Austentatious

by Alyssa Goodnight

  Had I really let go of logic in favor of a fairy tale? Was I just willing to accept that I’d somehow stumbled over a fairy godmother, and this was the sum total of our relationship—cryptic, mildly offensive communications regarding my profoundly unromantic life? Seriously, where were the perks that typically came with fairy godmothers? A prearranged wave of the wand here or there, and I might be able to get on board—after a requisite freak-out period. But this? This was sucker-punching me when I was already down for the count. It was bad enough that my Plan was under fire, but by magic? Fairies? That was just cruel and unusual.

  I carted the journal down the hall to my room, with a vague plan of keeping an eye on it while keeping it away from my bookshelf and any questionable influences.

  Five minutes later, I’d crawled into bed in a T-shirt and boxers, my toes curled up in garishly purple chenille socks and the journal clutched in my right hand.

  I closed my eyes and tried to relax, tried to pretend it was any other normal Friday.

  That little exercise proved an utter impossibility. My very limited imagination was already under a huge amount of strain, and I worried if I pushed it much more I might crack under the pressure.

  So I gave in a little. Settled against the propped pillows, my bedside lamp glowing golden, I tried to imagine an enchanted world where fairy godmothers existed with magic wands and fairy dust up their sleeves. Brownies were the solid, chocolaty base of the food pyramid, my A-cups overfloweth, and roaches worked like Roombas. I felt my lips curling into a smile as I imagined the impossible, but that entire impossible world disappeared in an instant as my eyes flashed open, and I remembered that it wasn’t the imagining but the believing that got you into trouble.

  I glanced down at the journal, still tucked innocently in my hand ... the ultimate troublemaker in my once well-ordered life. What was going on in there?

  Ominous horror-movie music suddenly screeched in my head, and I panicked. Wrenching open the journal, fumbling with its pages, I hurried to find my latest entry: the one about to go under the knife (or rather, the magical, mystical eraser). My heart was still pumping full throttle as my eyes flew over the page.

  I slumped back against the pillow in a cathartic funk. Nothing had changed—yet. And yet, it suddenly seemed as if everything had.

  This situation would be mind-blowing to someone who believed in the typical, arm-waving magical chicanery. But to a nonbeliever, a card-carrying skeptic, this went far beyond the realm of incredible, past preposterous and even inconceivable, all the way out to unthinkable. But like it or not, it was happening. As a huge fan of All Things Jane, you’d think I’d be thrilled. I wasn’t—not at all. I was skittish and restless and just a little bit nervous about having this book in bed with me.

  I woke up with my fingers brushing the journal’s key plate and an undeniable need to pee. Crossing my legs under the covers, I flipped open the journal and squinted against the daylight streaming in through the sheer curtains on my bedroom window.

  Rather predictably, my paragraph—my permanent ink paragraph—had disappeared, all that was left a few scattered words:

  have your cake but meet him too

  I huffed out the breath I’d been holding, a little vague on whether I was disappointed or relieved—I couldn’t say I wasn’t expecting this. The cheeky matchmaker was obviously here to stay, and it seemed she had no qualms about horning in on Tooth Fairy territory. Thank God I hadn’t taken Leslie’s advice and slept naked. I felt a shiver run through me and watched as goose bumps flared up all over my skin. Try not to think about it—focus on the message.

  But what the hell? Have your cake but meet him too? Color me clueless. Still, I had to admit, if I was going to follow any of this journal’s wacky advice, this was as good a Morsel as any, seeing as I didn’t exactly need a reason to have cake. The “meet him too” part could get sticky, but seeing as it was anonymous—just a pronoun with no specifics—it seemed perfectly doable. Surely I’d meet someone at some point ... somewhere.

  I wasn’t planning on jumping through hoops to earn brownie points with whoever was hiding in there, trying to call the shots like the Great and Powerful Oz. My life, my Plan was good just the way it was—I didn’t need any help, romantic or otherwise.

  The cake would be an experiment ... and an overture. And if I was lucky, it would get me one step closer to solving this problem. I was desperate to understand what was happening here, and the fact that I was getting thwarted and outsmarted at every turn was turning the whole mess into a vendetta of sorts. I couldn’t give up on this journal until I figured a few things out. After that, I’d have no qualms about severing our connection.

  I gazed down at the journal, smirking slightly. Almost immediately I remembered I was nowhere ... with no clues or leads other than cake. And perhaps a mystery man.

  So much for my theory on advice by association. The journal had been tucked in with me last night, far from the influence of The Collected Works and the rest of my bookshelf, and still I was feeling an Austen vibe with this latest little snippet of advice—in fact, the voice in my head had read it with a British accent. If Fairy Jane was, in fact, the wit behind this little prank, then it was worth noting that she’d ignored my attempt to get acquainted.

  Slapping the book closed and leaving it on the bed, I hurried into the bathroom, wishing I could leave it stashed at home today. No such luck. Seeing as it was Exhibit A at the antiques shop, it was going to ride shotgun and join Beck and me for a lunch of strategizing. It was going to have to wait in the car while I was at work, though.

  Work was a waste of a perfectly lovely spring Saturday morning, but by noon, I was done. Desperate for a little fresh air and sunshine, I packed up quickly, blowing bubbles with a piece of bubblegum I found in my top desk drawer. Wending my way through the empty maze of darkened cubicles leading inexorably to the main hallway and the stairs down to the lobby, I opted for a quick detour. Instead of turning left toward the exit, I dodged right, helpless against the heady lure of a secret crush.

  Ignoring the fact that I was already running late for my lunch with Beck, I followed the much-trodden path to his corner cubicle three rows over and six cubes down from mine. As I’d hurried out the door that morning, I’d paused a second to tear yesterday’s page off the calendar. Today’s quote, coming on the heels of the latest journal excerpt, had sent a nervous shiver running through me: “ ‘Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.’ Northanger Abbey.” I figured it couldn’t hurt to throw myself in the way of a hero ... or at least stop by his cubicle.

  Brett Tilson. The Mr. Knightley of my imagination: self-assured, serious-minded, and sexy. I stared silently at the name plaquette Velcroed on the cubicle’s outside wall and indulged in a little junior high style merging of his last name with my first, then moved on to a very adult curiosity about all the other merging that would necessarily go on if things between us were ever to move beyond a casual hallway hello. I may have been resigned to stalking, at least for right now, but I was willing to let my imagination tango.

  Within seconds, I’d blown a whopper of a bubble that had begun swaying slightly in the chilly gust from a nearby air-conditioning vent. And then I heard the faintest creak. Blinking myself back to reality, I froze. My lungs stopped working, leaving the bubble trapped as Brett’s head tipped back over the top of his office chair to look out into the hallway. The second his eyes locked on mine, the fragile, rosy pink bubble popped, leaving me to deal with the sticky spread of goo now covering my nose and lips. Lovely.

  “Uh, sorry about that, Nic. Were you looking for me?”

  His eyes, chips of sea glass rimmed by sexy tortoiseshell frames, were curious and slightly amused. And the rest of him was equally yummy. Too yummy. In the back of my mind I heard the silence dragging on and on.

  What’s the right answer here? I didn’t come to see him—I came to see his cubicle. To hang out for a minute by myself and just imagine future possibilities. Bu
t I can’t admit to that! And if I tell him I came to see him, what’s my reason? Dammit! Why must my timing always be so shitty?

  “Hey ... Brett. No, not looking.” Imagining how ridiculous I looked with bubblegum pink smeared across my face spurred me into a frenzy of dabbing and scraping. But without a mirror it was like a tactile game of Marco Polo. “I was just wandering.” I aimed a rueful smile in his direction. “I just finished up on the test floor, and I’m overdue for some fresh air.”

  “I think I’m done for the day too. Wanna grab some lunch?” He stood and moved to the doorway of his cubicle, sliding his hands deep into his pockets.

  The words “sensible romance” suddenly lit up in my head like a Las Vegas marquee. I seriously hoped they weren’t shining through so that Brett could read them on my forehead. I squelched the words and consciously did not think about cleavage. “Sure!” I finally blurted. “That sounds good! I’m up for anything.” Well, that just sounded desperate. Then I remembered. “Oh, no, wait! I can’t! I’m meeting someone.” It wasn’t at all difficult to look apologetic.

  He nodded in polite understanding.

  “A girl ... er ... a woman,” I added lamely.

  “Oh—okay.”

  Oh God. Did he just peg me as a lesbian? Damn Leslie and her brainwashing potlucks.

  “It’s not a date,” I hastily assured him, grinning slightly as I held up my hand to halt any conclusion-jumping that might be going on. “She’s interning here—you might have met her. Rebecca Connelly.”

  “Don’t think so,” he answered, keeping his eyes trained on me while propping one drool-worthy shoulder against the metal cubicle support.

  “Rain check?” Still me: talking, grasping ... for anything.

  “Sure.”

  “Great,” I agreed, nodding as I moved closer to toss my gum into the trash can behind him before stepping back with a choppy wave. “Okay, well, bye.”

  He caught me the first time I looked back but not the second. And by the time I’d reached the car, I was feeling downright resentful toward Jane Austen of the Journal. Her ridiculous little scraps of fortune-cookie wisdom had started an avalanche of insanity in my life. I could no longer seem to function as a normal person.

  As I shifted the car into gear, it occurred to me that there was a good chance Brett would be at the wedding ... have your cake but meet him too ... That I could definitely do. With pleasure. But on my own terms, and not for the brownie points. If her advice just happened to mesh with my own, admittedly farther-flung, intentions, I wasn’t about to restrategize out of spite. And if it didn’t, well, it was all in the interpretation.

  Apparently I was destined to be late for dealings with Beck. When I finally snagged a parking spot and swung into Jo’s, the journal tucked carefully away in my bag, Beck was perusing the menu in all her DayGlo glory. Today she was wearing a bright orange T-shirt hyping some university engineering event, white cargo pants, and deep purple Converse hightops with turquoise laces.

  “So?” Beck’s enthusiasm, far from being contagious, was actually a little overwhelming. I had to keep reminding myself that she was still a relatively new friend—who knew my biggest, weirdest, wildest secret. The jury was still out on the wisdom of that decision.

  “Yeah?” I said, pulling out a chair, playing coy. I mean, what else could she have been asking about?

  “Is that gum in your hair?”

  I quickly raised both hands to search for bubble remnants, but Beck had already moved on, shaking her head to dislodge that particular curiosity before demanding, “Did you get a reply?” I could see the whites of her eyes and her clenched teeth.

  “Yep—I’m the victim of another excerpting.”

  Having subsisted on only a breakfast bar for the last four hours, I was now starving, scanning the menu choices as I worked my fingers through my short, straight locks, hoping to find the rogue piece of bubble gum. Beck tugged gently on my jacket sleeve, but knowing she only wanted the “deets,” I put her off in favor of ordering first. Still, it was only a matter of time before we were facing each other over our gourmet sandwiches.

  “Still waiting ... ,” she reminded me in a singsong voice, draping her napkin in her lap and lifting her eyebrow in voyeuristic encouragement.

  I smiled. I had to concede, at least a little, that her optimism truly was contagious and that confiding in her seemed to make everything less creepy, even marginally thrilling. “It said, ‘have your cake but meet him too,’ ” I admitted before taking a huge bite of my roast beef.

  Beck slumped in her chair, seemingly baffled by this latest snippet. “Okay, I love cake as much as the next girl, but it’s not the stuff of journaling—no offense.” I shrugged, not the slightest bit offended—it totally depended on the cake. Beck pressed on. “And who’s ‘him’? Whoever he is, there’s your juicy, right there.” She took a halfhearted bite of her tomato basil with cheese and chewed thoughtfully.

  I figured I should probably clue her in. “I have a wedding to go to tonight. It’s a coworker’s, and I’m going ‘stagette.’ ” I added the air quotes. “I’ve mentioned it—and cake, obviously—in my entries.”

  This new information immediately revived Beck’s spark and spirit, and she managed to talk almost nonstop about possibilities and intentions—all in the same vein as last night—while I polished off half my sandwich.

  “This is a big clue. Way to go—you aced the homework!” I offered up an amused smile as she reached across the table and gave my arm an exuberant squeeze. “I don’t suppose you want a ‘plus one’ cramping your loner status, huh?” Her expression was suggestive but resigned to the inevitable—she knew she wouldn’t be tagging along. I shook my head, trying to appear marginally apologetic. “Not to mention sending out a lesbian vibe,” she added, with a pointed look. “You’ll fill me in later, right? I’m not above stalking.”

  Evidently something else we had in common.

  “If there’s anything to tell, you’re first on my list.” And coincidentally last too.

  “Uh-uh,” she said, metronoming her finger. “There is no ‘if.’ There’s definitely gonna be stuff to tell, girl, and I want to hear it. Deal?”

  “Okay, deal,” I agreed with a laugh, seriously wondering if I should just let her tag along and be done with it. That idea got immediately squelched as I realized she would be the voice of insanity, whispering in my ear, prompting me, nudging me into who-knows-what. My guess would be a bout of speed-dating with a side of cleavage. No, thank you.

  And besides, wouldn’t Beck’s presence be tempting fate or flying in the face of a fairy godmother? I was sufficiently out of my element here to be worried about this.

  While Beck caught up on her sandwich, I let myself imagine how different lunch with Brett would have been. I fully intended to cash in on that rain check I’d written myself ASAP.

  “Okay!” Done with her sandwich, Beck rubbed her hands together over her plate, clearly itching to strategize. “Let’s get down to business. What’s the plan?”

  “We go in, I produce the journal, quiz the shopkeeper on its provenance, and then we skedaddle.”

  Beck’s eyebrows turned down in disapproval at my apparent lack of imagination.

  “What if she wants to look through it? Or wonders why you want more information? What if she’s shifty-eyed and suspicious?”

  “Or twirling the tips of her roguish mustache? I guess we’ll just have to wing it then.”

  “That’s not much of a strategy,” she mumbled, her lower lip jutting out a little.

  “What can I say? This part of the situation seems pretty cut and dried. But I’m open to other ideas. Reasonable ideas.” It was always best to clarify.

  Beck feigned affronted attitude for all of two seconds before her expression switched comically to “Oh my God!” Her eyes widened and her lips curved into a giddy smile. “I just realized—you’ve got the journal with you, don’t you? Can I see it?” Her tone was tentative rather than demanding, and al
though I felt my heart rate kick up into a steady, thumping rhythm, I figured, what the hell? There were no remaining secrets, as far as Beck was concerned. So, wiping my hands on my napkin, I pulled it out and handed it over.

  Beck shoved her plate away and scoured the table with a fresh napkin in preparation for her chance at the journal. She took it reverently, carefully fingering the edges with neat, square-tipped, metallic blue-painted nails before laying it gently on the table. With nothing to say and an unfamiliar clutch in my chest, I started in on the other half of my sandwich. No regrets. I was glad I’d told her—glad I’d picked her specifically. This secret was too overwhelming to hold alone, and she was the perfect foil for my cynicism.

  She took her time, clearly savoring this opportunity, running her fingers over the key plate and knob, the covers, inside and out, and then each individual page, lingering over the ones left with fortune-cookie wisdom. Having been through the very same process myself, although admittedly with more frantic fingers, I could tell she was searching for clues. Just as I knew she wouldn’t find any. They simply weren’t there. And, oh, was that bugging me!

  “Amazing. I sooo want one of these. You, my friend, are going to be the stuff of urban legend.” It was clear I had just gone up a notch in Beck’s estimation. I kept chewing; she gushed on.

  “What if this is like The Last Mimzy, but instead of being a device to communicate with an alien culture, maybe you’re communicating with the past, channeling the matchmaking genius of Jane Austen! Or what if this is one of those ‘artifacts’ collected by the government and stashed in a warehouse in South Dakota, like that show on the SyFy channel. Or remember The Gods Must Be Crazy, with the Coke bottle that dropped out of the sky and changed everything... .”

  “Okay, I get it,” I said, holding my hands up to derail Beck’s runaway train of thought. “Hollywood loves crazy, unexplained phenomena.”

  “You think there might be another one, a little matched set?” She shot me a mischievous smile. “Which shop was it?”