The Jane Austen Book Club (24 page)

“I used to have nightmares,” Grigg said, “where I was being chased by wayward girls with knives.”

“Of course,” Cat said. “You would. Doesn't it make you wonder where all those girls are now? What they went on to be?”

“Turn here,” Sylvia told Jocelyn, just because they'd come to a yard filled with roses.

Jocelyn turned. Let Saint Thérèse guide them home.

Or let them all end up at the Los Guilicos School for wayward girls. Sylvia was fine with it either way.

J
ocelyn was being very quiet. This was partly because she couldn't hear the conversation in the backseat. But it was mostly because while they were on the beach, while Allegra and Sylvia were still poking about the tide pools and Grigg was throwing bits of driftwood for the dogs, learning that Ridgebacks weren't fetchers like that, Cat had abruptly, without warning, had a word with her. “My brother likes you,” she'd said. “He'd kill me if he knew I told you so, but I figure this is for the best. This way it's up to you. God knows it can't be left up to him. He'll never make a move.”

“Did he tell you he liked me?” Jocelyn immediately regretted having asked. How high school had that sounded?

“Please. I know my brother,” which Jocelyn supposed meant he hadn't. She turned away, looked down the beach toward Grigg and her dogs. They were headed to her, coming at a
gallop. She saw that Thembe, at least, was smitten, couldn't take his eyes off Grigg.

Ridgebacks are hounds, which means friendly, but independent. Jocelyn liked them for the challenge; there's no glory in a well-behaved shepherd. She liked independent men as well. Before the library fund-raiser Grigg had always seemed so eager to please.

And then he joined them and nothing more could be said. He was obviously fond of his sister; that was attractive. The two of them stood together, his arm around her shoulder. Cat had an open, outdoorish face. She looked her age and then some. But the sun was full on her, which hardly one woman in a thousand could stand the test of. It was obviously a good bloodline. Both brother and sister had good teeth, neat little ears, deep chests, long limbs.

When she dropped Sylvia off, Jocelyn told her what Cat had said. Grigg and Cat had already been taken home. Allegra had gone straight inside to make a phone call. “I'm not at all convinced Cat knew what she was talking about,” Jocelyn said. “Grigg and I had a big fight the other night. Apologies all around, but still . . . Anyway, I kind of had Grigg in mind for you. You're the one he asked to lunch.”

“Well, I don't want him,” Sylvia answered. “I took your boyfriend away from you back in high school and it all came to nothing. I'm not doing it again. Do you like him?”

“I'm too old for him.”

“And yet I'm not.”

“He was to be a fling.”

“You fling him.”

“I think I'll read those books he gave me,” Jocelyn said. “If they turn out to be good books, well then, maybe. Maybe I'll give
it a try.” At least she'd never been, thank God, the kind of woman who stopped liking a guy just because he maybe liked her back.

T
here was a letter pushed under Sylvia's door, picked up by Allegra and left on the dining room table. “I want to come home,” the letter said. “I made the most terrible mistake and you should never forgive me, but you should also know that I want to come home.

“I've always felt that making everyone happy was my job, and then like a failure if you or the kids couldn't produce that happiness for me. I didn't figure this out for myself. I'm seeing a counselor.

“So I was stupid enough to blame you for not being happier. Now I think, if I could come home again, I'd let you have your own moods, your lovely, loving alarms.

“Last week I knew I never wanted to be with a woman I couldn't bring to my child's hospital room. I had this dream while we were in those awful chairs. In my dream there was a forest. (Remember how we took the kids to the Snoqualmie National Park and Diego said, ‘You said we were going to a forest. There's nothing here but trees'?) I couldn't find you. I got more and more panicked, and then I woke up and you were right across the room from me. It was such a relief I can't even say. You asked me how Pam was. I haven't seen Pam for two months. She wasn't the woman for me after all.

“I've been unjust, weak, resentful, and inconstant. But in my heart it's always been you.”

Sylvia sat folding and unfolding the letter, trying to see how she felt about it. It made her happy. It made her angry. It made her think that Daniel was no prize. He was coming home, because no one else turned out to want him.

She didn't show the letter to Allegra. She didn't even tell Jocelyn. Jocelyn would respond however Sylvia wished, but Sylvia didn't know yet what response that would be. It was too important a moment to ask Jocelyn to go through it unguided. Sylvia wanted things simple, but they refused to simplify. She carried the letter about, rereading and rereading, watching her feelings rearrange about it, sentence by sentence, like a kaleidoscope.

T
he last official meeting of the Jane Austen book club took place at Sylvia's again. It had been in the low nineties all day, which is not so bad for August in the Valley. The sun sank and a Delta breeze came up. We sat on Sylvia's deck, underneath the big walnut tree. She made peach margaritas and served homemade strawberry sherbet with homemade sugar cookies. Really, no one could have asked for a prettier evening.

The meeting began with an unveiling. Sylvia had a birthday coming. It was still a few weeks off, but Allegra had made something she wanted us all to see, so she gave it to Sylvia early, wrapped in last week's funny papers. It was about the size and shape of a holiday cheese-ball. We would have guessed Sylvia was the sort to unknot the ribbon, carefully remove and fold the paper. Instead she tore it apart. Sahara and Thembe couldn't have opened it faster, even working together.

Allegra had bought one of those black Magic 8-Balls, reamed it open, replaced the answers, and sealed it. She'd painted it a dark green, and over the old 8, she'd transferred a reproduction of Cassandra Austen's sketch of her sister, set in a framed oval like a cameo. It wasn't a very attractive portrait; we were certain she had been prettier than this, but when you need a picture of Jane Austen you don't have a lot of choices.

A ribbon wound about the ball.
Ask Austen
was painted in red
on the ribbon. Allegra had matched Austen's writing from a facsimile in the university library.

“Go ahead,” Allegra said. “Ask a question.”

Sylvia got up to give Allegra a kiss. It was the most fantastic present! Allegra was so very clever. But Sylvia couldn't think of a question benign enough for its maiden forecast. Later, when she was alone, she thought she had some things to ask.

“I'll go,” Bernadette offered. Bernadette was nicely dressed tonight, not a hair out of place. Her socks didn't match, but why should they? Her shoes did. It was rakish.

“Should I take a trip?” Bernadette asked Austen. She'd been contemplating a birding expedition to Costa Rica. Pricey, but not if you calculated it bird by bird. She shook the ball, upended it, and waited.
It is not everyone who has your passion for dead leaves,
she read.

“Go in autumn,” Jocelyn translated.

Prudie took the ball next. Something about Prudie just looked right with an object of divination. Her snow-white skin, sharp features, dark, bottomless eyes. We thought how she should always be holding one, like a fashion accessory. “Should I buy a new computer?” Prudie asked.

Austen answered,
My good opinion once lost is lost for ever.

“I guess that's no,” Allegra said. “You have to squint a bit. It's sort of a Zen experience.”

Next was Grigg. All summer, his hair and lashes had been bleaching at the ends. He obviously tanned easily; even that short trip to the beach made him browner. He looked five years younger, which was unfortunate if you were an older woman and contemplating dating him. “Should I write my book?” Grigg asked. “My
roman à clef
?”

Austen ignored this, answered a different question, but Grigg
was the only one of us who knew it.
He advances inch by inch, and will hazard nothing till he believes himself secure.

“I bet you could sell a bunch of these,” Grigg said. “You could put out a whole line, different writers. The Dickens ball. Mark Twain. Mickey Spillane. I'd pay a lot for access to daily advice from Mickey Spillane.”

There was a time when we might have bristled at the devolution from Austen to Spillane. But we were very fond of Grigg now. Probably he was making a joke.

He passed to Jocelyn. Jocelyn was also looking exceptionally good. She was wearing a blouse even Sylvia had never seen, so it must have been brand-new. A long, light khaki skirt. Makeup. “Should I take a chance?” Jocelyn asked.

It is not everyone who has your passion for dead leaves,
Austen told her.

“Well, that answer works equally well for any question,” Allegra noted. “Anyway, you should always take a chance. Ask Allegra.”

Jocelyn turned directly to Grigg. “I read those two Le Guins you gave me. In fact, I bought a third. I'm halfway through
Searoad
. She's just amazing. It's been forever since I found a new writer I love like that.”

Grigg blinked several times. “Le Guin's in a league of her own, of course,” he said cautiously. He gained enthusiasm. “But she's written a bunch. And there are other writers you might like, too. There's Joanna Russ and Carol Emshwiller.”

Their voices dropped; the conversation became intimate, but the bits we could hear were still about books. So Jocelyn was a science fiction reader now. We had no objection. We could see how it might be unsafe for people prone to dystopian fantasies, but as long as science fiction wasn't all you read, as long as there
was a large allowance of realism, what was the harm? It was nice to see Grigg looking so happy. Perhaps we would all start reading Le Guin.

The globe came back to Sylvia. “Should we talk about
Persuasion
now?” she asked it. Her answer:
It is not everyone who has your passion for dead leaves.

“You didn't shake it,” Allegra complained. The phone rang and she got up, went inside. “Go ahead and start,” she said as she left. “I'll be right back.”

Sylvia put down the ball, picked up her book, paged through for the passage she wanted. “I was troubled,” she began, “by the difference in the way Austen talks about the death of Dick Musgrove and the way she talks about the death of Fanny Harville. It's very convenient to the plot that Fanny's fiancé falls in love with Louisa, since this leaves Captain Wentworth free to marry Anne. Still, you can see Austen doesn't entirely approve.” Sylvia read aloud. “ ‘ “Poor Fanny!” ' her brother says. ‘ “She would not have forgotten him so soon!” '

“But there are no tears at all for Dick Musgrove. The loss of a son is less important than the loss of a fiancée. Austen was never a mother.”

“Austen was never a fiancée,” said Bernadette. “Or just overnight. Not long enough to count. So it's not son versus fiancée.”

There was a fly on the porch, humming about Bernadette's head. It was large and loud and slow and distracting. Distracting to us, anyway. It didn't seem to be bothering Bernadette. “What matters is the worthiness of the person deceased,” she said. “Dick was a useless, incorrigible boy. Fanny was an exceptional woman. People earn the way they're missed.
Persuasion
is all about earning your place. The self-made men of the navy are so much more admirable than the high-born Elliots. Anne is so much more valuable than either of her sisters.”

“But Anne earned more than she got,” Grigg said. “Up until the very end. As does poor dead Fanny.”

“I guess I think we all deserve more than we earn,” said Sylvia, “if that makes any sense. I'd like the world to be forgiving. I feel sorry for Dick Musgrove, because no one loved him more than he deserved.”

We were quiet for a minute, listening to the fly buzz, thinking our private thoughts. Who loved us? Who loved us more than we deserved? Prudie had an impulse to go right home to Dean. She didn't, but she would tell him she'd thought to.

“There aren't so many deaths in the other Austen novels,” Jocelyn said. She was already helping herself to a bite of Grigg's sugar cookie without even asking. That was fast! “One wonders how much her own death was on her mind.”

“Did she think she was dying?” Prudie asked, but no one knew the answer.

T
his is too grim a beginning,” Bernadette said. “I want to talk about Mary. I absolutely love Mary. Except for Collins in
Pride and Prejudice
, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh, too, and Mr. Palmer in
Sense and Sensibility
, and I love Mr. Woodhouse, of course, in
Emma
, but except for those, she's my favorite of all the comic Austen characters. Her constant complaints. Her insistence on being neglected and put-upon.”