Austentatious

by Alyssa Goodnight

  “Are you telling me that men are on your agenda for next year?”

  “I thought I was being lured out for a night of Austin culture and camaraderie?” As opposed to a night of Austen culture and camaraderie with my traitorous journal.

  “Just sayin’ ...”

  “Anything’s possible,” I allowed, suddenly distinctly uncomfortable with that admission, given what I’d been dealing with for the past quarter hour. “Bye, Gabe. Have fun tonight.” I hung up before hearing his reply, just as the timer went off.

  Retrieving the cupcakes, I set them on the baking rack to cool, swiped a finger through the ganache, and dropped back down at the kitchen table. I glared at the offending journal page and its few remaining survivors and underlined each of them with a short, sharp motion.

  Then suddenly I remembered. My one-entry stint as a journaler had sprung from plans to attend a coworker’s wedding this weekend—tomorrow, in fact. And the reality that I’d been going alone.

  Miss Nicola James, 1 will attend.

  Tentatively at first, I let my mind play through some possibilities. I mouthed the words and tapped my pencil over the page, checking the spacing. Within seconds, I was feeling very déjà vu.

  I’m going solo. As per The Plan. Sure it’d be kinda nice to have a date, but I’m not sure I’m ready for the complications just yet. Besides, I’ll do just fine on my own.

  Dateless, I was a free agent. I didn’t have to stick close to anyone, entertain anyone, or worry about anyone—I could leave when I was ready. I actually loved weddings. And just like that, it all started coming back to me... .

  A wedding is the perfect opportunity to dress up in frilly, feminine clothes and far-from-sensible shoes,

  Not to impress anyone—just for me. Well, maybe one other person...

  to mingle and indulge in a plate of fancy little hors d’ oeuvres, and enjoy the heady sense of romance without getting tangled up in any of it myself.

  That last part was a little vague (not to mention over-the-top), but I’d remembered the general gist, and it fit the space, more or less, so I wasn’t going to worry about being too precise. And I suppose the rest of it really didn’t matter, as no words beyond “romance” had been deemed keepers. There’d been a vague mention of flirting, but that was it.

  Tipping the book up off the table to read away from the glare of the pendant light, I slowly scanned the words. Definitely close enough.

  It felt slightly cathartic, as if things were marginally back to normal. And yet ... they were sooo not. Twenty minutes into this little mystery, and a logical explanation still escaped me. I didn’t have a hypothesis, a theory, or even a guess. All I could claim was a shifty version of the original entry, and it didn’t comfort me nearly as much as I’d imagined.

  Thrumming my eraser on the table, I decided to lay a trap. Flipping forward a page, I started with the prompt I’d been offered.

  Miss Nicola James will be sensible and indulge in a little romance....

  Not with a man, with a dress. A fabulously out-of-character peacock blue party dress, complete with a flirty skirt and a daring neckline that, miracle of miracles, provides just a hint of cleavage.

  This was starting to sound a little like a J. Peterman catalog, but honestly, it was just that kind of dress. It was a whim of fancy with an almost audible siren song. It had cut in on my long-standing arrangement with my little black dress and impelled me to buy it—and the matching shoes too. Both were impractical, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

  She’ll go bare-legged and carefree, sliding her whimsically painted toes into the cramped but vamped sequined sandals that she miraculously found on sale.

  Okay, the whimsical toes were probably a stretch, but if a girl couldn’t live it up in her journal, then what was the point?

  Nicola is bravely ignoring the unpredictability of March weather in Austin and will no doubt end up shivering in her spaghetti straps, frozen as a Fudgsicle. At which point her cleavage may just get its big break.... She’s kinda hoping it does.

  A quick reread, and I was done. It felt a little weird referring to myself in the third person, but no weirder than sparring with a journal.

  Take that, Mr. Darcy.

  I flipped back a page, just confirming that my recent rewrite hadn’t disappeared, and then realized that I should probably recopy today’s entry somewhere else, just to be on the safe side. Evidently you can’t be too careful.

  After dashing off the entry on the back of that week’s grocery list, I shut the journal with a snap. Then, counting out ten Mississippi-seconds, I whipped it back open, tussled with the pages, and held my hand flat down on page two, staring at my still-familiar words, all of them still intact.

  Edging out a relieved little smile, I tipped the book closed and stood to replace it on the shelf, because I definitely didn’t want to leave it out—exposed—on the kitchen table. Then again, I wasn’t certain I wanted to slide it back in amongst The Collected Works either, given the parallels my overactive imagination was busily drawing between my own situation and Elizabeth Bennet’s. Giving my options for a new hiding place some quick and serious thought, I decided to be cautious and stash it between a couple of favorite cookbooks. Crazy as it was, it helped. I felt marginally better, having moved past frantic to the problem-solving, data-collection stage.

  Even so, the only thing keeping me from curling up on the couch with the entire bowl of chocolate ganache was the fact that these cupcakes were expected next door.

  Cupcakes, with their happy little faces in tidy little packages, usually centered me. Not tonight. Work was driving me crazy—I was tired of my efforts being rewarded with catchy phrases, shoulder squeezes, and personalized glass statuettes. I’d taken the job right out of grad school with the intent to learn the basics of the business before earning myself a place on the management team. Well, I’d mastered the basics—mastered them so well, in fact, that management wanted me to train all new engineers hired into our group. Not manage the new engineers, but train them and, if necessary, shoulder them aside in an emergency. I was Wonder Woman without the deflective wristbands and red knee boots, and it wasn’t damn near enough. I indulged myself in a deep, all-suffering sigh and a finger swipe of dark, minty chocolate. I was truly hoping everything would be different after my performance evaluation on Monday.

  My attention strayed, catching on last year’s Christmas gift from Gabe. It was a Jane Austen Quote-a-Day calendar on a tacky little blue plastic stand, but I checked it every day without fail. Today’s quote read, “ ‘Sense will always have attractions for me.’ Sense and Sensibility.” A perfect mantra. (Honestly, “Inconceivable!” just wasn’t working for me.) I repeated it for each cupcake I frosted and felt marginally better.

  In three calming minutes, I’d transferred the finished cupcakes onto a white stoneware platter and pulled off my apron to hang it on the hook behind the door. Mantra or no mantra, I still had the heebie jeebies. Sliding into a belted sweater and ballet flats, I was more than ready to make my escape. I figured there was little point in primping—the girls either wouldn’t notice, so why bother, or they would, and that had the potential to get a smidge uncomfortable.

  The phone rang just as I stepped out the door, but I ignored it, sparing one final glance at the bookcase before pulling the back door firmly shut behind me and locking it. With the platter heavy in the crook of my arm, I walked through the brisk March chill and headed next door, already wondering what might be happening between the pages of my journal and how many cupcakes I’d need to distract me.

  Glancing up at the inky night sky, only the brightest stars winking back at me, I felt disturbingly out of my depth. Here I was, on the thrilling cusp of weirdness, and I couldn’t help but consider it wretchedly overrated.

  2

  In which Fairy Jane makes an appearance

  Karaoke nights at Laura and Leslie’s had that homey, sprawling family reunion feel. Well, the sort of reunion you might have if the me
nfolk had been plucked off your family tree and kicked over the fence. And by the end of the workweek, that was just perfect. I’d missed the weekly shindig only once since I’d moved in six months ago, despite that first Friday night eye-opener. As a new neighbor, a.k.a. innocent victim, I was treated to the grand tour, complete with running commentary. Which is exactly how I’d come to discover their true feelings on TVs and penises: both were unsightly and arguably unnecessary.

  Fresh from a viewing of an astonishingly diverse vibrator collection, Leslie had introduced me around in whirlwind fashion, and by the end of the evening, everyone had my number. (By that I mean they knew I wasn’t a lesbian and that I didn’t karaoke—no one actually had my number, no thanks to Leslie.) And despite these shortcomings, I’d been warmly welcomed ever since.

  It was occasionally necessary to put up with Leslie’s matchmaking attempts and know-it-all attitude (we suspected she viewed her doctorate not so much as an advanced degree in one particular subject area, but more as the staff of a modern-day goddess of wisdom), but Laura’s cooking was amazing (although oftentimes overly optimistic), and there was never a dull moment.

  I’d only just tucked my feet up under me in the most sought-after seating on the deck, ready to calm down with a cupcake, when Leslie walked up, trailed by a woman I’d never seen before. Leslie is a frosted blonde, her eyes smoke blue, and I suspected both colors were being helped along. She’s a professor of women’s studies at the University of Texas, smart and savvy on the clock, a little wacko during time off, and intimidating in every situation, probably because it’s impossible to know what to expect. Her companion was about a foot shorter with a pert face and tight, shoulder-length curls that looked like a tangle of copper wiring.

  My eyes narrowed from the cradle of the purple papasan, and I shook my head ever so slightly in warning. I was starting to feel a little fidgety. As if we were all just pretending there wasn’t a crazy weird journal waiting for me at home. Waiting to psych me out. Trying to set me up. Leslie could afford to take the night off. I must have been sending out a shock wave of back-off vibes, because Leslie sailed past me, pulling her friend along in her wake. But it wasn’t long before she circled back.

  “She’s cute, isn’t she?” Leslie said, holding a tortilla chip edged in guacamole, arching her eyebrows in question. “UT grad—does some sort of networking thing. With computers,” she added, around a mouth full of chip.

  “I’d say above average for tech support.” I was feeling that particularly itchy combination of frenzied urgency and studied nonchalance and was ill equipped to deal with Leslie’s matchmaking schemes. “Let it go, Leslie. I’m not in the mood.” I took a long-awaited bite of cupcake and sighed as a bit of the craziness of the last thirty minutes fell away. It was like a little taste of normal in a world gone weird.

  “You may have a ‘Plan,’ sweetheart, but life has a way of trumping it. And all the clichés are true: ‘it’s not fair,’ ‘it’s a bitch,’ and surely you’ve heard, ‘it’s what happens when you’re busy making other plans’?”

  I nodded agreeably and started planning my escape, hoping she’d lose interest in our little chat given her abysmal chance of success in luring me into a lesbian romance and away from my Plan.

  Everybody mocked The Plan, and it didn’t faze me one little bit. A certain journal, on the other hand, was fazing me big-time. I took another bite of cupcake and reminded myself that I knew, better than anyone, what I needed. I’d come up with the Nic James Life Plan, Version 1.0, when I was thirteen, and very little had changed since then—I was currently living out Version 3.5 and doing a fine job of it, if I did say so myself. Except for that damn journal. I polished off the cupcake and felt my nerves clamoring all over again.

  When I was a kid my dad had always had big plans—huge, wild, exciting plans that honestly would have wowed anyone. We were going to explore every subterranean inch of New York City; we were going to ride wild horses and camp on the beach; we were going to follow rainbows and go on real-life treasure hunts; we were going to be mushers in the Iditarod. And the plans and promises got wilder every summer. I believed in all of them and was disappointed again and again. There were always reasons we couldn’t go—the timing, the money, a mysterious dog allergy—and one by one, each idea faded from our conversations and daydreams, only to be replaced by a fresh new one. I had stopped believing at thirteen and vowed to escape into books. Definitely not the sort where kids were having adventures—I wasn’t ready for such flagrant unfairness—I martyred myself with one of my mom’s dog-eared romances.

  And so began my love affair with Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice appealed to me from the very first pages because I admired Elizabeth Bennet as much as I commiserated. I was comforted by the idea that if a person was clever and sensible—maybe a little charming—things could, even without any bona fide adventures, turn out all right. And while that certainly wasn’t my ideal—I had a clipboard list of ideas and dreams and things to get done—as a backup plan it wasn’t too horrible.

  So I’d made my Plan and promised myself that I would follow through—I would do things. And if I didn’t, well, then somehow I’d make it work on my own terms. But I wasn’t about to go haring off in pursuit of a man at the bullied urgings of “Mr. Darcy” and a lesbian version of Mrs. Bennet. So I just let Leslie’s jabs roll right off me as I awkwardly stood and moved casually toward the buffet table.

  Still, she seemed smugger than usual tonight, and I couldn’t think why. I was inching even farther away when it hit me: Could she know about my journal? I’d left her and Laura with a house key over Christmas when I’d headed home to Houston—could she have had it copied and then used it later for a little casual snooping? Could she even now be using it in an elegant yet unethical scheme to prod me into a little lesbian experimentation? I turned to stare, slightly horrified and a little overawed. God, I hope it hasn’t come to this.

  I grabbed a tortilla chip, vigorously crunching as my thoughts raced over opportunities, possibilities, and unlikely scenarios. They all screeched to a halt at the sound of Leslie’s voice, at the need to listen for clues.

  “I don’t plan to stop introducing you to the fabulous women who pop over here—you’ll just have to buck up your willpower.” Her knowing smile started the warning drums in my head, making me wonder: Just what does she know? How to make words disappear without a trace? How to really mess with a person’s head? Was it possible I’d been too hasty in assuming Leslie’s innocence? Well, I suppose technically speaking, I’d really only assumed ignorance and incompetence....

  Leslie winked as she walked away, sending me into a veritable tizzy.

  Laura snuck up behind me as I stared, wide-eyed with worry, at the fajita buffet sprawling over the white mosaic patio table that had been crafted literally from the broken pieces of Leslie’s short-lived marriage (or at least her wedding china).

  “Did you try the tofu?”

  A ponytailed brunette perpetually outfitted in workout clothes and athletic footwear, Laura owned a fitness store right off the running track snaking along Lady Bird Lake, and as far as I could tell, her life goal was to exorcise a person’s every self-indulgent tendency before shoving them bodily down the path toward total fitness. Odd that she’d partnered herself with the greatest lover of Hostess Ho Hos the world had perhaps ever known. Their relationship was one of life’s great mysteries.

  “Maybe I’ll try it later,” I stalled, sidestepping away.

  “Are you chicken?” Evidently she’d forgotten that I didn’t do dares.

  “Well, I’d like some chicken,” I tossed back at her, filling a tortilla with black beans, guacamole, and pico de gallo. Honestly I just wanted a drink, but didn’t think the cupcake I’d wolfed down could hold its own against the alcohol. I grabbed a hard cranberry lemonade and headed for my still-vacant chair. Once the sour-sweet buzz of the lemonade began to swim through my veins, the karaoke would start to sound a lot better—this I knew from experience
. And maybe if I was really lucky, the liquor would make a magical journal seem like a good thing.

  Despite the nip in the air and because of the knot of nerves in my stomach, I stuck it out for another couple of hours, and through it all, there was Leslie, blithely mingling with her Shiner Bock and her outside voice. Solid alibi ... should any further suspicions arise.

  Now, with everyone either going or gone, I was just trying to work up the gumption to face my journal with the headache drumming behind my eyes. I’d almost rather karaoke ... Almost. My buzz had definitely faded, and a certain magical journal was once again a blight on my well-ordered life.

  As I was prepping myself for the papasan extrication process, Leslie sauntered into my field of vision with a stack of leftover containers. She hovered a moment over the remaining cupcakes on the table before selecting one and peeling back the wrapper. Excellent. Leslie was infinitely more predictable with her mouth full.

  I watched, slightly envious, as her eyes closed on that first decadent minty bite. “Mmmph. It was a good crowd tonight. Did you see Ginger up there, braving it out?”

  “The redhead? I did.” I knew exactly where this was going and figured I’d rather duke it out with the journal, much as I’d been dreading it. I stood awkwardly and haphazardly folded the blanket that had, at least for a little while, been a refuge.

  “You can’t be a karaoke voyeur forever, Nic.”

  I heard myself snort, but I refused to take the bait.

  “Come on, Nic. Just try it once,” Laura urged softly from her crouch beside the karaoke machine.