Jane Goes Batty

by Michael Thomas Ford

  “Let me help you with this,” Jane said, reaching for a bag and following after the girl. As she passed Ant she shot him a withering look, which he didn’t notice because he was busy looking at something on his iPhone.

  “Shel!” he yelled, his brow knitting up in confusion. “How do I make a call on this thing?”

  I believe I will have a talk with your sister, Jane thought as she walked to the van. She felt her fangs slip into place, and ran the tip of her tongue over their needle-sharp points before drawing them back up again. And then I may just have a few words with you as well.

  “AUSTEN A GO-GO?”

  Jane looked at the pink flyer that one of the twins had just handed her.

  “What is it?” Ant asked, pointing the video camera in Jane’s face before she could answer. “Is it something bad?”

  Jane, who was reading the rest of the flyer, ignored him. A sick feeling was blooming in her stomach, followed closely by a rush of rage.

  “How dare she?” she said furiously, balling the flyer up and flinging it into the trash can beneath the front desk. Several people browsing Flyleaf’s shelves turned to look for the source of the noise.

  “She dropped them off while I was at lunch,” said Lucy. “If I’d been here, I would have told her where to go with her stupid—”

  “It’s all right,” Jane assured her. “I just can’t believe the gall of that woman.”

  “What woman?” Ant asked, still following Jane and filming her.

  “Nobody,” said Jane. “And turn that thing off!”

  “Sorry,” Ant replied. “I’ve got to get everything. Besides, this looks like it might be good.”

  “It’s many things,” said Jane. “And none of them is good.”

  “I apologize for upsetting you,” said the twin who had given Jane the flyer. “I didn’t know who she was, and she seemed pleasant enough.”

  “It’s all right.…” Jane hesitated.

  “Ted,” the young man said.

  “It’s all right, Ted,” said Jane.

  “Who is she?” asked Ned, appearing beside his brother.

  “Beverly Shrop,” Jane answered, her teeth grinding on the name.

  “The ShropTalk woman?” said Ted, or possibly Ned.

  “Yes,” Jane said. “That’s the one.”

  “She’s a moron.” Shelby’s voice emerged from the uncomfortable silence that had descended.

  “Quiet,” Ant hissed at his sister.

  “I’m sorry,” said Shelby. “But she is. Have you seen her site? It’s crap.”

  Jane suppressed a smile. “Not the word I might have chosen, perhaps,” she said. “But vividly accurate nonetheless.”

  “So what’s this Austen A Go-Go?” Ant pressed.

  Jane sighed. “Apparently Beverly Shrop has organized a festival of sorts for fans of romantic novels, of which she considers Austen’s prime examples.”

  “And that’s bad?” asked Ant.

  “In theory, no,” Jane answered. “But Beverly has an uncanny ability to make things … inconvenient.”

  “She’s a horror show,” Lucy clarified. “She’s turned writers and books into a cottage industry, when really she knows nothing at all about them. Austen A Go-Go. Honestly.”

  “There’s going to be a Darcy look-alike contest,” Shelby said, reading one of the flyers. “And a Team Austen versus Team Brontë softball tournament.”

  Jane groaned. “Fabulous,” she said.

  “Someone named Tavish Osborn is a guest speaker,” Shelby continued.

  “What?” Lucy and Jane exclaimed in unison.

  “Tavish Osborn,” Shelby repeated. “Do you know him?”

  “Vaguely,” Jane muttered, thinking, How could he?

  “He’s going to be giving a lecture called ‘The Real Jane Austen,’ ” said Shelby.

  Lucy and Jane exchanged looks. That’s it, Jane thought. Why hadn’t Byron said anything to her about Beverly’s ridiculous event? And what exactly did he mean by the real Jane Austen?

  “Oh, good. You’ve seen the flyer.”

  Jane turned to see Beverly Shrop approaching at a brisk clip. As usual, she was dressed in pink, and her face wore a cheerful smile that appeared to be painted on with copious amounts of red lipstick, much like a clown’s ghastly perpetually grinning mouth.

  “Beverly,” Jane said without enthusiasm.

  “Doesn’t it sound delicious?” Beverly asked. “I’m especially looking forward to Tavish’s talk.”

  “Aren’t we all?” asked Jane.

  “I would have asked you to speak,” Beverly said. “But I know how very busy you are trying to get your next book written.”

  And how would you know that? Jane wondered. Just what had Beverly and Byron talked about? She would most certainly have to have a word with him.

  “It’s true,” Jane said. “I am quite busy at the moment.”

  “Well, I hope you’ll at least grace us with your presence,” said Beverly. “Oh, and if you’d like to sell your book at the event, feel free to bring a few copies. Blockstone’s will be selling copies of Tavish’s Penelope Wentz novels.”

  “Blockstone’s?” said Jane, the name of the rival bookstore bitter on her tongue. “Why not have us sell his—”

  “I have to run,” Beverly said. “Lovely seeing you.”

  Fuming, Jane watched Beverly leave the store.

  “Wow,” said Shelby. “She really is something.”

  “You’re breaking the wall!” Ant shouted at her. “Rule one. Don’t get involved with the subject!”

  Shelby ignored him. “You should have a big sale on this Tavish guy’s books right before the event,” she suggested to Jane. “That would really piss her off.”

  Jane nodded. “Yes,” she said, smiling at Shelby. “It certainly would.” She was liking the young woman more and more.

  “Jane, you have a phone call.” One of the twins leaned over the counter, covering the receiver with his hand. “It’s a Jessica Abernathy.”

  For a moment Jane couldn’t remember why the name was familiar to her. Then it hit her. “Oh!” she said. “Of course. I’ll take it in the office.” She turned to Ant, who was beginning to follow her. “This is private,” she informed him. Without waiting for him to object, she went into the office and closed the door behind her, relieved to finally be alone.

  She took a moment to calm herself before picking up the phone.

  “Hello, Jessica,” she said. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said a husky voice. “I hear we’re used to waiting for you around here.” Jessica laughed. It sounded like sandpaper rubbing against an obstinate board.

  “I’m sorry?” said Jane. “Waiting for me?”

  “It’s a joke,” Jessica said. “You know, waiting for your manuscript. Wasn’t it due six months ago?”

  “Something like that,” said Jane. “I’m working on it.”

  “You might want to think about working faster. We’re already going to miss the holiday shopping season. Now you’re into spring at the earliest and more likely summer. You don’t want to come out in summer. You’ll get buried. Nicholas Sparks has a new one out in June. So does Jodi Picoult. And I heard King has three hitting the stores in time for vacation season. You’ll be lost in that bunch.”

  “My last book did very well,” Jane reminded her. “It was number one for—”

  “Three weeks,” Jessica said. “I know. But the remainder bins are filled with second books that flopped. You can’t assume anything. Especially if you wait too long between books. People will forget you.”

  Jane wondered if Jessica remembered rejecting Constance. It certainly sounded as if she wasn’t entirely thrilled about working with Jane on the new book. At the very least she was hardly being encouraging.

  “Anyway, I’d like to have it by the end of the month,” Jessica continued.

  “I don’t know if—”

  “Great,” said Jessica. “We’ll
talk then.”

  The line went dead. Jane stared at the phone for a moment. She felt shaky and disoriented, as she had as a girl when her brothers would hold her by the wrists and swing her around and around. Then she had enjoyed the giddiness that resulted. Now she merely felt sick. That didn’t go at all well, she thought.

  The phone rang again. She picked it up with some hesitation, wary that it might be Jessica calling back to tell her that her book had been canceled altogether. But it was Kelly.

  “I’m calling from my new office,” he told Jane. “Wait till you see my view.”

  “I just spoke with Jessica Abernathy,” said Jane, skipping the pleasantries.

  “How did it go?” Kelly asked.

  “I’m not sure I know,” Jane said. “She’s rather difficult to read.”

  Kelly laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “She loves your work.”

  “Really?” Jane said. “I’m not so sure I got that from our little talk.”

  “When I interviewed her she just raved about Constance,” Kelly said. “She said she couldn’t wait to get her hands on your new manuscript.”

  Yes, Jane thought. So that she can toss it in the shredder.

  “You’re just anxious about working with someone new,” Kelly continued. “But you’ve still got me. I’ll read whatever you have before you give it to Jessica. In fact, why don’t you email me what you’ve got and I’ll take a look.”

  “Maybe,” Jane said. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him that there was nothing more for him to read than there’d been the last time he asked.

  “I saw Satvari at a publishing party last night,” said Kelly. “She tells me a film crew is invading Brakeston.”

  “Yes,” Jane said. “Some of them are already here. Did she tell you they were following me around documenting my thrilling existence?”

  “No,” Kelly replied. “Are they really? Are they there now?”

  “Lurking just outside the door, I expect,” said Jane.

  “It sounds like things are crazy there,” Kelly remarked.

  “You have no idea,” said Jane. “Did I tell you Walter’s mother is coming to visit?”

  “I sympathize,” Kelly said. “Bryce’s mother was just here for a week. I thought I was going to kill her. She’s pressuring us to get a baby so she can have a grandchild. She says she wants a black one because they’re more exotic than white babies and everyone else has Asian ones. If you’d heard her, you’d swear she was talking about a cat.”

  “She sounds intriguing,” Jane said. “And perhaps the tiniest bit racist.”

  “She’s a loon,” said Kelly. “Oh, and she wants us to name it after her grandmother. Her name was Parsimony.”

  “Do you and Bryce even want a baby?” Jane asked.

  “Not really,” said Kelly. “But it might be fun. We could dress it up and buy it toys.”

  “Now who sounds as if he’s talking about a cat?” Jane teased.

  “I know,” said Kelly. “It’s ridiculous. But just think of it. Parsimony Littlejohn-Manx. It’s kind of cute.”

  “It’s horrid,” Jane told him.

  Kelly sighed. “It really is,” he admitted. “What do you think of Aida Littlejohn-Manx?”

  “Only slightly less horrid,” said Jane.

  “Does Walter want children?” Kelly asked.

  The question took Jane by surprise. “I don’t know,” she said. “We’ve never discussed it. But it really doesn’t matter. I’m far too old for that sort of thing.”

  “You aren’t,” Kelly said. “They can do wonderful things with in vitro these days. A friend of ours is pregnant for the first time at forty-seven. With twins. Can you imagine?”

  Jane did imagine it. And she was horrified. It had never occurred to her that Walter might want children. She wasn’t even sure she could have children. Of course, the girl in the Twilight books did, she mused.

  “You know I’m joking,” Kelly said after Jane had been silent for some time.

  “Of course,” said Jane. “I was just trying to imagine going to my child’s graduation at the age of two hundred and fifty-three.”

  Kelly laughed, not knowing that she was serious. “You don’t look a day over a hundred and sixty-two,” he told her.

  “Moisturizer,” Jane joked. “And you’re too kind. Anyway, I don’t think children are in our future.”

  “His mother may have different ideas,” said Kelly. “Do you have any idea what she’s like?”

  “None whatsoever,” Jane said. “I’m sure she’s lovely. After all, look at her son.”

  “That’s what I thought about Bryce’s mother,” said Kelly. “Look how well that turned out.” He paused for a moment. “But I’m sure you’re right.”

  Jane heard another voice, muffled, on the end of the line. Then Kelly said, “I have a client here, so I have to go. But don’t worry about Jessica. Or the film crew. Or Walter’s mother. It will all be fine.”

  Jane hung up. Not wanting to face Ant and his camera quite yet, she remained seated at the desk. She hoped Kelly was right. She had enough to worry about without adding stress about her new editor hating her work to the list. And I haven’t even told him about Austen A Go-Go, she reminded herself.

  A crash coming from the other room made her jump. She instinctively started to get up to investigate; then she sat down again.

  “Let someone else deal with it,” she said. “I quit.”

  RABBI BEN COHEN WAS NOT AT ALL WHAT JANE HAD EXPECTED. AS he rose to shake her hand she found herself taken aback by both his age and his appearance. Much younger than she would have thought possible for a religious leader, he was also much more handsome. She had envisioned someone well into his later years, perhaps with a bushy beard and glasses through which he peered out at the world with sad eyes. But Ben Cohen appeared no more than thirty, had no beard or glasses, and looked as if he’d just walked off a rugby pitch.

  “Welcome,” he said. “Please. Have a seat.”

  There was a desk in Rabbi Cohen’s office, but he did not sit at it. Instead he settled himself onto one end of a stylish black leather couch while Jane took one of two sleek armchairs opposite it. Looking at the rabbi, she couldn’t help but notice the large painting on the wall behind him.

  “Is that a Pollock?” she asked.

  The rabbi nodded. “It is,” he said. “A gift from him to my grandmother in 1948. She was quite a beauty,” he added without further explanation.

  What with the painting and the furniture, Jane felt as if she were in the living room of a New York socialite instead of the office of a rabbi of a small upstate synagogue. But Ben Cohen’s easy demeanor was anything but snobbish, and Jane suspected he’d grown up in far different circumstances.

  “I prefer outsider art myself,” Ben said. “That painting behind you, for instance.”

  Jane turned to look at the canvas hung on the wall opposite the couch. The same size as the Pollock, it was entirely different in mood and appearance. A figure composed of rectangles and circles stood surrounded by odd birdlike creatures breathing fire. The figure was of indeterminate gender and appeared to have several faces, each in its own circle and looking out in all directions. Above the figure what was unmistakably an angel reached down with open arms.

  “It was done by a patient of mine,” Ben said. “A woman who suffered from multiple personality disorder. This personality—William—was an artist.”

  “Patient?” said Jane.

  “I’m a psychologist,” Ben explained. “I interned at Bellevue as part of my postgraduate work.”

  “When did you become a rabbi?” Jane asked.

  Ben smiled, and his eyes momentarily took on an air of sadness. “Six years ago,” he said. “I decided I wanted to know more about God.”

  Jane turned back to him. “And do you?” she asked.

  “No,” Ben said, shaking his head. “Not so much.”

  Jane couldn’t help smiling. The rabbi’s honesty was charming.


  “Do you believe in God, Jane?” he asked.

  Jane’s smile faded. “Not so much,” she admitted.

  It was Ben’s turn to smile. “May I ask why?”

  Jane sighed. “My father was a reverend,” she told him. “An Anglican. Naturally, so was I. It wasn’t until … later that I began to question things.”

  “Later,” the rabbi said. “Was there a specific incident?”

  When I became one of the living dead, Jane thought. She wondered what Ben Cohen would say if she told him she was a vampire. Would he treat her as if she had multiple personalities? Would he recommend hospitalization in a psychiatric facility?

  “Not really,” she told him. “More like an accumulation of them.”

  “And yet now you want to convert to Judaism,” said Ben. “That’s an interesting decision for someone who isn’t sure she believes in God.”

  I might as well tell him the truth, Jane thought. “My boyfriend’s mother wants me to be Jewish,” she said, her cheeks reddening at the word boyfriend. It sounded so juvenile.

  “I see,” said Ben. “Well, you wouldn’t be the first person to convert for that reason.”

  “It’s all rather silly,” Jane said. “Walter wasn’t even really raised Jewish. His father and stepmother were Episcopalian. But his mother is Jewish, and that makes him Jewish.”

  “I’ve heard that,” said Ben.

  Jane put her hand to her forehead. “Of course you have,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s just that it’s all a bit much to handle right now on top of everything else.”

  “Everything else?” said Ben.

  “The new book, my new editor, the film, Beverly Shrop.” Jane looked up. “You don’t need to hear all this.”

  “It is what I do,” said Ben.

  “Yes, but it’s not why I’m here,” Jane replied, composing herself. “Although I imagine you’re going to tell me that I’m a poor candidate for conversion, so I might as well go.”

  “Why would I say that?” Ben asked.