“Fascinating.” His tone said differently. “Are you feeling okay?”
“No! You’re not getting how crazy this is,” I said. He smirked, and I waved my hands over each other. “No, I’m not crazy. Okay, maybe I am, but all their names are like the characters in Jane Austen novels. It’s just creepy. You want to see the weirdest one of all?” I tried to find Bertie’s name on the guest list. “Taylor’s maid of honor is just scary. Bertie’s nickname is her last name shortened. Her husband’s last name is Rush. The character in Mansfield Park is Maria Bertram Rushworth because she married a man with the last name Rushworth. Bertie’s real name is …” I skimmed through the list, “It’s really Mariah Bertram-Rush.” My knees buckled at how close they were, and I had to sit down.
“I wish I knew what you were trying to say,” Austen said.
Now I knew that he was trying to be difficult. I took a deep breath. “Bertie’s real name is almost exactly the same as the character in the novel.”
He studied it. “Oh. Okay. Yeah, that is weird.”
Good. I was getting somewhere. “Figure out Harry Crawley’s now.”
Austen turned to the word document, kind of laughing. “He’s … Henry Crawford.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, yes!” Maybe now he’d believe me that the characters from Jane Austen novels were coming to life around me. “And then Taylor isn’t on the guest list, but it doesn’t matter because we all know that she’s Ms. Taylor!”
“Taylor Weston?” he asked doubtfully. “It’s kind of a stretch.”
I cried out as soon as I realized another uncanny resemblance. “Ms. Taylor married Mr. Weston in Emma.”
He finally cracked that smile that had threatened over his lips since I came in. “So you can take anyone’s name and twist it like that? How many books did Jane Austen write anyway?”
“Only six. Well, seven if you count the one … . It doesn’t matter. It’s not just some weird coincidence that happened because she wrote a million books and has a million characters, okay? And there are more matches, too. Junie is Jane Fairfax. Mary Musswood is Mary Musgrove. And she acts like Mary from the book, too. She’s a complete snob and always sick. Mary even says that she has …”
“… a major case of hypochondria,” Austen answered for me.
“No, but yes. Yes! And Captain Redd Wortham is Captain Frederick Wentworth.”
Austen mimicked a buzzer sound at the captain’s name. “Another stretch.”
“It’s not. Fred is Redd. They’re both captains. Last names have ‘worth’ in them. Oh!” I pointed to the guest list. “Here’s another one! We’ve got a character from Northanger Abbey!” I underlined Bella Thorne’s last name with my finger then typed in “Isabella Thorpe” to add her to the list of matches. “She’s the beautiful, flirty one who gets into trouble with the men.”
“In the book or real life?”
“Both.”
He laughed. “I can’t keep track of the real people, let alone the people they’re supposed to be.” He studied the guest list then looked triumphant. “You’re missing two—the pastor and his wife.”
Ed and Elly McFarey. In a moment, I had it: “Edward Ferrars—he’s the clergyman who married Elinor in Sense and Sensibility. And that’s all the guests at North Abbey!” I realized what I had just said and snapped by fingers when I found another Jane Austen reference. “Northanger Abbey!”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” He could only handle one thing at a time. “It’s just really creepy, Austen. I feel like I’m in a novel. I think you really did curse me with all that talk about how our lives are not romances.”
“Hey!” He held his hands up in mock defensiveness. “It goes both ways. We cursed each other. I said that you wouldn’t enjoy a Jane Austen courtship and you said that I would.”
“Well?” I asked. “Are you enjoying it?”
He laughed. “Seeing you like this? Enormously.” Studying me—likely to see how serious I was about all of this—Austen dug his elbow against the counter and leaned closer to me. “Look, Jane. Do you realize things like this can’t happen? Not really. These people aren’t named the way they are because we cursed ourselves somehow. You think this is like some Christmas miracle story and all you have to do is a good deed and they’ll just disappear? Because if so, you’d have a very angry Taylor on your hands. These people were named this way before you ever met them.”
“But don’t you think that it’s such a coincidence … ?”
“That our friend Taylor has friends who have names that fit in a Jane Austen novel? Yeah. It’s hilarious, but for all of her friends that do, I’m sure most of them don’t. C’mon, Jane, you can’t really be serious about what you’re saying.”
“Okay,” I hedged. I wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Explain why all her friends act like the characters?”
“Simple. It’s like a horoscope. Anyone can fit any profile if you twist it around enough.”
“Colin totally pulled a Mr. Collins earlier,” I pointed out. “He crashed the bridal shower and then went into the game room and played pool in the middle of someone else’s game.”
Austen stilled. “He did what?”
“I know, bad for business … not that you care. And then Bertie told me to act my place or she’d send me to my room in the attic. That is so Maria Bertram-Rush. Dancey wrote me a super long text after our misunderstanding.”
“Are you kidding me?” he sounded angry. “Wait, what misunderstanding did you have with Dancey?”
I waved his concern aside. “You’re missing the point.”
“I don’t think so.”
That was because Austen lacked imagination. He always did. It was partly why I had come to him. I needed his logic. I knew that I was being crazy—and it was his job to talk some sense into me. Noticing the angry glint that touched his eyes, I realized that he was actually livid on my behalf because of everything I’d been through. I was touched. I hadn’t expected that.
Freddy pushed open the lobby doors from outside and strutted past the counter. Even as our bellhop-valet, he had the air that he was too good for us.
“Who’s he?” Austen asked in a lowered voice.
I had it immediately. “Frederick Tilney … from Northanger Abbey. An arrogant rogue.”
Austen would know the employee’s full name: Freddy Tiney was a family friend. Austen went quiet and I knew he was right. This didn’t mean anything … but if it did, at least I had saved Bella from Freddy this time around, because the book version of Isabella Thorpe had ruined herself with Frederick Tilney. Now Bella was going after Crawley. Thankfully, my Crawford wasn’t as bad as the original one.
No, he wasn’t bad at all. I straightened. My imagination had completely run away from me this time. I really had been guilty of taking my theory too far. I breathed a sigh of relief that none of it was actually true.
“It’s like playing Where’s Waldo with Jane Austen,” Austen muttered.
I laughed. Trust Austen to put this all into perspective.
Ann-Marie threw open the door to the lobby, holding Bertie’s little teacup puppy. “Hi, Austen, I thought I heard you in here. I had a dream about you. Oh, Jane, you’re in here too. Have you seen Will Dancey!” It came out a shriek.
“Willard,” Austen corrected.
Dancey’s first name didn’t affect Ann-Marie like it did me. She practiced it over her lips. “Willard Dancey. You’re so lucky that he likes you, Jane! He … is so hot! He just got back from LA. I saw him. He came by the bridal shower looking all brooding and sullen. You didn’t make up yet after your fight, have you? How romantic. I know you love those kinds of guys in your movies, Jane, but he’s real. I mean, he’s a total … a total hunk! If I could get him alone for just a minute, I’d get him to write a whole crapload of happy songs. Yummy! We’d sing duets and kiss all day long.”
Austen winced. “We’ve got a foosball table in here, Ann-Marie. That’s the real secret to his heart—
you heard what he told Taylor. Go at it.”
Ann-Marie laughed and hugged Bertie’s little rat-bear to her chest. “You could plan our wedding, Jane.” She turned thoughtful. “No, forget that. Vegas is only five hours away. Do you know how easy it would be just to slip away with a guy like that and make it legal? All you’d have to do is convince him that he can’t live without you. So easy. He’s all over you. Did you see that car he’s driving? You’d be saying, ‘I do’ before you knew it.” She sighed. “Anyway, he asked about you, Jane.”
Austen scowled.
Bertie’s little rat-bear shifted in her hands and she shrieked again. “This puppy just keeps getting cuter and cuter! Don’t you, puppy?”
I hid a smile. “Don’t forget to return it to the owner.”
She nuzzled her nose into the puppy’s belly and then set her on the counter to dance her over to Austen. The puppy sniffed at his hands. “The boy smells good, huh?” Ann-Marie asked.
Austen patted the puppy’s head. Between the rat-bear and Taylor’s cat, we could start an animal shelter. “What’s puppy’s name?” Austen asked.
“Rat-bear,” I said.
“No!” Ann-Marie screamed out. “I was thinking of naming her after you, Austen.”
He looked uneasy. “That just wouldn’t be right.”
She giggled. “Oh, I forgot to tell you about my dream, Austen …” She went on for fifteen minutes about how Austen had saved her from bandits in an apocalyptic world and he was a vampire, and then it turned confusing from there because her mother forced her to clean North Abbey—but wow, Austen could kiss. She ended her long soliloquy by staring up into his eyes. “But wouldn’t it be nice to kiss me?”
Austen looked dumbfounded. “I …”
When he couldn’t finish that, she straightened. “Because someone told me that I should give you another chance.”
I froze, knowing that I was guilty of that. Austen watched her helplessly. “I don’t know if you should,” he said. “Was I a good vampire or a bad one?”
Ann-Marie threw back her shoulders in a sigh. “Bad. Very bad—you couldn’t even pull off a low V-neck.” Her eyes went from me to him, and they took on a frustrated gleam. “Yeah, I get it. See you in my dreams, Austen.” Balancing the puppy in her hands, she left.
Picking up his jaw from off the ground, Austen turned to me. “Who is she?” At my confused look, he clarified. “Who is she in a Jane Austen book?”
“Oh.” It hardly mattered now. “Well, her name backwards is Marianne. Sense and Sensibility. Only …” I smiled, “Ann-Marie’s like Marianne on speed.”
He gulped. “Cool party trick.” His fingers played a rhythm across the counter until he broke our silence to ask, “Okay, me? Who am I?”
That would be difficult. I put my fingers up like I was framing him with a camera and screwed up my eyes to see him as a character. “Well, you’re a churchgoer—and Jane Austen had a lot of cute clergyman in her novels, so …”
“Stop.” He held up his hand. “Don’t hurt yourself. I changed my mind. Don’t make me into a character. I honestly don’t want a character.”
“I can’t think of one for you anyway.”
“That’s a relief.”
Now my mind was obsessed with finding the answer. “You’re too goofy to be Mr. Knightley.”
“Wait, who?”
“The love interest in Emma. You’re too young to be the colonel in Sense and Sensibility. Maybe Frank Churchill?” I considered another rakish suitor in Emma. “Loved him, but no, you’re way too independent. He wanted his aunt’s money. That made him a complete jerk. You’re nice. Still, not as nice as Henry Tilney. Plus, you’d never put up with Henry’s dad.”
“Huh?”
“Northanger Abbey,” I said. “You’d never do the stupid things Edmund does in Mansfield Park either.”
Austen didn’t look like he was following me at all. “Thanks?”
I wrinkled my nose. I kind of liked that Austen didn’t fit any of the men in these novels. “No. You defy description. I’m Jane; you’re Austen.”
He groaned. “So now we’re the authors of these people’s lives?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, you just think we’re cursed.”
“Well …” I met his eyes. Austen was teasing me now, but since I had calmed down, I decided to play with it. “If you’re cursed, too, then you’d need your own romance.” Then it hit me like a stab in the gut. Junie! Secretive Junie whom Austen might actually have a thing for. “Do you?” I asked, unsure now.
He gave me a mischievous grin. “Maybe.”
Just thinking about it put my teeth on edge. It was good that I was wrong about the curse, or every girl at North Abbey would be making the moves on Austen like the guys were with me. Bertie, Mary, and Bella didn’t know how amazing Austen was, and I’d make sure that it stayed that way.
My phone buzzed, and I looked down at the text. It was from Colin.
COLIN: MEET ME AT CHURCHELL’S SHACK, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THE FUTURE OF NORTH ABBEY.
Austen plucked the phone easily from my hands. “Give me that.”
“Hey!” I complained.
Austen typed off a text and thrust the phone near my eyes so I could read it.
JANE: WOULD YOU BE A DEAR, COLIN, AND CHECK ON TAYLOR? SHE WANTS YOU TO HANG FLOWERS AND RIBBON FOR THE BACHELORETTE PARTY TOMORROW.
I smirked. “Okay, yeah, send that.”
Austen did the evil deed and handed my phone back to me. He took my hand. “Sit down, Jane. I think you’ve had a hard day.”
He was right. I was so exhausted that I’d have let him take me anywhere. He led me to the sofa and we settled in front of the big screen TV. It was blissfully off for now. Austen faced me, looking contrite. “Jane, I’m sorry you have to put up with Colin. I know you’re angry about it.”
Well, my life had been shoved off the deep end because of Austen’s rational decision. Losing North Abbey would affect my whole future. I groaned at the thought. “Why do you have to sell the place to Colin?”
“My parents are in the red, Jane. Taylor’s wedding might bring in a little more money, but even after that, it will only mean that they owe a little less than they do now. The most I can do is get a decent price out of it. Colin’s parents own a share in the resort and they’re willing to buy us out.”
Austen wasn’t getting rid of the family business because he was bored with it. I had to remember that, even though I wished there was another way. I sighed and leaned heavily against the back cushions of the sofa. “We’re losing our home to Mr. Collins,” I grumbled.
His lip twitched up at the sides. “You’re back to Pride and Prejudice again?”
“You don’t appreciate how creepy my life is right now.” I pulled out the Jane Austen collection from the side console. “I have to show you what I’m talking about before you try to lock me up in an asylum.”
“Give me those,” he said. “I’m confiscating these.” He held the DVDs like they were dangerous weapons, then peered closer at one of the covers. “What’s with her hair? That’s so wrong.”
“The hair can be pretty bad in the older ones; also in the latest Persuasion, but …” I stole Northanger Abbey from his hands and held it up to his eyes. “Adorably clueless girl finds love despite making all sorts of mistakes. She marries above her station though she has no money or family connections.”
Austen looked wary. “Not a bad end,” he said.
“Not a likely ending either, according to you. However …” I stood up and stuffed the movie into the DVD player and fast-forwarded it to one of Catherine’s daydreams where two men fight over her and she is secretively pleased about it. “Personality-wise, I admit I’m a lot like Catherine because I love romance, maybe ridiculously so. Here’s a fight she has with her main squeeze, Henry.” I fast-forwarded it again. “He thinks that she is being over-imaginative and silly.”
Austen leaned back into the couch, his eyes on me. “A
nd that’s us?”
“Not quite,” I said, “Or we’d have this to look forward to.” With a devilish laugh, I sat next to him and cut to the end where Henry declares his love for Catherine. With his arms around her, he told her that she wasn’t so far off with her crazy theories.
“You’re right. I’m wrong,” Austen said. “I know the drill. Male loves female no matter what she does.”
I elbowed him playfully. “I’m not through yet.” I took out Northanger Abbey and put in Persuasion. “Here’s a classic love-hate romance where girl loses boy and gets him back again.” I cut to the part where the captain meets Anne again after his long voyage at sea. “She dumped him because he wasn’t good enough—class distinction, money and all that, but now he’s a captain in her majesty’s royal navy.”
I pushed play to show Austen a stiff captain ignoring the main girl, though it’s obvious that she’s the only one he can see. I paused the scene and turned to Austen. “Do you remember when I asked you to be my fake boyfriend?”
“How could I forget?”
“And?”
He shrugged. “It was kind of like that with the captain.”
“Well, this movie says that I can get Redd back.”
Austen stiffened. I climbed off the sofa and ejected Persuasion and put in Sense and Sensibility. “Guy goes for sensible girl,” I summarized, “who keeps her distance and doesn’t really flirt with him. He still falls in love with her. The other girl—who happens to be sisters with the sensible one—well, she does flirt, and she gets in trouble with the wrong guy.”
I couldn’t help it. I took Austen to the part where Marianne sprained her ankle and the perfect Mr. Willoughby carries her back to her cottage. “Even now it makes me all swoony,” I said, “even if the guy’s a weasel—he’s a hot weasel.”
Austen’s eyes went to me and I hurriedly got to my point. “Remember when you said that a girl has to flirt to get a guy’s attention? Well, you’re right. Doing nothing doesn’t actually work, except ever since we ‘cursed’ each other … I find that doing nothing works for me. I mean, what kind of girl gets a guy without flirting? And what kind of girl doesn’t get anywhere with her flirting?”
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