“Why? Oh, of course, you can’t … maybe someday the disembodied …” Mary stopped, embarrassed that for a second she had forgotten her friend was disembodied.
“Your confusion is very charming, Mary. You blush quite easily. It may almost become a game with me to elicit it. No, I do not refer to the present. I remember from my time when alive and how proscribed I was. Often my visits to Godmersham Park exceeded the length of my desire for I could not return home alone.”
“Oh, yes, I remember that. Sounds like Saudi Arabia.”
Jane ignored the reference she did not understand and said, “Although I could have in extremis travelled alone …”
“Like Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey.”
“Precisely. Does this mean you’ve read it?” Mary already knew the characters and plots of the six novels and Juvenilia—in many ways she knew it better than Jane—but she hadn’t finished actually reading all of them.
“Yes, I enjoyed that. I’m reading Emma now. Well, you already know that.” Her last words betrayed a little of the unease she felt at having a disembodied friend who observed everything she did.
Jane did know Mary was reading Emma and had been for some time, and knew that Mary was having difficulty.
“And do you like the story?”
Mary was relieved Jane posed her question this way.
“I adore the story and I love Emma. It’s just … it’s just kind of hard to read. I mean compared to P&P.”
Jane had heard this complaint before and had feared that some would have trouble appreciating her heroine and she told Mary this.
“Duh! ‘I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.’ But I actually like Emma. It’s Miss Bates who drives me insane. She was boring.”
Jane wished she could have smiled at this. “Poor Miss Bates. I was mean to her at the same time I delighted in making her dull, but there may come a day when you learn to appreciate her. And turn left here, for that is the book store car park.”
“I need to get a bumper sticker.”
“A what?”
Jane’s question made Mary realize the vast gulf that sometimes separated them as she tried to quickly explain the concept of a bumper sticker.
“It’s a slogan printed on adhesive backed paper affixed to the back of a …”
“Oh those, I didn’t know that is what they were called. Why, what sentiment do you wish to convey?”
“Jane Austen is my co-pilot,” Mary answered, and laughed, much to the confusion of Jane.
1 Of her six brothers, four had children. Francis and Edward had eleven apiece
The Fellowship of Austen
Stephen gets his copy of Sanditon
Stephen opened the door to the bookstore and immediately heard the very excited conversation of those wanting to meet the famous author and then the voice of a store employee shouting to be heard above the din.
“Please, if those of you waiting for the book signing could start forming a line outside,” the harried older man said, standing on a chair to be seen. The conversation rose louder with some voices heard in objection that the books would run out or the author would leave.
“We’ve got enough books for everyone,” the man said. “And Miss Austen has promised that everyone in the store now will get their book signed. Just collect the stamped bookmarks on your way out. They look like these …”—he held up a store bookmark—”… and they’re stamped VOID on the backside. It’s the best we could do on short notice,” he added, somewhat apologetically.
“I just want to buy the book. Do I have to go outside?” someone asked.
The man was already stepping off his chair and had to step back on. “No, just if you want it signed.”
“What time does it start?” another voice asked.
“One pm” or “one o’clock” the crowd answered back before the man could respond. Several other questions were asked and answered, but Stephen tuned them out.
He was relieved he’d be able to get a signed copy as Dr Davis had rather specifically laid that task before him. “I want a signed copy, Stephen. This person may well be a fraud, but I want it for my collection nevertheless,” she had told him, and he didn’t dare disappoint her.
But he worried that being last in, he’d be at the back of the line. He thought his best strategy might be to hurry outside and try to be at the head of the line, but others had this same thought. After he collected his stamped bookmark and went outside, he was relieved to see the crowd wasn’t quite as large as it appeared inside. The crowd was also a lot less noisy.
“We’re sorry about making you stand outside and we’re going to get everyone who needs it some water,” another store employee told them.
Fortunately no one seemed to mind being outside and the shade of the store awning provided protection from the warm spring sun. Soon the noise increased as people began posing questions.
“How are you supposed to address her?” an older woman with thinning white hair asked a rail thin twenty something Goth girl with multiple piercings. Stephen noticed she wore a large badge with the slogan “I Believe in Jane” surrounding the representation of Austen that had appeared in Time magazine.
“I read you should treat avatars as the person they represent, so I guess Miss Austen.”
“But it’s just an actress, right. I mean Jane Austen isn’t really here,” an older man, looking ridiculously tweedy, asked the Goth girl, whom the older generation apparently looked to for definitive information on the subject.
“No, Jane Austen is really here. It’s not like Santa Claus,” she said, just a little sarcastically. “If there’s an avatar—and they wear some kind of AV pin—then the dead person … uh disembodied … then they’re standing right next to them.”
“If it really is Jane Austen, that is. How do they know?” a middle-aged woman with long brown hair half streaked with grey asked.
“They have to … I don’t know … it’s some kind of test or something,” Goth girl said, looking peeved that she now failed to be all knowing.
“It’s a committee, an AfterNet committee, that vets the disembodied,” Stephen offered.
“Sure, my uncle had to go through that when he died. It was pretty straightforward,” another man, in his thirties and wearing a Life is Good T-shirt, said.
By now the orderly line that the store employees had arranged had devolved into a clump and Stephen found himself in the middle of it.
“No, that’s different,” Stephen said. “Your uncle, did he register with the AfterNet before he died?”
“Yeah, in the hospice,” Life is Good guy confirmed.
“So it was easy for him because he’d had his field recorded,” Stephen said.
“That’s right, his field fingerprint.”
“But somebody who died before the AfterNet, especially a long time ago, has to prove to a committee that they are who they say they were. And if they’re famous, like Jane Austen, then they have to prove that to a committee made up of experts.”
Thinning white hair lady said, “So it’s like a court, you have to convince a jury.”
“Yeah, usually,” Stephen replied. “But in this case … uh, Miss Austen … she could answer a question or she knew something only she could know and so the committee decided that she had to really be Jane Austen.”
“What was it? What was the question?” tweedy guy asked.
“Uh … well, nobody knows. I mean the committee knows and she knows, but they can’t reveal it.”
“Huh,” T-shirt guy replied. “So that’s it. That’s what makes her Jane Austen.”
“That and what she’s written,” Goth girl said, happy to be able to enter the conversation again. “The excerpt’s pretty good. Sounds just like Jane.”
“What do you think?” asked a store employee who’d joined the group, absent mindedly handing out bottles of water from a basket she carried.
“And why do you know so much?” tweedy guy asked.
“I know a
couple people on that committee,” he lied. He was certain he probably knew someone on the committee. “I’m not convinced yet she’s Austen, but I want to keep an open mind,” he added, regretting it instantly because he was immediately bombarded by questions. He honestly hadn’t intended to brag about his knowledge—well maybe just a little—but he also almost always answered a direct question without thought of the consequences, a trait that often gave him grief.
After a few minutes, however, he’d answered what questions he could and as usual with any group of Janeites, the conversation had turned into impromptu discussions about the books and Austen arcana. A few minutes before 1 pm, however, the discussions were interrupted when someone said, “Hey, I think they’re getting started.” Everyone turned to look into the store and they saw that many of the customers had clustered to one side of the store and then they heard a round of applause.
At the same time, the store employees allowed the first group of ten people to enter, although by now the crowd had doubled. Stephen hoped he would be in the next group to be let in but it was a full forty-five minutes before his turn came, along with Goth girl and T-shirt guy, who preceded him. They were led to the signing table and found a large group there, including most of the people who presumably had already had their books signed.
At the table were two women—one older woman wearing a business suit and the other presumably Jane Austen, wearing Regency costume. The avatar was pretty with brown hair correctly done up, wearing a cap. Her dress, with a proper empire waist, was a pale cream colour. It was a walking dress, with a fichu to conceal her décolleté. A spencer jacket was lying on the table beside her.
Damn, no wonder women think I’m gay. No man should know those words.
He couldn’t quite decide whether wearing the costume was stupid or not, but he had to admit if you’re going to go to the trouble of hiring someone to play the part of Jane Austen, you’d have to put her in costume for anyone to recognize her. After all, who really knew what Jane Austen looked like. Thankfully the avatar looked nothing like Cassandra’s portrait. Instead she was young, probably in her mid twenties, with high cheekbones and a bright complexion. He was still too far away to see her eye colour.
“She looks very pretty,” the woman behind him said.
“She looks pretty young,” another woman replied to the first.
“You want her young, don’t you,” yet another woman, who had a British accent, said. “I always imagine her young, before she was published.”
The line moved forward and now Stephen was fourth in line. A store employee—the woman who’d been handing out the water—asked him how many books he’d like to buy.
He told her two and she produced a handheld register that scanned his credit card and printed a receipt. She handed him his two books and proceeded down the line to the next person.
The line moved forward again. He could hear her voice now. She sounded British.
“To whom should I address it?” she asked.
“To Sardonyx,” Goth girl replied, but then amended in a quiet voice, “Actually, make it out to Julia.”
The avatar took the book, signed it and returned it. “Thank you, Julia. I very much hope you enjoy it.”
Goth girl took the book from her and almost curtseyed, laughed and then turned away, wearing a big smile accentuated by her many piercings.
The line moved forward and now Stephen could see her eyes, which were hazel. Life is Good guy was talking to her and produced four copies with very specific instructions for the inscriptions. The avatar seemed not at all nonplussed and cheerfully spoke with him. Stephen was suddenly conscious of his own attire: baggy shorts and an untucked colourful print shirt.
The line moved forward again and now the woman before him blocked Stephen’s view, so he paid attention to the other woman at the table. She looked familiar and he tried to place her, then recognized her as one of the local JASNA members. She caught him looking at her and recognition also appeared on her face.
Phyllis, that’s her name, Stephen remembered. Talked my ear off a year ago about the latest Wuthering Heights movie before I finally admitted I’d never seen it or read it. Hopefully she’s forgotten that.
The line moved forward and he found himself facing Jane Austen.
“Hello, Miss Austen. It’s a pleasure,” he said, handing her his two copies. Suddenly he had to fight the almost overwhelming urge to do a stiff Darcy bow.
She took the book and said, “Thank you very much, sir,” and inclined her head.
It was too much and he couldn’t help bowing his head ever so slightly.
“Two books, is it? And whose names should I write?”
“If you could address one to Stephen Abrams … with a PH. And the other to Alice Davis.”
“You’re getting a copy for Alice?” the JASNA member asked. “You’re Stephen, one of her graduate students, aren’t you. The one who doesn’t like Emily Brontë?”
“Would that be Dr Alice Davis?” the avatar asked.
“What, oh, yes,” he said to the JASNA woman, and then to Austen. “Uh … she couldn’t be here and she asked me to …”
“If you’re one of her students, then you are studying …” She looked at Stephen very directly and she seemed to be leaning her head slightly to the right, as if listening to something.
“Uh … yes … I’m a doctoral candidate and … uh … yes.” He could feel his face flush.
Phyllis leaned over to whisper in the avatar’s ear.
“Oh, something about the Enclosure Movement? That is your thesis?” the avatar asked.
“The Enclosure Movement and the changing demographics of the Regency world as revealed in the novels of Jane Austen,” he said, rushing through the words from long practice, attempting to get it all said before a glassy-eyed look would possess the listener.
“I hope it will see publication someday. I have been informed that my novels contain all manner of deeper meanings when truly all I was doing was writing my little stories.” She smiled and then returned her attention to his copies, signed them and returned them to him.
“Thank you,” he said, “thank you very much, Miss Austen.” As he said her name, it felt right and proper.
“You are welcome,” she said, with a gravity that belied her youth. For a second he looked directly into her eyes. Contacts, she’s wearing contacts, he thought, and the spell was broken. She turned her attention to the next person in line.
Stephen left the table slowly, looking back at her often. Each person she greeted seemed delighted to speak with her and each person received her smile. It was a Mona Lisa smile, a reserved smile, but warm nonetheless.
Meet cute
Stephen and Mary spend the day
“Excuse me, Miss Austen?”
Mary turned around, ready to acknowledge the greeting, a pleasant smile fixed upon her face, before she remembered she was off the clock, wearing jeans and two miles from the hotel and that she did not have Jane’s voice in her ear.
“I’m sorry, you must have me confused with someone else,” she said to the handsome man who had addressed her. But she still had the smile on her face and her arm already outstretched to accept his greeting, which she now uncomfortably retracted.
“Oh, I’m very sorry. I thought you were … but of course, you’re not working.” He looked down to conceal his embarrassment and stepped back, colliding with the table behind him in the small coffee shop. The collision prompted him to drop the bundle of pamphlets he carried in his left arm.
He bent down to pick them up and as he did so spilled some of the coffee he carried in his right hand.
“Oh crap,” he said. He hurriedly put down the paper coffee cup and pulled the pamphlets away from the spreading spill.
Mary looked round quickly and saw a stack of napkins not far away. She snatched a handful and dropped them on the spill, preventing the coffee from staining any further papers.
“Thank you,” the man said, still not loo
king at her while he retrieved his pamphlets. They were now both crouched down upon the floor and Mary also began retrieving his pamphlets, which appeared to be college blue books. Some of them had been graded with remarks on the covers.
With the blue books now recovered both stood up. Mary handed her stack back to him. He glanced at her, thanked her, lowered his gaze again and then looked at her again, venturing a smile.
“I … sorry for the …”
“Absent minded professor routine?” Mary supplied.
“Well, absent minded TA1 routine,” he said, his smile no longer timid. “You are her, aren’t you. You’re Jane Austen’s avatar.”
“Don’t say it so loud, I don’t want to be mobbed,” she said, looking around at the disinterested customers, most of them probably unaware of her employer’s fame or existence.
“Excuse me, are you going to order or what?” the barista behind the counter said to Mary. She turned back to the barista and gave her order and then asked her new acquaintance, “Can I buy you a coffee? To replace the one …”
“Yes,” he said with a vigorous nod. “Thank you, just a medium plain coffee.”
“We just ran out of ‘plain coffee’ so it’ll have to be an americano,” the barista said, after a consultation with her coworkers to confirm that there was no regular coffee.
Obviously that was a sore point with the man who grumbled, “OK, an americano.”
Mary paid for their coffees while the man dumped the handful of soggy napkins, and his empty cup, in a trash bin.
“Shall we sit?” Mary asked. He nodded and she led them to a table.
“Thank you very much,” he said after sitting down. “And I’m sorry to have accosted you.”
“That’s a bit of an exaggeration. I’m sorry I didn’t know what to do. Wait, didn’t I sign your copy? I mean didn’t Jane sign it.”
“Yes you did, or rather she did. Or the two of you did. This is kind of confusing.”
“Tell me about it. It’s Stephen, right?” she asked, amazed and, considering he was reasonably cute, happy that she’d remembered his name.
Jane, Actually Page 21
