The Austen Escape

by Katherine Reay

  “Daddy finally said I could explore.” Clara opened a cupboard. “This one has lots of glasses in it.” She shut it and moved on to another. “I’m lost on purpose. Gertrude said I could go anywhere and even gave me a torch, but it’s not working.” She rattled the offending flashlight.

  “May I see it?”

  She handed it to me, and I led her to the hallway’s end, where we found a broad window ledge. She scooted onto it. Her legs dangled, and the heels of her Mary Janes tapped the wall.

  I unscrewed her flashlight and dropped the batteries into my hand. “How is it you speak English with hardly any accent?”

  “Momma is American, like you, but she sounds different. Daddy is from France, but he went to college in the States. That’s where they met.”

  The batteries looked fine. I tapped my phone and shot its light down her flashlight’s barrel. There was oxidation on the coils. “Give me a second . . . Besides English, how many languages do you speak?”

  “I can’t count Italian yet. I just started this term.” She counted on her fingers. “English, German, and French. We learn them all in school.”

  “Only those?” I lifted a brow and she smiled. She was missing the teeth on either side of her front two. “Wait till you see this.” I pulled at the hem of my camisole and used it to rub the coil until it shone. I replaced the batteries and handed it back to her. “Now try.”

  Clara pushed the button, and bright-white light hit me in the eyes. “You made it work. Thank you.” She hopped down and hugged me at the waist.

  “Do you want to see something else cool?”

  She nodded and I dashed back to the third cupboard on the left. It wasn’t what I expected. I opened another, but they all looked the same and I couldn’t remember. I opened silver, cleaning products, candles, and china before I found it. “Lightbulbs.”

  I grabbed a lightbulb and walked back to her, pulling two of my homemade “rings” from my elaborate hairdo and loosening a slew of bobby pins in the process. I pulled a third piece of wire from my back pocket. “Can I borrow your flashlight again?”

  She handed it to me without question. I dropped out the batteries, unraveled the wire ponytail holders, and attached one from the battery to the lightbulb. Then I pulled out my key and attached it to the lightbulb with another wire. “Watch this.” The final one completed the circuit. The lightbulb glowed.

  “Can I try?”

  At my nod, she reached, then paused.

  “The current isn’t strong enough to hurt you. I promise.”

  She made the connection, and her smile was brighter than the bulb.

  “Can I show my parents?”

  “Of course, but I’m not sure running through the house with a lightbulb is a great idea. How about I carry it and come with you?”

  We disconnected our project, and she grabbed my hand to drag me from the hallway.

  “I can’t wait to see their faces.”

  I let myself be pulled. “I can’t wait to explain what we’ve been up to.”

  A half hour and countless questions later, I found my way back to the Green Room. Isabel was already curled in bed.

  I plopped onto mine and relayed the adventure—wandering the house, opening dark cupboards, finding Clara, making a lightbulb glow, and the embarrassment of explaining the entire story to her parents, including how I’d fixed the flashlight.

  Sylvia had shuddered good-naturedly at the thought of what her daughter might do next if left unsupervised or, worse, met me in another abandoned hallway. She had a lot of questions and concerns. But Aaron, in a soft voice with a quiet smile, declared it a very good scientific experiment.

  His contradiction had not pleased Sylvia, which I thought might amuse Isabel.

  She was not amused. By the end she had sat up straight and swung her legs off the bed. “You didn’t.”

  “It was easy. A simple circuit. No big deal. Tomorrow I might teach her—”

  “It’s not the circuit, Mary. It’s the fact that you dug around in the pantry, a private, off-limits-to-guests kind of space, and started making your little projects. You’re a guest here, not the resident electrician.” She slapped her hand over her eyes.

  I pulled back. “I . . . I’m sorry.”

  We sat, knees almost touching in the small space between our beds.

  “No.” She dragged her hands down her face, pulling her cheeks with the gesture. “That wasn’t fair. I shouldn’t have said that.” She arched her back and pressed her fingers into the inner corners of each eye. Only then did I notice she’d been crying.

  I tapped her knee. “I am sorry, Isabel. I won’t embarrass you again.”

  “No . . . It’s not you. I was horrid tonight. I felt horrid. It’s . . . How can a place I’ve never been bring up memories? Daddy used to take me on business trips after we moved to Texas. He’d get furious when I acted like a kid. I was eight. What did he expect?”

  She took a deep breath and dropped her voice low with a hint of southern drawl. “‘With decorum.’” She let her father’s two words rest between us before continuing. “I clearly didn’t have any, because he quit taking me and hired Mrs. Trumbull. Remember how she smelled like onions? And her voice . . . Anyway, after hearing from Gertrude about the interview thing and—he’s in my head tonight.”

  I caught the and in her statement. “You talked to him today, didn’t you?”

  “He replied to my e-mail.” She shrugged. “It usually takes days to get him to reply to anything.”

  “And?”

  Isabel’s father, distant at best, had declared his job done when she graduated college. But I often wondered if he had ever thought raising and loving Isabel was his job. He never attended any school events, wasn’t around for birthdays, even missed high school graduation. In August, right before we parted ways for college, Isabel and I came home from the movies to find a Honda CRV in her driveway. Mrs. Trumbull handed her the keys with a note: Happy Graduation. It’s a three-hour drive to Dallas. Work hard at SMU. Dad. He didn’t even pretend he might make it to her college graduation.

  Isabel didn’t reply. Instead she reached for her phone, tapped it, and handed it to me.

  Isabel. Your petulant e-mail was not appreciated. I expected a thank-you rather than a temper tantrum. Five years is ample time to finish your doctorate and move on. If this trip is what you need, as you have claimed, just thank me. Do not pout. Consider it my gift to you, but if you continue to behave like a child, you may consider it my last gift.

  This reply is also to inform you that Abby and I were married yesterday. As you set yourself against her from day one, your attendance was not desired.

  Please e-mail when you reach the States. I want to hear of your progress. If you wish to meet us for Christmas this year, I expect you to be more respectful to Abby.

  No signature line. Certainly no ending endearment.

  I pushed off my bed and dropped next to her. “Yesterday? You’re thinking that’s why he sent you here. He couldn’t have written that, Isabel. Maybe Abby planned the timing and wrote the note.”

  “He wrote it. I know Malcolm Dwyer.” Her head rested on my shoulder. “I hate him, Mary.”

  “You just think you do.” I drew my arm around her.

  “I hate me.” She took a deep, shuddering breath and then, without another word, headed into the bathroom.

  I crawled back onto my own bed and reached for my phone. Now I missed my dad. My screen saver was a picture of his latest gizmo, the Skittle dispenser.

  Your little projects. I loved those projects—loved the time my dad and I spent planning and creating them, and the fact that, in our ways, we both still built them. What was Golightly, after all, other than a gizmo I dreamt up and wanted more than anything to create?

  I tapped his face to text him.

  Arrived safe and sound. The house is beyond belief. Thanks for bullying me into coming. I miss you.

  I received an immediate reply.

  Bully? Who
me? Father knows best, right? You couldn’t turn down a trip like that. Please take lots of pictures. Is Isabel dancing on her toes like she did when we gave her that movie?

  I’d forgotten “that movie.” Dad and Mom gave Isabel the four-DVD commemorative set of the BBC 1997 Pride and Prejudice for Christmas when we were fifteen. She had just given that huge report in English class and they were so proud of her. She took it home and watched one each night in succession for weeks on end. She called them her bedtime stories.

  I glanced to the bathroom, realizing that, even then, they understood what I had failed to see. I tapped my phone and lied to my dad . . .

  She’s having the time of her life. Couldn’t be better. I forgot to tell you I paid the invoice for sponsorship at the ball park. Ballard Sign Shop will print and hang the signs.

  When a reply didn’t come, I checked my phone. Four bars of Wi-Fi . . .

  Sorry you’re still worrying about the business. I got three new clients and should hear back on the concert hall proposal you submitted soon. Go have fun. Sorry to bother you.

  I closed my eyes. I’d always liked helping Dad. The boys were much older and had been gone so long—it often felt like the two of us. Only occasionally did I see it from his side.

  Sorry I mentioned it, Dad. And hey, I texted you. Have a great day. I love you.

  Isabel and I passed in silence, she coming out of the bathroom as I went into it. She kept her eyes trained on the carpet. When I climbed into bed a few minutes later, she reached up and switched off the light.

  “Thank you for saying yes. I thought he was being so generous, offering to pay for a friend. He just wanted to appease his guilt, if he ever has any.”

  I twisted in the dark to face her. “I’m sorry, Isabel.”

  We were quiet for a few minutes.

  “Doesn’t this remind you of when we used to camp in your backyard with that lantern your dad made us?”

  It didn’t surprise me that her thoughts shifted to my dad. It was my dad who cooked us burgers on Thursday nights as far back as I could remember and popped popcorn during Sunday evening movies. He had made Isabel almost as many gizmos as he’d made me.

  “How is he?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

  “You know him . . . Behind in his billing and allowing customers to pay what they want. After Mrs. Harris paid him a chicken for rewiring her chandelier last month, I standardized some of his pricing for him. Not that he’s going to tell clients about it.”

  “Mrs. Harris is rich. She should pay double.”

  “But apparently she roasts an extraordinary chicken.”

  “She probably wants to show off her culinary skills. Didn’t her husband die a few years ago?”

  “If that’s her goal, poor Mrs. Harris.” I snuggled deeper into the pillow. “Despite enjoying the chicken, he’ll never notice her, not like that.”

  “He’ll always love your mom, but he’s a relational guy. He needs people. I can see him marrying again.”

  I twisted onto my back. I could just make out the ceiling’s plaster detailing in the dark. “I don’t think he’d risk it. How could he? Watching her struggle for so long . . . It was too hard.”

  “No one should be alone. I don’t think we’re wired for it.” She offered nothing more. Moments later a faint “Are you happy?” drifted toward me.

  “Not now. I’m feeling a little alone over here.” I answered with bravado, but it came out flat. I rushed to cover the anxiety her observation had left. “Let’s see . . . Even though Golightly is dead, I’m still employed. Fall is coming, so running is getting easier. Dad’s business, despite chickens and undercharging, is back in the black and he’s good. He seems content. And I—” I stopped as Nathan and his impending departure flashed through my mind. “I’m fine.”

  “Any word from Brian?”

  Brian. A nice guy Isabel set me up with months ago—a few laughs, a few dates, then silence.

  I punched the pillow to soften it in the center. “I know you thought he’d call again, but he never did.”

  “Did you call him? . . . Never mind, I know the answer. You were too good for him. Hopeless romantic that you are.”

  I smiled into the darkness. As much as I resisted it at times, it was nice when someone understood. Isabel and I often joked about this hidden aspect of my personality. Looking at what we did, how we dressed and even spoke, one would think Isabel the romantic. Yet she was oddly pragmatic about love and relationships, almost clinical. Me, on the other hand? No one but Isabel and my dad knew, but I cried at rom-coms, adored Broadway ballads, and really did believe in true love—fairy-tale-knight-in-shining-armor love. But I suspected it only existed in actual fairy tales.

  “Nathan never asked me out either, despite the rubbing stone.”

  “Who? Oh . . . You mentioned him earlier. I never thought much of him.”

  “He’s a good guy.” Her sharp tone stiffened my spine. “Moira said I was the one who pushed him away. Maybe it was self-protection. There are some guys who you just know if you fell for them you’d go too deep and never make it back.”

  “So you don’t end up a puddle?”

  “Something like that.”

  Isabel turned to me. “He wasn’t all that, not how you described him. If you’d dated him, you’d have been disappointed.”

  “Okay . . . And you? Other than the e-mail, are you happy?”

  It was time to shift the conversation. Besides, Isabel had only asked the question so that she could answer it. At each sleepover, late in the night, she’d whisper it in the dark. Are you happy? was her litmus test to prove all was well in her world. And I’m sure tonight felt like a good time to take a measurement.

  “Tonight didn’t change anything. It’s the same story, just a different chapter. But I’m getting the message. He wants me . . .” She fell silent before adding on a slow exhale, “Off and away.”

  I sat up. “Don’t quote that book. Don’t think about that book.”

  She had violated our fifteen-year-old rule.

  “Had to. The writing is on the wall. Or in the e-mail. Get going, Isabel. Get it done, Isabel. Go. Go. Go.”

  Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

  Isabel’s dad gave her a copy for her eighth-grade graduation gift. We opened it together, we read it together, and apparently, unlike the book’s other ten-million-copies-sold recipients, we hated it together. While reading it, Isabel could hear only her dad’s voice pushing her up and out. And I could only see my life’s story spread before me on the book’s single dark page. I remember those words, that description, and the fact that it was truly the only dark page smack in the center of a razzle-dazzle rainbow-colored book.

  You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race . . . Headed, I fear, toward a most useless place. The Waiting Place . . .

  Mom was deep into a couple bad years at that time, and waiting was what we were doing. Scott was at college, and Dan and Curt had long since graduated—had their own lives and wives. It was Dad and Mom and me . . . And we three waited, probably Mom most of all.

  Reading that book was the first day I realized I was powerless and alone. I hated that page and that feeling. It crept into me in the dark, suffocated me and terrified me. But I found I could avoid that feeling of helplessness too . . . It didn’t exist in math or even in science. Answers could be found and they were solid. You could rely on them, stand on them—no agency, luck, or grace required.

  I shifted my gaze from the black ceiling to out the window. There was a yellow glow across the clouds. The moon was up there somewhere. It cast new shadows across the room. I heard Isabel tuck deeper within her covers. I did the same.

  “Good night, Mary.”

  “Good night, Isabel.”

  Within minutes, she fell asleep. I did not.

  Chapter 11

  I climbed out of bed to find the moon outside the window. It hovered half in and half out of the clouds. In the charcoal gray, I could see the
land slope down then rise into a hill in the distance. There was a tree line at its base. I suspected the stream flowed there—as the water would encourage the tree growth. I turned back and looked across the room.

  Eleven o’clock in England was only five o’clock back home. And despite the fact that I hadn’t slept in thirty-five hours, I was still wide awake. I grabbed my Kindle from the table and tapped to Persuasion—mylast Austen novel.

  There was nothing “bright and sparkling” about this one. It was subdued, almost melancholy. Heroine Anne Elliot, perhaps my favorite of the Austen women I’d encountered, waited as circumstances and her world closed in around her. She helped where she could, she got tossed about with little care—and she waited. There was no other word for it.

  But if Anne’s story ended like Austen’s others, I knew she wouldn’t stay there. She’d get her glorious end, most likely with that handsome Captain Wentworth who kept popping up in memory and now in person. But something told me that, as in real life, it might not be so easy this time.

  “Captain Wentworth is not very gallant by you, Anne, though he was so attentive to me. Henrietta asked him what he thought of you, when they went away; and he said, You were so altered he should not have known you again.”

  I tapped off the Kindle and let my head bump back against the bed’s headboard. Poor Anne. I could only imagine the hope, the anticipation, and then the anguish of that moment while Mary had her sport. Austen really had a thing against Marys.

  I’d met Mary Bennet first. Then came Mary Crawford from Mansfield Park. She initially misled me. She had all the wit and vivacity of a Lizzy Bennet, but it took me time to catch on. She had none of the wisdom—no discretion. And she got no happy ending. And now Mary Elliot . . . We Marys weren’t a kind and gentle lot. We didn’t grow. We didn’t change. We didn’t get redeemed.

  I threw back the covers, grabbed a sweatshirt to pull over my pajamas, and slipped into my ballet flats. Gertrude’s graciousness had welcomed me to the house, and the camaraderie at dinner had made it feel like a home. I decided to wander—again.