“—and I’ve been going to Pilates instead.” She paused, I assume for impact. “You would not believe how tight my core is . . . and how extraordinarily flexible I’ve become. In just a couple of weeks. Brady is wildly impressed.”
Lalalalalalalala!!
I didn’t even look up. I left the can opener dangling from the can of filling and sailed around the kitchen island on my way to the door, fighting back the giggles. “I’m just going to go out and check on the beer butts.” No need to specify. “Back in a few!”
As the door sailed shut behind me, I heard Mom saying, “What about the pie? The pie is what it’s all about. How can any child of mine not get that?”
At that point, the hysterical giggles that were welling inside me could not be stopped. I staggered over to the group of men circling the grill who’d all gone abruptly silent. Ethan handed over his beer, and I took a long, steadying swig. Better.
“How’s it going out here?”
“Fine,” Ethan answered. “What’s going on in there?”
“Just a little girl talk.” I felt the hilarity bubbling up inside me again and took another drink of beer.
I noticed that now they all exchanged a look, probably realizing that, excepting Dmitri, they were very likely the topic of conversation. Any more time spent with Gemma, and Dmitri would be on the table too . . . so to speak. I smirked.
“I can’t go back in there right now,” I whispered to Ethan.
“Do you want me to go fill in for you?”
“You don’t want to go in there either,” I assured him.
I inhaled a deep breath of smoky November air. “Maybe I’ll just take a minute to be alone. . . .” I suggested.
Ethan leaned in, turning his face away from the guys. “Is that code for something? And does it involve me?”
“It isn’t and it doesn’t. But if you want to start talking in code, let me know, because I’d be all over that,” I told him.
The panic in his eyes assured me that we wouldn’t be doing that anytime soon. I handed him back his beer and headed up to my apartment. I was finally in the mood to talk to Gypsy Jane. Settling on the sofa, in the still quiet, I waited until the giggles and the echoes of girl talk subsided.
I skimmed through the pages of the narrow little book (including the inserted sheets of notebook paper from two separate bathroom visitations), now graced solely with the advice she’d offered up in an effort to steer my path toward a happily-ever-after . . . at times the answer is hidden in plain sight . . . an unexpected development can change everything . . . a perfect match demands an open mind . . . absence may In fact produce a very desirable effect . . . puzzle it out between you . . . There are secrets, and then There’s Clueless . . . Ethan is sweet, serious, stable. work your magic . . . He is your K . . . Is it enough? . . . it’s the little surprise s that tell the story . . . Occasionally a man thwarts Even the most careful plans. why not let him. She’d seen it long before I had—that Ethan was the one. She’d nudged me through my amateur investigation, hinted at his feelings for me (I suspected that’s what the “Clueless” reference was all about), downplayed the burner phone in the lollipops situation (I suspected that might have been a big “little surprise”), and then encouraged me to back off so that he could take the lead on at least some part of our little dance of love. Looking back at the drama and frazzling uncertainty of the past month, I could see all the components of a quirky and elegant solution to Ethan’s uncertainty and my utter obliviousness. We’d been in desperate need of an intervention.
I smiled, suddenly feeling very worldly wise, and started fresh on a new page.
Where should I even begin? Your entire association with me has involved a pattern of misguided behavior. You’ve witnessed every blunder and offered up consistent, useful advice throughout. I was just too blinded by my overactive imagination and a legendary love story to see it. You even mustered the fortitude, or gumption, or just plain shimmery goodness to appear precisely when I needed you. . . . (I honestly have no idea what it took for you to accomplish that, and I’m good if we keep it that way. You made Courtney’s year, though—just sayin.’)
As embarrassing as it is to admit, I’m not sure if I would have reached this happy place on my own. Ethan was right there, waiting for me to notice him . . . and maybe to deserve him. I think it took a bit of a transformation, and maybe a few sticky situations, and even a supernatural event or two for me to discover what I want, and what I can do without. Things are different now: Darcy’s merely a swoony fantasy. . . . Knightley’s my reality. I will strive to remember that when Ethan goes dark and silent, as he is likely to do, and I’m left to ogle Colin Firth alone. (And I’d like him to remember that I’m really more a medley of Elizabeth Bennet and Emma Woodhouse than strictly one or the other.)
What I really want to say, though, is that you’re amazing. Most of the world believes that yours is a legacy of six wonderful, memorable, timely novels, but the truly fortunate among us know you’ve written countless other happily-ever-afters. And that I happened to stumble onto the chance to be one of them is thrilling. (Or maybe it wasn’t chance at all To actually have the opportunity to “meet” you, as a benign, clever ghost with a magical touch, was insane. But I suppose it’s time to pass this journal on to someone else. Anonymously. I’m sad to say good-bye, but it’s just as well. I think it needs to be just Ethan and me now—we need to figure stuff out for ourselves.
But I hope this is merely au revoir. . . .
I tipped the journal closed, feeling very bittersweet. The giggles were gone. The silliness had dissipated with the feeling that I was losing a stellar sidekick. I’d have to think of a good drop spot and leave it up to Gypsy Jane to find another open-minded individual in need of a little romantic nudge. This whole thing had played out like a zany reality program: Jane Austen’s Happily Ever Afters, and I’d played my part.
Just as others had played before me. It struck me that I’d missed a little opportunity. It hadn’t even occurred to me to flip back a few pages in the full-sized journal to perform a little detective work on the person who had left the magical little book for me to find. Suddenly I was desperately curious. Extracting the key, I slipped it into the lock and waited, my breath caught, for the missing pages to slip primly back into place. Shifting the tome on my lap so that the back cover was face-up, I paged backward through my own entries until I’d reached that first world-rockin’ one. My fingers quivered slightly with nerves and excitement as I turned back one more page.
Well, this is to be the end—my last entry. Despite her earlier exuberance and fangirl crush behavior, Beck decided to just “wing it” with Gabe without advice or magic or “whatever else you might be dealing”—her words. So rather than offer you up to someone else of my acquaintance, I’ve decided to go the message-in-a-bottle route and let you be found by some enterprising young lady (or, I suppose, gentleman . . . would that be weird?) who is looking for a Happily Ever After à la Jane Austen. I’ll need to pick somewhere utterly Austin-tatious to facilitate the handoff of a totally Austen-tatious journal! I wish I could wait and watch to see who finds you, but this really needs to be a clean break with no hangers-on. I just hope whoever it is will realize the treasure they’ve uncovered with a little more grace than I did. . . .
Obviously the previous owner hadn’t been quite as gung-ho about the disappearing words and secret messages as I had. With my dreams of femmes fatales, secret spies, and superheroes. She was probably totally sensible. I flipped back one more page and skimmed over the entry. Totally sensible. Who else mentions mutual funds in their journal? Particularly their magical journal . . .
For one split section I had visions of winning lottery tickets and my life as a day trader with a little insider information, but I quickly squelched them. That was so beneath Gypsy Jane . . . or Fairy Jane . . . or whatever her next incarnation might be. And perhaps a little illegal. I needed to be done—I had to pass the torch. Otherwise I’d obsess over the
stories and the secrets forever, and convince myself that after one more question I’d give it all up.
I retracted the key, let myself savor the moment as the magic seeped back inside one final time on my watch, and then set the journal carefully on the coffee table. Averting my eyes, I dug around for an orange cream Dum-Dum and headed determinedly back downstairs into the fray of this year’s Thanksgiving feast.
Things were precisely as I’d left them, and I slid back in without anyone missing a beat. Little did they know that I’d been chatting with a two-hundred-year-old literary legend, and that she had quite a bit of spunk left in her. Some spook too. Well, Ethan knew and Courtney knew, but neither of them knew everything.
I looked over at Ethan, who’d moved to the couch and was now watching the UT/Texas A&M game. I felt a little flurry of excitement spark inside me at the knowledge that this was just the beginning.
I took credit for the pie, despite having left it unfinished to escape the mother/daughter sex talk, and, topped with Cool Whip, it was my favorite part of the meal. Well, that and catching Dmitri staring fixedly at Gemma. If this had been an English country house, they would absolutely have “taken a turn” in the gardens after dinner. As it was, I think they might have groped a little in the ligustrum when no one was looking. I volunteered to wash dishes and spent the time linking each couple with a famous Austen pair. And then imagining muttonchops on all the men.
When we said good night, I made no secret of the fact that Ethan and I were going upstairs together, and we wouldn’t be playing Scrabble. (It was possible we might be playing Scrabble, but that wasn’t all we’d be doing, and that was kind of the point I was making.) We collapsed on the couch together, and I immediately put my feet up on his lap, remembering the night, weeks ago, that I’d been careful to stay on my side so as not to send the wrong message.
Ethan’s gaze settled on the journal, sitting guilelessly on the coffee table.
“Whatever happened with the journal? Did you solve the mystery—find out how the words were disappearing?” With one hand resting on my knee, he put the other to use massaging my foot.
“No.” I shook my head dismissively—somehow, it was magic, simple as that. “But that’s not important. What’s important—thrilling, even—is that she knew about us before we knew about us.”
His hand stilled on my foot. I glanced at the pair and then shifted my gaze to Ethan’s face. His eyebrow was raised in wry amusement.
“Jane Austen’s been keeping an eye on you for two years?” he demanded, referring to the beginning of our friendship.
“It’s not out of the realm of possibility,” I mumbled, pulling the book off the table and gripping it with both hands. “But fine, she knew about us before I knew about us—happy?”
“I would have been happier if you’d been a tad more perceptive at some point in the past two years,” he said seriously, starting in on the massage again.
I decided to let him have that one.
“Well, she held my hand the whole way—even when you didn’t,” I told him, adding a little sass. “She even showed up . . . to clarify a few things.” It may as well have been an intervention.
“What do you mean she showed up?”
“I mean the ghost of Jane Austen made an appearance in the ladies’ mezzanine bathroom at the Driskill—twice. Words disappeared off my clipboard—seriously, it was like a supernatural magic show, and Court and I were the audience volunteers. And you can just wipe that disbelieving smirk off your face, because I have proof and a witness. At least for the first time.”
“She did two shows?”
I glared at him. “Can you be adult about this?”
“I’ll try to keep my eyebrow under control,” he promised.
I rolled my eyes. “Thank you,” I condescended. “She basically confirmed that you were my Knightley—if I wanted you.”
Ethan smiled to himself. “And you figured I was your best chance to get in on the action of life as a fictional character?”
“Something like that.” I nodded, unable to keep a smile from splitting my face. “And now that I’ve bagged you, I need to give someone else a shot at Gypsy Jane’s matchmaking prowess. I wrote my last entry earlier this evening.”
“I wondered if that’s where you went.” His hand slid up my calf, and even a buffer of denim couldn’t keep the goose bumps from cropping up in tingly wonder. “And did she offer you one last piece of advice?”
“I haven’t checked yet,” I said. He raised his brows, making a silent suggestion.
Resigned to the reality that this was my last hurrah with a magical journal—and with Jane herself—I edged my fingers over the little book’s binding, the raw edges of its pages, and its pretty little curlicued hardware. Then I slowly turned back the cover and paged once more through my days as Cat Kennedy, my stint as a secret agent, my misguided attempts at matchmaking, and my uncertainties about Ethan. Till the very last page, which read:
every love story is different. yours happened to have a ghost. au revoir.
My lower lip came out, and my eyes felt hot and itchy with tears. I looked up at Ethan, whose face had softened at the reaction. Without a word, I handed him the book and sat up, clinging to his arm and laying my head on his shoulder.
Ethan read the words on the page and then tilted his head so that his face was only inches from mine. “For a high school English teacher, you’ve had an interesting couple of weeks.” He tipped the journal closed and set it gently back on the table.
I straightened up a little without letting go of his arm. “How do you know that’s not just a cover?” I asked him matter-of-factly.
“I don’t,” he admitted. “But I can find out . . . and I plan to be very thorough in my investigation.”
“Knock yourself out,” I said smugly.
The smugness fell away when he shifted suddenly, pushing me back on the couch under the weight of his very solid body. His breath was hot on my neck, and his hands were already skimming up under my sweater. And I smiled to myself as I murmured, “My Mr. Knightley.”
Luckily, Ethan didn’t call me on the quote, which had come directly from the movie.
“I can’t tell if the awesome outweighs the lame, or vice versa,” I said from the passenger seat of Ethan’s parked car. A car that reeked of garlic and fried beef. En route to our “off-book” sting operation, we’d darted into the parking lot at the corner of Second Street and Congress when we’d seen the Chi’Lantro food cart flip open its serving window. We figured lunch would help us kill time during the surveillance lull. Rookie mistake. After eating two bulgogi tacos and dousing the fire with a medium-sized Coke and half of Ethan’s medium tea, and then sitting, inactive but for the Words with Friends game raging between us on our iPhones, I was bored and desperate to pee.
Ethan had called in “backup” about fifteen minutes ago, reporting that the subjects were both on the premises. His actual words were “They’re both here; whenever you’re ready.”
When he hung up, I verbally flayed him. “Whenever you’re ready?! Call them back and tell them we’re ready now, and we have to pee!”
His head was already bent over the word game, but with a sidelong glance in my direction, he said, “They are so psyched for this that they’ve probably already peeled out of the parking lot. I’d go odds that one of them even tried sliding across the hood of the car, feeling a little Bo Duke. And I don’t really have to pee.”
I gritted my teeth. “They” were fellow “Language Officers” Ethan had solicited to play along with this little Black Friday payback. I’d already spent a good five minutes teasing Ethan over his badass job title, but my mood had darkened slightly under the pressure, and I was willing to go for round two.
“So are you guys like real-life, legitimate grammar police?”
His gaze slid in my direction, but his expression didn’t shift.
“We step in if the occasion warrants,” he deadpanned.
I couldn’t
help it; I started laughing, and immediately pinched my legs together to prevent an unfortunate accident.
“Real-life agents aren’t nearly as cool as they’re written for TV,” he said a little defensively, shooting me a sidelong glance. “We get the job done without resorting to MacGyver tactics.”
“Maybe it’s the MacGyver tactics that keep the agents from dozing off. Come to think of it, the way Hollywood writes ’em, the agents don’t bother to wait for backup. They just go in guns blazing, tie things up, and then go out for a drink. And maybe a bathroom break.”
“Jack Bauer never had to go to the bathroom,” Ethan said. “In twenty-four hours.”
“It was the adrenaline,” I snapped. “And I’m stuck on empty, sitting in a parked car playing virtual Scrabble. When is the damn backup going to get here?” I asked, trying to keep the urgency out of my voice, glancing in my side mirror, hoping I could make backup appear by sheer force of will. “How about we detour to the nearest convenience store while we’re waiting? It’ll take me two minutes, tops.”
Ethan reached behind him and produced an empty water bottle from the floor of the backseat. He offered it to me without even glancing in my direction.
I stared at it belligerently. “You planned this, didn’t you? You ply me with spicy foods so that I gulp down a jumbo drink, then tell the backup to come whenever the hell they’re ready, keep me sitting here for an hour, so I’m desperate to pee, and then hand me a freakin’ water bottle?!”
Ethan chuckled. “If you recall, it was your idea to get tacos. And you ordered a medium drink and then decided to drink half of mine.”
“Dammit, Ethan!” I swung my gaze around to seethe out the window, wondering if I dared go squat behind one of the giant inflatable Santas already decorating a handful of lawns on this street. Clearly these people were proponents of the “decorate for Christmas to kill time before Thanksgiving dinner” way of thinking. My only defense for even considering such tacky behavior was that it was a freakin’ emergency.
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