room felt as if it belonged at Braithwaite House, with its green-painted wainscoting and wallpaper depicting indiscernible purple flowers. Beer taps and wine bottles lined the bar.

  The air was heavy with barley, hops, and the tang of red wines and stewed meats. There was a layer of sweet overlaying it all.

  “I’ll miss this. Life feels slower here . . . I’ve heard myself think.” He opened the menu. His phone buzzed and he glanced at it. “Speaking of thinking, it’s Craig. He wants me to call him later.”

  “I thought you were finished at WATT.”

  “I am, but I often find it takes a few weeks for everything to settle out. And I like Craig. He’s become a good friend. I imagine we’ll stay in touch.” He laid his phone on the table. “I’ll call him when we get back to the house.”

  “Where will you go next?” I heard my voice lift and hated what it revealed. I wasn’t asking about work. He knew it too.

  He reached his hand across the table. It grazed mine, before I pulled back. I regretted the action as soon as I took it. I held my breath, hoping he hadn’t noticed.

  “I’m weighing three proposals; I’ll pick one when I get back.” His tone was measured. I watched the space between our hands. I didn’t have the courage to look into his eyes.

  We chatted about silly things over the Posh Kebab Wrap with Autumn Slaw and Yogurt, for him, and the Maximus Burger, with its two patties and a fried egg, for me. It only took egg dripping all over the fries to ease us back to laughter.

  As we hit the sidewalk, I felt the burger hit my stomach. “Thank goodness those dresses cinch well above the waist. They almost make me look like I have a chest too.”

  “So I noticed.” Nathan’s face was alive with teasing and a glimmer of something deliciously dangerous. There was the question again. I didn’t back away this time. I lifted on my toes and kissed him in answer.

  He widened his eyes. I only grinned and tilted my head toward another stop, the Jane Austen Center. “We’re here. We have to go in.”

  The “center” was housed in a nondescript townhouse in a row of nondescript townhouses. But the inside was anything but. It was packed with all things Austen: artifacts, writings, placards on the walls. It was like the Braithwaite House gallery on steroids.

  We submitted to a costumed guide, as it was the only way to see the full museum. She led us with a perky smile and a dress far inferior to any I’d worn, as she described Austen, her work, and her life in Bath. Our guide concluded the tour in the Tea Room with a coupon for a free biscuit. I could barely contain myself as we politely declined the biscuit and the photo booth.

  “Please, no more food.” I waved my hand back at the house. “I had it wrong while I was reading. I misunderstood. Austen hated Bath.”

  We walked up the hill toward Weston Road. I stopped and turned to see the city below us. I couldn’t see all Bath, but a good bit of the Georgian part. From this perspective, I saw it differently. And after the Jane Austen Center, I saw the woman differently too—the writer separate from her books.

  “At first reading I thought she loved it. I mean, I’m literal, so I knew I was missing most of the humor people adore about Austen, but Catherine Morland loved Bath, so I thought Austen must have. But she was making fun of Catherine in so many ways—playing on her naïveté, and opening up her eyes and making her question and see things from a different angle. But I didn’t understand the . . . not cynicism, but I guess the realism there. Isabella Thorpe was Bath for Austen. Bath was like a bunch of Marys to her.”

  “Marys?”

  “She didn’t like Marys. They weren’t real. They were selfish, all hat no cattle. Like Bath.”

  We walked on. Nathan was silent. I knew he was cycling through my Texan logic and the Marys. After a few minutes he took my hand again. “You’re absolutely right. I do, though. I like Marys, a Mary, very much.”

  “You liked an Isabella too—or an Isabel.” I closed my eyes. I couldn’t believe I’d said it. But I couldn’t help myself, and if we were going to be anything, I needed to get it out there. It had hovered about me since Isabel’s meltdown, or wake-up, and like Wentworth, maybe I was a little dense too. There was certainly room here for misunderstandings and wrong impressions.

  Nathan stopped walking.

  I looked up and could barely make him out standing only a foot or two away. Darkness had come and I hadn’t noticed.

  “It’s just . . . I was in front of you, Nathan, for a whole year, and if I’m going to be really honest with you, most of that time I was in love with you. I know I missed out that you liked me too, but that had to have stopped at some point, because you dated my best friend and you never actually asked me out or said anything. I get the Isabel thing is between her and me, and who knows how long she and I have been playing out this game, but the fact remains you chose to go out with her. To some degree you pursued her, not me.”

  I felt rather than saw him step closer. “What must it be like to live in your head?”

  “Huh?” I pressed my lips together.

  “You and I see things so differently. Please remember nothing is objective. Do you think I bring everyone cupcakes? Coffee? Unpolished stones? What I felt for you never stopped. You gave no encouragement, not any I could see. I was taking your friendship as far as you’d offer it. I only started running this year so I could grab the treadmill next to you at lunch. I spent an ent
ire weekend coming up with a list of reasons why I should shadow you my first months at WATT, why you were the engineer with the most insights on procedure and protocol—despite the fact I already knew you never follow any of them.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know.”

  “And the second I heard your voice on the phone the other day, I was scared to death. I said last night I almost missed you, Mary, but that wasn’t the whole story. You’re the one who wasn’t able to see me. I hadn’t stopped chasing you.”

  His hand trailed up my arm and held my cheek. I felt his breath the heartbeat before his lips touched mine. His other hand slid around my waist to pull me closer.

  Kissing Nathan, really kissing Nathan, was everything I imagined. It was music—layered, nuanced, soul-gripping, and open to endless interpretation. And much better than a fairy tale.

  Chapter 24

  We entered the house through the mudroom door and climbed the narrow stairs to the gallery. The gallery, open to the hallway below, was filled with soft laughter. Dinner was in full swing.

  I caught Isabel’s voice. It was light and open. She was telling . . . I strained to hear. She was telling them about some of Austen’s letters to her nieces.

  “I think the apologies worked.” I looked to Nathan. “Should we join them?”

  He pulled me close. “I don’t want to share you. Let’s go sit by the fire in the Day Room. No one will find us there, and Sonia showed me where she keeps the port.”

  “Excellent plan. I’ll grab a lighter sweater and meet you there. The fire was warm last night.”

  “I’ll call Craig real quick.” He kissed me.

  I headed to our bedroom; he turned back down the stairway. Within moments, I followed and made my way to the Day Room. I passed close by the dining room and, although I knew I’d be welcome, I was glad I wasn’t in there. Isabel didn’t need me. This was hers now, whatever became of the visit and the thesis.

  Before I reached the Day Room, I heard Nathan’s voice coming from the library across from it. The door was ajar, so I pushed it and looked inside. It was a charming little space—a completely interior room with walls fully lined in books. It smelled of dust, ink, old leather, and furniture oil.

  Nathan’s back was to me. He was typing at his computer, his phone resting near him. I noted the long white cord of earbuds and stepped forward to tap him.

  “I disagree. Engineering is not the place for cuts, not when entering the fourth quarter . . . A sale will never clear that fast and you know it.”

  He sat back. I stepped back.

  “Benson? Rodriguez? Davies? Whom are you planning to sacrifice, Karen? We’ve run the numbers and WATT’s got payroll secured through May . . . This is precipitous . . .”

  I froze where I was, knowing he hadn’t heard me come in.

  “She’s responsible for 42 percent of deliverables in the past three years . . . I understand that and I’m not saying it isn’t an issue . . . I don’t . . .”

  I backed out of the room completely. I understand that and I’m not saying it isn’t an issue.

  That “she” had to be me. How had it not occurred to me that Nathan would discuss me? That I was part of what was right—or wrong—at WATT? He’d followed me around for a month. He had to have opinions about my work. Was I getting fired? Was he agreeing? Or was he defending me? And if he was defending me—was it because I was good at my job, or because I was now his girlfriend?

  “I didn’t hear you come down.”

  I started at his voice. “Just now . . . How was your call?”

  “It was fine.” He gestured into the Day Room.

  I walked in first and curled into one of the armchairs. “You don’t look fine.”

  “We don’t need to talk about it.” He pointed to a small silver tray, then handed me one of the two glasses of port resting on it. “I ran into Duncan. He brought these for us.”

  “We can talk about it if it would help.” I waited.

  “No . . .” Nathan sat back and watched the fire, seemingly lost in thought. He took a sip. Another. Then he turned to me. “I’ve asked before, but I don’t think I fully understood your answer. Why did you never share your Golightly work with Benson or Rodriguez? They’re both solid engineers with different skill sets. They could’ve helped you.”

  “It got away from me in a lot of ways, but it also was my job to get it right.” I set down my glass. “Craig never pushed me on this. Why are you?”

  “Because it’s an issue, Mary. It cost a lot of money and, bottom line, he should have. There’s no way around that.”

  “He understood I needed it.”

  “But as your boss he should have pushed, so there wouldn’t be questions now.” He flinched as if he’d just revealed something he shouldn’t have.

  “What are the questions now?” I paused, but he didn’t reply. “Are you going to tell me what you’re really after? Or do I have to guess?”

  “I can’t, Mary. Not now, not yet.”

  I was getting fired. I set down my glass and pushed out of the chair. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Isabel was still at dinner or in the ballroom. I looked around our room at the scattered dresses and ribbons, at the silks and wools. This wasn’t my world. I grabbed my phone and my computer and I fled.

  I headed back to the narrow stairs and the long hallway of cupboards. That first night, while fixing Clara’s flashlight, I’d noticed a small room. It had a table, stools, and rows upon rows of jars lining the walls. I assumed it had been the canning room at some point. Tonight it was my hiding place.

  I perched on the stool and opened my computer. My hands felt too heavy to move, so I just rested them there. I thought it would hurt more—losing a job after five years, losing a man after five minutes.

  It’s just a job. My brothers had thrown out that line countless times over the years—to me, to my dad, to each other. It’s just a job.

  And not even one I’d picked . . . Craig had picked me. Hounded me to join his start-up. He was the one who started the conversation in that elevator and practically grabbed the device I’d created for my professor from my hands in his eagerness. And working in that garage was stifling . . . There were only ten of us that whole year, working eighty-hour weeks and living on Craig’s wife’s casseroles and Tamarind Jarritos. And the new offices? Always cold and gray. All those divider walls were gray.

  It took me twenty minutes and an equal number of data drops to send every remaining scrap on my work to Benson—stuff I’d left off the shared server. Another 13 percent of my hard drive was now free. Golightly and everything else I’d been working on was his.

  Why did you never share your Golightly work with Benson or Rodriguez?

  Karen had harped on me daily about “collaborative creativity” and “dialoguing across sectors” and “an atmosphere of free data exchange and ideation.”

  It wasn’t that I didn’t agree with any of those concepts, once I took out the buzzwords, or that I thought Benson or Rodriguez would steal, ruin, or diminish my ideas. WATT wasn’t like that. I wasn’t like that. But this one—that’s what I couldn’t explain to Nathan, but Craig, on some level, had understood—it was asking for judgment on a piece of my soul. I never should have started designing Golightly in the first place. That was my mistake.

  But just as Isabel had said today, I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun. I was originally testing my emotions, remembering that movie and even my mom, with some ocular advances the physicists discovered. Then Craig found out, saw the marketability, and pushed me forward. Something tentative, small and private, went above and beyond me before I could balk and call an end to it all. I let it roll me in hopes I’d catch up. I never did.

  I scrolled through my e-mails in search of one I hadn’t truly considered but also never deleted. MedCore had reached out ten times over the past two years. Maybe it was time to reach back.

  I sent a query—just three lines. It hardly took any time at all.
<
br />   Then I tapped my phone.

  “I didn’t expect to hear from you.” The delight in my dad’s voice almost made me smile. It was soft and croaky. He cleared his throat. “I’m taking a coffee break. It’s a beautiful day here, by the way, down to seventy-eight degrees . . . I had a good talk with Isabel today.”

  “I told her to take over the updates. She said she’d call Dr. Milton too.”

  “She was going to do that right after we talked. I expect I’ll hear from her again. She sounds good, strong. You did well, Mary.”

  “Thanks, Dad. How’s the Historical Society building?”

  He sighed, either at the change of subject or his surroundings. He was probably stuck in the basement or perched on a ladder in the attic, because electrical wires were never housed in the pretty parts of a building.

  “Wait until you see it. All the old woodwork is restored and the wiring is original—1928 knob-and-tube. I saved you a couple of the porcelain knobs. They’ve got the Benjamin Company stamp right on them.”

  “That’s great. We can build something with them together.”

  “I bet you didn’t call to discuss knob-and-tube.”

  “Not that I’m not interested, but, no, I didn’t. I called to say I’m thinking of a change.”

  “A change.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of disbelief. “And what are you planning to change?”

  “Hey. I change stuff.”

  “When? What?” Now he was chuckling.

  I blew out a breath. This was not going as anticipated . . . So I’d had the same hairstyle since I was seven. I lived in the same apartment I found upon graduation from college, even though I could afford something far better, with a view instead of sitting on a highway. I worked off the same grocery list each week.

  “I didn’t know I was so pathetic.”

  “Hey, Peanut. I didn’t say that. What’s going on here? It’s not that you don’t change things, you simply go with prevailing winds.”

  Prevailing winds?

  Worse and worse . . . My dad hadn’t called me Peanut since my growth spurt in eighth grade shot me from the twenty-fifth percentile in height to the ninety-fifth in six months. Now I’d gotten it several times in as many days. And second, I really was the embodiment of the gloomy page in the center of the bright Oh, the Places You’ll Go! book. Here was the proof.