My Jane Austen Summer: A Season in Mansfield Park

by Cindy Jones

Lisa exhaled noisily. "I'm going to say something and I'm counting on you not to fall apart," she said, as her eyes finally met mine.

  We glanced to the street as a truck pulled up behind her car.

  "Wait a minute." I held up a hand. "That truck is here for my furniture. I have to deal with this first." I pulled up one of the landlord's rusty metal lawn chairs for Lisa. "Would you mind being cashier while I show them what to take?" I handed her the money box as the movers lumbered up to my porch, dirty from whatever work they had done all day. I positioned another rusty chair to keep the screen door open and the driver looked at me sheepishly as if I were the high school social studies teacher he had disappointed.

  "Wife says to get the stuff she bought," he said.

  "Down the hallway." I took them back to the bedroom and pointed to the bed and the dresser.

  "That go?" The other guy pointed to a lamp table in the corner.

  "No," I said, and then reconsidered the business of hauling it out myself. "Yes, take it. Get it all out of here." I spoke too quickly, my restless mind struggling to predict what Lisa had to say. I couldn't imagine what she thought would make me fall apart at this point. What was left? I waved a hand and showed them the sofa and the table they were supposed to take. But instead of watching the men, I went to the porch where Lisa made change for my lava lamp.

  "So what is it?" I asked; arms folded across my chest, cars slowing as they drove by. Most of my good stuff was sold.

  Lisa said, "I think you should reconsider this move."

  The men grunted under the weight of the sleeper sofa, passing behind me.

  "Now?" I gestured to the people in my yard.

  Lisa sat back. "You can still change your mind."

  "Why would I want to?" I moved out of the way as the men went in for more furniture.

  Lisa spoke. "You've had so many setbacks recently. I just don't think this is a good time to make a big change."

  Someone stamped a cigarette on my front walk; a fat woman held one of my shirts up for size. I couldn't wait to get out of this place. As much as I filled my days with personal connections and my evenings with volunteer activities and social events, I was as lonely as the gray-haired widows at the early church service.

  "You should consider seeing someone," Lisa said carefully, "as in a mental health professional."

  Those were the words she had come to say; we were having an intervention. I shielded my eyes from the sun's glare and watched the men close the back of the truck. One of them waved. "We got it," he called, waving as he pulled away.

  "You need time," Lisa said.

  I often recited a litany over girl lunches and happy hours: It takes the average single woman two years to get engaged, one to get married, and three to have kids. A woman who has just broken up with her boyfriend is looking at anywhere from four to ten years before she can live happily ever after. Without exceptional beauty or wealth, it would take me ten years. I had no time. "I'm going to England," I said.

  At midnight that night, every overhead light in my apartment blazed. I leaned against the bathroom wall and slid down to the floor. I would have fallen asleep on the floor had my phone not rung in my bedroom. "Hello?" I looked at my watch. Lisa enunciated as if a kidnapper held a gun to her head or she spoke to someone whose native language was not English. "Boris escaped when I opened my front door to get my mail. He has been missing ever since. Do you want me to come over?" she asked.

  "No," I said. What good would that do?" Boris had made a break with his past. Good-bye Boris, I thought. I hope you find what you're looking for, too.

  "I'm going to put up signs in the morning," Lisa said. "I'm so sorry."

  "He's a cat," I said, rearranging the future without my precious Boris who had lounged on me through endless novels over the past years. If he were here he would be walking across this barren room to sit on my lap. Barren room.

  An alarm went off; my room should not be empty.

  I dropped the phone on the floor and ran. "Oh my God. Oh my God." I could barely catch my breath. I ran through my apartment from back to front, searching in case they had moved it somewhere, knowing in my heart it was gone. Just like Martin. Just like the job and the cat. I opened the screen door and ran into the street where their truck had been parked. "No," I cried. "No, no, no, no."

  I collapsed on the curb, the heel of my hand landing on a shard of glass, a cockroach scurrying for cover. "Oh my God," I cried, in bursts of grief, rocking back and forth, my hair tangling in my face. I had no way to track them down. They had paid in cash. The blood from my hand got in my hair and on my clothes and I could feel it mingling with the tears and getting in my eyes.

  They had taken the little chest and the books it held. The stories my mother had read to me were lost in some rural resale shop. I had not paid attention and now her voice was gone. I tried to remember the sound of Miss Clavel exclaiming, "Something is not right," and the old woman whispering, "Hush" as I'd snuggled into my mother's side, tracing the roses on the floral chintz love seat, wondering how there could be so much purple and blue in the pink petals. When she read, my mother's voice mixed the lush sofa roses with the soft reading light and the romance of storybook heroines. So when I opened the books she saved for me, I could hear not only her voice but everything she told me, using the words of the stories like a special code between us. All for me. Even though she was dead, I'd cherished this last connection to her. The collection of books offered me comfort and hope. Now the books were gone. How could I have let this happen? I sat folded in the grass by the curb and cried; I couldn't hear her anymore. I stared at the stars and a bug crawled onto my arm. Did I remember the feel of the soft inside of her arm as she turned a page of Goodnight Moon or was I creating memories?

  * * *

  I stood and walked to the front edge of the roof. Lifting my arms to my sides as if preparing to dive, the chilly air blew my skirt, my unquiet spirit gnawing from the inside. What if I just go away? Three stories below lay the great stone steps. Jumping would bring immediate and certain death. No more loneliness; no more pain, no more aching spirit.

  Thick dark curtains separated me from the life I had known, curtains to guard the privacy of my self-destruction and reinforce my feeling that nothing waited for my return. Nothing lay behind me but darkness and nothing before me but the void.

  Two spooky eyes looked at me as the picture crawled down my screen, the familiar nose and the smile for her father. What started the affair? My father nurturing a vague complaint that something was missing. Sue playing along; willing to be a secret. Karen said Dad cheated because he could get away with it. Did Willis think he could get away with it?

  The three of us had made a sharp triangle at the follies; me on the stage, Willis below, and Philippa next to him, as oblivious as my mother. I was the secret of the triangle, willing to take any covert part Willis allowed me to play in his life. Willing to play the part of Sue in the story of my own life.

  My toes hung over the edge, a black breeze blew my skirt. Karen says we all have problems. Take it in stride and keep fighting, she says. Not the end of the world. Look at your wonderful life. I looked at myself, perched on the edge of a roof at a failing literary festival, in the middle of the night, in England. Fanny Price beckoned to me from the trap door, no indulgent pity in her voice or manner. "Come along," she said. My Jane Austen wasn't there, wouldn't bother, obviously. No patience for nonsense.

  Two faint stars struggled in the sky, and something fiercer, a satellite, blinked; perhaps it could see me. I remembered the feeling, lying with Willis, when the cosmos came together and everything belonged to something. Maybe normal people always felt that way. I don't want to be Sue. I don't want to be my mother. My mother no longer makes sense. I bent down to pick up a broken piece of concrete, once part of the balustrade. You should have dropped the code, Mom. You should have talked to me while we sat there all those months reading and dying. Hiding behind books instead of working past your shame to tell
me. You should have tried harder. I threw the concrete as hard as I could and watched it smash into bits on the steps three stories below. I don't want to be like you. "I want to be normal," I cried from the rooftop. "I just want to be normal."

  Twenty-One

  Two mornings later, I lay in bed while Bets did her five-minute prep for work: the thong, the dress, the kerchief.

  "Time to rise and shine, Cellmate," Bets said.

  I'd seen no one for three days. Not Omar, not Sixby. My Jane Austen had been absent since she faded out in Sixby's room. I'd suspected she might be prickly, but never imagined she would ditch me for good. A dead person should take a more godlike approach and cut me some slack. Maybe Magda was right; the real Jane Austen would swallow me whole.

  Being Wednesday, Mrs. Russell would come looking for me if I didn't show up. "I'm sick," I told Bets, still recovering from the rooftop spectacle. Thank God no one but Fanny Price witnessed my drama. Now Fanny was gone. Perhaps Maria Bertram would haunt me. Maria and I could compare stories about self-destructing over the wrong men scene after scene, but that would cease to amuse her once she claimed the high ground of being ink on a page, lacking in the opportunity so abundant to me, of learning from mistakes.

  Gary came to the door with coffee and Bets shushed him. "She's sick," she whispered as they closed the door behind them. One thing I was sure of: they were up to something. Last night during a commercial, Bets said, "Why not now?" She used a few Arabic words I missed, but Gary shook his head, clicked his tongue, and said lah, Arabic for no. I fell asleep breathing fumes from their Indian food.

  I opened my eyes and pulled Willis's jacket out from under my pillow. Had he gone to London for good? His abrupt absence felt like death, a giant iron wall preventing further communication. I could never tell him one more thing or ask him one more question. I lay in my bed, staring at the plaster wall, seeking a pattern in the faint swirls.

  The messy room had begun to stink; I knew I would find dirty food cartons if I bothered to look. They'd left cellophane wrappers on the floor. Biscuit tins, bottles, cans, newspapers, and bags littered the room. Bets had thrown her clothes on the floor as they left her body. My follies costume lay spread on the table to dry. I got up and opened the window to let air circulate; gray and rainy outside.

  Not having bothered with my appearance since the night with Sixby, I looked awful. I sat on my bed in my nightgown, holding my script. With Magda on her way out, I needed to know the lines and I'd been reading the part where Fanny refuses Henry Crawford's proposal of marriage. Even though I'd read it many times, the scene never failed to create anxiety that this time Fanny would cave, fall prey to Henry Crawford's superficial arts, be seduced by the comfortable life he offered. I considered reading Sense and Sensibility instead.

  The rain rallied and I had to consider the possibility that Sense and Sensibility might get wet on the windowsill. I rescued the book, using my nightgown to wipe it dry. To my utter surprise, Willis appeared, walking toward my dormitory. I ducked down and watched over the sill like a spy, the rain spattering my face. Willis walked purposefully, eyes downcast, the hood of his jacket protecting him from the rain. He headed for the parking lot but turned as if he were approaching the entrance of my building, a place he'd never been. My room! I quickly bolted the door, turned off the lights, and regretted the unmade beds, clothes covering the floor, dirty dishes in our little sink. Every horizontal surface lay buried under junk, drawers stood open. Impossible to clean the room in the short time he would spend climbing the stairs. And even if I could straighten the room, what would he think when he saw me? I brushed my teeth in record time and crawled to the far corner of my bed to wait; my heart pounding.

  I knew he'd come—as instructed by my follies portrayal of Fanny Price. Willis was back from the dead; here was my chance to ask one last question, to understand the truth about what happened between us and say good-bye to him perhaps forever.

  His knock penetrated my bones. I asked all blood rushing to my heart to please resume its normal speed and direction. If he saw me now—he'd remember me forever like this! My nightgown! Just to be safe, I stopped breathing.

  He knocked again. I could clean up and find him later.

  "Lily."

  The sound of my name in his voice melted my resistance. If he knocked again, I would open up. Again, please. We both waited. Every rustle of his rain jacket traveled over the open transom. I froze, not risking a creak of the floor or mattress. What would I give for an opportunity to speak with my mother one more time?

  He gave up. Willis walked away, his footsteps growing softer as they receded to the stairwell until I couldn't hear them anymore. Deep regret set in. The mess didn't matter. This was my last chance. He would be long gone by the time I cleaned up. The mattress and floor creaked and moaned as I jumped up and ran to the door. I threw it open and shouted, "Willis!" The dimly lit hall was not vacant, he had not walked away, and I screamed when he stepped out of the opposite wall.

  He smiled. "The old diminishing footsteps trick."

  "You scared me to death." I touched my heart.

  "Well, then we're even, Fanny," he said, pausing near the threshold.

  I stepped aside allowing Willis into my room. "We had a hurricane in here," I said, folding my arms in front of me as he noted the devastation. "I'm surprised you didn't hear about it on the news."

  "I'm too busy for news." He turned, appraising the extent of the disorder. "So this is where you live." He took in the dirty clothes and unmade bed. "Ah, my jacket," he said.

  I handed him the jacket and he tucked it under his arm. We stood looking at each other; me still catching my breath while raindrops tapped nervously.

  "That was quite a performance with Sixby." He shifted his weight and the floor creaked. "I didn't much care for the ending."

  "It was theatre," I said, frowning. If he only knew. But he would never know.

  Willis draped his jacket over a chair and then stepped to the window. "What a mess," he said touching his forehead on the frame. He ran a finger along the wet sill; hard to know if he referred to the weather, the mess in my room, or the two of us. "You're not working today?"

  "Later."

  We stood silent while the rain fell, dark and dreary outside. My legs felt weak. "Would you like to sit down?" I gestured to a chair holding a big box of Bets's stuff but Willis stood his ground on the opposite side of the table, his rain jacket rustling when he moved.

  "I can't stay. I wish I could," he said, hands in his pockets.

  Bits of sorrow gathered near my throat. His hands seemed so far away in those pockets, as if they didn't know me. "How are you?" I asked.

  He shrugged, and took a step away from the window. "How are you?"

  "I have a half sister," I said. "And I find the news overwhelming."

  "So do I," he said, connecting my words with the news Fanny delivered from the stage. "How are you dealing with it?" he warmed, his empathetic manner emerging.

  "I keep remembering what you said about forgiving my dad," I said, "but I don't know where to start. And it keeps getting bigger." I did not share the reflection I'd caught of myself in the family mirror; mistakes could pile up quickly without a single bad intention.

  "You don't have to condone his behavior," Willis said as he lifted the box off the chair and sat at the table he didn't have time for. I moved the spotted muslin and sat across from him.

  "The forgiveness is for you," he said. "Let go and move on."

  "I've already done that part." I waved a hand in dismissal.

  Willis looked at me, skeptical, almost smiling. The messy room coughed. "I've missed you," he said.

  "I've missed you," I said.

  Willis straightened. "I should tell you I'm going to London." He touched the table as if to push off. "Lady Weston is comatose and I need to be with them."

  A wave of the jealousy rolled through my stomach. "To be with her." I immediately regretted my words, small and petty.

>   Willis frowned at me. "You of all people should know I can't walk out when her grandmother is dying. The only mother she's known."

  "I do know," I said, my voice competing with the wind and rain against the window. "But I'm trying to get to the other side of all this." I gestured to the space between us. "Can you help me make sense of it?" I leaned into the table to emphasize my need, early tears blurring my vision.

  "I'm sorry," he said, glancing away, silent, until he added, "I've made promises I need to keep."

  "Can't you tell her about us?"

  Willis drew himself up. "Look, I'd like to follow this thing with you. But it won't work on your schedule." Willis looked at the ceiling and took his time; the music room seemed impossibly far away. "We planned the wedding for June," he said softly.

  Lightning flared behind my eyes. "Last June? A month ago?"

  "Yes. But postponed, obviously." He shrugged. "Her grandmother's health." His sleeves rustled as he shifted in his chair and unzipped his jacket. "And I wanted time to think. I used my thesis as an excuse to be alone." Willis pulled the jacket apart as if he were hot.

  "Think about what?" I asked.

  "Everything." He shook his head, not willing to elaborate further. "But then you showed up." He looked at me and smiled as if that were the end of the story.

  "So?"

  He swallowed. "So." He gestured. "You were fresh and vulnerable, delivered directly to me in my attic. And very attractive in your costume, I might add. Upset about something. No trace of artifice."

  No trace of artifice? He'd never met Cosmo me.

  "And you appeared to believe I invented the written word."

  I nodded.

  "I wanted to know you," he whispered; the shy amusement lit his face. "I wanted to see where it would go." He cleared a path through the junk on the table and took my hand while the rain rallied outside and tears pooled in my eyes. "I couldn't decide if you were sent to me as a gift or a test." He kissed my palm. "I started writing the vampire story the day after I met you."