I didn’t get to dance with Cathy again until the last one, and I told her I read Northanger Abbey, and how I thought Catherine sounded like the kids around here. “They’re all about werewolves or zombies, and she wants to be, like, a heroine. I mean I liked her and all, but she wasn’t real sharp when it came to people.”
Cathy smiled like she thought I said something smart, and said, “A lot of her characters are like that—not that they all get carried away, but they’re not people smart. Except for Fanny Price. Mansfield Park? But the rest of them, they take someone at face value or listen to gossip and then they find out that person was totally different. In Jane Austen it’s always a big deal—what people are versus what people think they are.”
It’s still a big deal.
We went our separate ways at the library again—she said she needs to grab a computer station because her family doesn’t have the online up and running yet, and I tell her if the mob is hogging them, rat them out to Mrs. Radcliffe—and I go home and grab one of Mom’s copies of Mansfield Park.
After Northanger, Mansfield was no walk in the park. At first I didn’t like Fanny. I mean, it would’ve sucked to be shipped off to people you didn’t know, and Mrs. Norris always reminding you what a nobody you were and how much you owed all of them, but still, draw the line, already.
Then I thought about it some more, and you know, Fanny was actually a lot tougher than she seems at first. She actually had more backbone than anyone in the book. She didn’t let herself get talked into that stupid play; she stuck to her guns, and she wasn’t a phony. She wouldn’t spend her summer trying to figure out if she’d rather hang with the vamps or the werewolves. The more I thought about it, the more I wished I was like her.
Next class, there was one less—Mrs. Blake wasn’t there, so the guy who called the steps took her place and called them from the line (set). And it was still fun and we all did pretty well, but the thing is, something was missing, and I hate admitting this, but I sort of missed Mrs. Blake. I thought her bouncing and laughing and “Jamie!” got on my nerves, but it gave us all a boost, too, and class just wasn’t as fun without her.
At the break, I heard a few people whispering about “sending Lottie a card,” and I knew they were talking about Mrs. Blake—around the library, the kids called her “Lotta Blake,” and I wondered if she was sick. When I asked, Mrs. Caverley explained that Mrs. Blake’s daughter had a baby, and she’d taken a week off to help.
I confessed to Cathy that I sort of missed Mrs. Blake, and she said she did, too. “She’s kind of our Mrs. Jennings,” said Cathy. “We get aggravated with her like Marianne does with Mrs. Jennings, and then when she’s not around we’re like Elinor—we start thinking of the nice things she says and does, and how people perk up when she’s around.”
Mrs. Caverley reminds us that these are steps we can practice at home “—because skill at the dance meant that the dancer was a person of diligence and taste.”
“Like Fanny practicing her dance steps in the drawing room,” I said, trying not to be all, “I READ MANSFIELD PARK!”
And Cathy laughs and goes, “I’m hoping that my awkwardnesses are as good as graces.” She had a great laugh.
Cathy stayed behind at the library again, and I felt sorry for her, having to put up with the zombs and the werewolves just to log some online. I told her if she couldn’t put up with the weirdness, she could come over to my place and use ours, but she says it’s okay, there was a stubbornness about her that never can bear to be frightened at the will of vampires, zombies, werewolves, etc.
So I go home, and all I say is, “Mom? Marianne and Elinor.”
“Sense and Sensibility.”
And I have to say that after Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility was a coast. The girls and their mother lose their house and don’t have much money, almost like when the economy takes a dive, and these two sisters, Elinor and Marianne, both fall in love with guys who can’t marry them, but Elinor sucks it up while Marianne goes all emo princess and almost dies. And I think the point is, stuff happens, so do you deal or do you get all “Poor me”? Are you Team Elinor or Team Marianne?
Next class, I decide to wear a sport coat. I’m not to where I’d pike my mom’s velvet blazer and try to go the full Darcy, but all the other guys wear jackets.
Mrs. Blake’s back and she looks tired, but I still get a “Jamie! How nice you look!” and I go, “Thanks,” and figure, okay, I’ll tell her she looks nice, too, and she gives me this look, like she’s grateful, like nobody’s ever told her she looks nice.
By this point Cathy and I pretty much have a pact that we’ll go the first and last dances and as much of the rest as we can get away with, but Mrs. Caverley says we’re gonna draw for partners. Cathy gets the guy who lost his wife and I get one of the college girls and we try to stake out places next to each other in the set, but Mrs. Caverley says because I’ve been making so much progress me and my partner can open the dance. (I got good the way she said. I practiced at home by teaching the steps to Darcy. She thinks it’s cool and she’s not a bad dancer and having someone else to teach helped me get the steps down.) Opening the dance is supposed to be an honor, but the fact is, you do your moves and then you pretty much stand around and talk, but it was okay because this girl—her name was Chrissy—she spent a semester in England and made it sound cool, and then we got new partners and I’m with Mrs. Blake who said I had to thank my mom for the card and I asked how was her daughter feeling and how’s the baby, and she looked so grateful that I swear I will never cop another one of her Oreos again so help me. At the end of class she cornered me and a couple others with pictures of little Tommy, and he was cute, and I tell them all the stuff Charlie’s getting into, and I turn around and saw that Cathy left.
End of August, I can arm and cast and hey and allemande with the best of them, and the last class was more like a party where we just ran through all the dances and had punch and cookies and Mrs. Caverley gave out these silly prizes—Mrs. Blake got the Marianne Dashwood award for being earnest and eager in everything she did and Cathy got the Jane Fairfax award for remarkable elegance and I got the Darcy prize for being the one who improves most on acquaintance. And Mrs. Caverley reminds us that they are giving classes through the year and they have dances the first Tuesday of every month and she hopes she’ll see all of us again.
So the first day of school comes and it hits me I don’t have a pack, a clan, or a mob, unless you count the Jane Austen crew I hung with for six weeks, and they were all way past high school, except for Cathy. But I wasn’t where I’m going all Sir John Middleton, and the dread of being alone’s my prevailing anxiety ’cause I knew a couple people who hadn’t turned into total creets—yet—and Cathy would be there. And because Cathy’s gonna be there, I pass on the black jeans/black T-shirt and go khakis/blue shirt, and I put a tie in my pocket and buff up my shoes.
I could see Darcy revving up her “What are you wearing?” but I cut her off at the knees. “Boy, Darce, your shirt is ill. Like how you did your hair, too.”
Dad looks up at Mom and she goes, “ ‘Ill’ is the new ‘awesome.’ ”
“I thought ‘wicked’ was the new awesome.”
“ ‘Wicked’ was the new awesome.”
“Then ‘ill’ is the new ‘wicked,’ right?” Dad sighed. “What happened to ‘cool’?”
“Nothing.”
“Cool.”
I walk to school, and most of the time, nobody pays attention to me unless it’s to give me a look like they think I’m gonna jack their yard gnomes, but now it’s, “Morning, James,” and “Don’t you look fine today?” and I go, “Good morning, Mrs. Smith” and “Good morning, Mr. Jones” and they light up.
So I head for the sidewalk in front of the school entrance and I see the clan and the pack and the mob all hanging with their own. The zombs looked pretty much fried, and the pack, they’re pulling all these creet stunts trying to get the vamp girls to notice them, and the vamp guys a
re trying to look wasted and cool (ill) like you-know-who, in you-know-what-book/movie.
And the wolves got their hair all gelled into points that are supposed to look like ears, and the vamps and zombs are all pasty-faced and all in black and the only way you can tell them apart is the zombs kohl up their eyes like pandas and the vamps guys wear fake fangs and the girls wear dark lipstick.
I hear someone calling my name, “James—hey, James!” and it’s one of the vamp girls, but I can’t tell which one because they’re all Casper, black hair, black jeans, black lips.
The girl waving at me is almost my height and thin and there’s something familiar about her—and I get it about a half second before she goes, “It’s me.”
“Cathy?” I gotta be honest, there was a moment when it sucked a little, but I can’t say I didn’t understand it. I knew at least a couple kids who weren’t creets, but the new girl wouldn’t have anybody.
And she looks me over and smiles, almost like she’s embarrassed, and goes, “You look … nice.”
“Then how come I wish I stuck with the jeans and a T-shirt?”
Jack Willoughby breaks away from his mob and plunks himself in front of me and goes, “What are you wearing, Austen? Parochial school’s on the other side of town.”
But I don’t back down. I go, “Don’t feel bad, lobot. I’m far from requiring that elegance of dress in you that becomes me.”
Comeback Jack couldn’t do better than, “Yeah … well …” and then you could hear a leaf hit the grass.
So I go, “ ‘You are silent, absolutely silent. At present I ask no more.’ ” (That’s off Emma). And Wolfman Willoughby lurches off, straining gray matter.
Then the bell rings, and they all head for the entrance, just this one big drift of which-one’s-who, and it hits me: all this stuff kids say about how they want to be individual and unique and their own person and not like everybody else, and first chance they get they gear up like they all came off the same assembly line, same date, same lot number. The only one in front of school who didn’t look like everybody else was … me.
Cathy watches them go but she hangs with me. Maybe she’s not a complete one-eighty. So I shift my pack onto my other shoulder and take hers in one hand and hold out my arm like we did in country dance class.
Then I wait for five hours. Okay, it was five seconds, it just felt like five hours.
Finally, Cathy goes, “This doesn’t mean we’re engaged or anything,” takes my arm, and we walk up to the entrance and kids are staring at us, and it takes me a second to realize it’s not us, it’s not even Cathy, who, even cakefaced, is still hot—everybody’s staring at me. And I start thinking I may be on to something here: I can start off freshman year as James the Nobody, James the Creet, James the Lunch Table Leper—or I can be James, founder and CEO of Team Austen.
JANE RUBINO and CAITLEN RUBINO-BRADWAY are the authors of Lady Vernon and Her Daughter, an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Lady Susan. Jane is also the author of a contemporary mystery series set at the Jersey Shore, as well as a volume of Sherlockian novellas, and she lives in Ocean City, New Jersey. Caitlen lives and works in New York City; her first solo effort, a young adult fantasy, will be published in 2012. Jane and Caitlen are currently developing What Would Austen Do? into a full-length novel.
www.janetility.com
@ladyvernonbook on Twitter
There is no truth better established than that a young woman on the brink of the possession of a good fortune will become the matrimonial object of every fortune hunter and imprudent noble family from either side of the English Channel. And should that heiress be as lovely and modest as Miss Georgiana Darcy, the task of fending off plausible suitors was mightily increased. Darcy sighed and glanced at his sister riding at his side. This was especially the case when they were in Town. More so, in that London was then in the midst of paroxysms of a wild, joyous relief this April of 1814 that Bonaparte was defeated and the Treaty of Fontainebleau signed.
The sound of swift hooves behind them sent Darcy slewing around in his saddle, narrow-eyed and prickly with suspicion. The glare he bestowed upon the gentleman who approached was specially calculated to blast any tender hope the young man might have entertained that he would receive encouragement to join them. In truth, just the rigid set of Darcy’s shoulders had caused the rider to think better of his manners. With a sheepish nod, he passed them and continued down the track of Hyde Park.
“Fitzwilliam! That is the third gentleman you have frightened away this hour!” Georgiana shook her head at him and then laughed. Her mount performed a little jig at the sound of her merriment. “No one will dare ask me to dance at my own ball! I shall have none to stand up with me but you and Cousin Richard.”
“Frightened? Don’t be ridiculous!” Darcy replied. He was only thirty, but lately he was feeling much older. The prospect of Georgiana’s coming out was aging him before his time and encouraging the worst of his old habits to re-appear. His dear wife Elizabeth had said as much with the teasing candor he both prized and, truth be told, dreaded. How was a man to make good on his progress when new challenges to his hard-won equanimity were forever being flung at him? He looked over at his sister, whose wide eyes and arched brows put the lie to his claim of innocence. Darcy snorted and a grin flashed across his face. Georgiana’s natural shyness was giving way to a self-confidence that was delightful to behold. Elizabeth was teaching her well.
“Shall I ride after him and—”
“No, no, you shall not!” she laughed. “Shall you leave me alone to be accosted by some other? Most improper, brother!”
“As you wish,” he replied with a shrug, but the grin remained as he considered her. At eighteen, Georgiana was a beauty who, he had been warned, bid fair to exceeding the celebration that had surrounded their mother and made their father the envy of London when he won her heart and hand. But woe to any suitor who did not quickly detect the intelligence and purpose behind the lovely exterior. It would take an extraordinary man, indeed, to win his sister’s respect and love, and in that fact lay Darcy’s peace. That and Georgiana’s confidence in Elizabeth’s keen assessment of the line of hopeful swains who even now were pressing for introductions as soon as she was officially “out.”
With only the natural attractions of the Park to distract him, Darcy’s mind turned to the contemplation of nothing more than the satisfaction inherent in a companionable ride. He reached down and patted Nelson’s neck, glad that he had gone to the trouble of bringing his favorite mount to Town for the Season, even if it was only for moments like this. Hyde Park was not his first choice for riding, but it was convenient and the favorite haunt of the fashionable for riding, driving, and … walking. Walking! He grimaced. Walking was all well and good. He liked a vigorous ramble as well as any man. But riding! There was challenge and mastery, the wind in your face, the melding of human will and horseflesh as the world sped past you at the rate of pounding hooves and sleek-muscled grace! Marvelous! Marvelous save for one thing: Elizabeth did not ride. Elizabeth walked. Her sister Jane rode. In point of fact, Jane’s ride in a cold downpour was in a direct line of events that had culminated in his present, very happy matrimonial state.
Besides, if Elizabeth were here, it would not fall upon him alone to discourage the plague of locusts that now hovered in the Darcy corner of Society’s otherwise fenced fields. Elsewhere in this endeavor, Elizabeth was a helpmeet indeed. Elizabeth Bennet Darcy was not a woman to whom name or rank or wealth were permitted to disguise a deficiency of character or a frivolous mind. Her quick reading of the dangerous and the foolish no longer amazed him as it had at first. Although there remained those who continued to sniff at her pedigree, he had considered Elizabeth well launched upon Society when intimations of a Blessed Event had put an end to public life. It had also put an end to his plan to teach Elizabeth to ride.
But the Blessed Event had come and gone four months ago, leaving in the nursery a lusty young son and heir to the Darcy name and est
ate. Little Alexander Bennet Fitzwilliam Darcy was surely the center of his mother’s universe and the pride of his father. Another grin creased Darcy’s face as he recalled the radiance of mother and child that morning.
“What are you smiling about, Fitzwilliam?” Georgiana asked, bringing her horse close enough to bump his leg with the tip of her well-shod foot.
“Is it so unusual for me to smile that you must ask?” he returned, unwilling to confess that tiny, bright eyes and cooing infant lips were the source of his happiness.
“No,” she admitted. “You are an extraordinarily happy man, or were until we came to London.” She sighed. “I know that this faradiddle has occurred at a trying time—”
“Your Coming Out? You must not think so,” he interrupted. “I was thinking of Elizabeth. It is nearly four months since Alexander’s birth. She should be well enough to learn to ride.”
“Ride?” Georgiana gave him a startled look. “But Elizabeth does not ride.”
“So she says.” He frowned at his sister’s lack of perception. “Yet she has arms and legs and spirit enough for any horsewoman. She must learn.”
Jane Austen Made Me Do It Page 32
