My Jane Austen Summer (21 page)

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 exclaim
ing, "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."

T
wo 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 res
cued 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."

"Why?"

Again, Willis looked at me as if I should understand from context. "Because I was afraid."

"Afraid of what?" I asked.

Willis shook his head uncomfortably. "Afraid of what would happen if I failed to honor my commitments," he said. "Afraid of what would happen if I
did
fulfill them." Willis leaned into the table and pulled my forearm to him. His face was slightly flushed from emotion, the muscles around his mouth not quite under control. He looked straight into me and I knew he spoke from his heart. "I was afraid you would give up on me. That you would stop coming to find me." He closed his eyes and kissed the inside of my wrist, the white place where the veins meet close to the surface.

Tears fell down my cheeks. I rose from my chair and stood before him, my bare feet on the old wood floor, shivering in my thin lavender nightgown.

"I like looking at you." He sighed.

"Hold me," I said.

He pulled off his raincoat and let it fall, then opened his
arms and took me on his lap. I fit myself into him, sliding my arms around his back, savoring the essence of this person who attracted me so ferociously, whose existence connected me joyfully with my own life.

He spoke into my hair. "Is this what you wanted to know?" he asked. "Does it make things better? Or worse?"

"I love you." I moved my lips, barely making any sound, knowing my words would be met with silence.

He held me tighter. "I don't know what to make of you, Lily. We should have met in our secret attic years ago."

"I won't be your secret," I said softly.

He kissed my hair. "Of course you won't."

I listened to the rain through his arms.

"I'll try and sort things out," he said. "Can you give me some time?"

I told myself that if I let him go, he would come back to me. But I sensed My Jane Austen somewhere, making a list of silly ideas. Certainly some Austen character had agreed to wait for a man. Fanny waited for Edmund, sort of. Marianne waited for Willoughby. Sue waited for my dad.

"I'll wait for you," I whispered.

"You won't run off with Sixby?" he said.

"Heavens, no."

∗ ∗ ∗

Once Willis was gone, I staved off regret and despair by cleaning furiously, feeling like a secret in spite of assurances to the contrary. I made the beds, threw Bets's dirty clothes into her closet, and disposed of trash, all the while contemplating the news that Willis almost got married in June. He had forgotten to take his jacket, again.

In the bathroom, I filled the tub with just enough water, blending cold and hot from separate faucets, to wash my hair and get clean. Leaning forward and rinsing under the cold-
water faucet, I felt exhilarated by my newfound
lack of artifice
. A large quantity of soap foam quickly melted to milky scum and I was about to stand up when urgent footsteps sounded in the hall; distant knocking. I waited, not moving in the tub. He couldn't be back already. Gray scum clung to the side of the tub.

The knocker struck again; a new voice called my name.

"Lily," Vera said.

"I'm in the tub," I yelled, quickly lifting myself out of the water, wondering what excuse I would offer for being AWOL.

Her footsteps grew nearer; I grabbed my towel.

"Lily?"

"I'm in here." I opened the door of my stall and Vera leaned against the frame, a book in her hand. Her face had lines today that hadn't been there before.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "Everyone's asking where you are."

"I'm fine."

Vera hesitated, catching her breath.

"What are you reading?" I asked.

Vera looked at the book. "Magda left this for you."

A copy of
Mansfield Park
. Bitch.

The drip from the faucet plopped in the dirty water.