Austensibly Ordinary (11 page)

“You're a lifesaver, Cate. I'll pick you up Friday at seven.”

“I'll be ready,” I assured him. He had no idea.

“So what are you doing on your free period?”

He also had no idea how very loaded that question was.

I tried for offhanded. “Just a few little tasks that I've been putting off.” I switched the two pens I'd just stashed in the pencil cup back to their specified place, figuring I'd prefer not to get caught over messing with Ethan's head.

“Okay, well. Good luck with that, and I'll see you Friday.” And just like that, the tickle was gone.

The search turned up absolutely nothing. Not only were his desk drawers locked and his desk calendar blank for every month through the rest of the year (I checked), his desktop could have belonged to anyone. Well, anyone with a compulsion for neatness and secret keeping. I nudged the mouse, hoping for a quick look at his computer, and a little box appeared on the screen. Above it swirled a series of characters from a language I didn't recognize.

I rolled my eyes. Either Ethan was learning another language, or he was making one up. I turned toward the keyboard, intending to type in “geek” and leave it for Ethan to find, but when I pressed the keys, more swirly, unidentifiable characters showed up. The man had programmed his computer to translate the English alphabet into some mystery language. I held down the Delete key until all the characters disappeared from the input box. Then I carefully typed “Got secrets?” I had no idea if it would still be there when Ethan got back. Or if it would translate correctly. Or if he'd dust the keyboard for my fingerprints in addition to his general dusting. It didn't matter. I could think of a believable excuse for being in his classroom, sitting in his chair, and typing at his keyboard. I'd work on it.

The second interesting call of the day came in around the time a museum curator—or whatever it was I imagined I might do at the Museum of Art when I let the little white lie slip—might have lunch. It came during fourth-period English at Travis Oaks High School, during a discussion of
Emma. On my burner phone!
Which I had pulled from amid the lollipop jumble on my way out the door that morning. I ignored it while my pulse jumped in my throat and my voice caught on a question to the class.

“If we could chat with Jane Austen over tea at Starbucks, what do you think she'd say about Emma Woodhouse? Do you think Jane herself subscribed to the idea of matchmaking?”

These questions had more than a literary component; I was still trying to get a feel for the Jane Austen influence on the journal. Outside opinions couldn't hurt.

Piper Vane raised her hand and then answered. “I don't know what she'd say to Emma—maybe ‘listen to your future husband and mind your own business'—but I definitely think Jane had the itch. Could be she was just like Emma, but with enough sense to manipulate fictional characters instead of real people.”

As usual the bulk of the class made a show of solidarity, slowly nodding in ponderous agreement, letting their chins jut forward so as to suggest that there was really nothing more to be said. I wasn't in the mood to draw anyone out.

“I agree, Piper. Ms. Austen was an observer of human nature who couldn't resist the challenge of throwing people together and carefully nuancing the outcome by her own design. Behaving in such a way in real life could be disastrous. But there is always the chance that it could work out beautifully.”

I was counting on it.

“Anyone else?”

“If I were chatting at Starbucks with Jane Austen,” drawled Alex, a pencil tucked behind his ear, “I would have suggested she add a character or two with the balls to go up against Emma to make it interesting. Everything was too easy for her. Mr. Elton put up a little fight, but it's not much of a fight if you spend half the time telling your opponent you're in love with her.” He quirked an eyebrow in my direction. “I'd also suggest she skip the tea and go for the espresso.”

“Good point, Alex,” I said, glossing over the “balls” mention. “Mr. Knightley was the intended foil for Emma, but I'm not sure he really rose to the occasion as he might have. I think a little more spirited opposition from that quarter would have made him a more interesting character, and perhaps
Emma
an even more interesting book.” I speared him with a look, still not entirely certain he hadn't chosen Gwyneth Paltrow over the printed word. He gave up nothing.

And for the time being he was safe.

I didn't get a chance to check my messages until the last bell rang and I dropped into my chair with a bottle of Orange Crush from the vending machine. Every part of me felt fluttery and excited. I let my eyes slide shut at the sound of his voice, remembering.

“This call is for Cat Kennedy. This is Jake Tielman. We met at the Hitchcock shindig on Halloween, where I was an over-the-top Jimmy Stewart. I wanted to let you know that the cast is off, I've gone cold turkey off the hair gel and ditched the pajamas. I'm hoping I can convince you to be my date to a wedding this Saturday. Good friend, gotta go—we can pretend we're spies if that sweetens the deal any. I still haven't gotten to finish out the twenty questions you promised me. So please call me. This line is secure.” He added the last almost as an afterthought.

I smiled to myself, appreciating the
North by Northwest
reference and licking the taste of gummy orange slices off my lips for five long, luxurious, imaginative seconds before my eyes flashed open in sudden awareness.
I can't go.
I'd waited long, urgent hours for this call. I'd second-guessed, made excuses, and even begun to formulate a backup plan. And now he'd called, and I'd let his voice, full of playful confidence and flirty innuendo distract me. But I couldn't go. I was going to a wedding with Ethan. And I could guarantee we wouldn't be pretending to be spies.

Seriously, what were the odds of me being asked to two weddings at the very last minute by two separate guys?? They were insane is what they were.

Damn, I was tired of being thwarted.

But it didn't stop there. It was just one of those days. The journal had it in for me too.

 

 

I stared for several long uncertain moments, wondering how to take this one. With every new little snippet of advice, I went haring off on a mental scavenger hunt, trying to find the link that would bridge the clues and help me decode the secret message. It was my fault, clearly, for having entirely too much imagination and no one to keep me in check, but that didn't ease the situation any.

This one could be referring to my recent snooping session into Ethan's private life, or it could be playing off the clichéd sentiment about absent hearts, hinting at my growing obsession with Jake. With that interpretation, it was even possible the reference was giving me a heads-up for next week's barbecue night with Mr. Carr and my mom. Suddenly I was tired and not particularly in the mood to puzzle it out.

I'd called the mysterious Mr. Tielman back after a fifteen-minute pity party and gotten his voice mail. I'd carefully declined, casually hinting at my other plans and a desire to meet again. I relished the feeling of playing hard to get, but I didn't want to overdo it. I suppose if nothing else, I could attend Syd's next event and hope to run into him there. Although. . . Syd and her crew were pretty unpredictable. Our next meeting could very well involve dining family style in the middle of an organic farm field, which didn't exactly scream vintage vixen. I needed the man to call me again—for a night I
hadn't
agreed to step in as a token wedding date.

I was starting to have a bit of trouble trying to keep track of all the little subplots in my own life. It was almost as if I was in the middle of an Austen novel, and while exhausting, it truly couldn't have been more thrilling.

 

I'd made a deal with Mom: She wouldn't object to an evening of lasagna and Yahtzee with a strange man her daughter had hand-picked for her if I'd come back to the store this week and switch out the Halloween window displays for something appropriately autumnal. Judging by the number of times Mom had managed to work Rodney into the conversation since the “meet-cute,” she'd gotten a twofer.

Ideally I would have gotten this all done on Thursday, seeing as I'd committed to a two-night extravaganza with Ethan starting Friday, but Dmitri taught Pilates on Thursdays, as I'd recently been reminded. And I wanted to feel him out on the topic of Syd. Falling victim to a slew of social stereotypes, I'd initially assumed he was gay, but after a quick little storeroom chat, I stood (flabber-gastedly) corrected. It went something like this:

 

Dmitri:
You think I'm gay, don't you?

Me:
Not . . . necessarily. Although I've had an occasional suspicion.

Dmitri:
Because of the fashion major, because I look like a J.Crew catalog model, or because I do Pilates?

Me:
All of it?

Dmitri:
I've got good news for you, Cate. Not only am I not gay, I'm the whole package, exactly what women want: a sexy, sensitive guy with rock-hard abs and an obsession with clothes.
And
I'm available.

Me:
Are you flirting with me?

Dmitri:
God, no.

 

I thought maybe I could get him on the guest list of the next Pop-up Culture event and then step back and bask in another match well made.

So on Thursday, I borrowed a bunch of outdated textbooks and classroom copies of past years' required reading, dragged them home with me, and hunkered down in front of the television with Mom to watch a
Burn Notice
marathon. She'd taken the script-writing suggestion seriously and kept making mental notes to herself. Audible mental notes.

“Sam could stand to ease up on the beers a bit and work on buffing himself up. It's pretty obvious that his Hawaiian shirt is hiding a little potbelly. Or maybe it's not so little,” she'd opined, sliding her scissors skillfully along a roll of kraft paper.

I refrained from commenting.

“He may be charming and a sexy salt-and-pepper, but a woman needs more than that.”

I cut my eyes around at her. “A sexy ‘salt-and-pepper'? Is that a new term?”

Mom's lips twitched. “I think my lunch bunch made it up. They tend to be rather feisty.”

“What do they call ‘women of a certain age'?”

“Cougars,” she said, giggling. I rolled my eyes and turned back to finish taping the end flaps on the book I'd just finished wrapping.

“Well, Rodney's all that and a bag of chips, which he can eat because he doesn't have a potbelly.”

“Not yet,” she admitted, clearly not optimistic about his chances to “maintain.”

“Well, Dad didn't have a potbelly when you decided to split up, and he's in even better shape now.”

“Your father likes to impress the chippies, always did. I give him full points for staying fit and attractive at his age. Sex wasn't our problem, sweetheart. We did just fine in that department.”

I slid my finished book onto the stack and hopped up, looking for a quick escape. “I'm just gonna get a snack. You want anything?”

“I wouldn't say no to a Milky Way Midnight,” she said, her attention already refocused on the diversionary explosion on TV.

I blamed Gemma for this. Her little bomb drop had liberated Mom a little too much. When my sister had decided to enroll in grad school in microbiology, Mom had informed her that she'd either need a grant or a student loan because the money she and Dad had put away for college had run out after one degree per daughter. Gemma won three separate grants, but they weren't enough, and rather than supplement with a student loan, she decided to take a job as a phone sex operator. She spent hours every day alone in a lab and could pretty much let a phone chat run its X-rated course. Little did her call-ins know that she was wearing a Bluetooth, lab coat, and sexy spectacles and running her experiments while giving them exactly what they wanted. Or maybe they did know, and that just helped things along. I was left to deal with Mom and the sex talk.

I slipped quietly back into the living room and settled in to finish wrapping books, trying not to engage Mom in any questionable conversational gambits. It was a long night.

On Friday afternoon, I hustled out of the building after the last bell, jumped into a car overflowing with kraft-paper-wrapped books, and hightailed it down to Mirror, Mirror, parking illegally in front of the shop to unload the cascades of books. I needed to work like a fiend to give myself enough time to get dressed and ready by seven.

I requisitioned Dmitri to help me, putting him in charge of the mannequins, and did my best to have a serious conversation while squatting in the storefront window, fanning books open and folding pages into billowy loops, precise chevrons, and whatever else I could come up with.

“Have I introduced you to my friend Syd?” I asked casually. “She's the one that started up the culinary underground business—their events tend to get pretty regular write-ups in
The Chronicle.”
I glanced over at him as he cinched a black patent leather belt over a mustard yellow cardigan topping a forest green wool pencil skirt.

“You've mentioned her, but we've never met.” He pulled a trio of vintage brooches from his pocket and pinned them onto the cardigan in a cluster.

“I need to get you on their mailing list—their events are Weird City renowned. From the outside they have the feel of an exclusive party with a secret password to get in, but inside it's just cool people sipping signature drinks and eating gourmet food.”