My Jane Austen Summer (26 page)

I answered my phone that evening, the last Tuesday of the season. "Hello?" I said, groggy, hung over from the reading binge.

"Hullo?" A male voice. Not Willis.

"Randolph?" The depth of his voice stirred me. Vera would be relieved at the news of his call.

"I've been meaning to call you," he said.

I should be careful. Hold back.

"Can you have dinner tonight?"

Don't do it
, I told myself. "Um, yes," I answered.

"There's a small problem," he said. "I'm afraid I'm engaged, but should be free by seven. Any chance you can meet me at my hotel?"

I responded without thinking. "Yes, of course."

"Seven then?"

"Yes."

"Excellent. See you then."

My Jane Austen dimmed in the corner.

B
y the time Vera drove into Knightsbridge and stopped at the richly beveled glass door of Randolph's hotel, I was unfashionably late; Vera had been too involved coaching me to concentrate on making the lights. "And the most important thing," she said, wagging her finger like a gothic villain, "leave him wanting more." Thanks to Vera's talking and driving I was also unfashionably nervous.

"Where's the business plan?" I asked.

"Here it is." Vera pulled the envelope from the gap between the seats. "Good luck, dear," she said, as if I were a finalist in the Lady Weston Pageant, stepping onto the stage rather than the curb. "Of all the women in this city, Randolph chose to have dinner with you," she said.

The doorman in long coat and derby hat held the door as I entered, my head high, prepared to meet the Eleventh Baron of Weston.
Glamorous Actress Enters
. Chandeliers glittered overhead and a grand bouquet of white flowers, roses and
hydrangeas, graced the entry. Crisp black and white marble tiled the floor and a lamp trimmed in ebony and gold suggested Napoleon slept here. Perhaps Randolph was watching my entrance from just beyond the double doors to the salon. Although he mentioned a previous engagement, I nursed a romantic vision of a handsome nobleman stepping forth to claim me, anticipating the feel of his hand on my back. I stalled, pretending to consult my envelope, allowing Randolph every chance to emerge from the cigar brown lair of tufted club chairs. Finally, it became necessary to concede his absence, but without Vera's enthusiasm, I began nursing a less romantic vision of Randolph held up by a press photographer: Sara Stormont, the real candidate in the Lady Weston contest, posing possessively at his side.

At the high mahogany desk, the young attendant smiled and slipped an envelope across the cold marble countertop before I'd said a word. Apparently he'd been expecting me. Another young male, perhaps the concierge, watched from the nearby desk as I pulled a plastic access key and a thick square of the hotel's cardstock from the envelope. A note in Randolph's handwriting said,
Please wait in my room. So sorry to be late.
I touched the embossed hotel name and studied Randolph's one-word signature at the bottom: Weston.

In the elevator, my reflection revealed every angle of the diaphanous ankle-length empire gown, borrowed from costumes and accessorized with Bets's goth jewelry. It looked like something an actress would wear. Vera had thought to send a shawl, beneath which I shivered, cold and nervous. My Jane Austen slipped into the elevator behind me. Inserting the access card into the slot on the door handle, a frightening vision flashed before me: my new friend Weston waiting inside, naked in the bed. But the door opened to reveal a large silent room where an unoccupied bed waited in the
soft yellow light of a table lamp. I closed the door and entered carefully. What if Randolph was one of those people who jump out and scare you, then think it's funny. Although the hotel was quite old, the room's furniture was contemporary and masculine. A framed photograph of a man laboring at a desk, perhaps the hotel's founder, hung on the wall. A bottle of mineral water from Blenheim Palace (home of Churchill) and a bowl of cherries (me) posed together on the bedside table. The digital clock said 7:38.

Unsure where to wait, the bed and a single chair provided limited seating options. When Randolph arrived, one of us would have to sit on the bed. I chose the chair. My Jane Austen hovered in the background with the drapes. I laid the business plan on the table next to a phone, a laptop, and personal papers. Seated, I smoothed my gown over my knees and began waiting. The clock read 7:41. What should I be doing when he arrived? What tableau should I create for his pleasure?
Woman Reading Scary Essay on Fanny Price
offered itself as a possibility, except I'd left my book at home.
Woman Reclining
seemed like a bad idea. Leave him wanting more. I glanced at the debris littering the table. Would I hear him before he opened the door? If I jumped he would think I had been snooping through his papers. How unromantic. But his personal things lay on the table for anyone to see: papers, envelopes, a portfolio.
Don't look
. I listened carefully for footsteps in the hall. Nothing.

The clock said 7:44. I wondered what he was doing, and with whom. Were there others besides Sara Stormont? Lots of others? It didn't seem so when we were together. Perhaps I would gain insight into this man's life if I looked at the papers on the table. Under those terms, it wouldn't be snooping. Of course it would.
Don't look
. 7:47
P.M
. The room was so very quiet except for my beating heart.

My Jane Austen was creating another list. I was getting a little tired of her lists. Who was she to divide the world into good and bad? Where would her own name fall on one of her lists? "I don't even know you," I said to her. "You're not Jane Austen. Who are you and what are you doing in my head?"

I stood and walked to the bathroom. Oddly, this bathroom had no shower stall. The whole bathroom was the shower. A narrow slice of glass acted as barrier between sink and shower head but water would flow directly into the room. Unless the drain could work really fast, it appeared the room would flood with every shower. The sink offered no counters. No place for a woman's things. And the only electrical outlet was an oddly configured plug for "shavers only." Must be the Caveman Suite. I opened my tiny bag and pulled out my lipstick. Well--Bets's lipstick, I liked the color and Bets had abandoned it. Would he open the door and find me applying lipstick? I leaned in to examine myself in the mirror. Was that me? The real me or the fictional me? Willis would know. Some people understand you so clearly, and others just don't. Most don't. Why is that? I dropped the lipstick into my bag and drew it shut, then checked my breath and decided I could stand a mint, which I didn't have. Toothpaste. Surely he had toothpaste in here, but where? I looked for a Dopp kit but the maid had obviously cleaned; nothing lay about, no razor, toothbrush, or comb. Towels hung neatly folded. I imagined him opening the door just now and finding me embracing the chrome towel warmer for heat.

The last essay I'd read was still talking to me, saying,
Nobody falls in love with Fanny Price
. "Nonsense," I said to the mirror as I found toothpaste hiding behind shower gel. "Edmund falls in love with Fanny Price." I pointed to make sure the mirror understood. "I'm wrestling with this," I continued. "Don't tell me Edmund doesn't love her. I felt the
chemistry. You felt it, too, Willis? That fizz of connection? Just curious: Do you feel it with Philippa?" I squirted a tiny dot of toothpaste on my finger and rubbed it around the inside of my mouth. What if I spit in his sink. Better not. But I could collapse in a puddle of Regency gauze and cry on the lovely caramel tile floor. "I miss you, Willis." My Jane Austen looked up from her corner. She seemed a bit dimmer, as if she might faint again.

I left the bathroom and struck a pose near the window where I could stare at the London night sky, eyes relaxing, casting the sparkling lights into a blur, wondering if Jane Austen had completely tricked me about
Mansfield Park
. "Did I miss something? Was I
supposed
to dislike Fanny Price?" I asked. "Was this your joke on us--designed to separate the lightweights?" But the black window made me feel abandoned and alone. Like the window at day care when I was five, waiting for my father to pick me up. Other parents had claimed their children and gone home for dinner and bedtime. My teacher and I waited alone, her purse and keys on her desk. Most of the lights were switched off and her lips pressed together as she searched the darkness for my dad's headlights. I watched her, feeling the deep isolation of the night, wishing my dad would come so she could go home. But my dad's real life happened somewhere else where the people were more important than me. I'd always known this. And because of the unimportance of me, my teacher had to wait.

7:51. Randolph should be here by now. I went back to my chair by the desk. Funny how the bathroom looked so neat and the table was such a mess. Perhaps the maid didn't touch papers. Or maybe he messed them after the maid cleaned. I looked in the trash can and found several crumpled papers indicating he had worked in here
after
the maid cleaned.
Woman Examining the Evidence:

"And where were you at 7:51 on the evening of the eighth of August?"

"I solemnly swear I spent the evening in Lord Weston's hotel room, going through his trash."

The phone rang and I jumped. The moment of truth. Should I answer? Two rings. 7:53. My pulse raced. What if Randolph was calling me? If a woman answers, hang up. My Jane Austen and I watched like cats as the ringing stopped, another sound took its place, and paper ratcheted into a printer. The fax machine zipped into action, feeding the paper into the waiting trough. My Jane Austen read the paper as it spooled through the printer. Could I read his faxes? No. But I could read his trash. Trash is considered public domain.

I stopped talking to myself, proceeded directly to the trash can, lifted the three crumpled balls from the bottom, and recognized the sensation of seeking painful truth. Where was my dad when I waited all those nights in the dark day care center? If she knew, my mother never told me. She put me in the car and drove in silence, the green freeway signs communicating distance. I feigned sleep, imagining the story of her grief.

Shaking, I dropped the three crumpled balls on my lap. One fell to the floor. I didn't even look at the time. No time to look at the time. The first trash item was a pink carbon copy of a claim check from a tailor, Savile Row. Name rings a bell. The second trash item was a phone message from Chris, no last name, no call back number. I recrumpled the two trash items, and rethrew them into the bin. I fished the last ball off the floor and smoothed it in my lap. A transmission report from the fax machine. 14:38. I endured the snarky glare of the fax machine on military time. I threw the last ball back into the trash. I'd made no progress in my quest for insight. But having crossed the line into reading trash, I felt com
pelled to move on to bigger things. 8:01. Time flew. The idea that a paper in this room would tell me everything I needed to know about Randolph Weston and the role I played in his life consumed me.

Or did I seek a hit of familiar pain?

8:05.
Woman Reading Personal Papers
. I helped myself to the personal papers on the table. A bill from Pratt's. Bank statement (still in the sealed envelope). An invitation to a dinner benefiting the Osteopathic Centre for Children, a newsletter still folded from Alliance of Independent Retailers, a fax from Tony Palmer Investments "looking forward to meeting on Tuesday." I carefully restored every paper to its exact original position.

No dance card, no love letter, no broken engagement. Nothing about me. 8:11. I sat perfectly still, but my heart pounded, blood raced through my veins, thoughts skittered in all directions. Looking up, I saw the girl from Texas reflected in the mirror on the opposite wall.
What are you doing here?
I asked her.
Do you crave love or pain and are they the same thing to you?
She leaned over and lifted the fax out of the trough. Reading, she found a listing agreement for Newton Priors signed by Tony Palmer.

This wasn't my novel. I wasn't the protagonist. I was a secondary character hidden in the hotel room. Sara Stormont didn't know about me. I was the secret; the bad surprise that ruins the main character's day--the mad woman in the attic, the villain destined for a disastrous end. 8:21.

The door opened and I jumped.

My tableau was realized:
Crazed Woman Sitting on Chair.

"Hullo, Lily."

Randolph smiled at me. "Did I frighten you?" he asked, very handsome in his black tie, in spite of his hair loss.

My hand flew to my heart and I assumed an innocent
smile. "Hullo, Wes--Randolph." A man who considered his opportunities, of course he would entertain listing agreements. He hadn't signed anything. Perhaps I had been wrong again. I extended a hand and he pulled me into an embrace. He smelled of alcohol and I sensed myself numbing, the walls blurring into once upon a time. Letting go of me, he loosened his tie. "What a bore, knowing you were here, waiting." He tore the tie out of his tuxedo shirt--eyes on me--and tossed it into the lap of the other chair. "You look lovely," he said.

What would it be like--beloved of an English lord? We were slipping into the faux familiarity again, conveniently holed up in the Royal Bachelor Pad. I watched to see if he would stop with the tie as My Jane Austen asked,
What about dinner? What about the business plan?
Sitting on the bed, he touched a panel on the bedside table and a soft electronic buzz sounded as a very large television emerged from the surface of the desk.
The 007 Suite.
He touched again and the drapes began to close, flushing My Jane Austen from her hiding place. He switched on the TV and a cricket match filled the screen.

"Aren't you hungry?" I asked, standing midway between the bed and the TV.

"Only for you, love," he said, eyes on the cricket match.

"I thought we were going to dinner," I said, touching my elegant dress.

"I'm sorry, I've eaten. But we could call for room service," he said, fondling the remote. Randolph removed cuff links and studs, placing them on the surface of the bureau. He threw the shirt and tie onto the chair and then looked at me, his chest bare. Obviously, I was dinner. He held his arms open and I knew if I went to him, I would lose My Jane Austen. "I appear far more committed to this relationship than you," he whispered, referring to his state of undress.

The slightly aloof prince. I crave this. Part of me wanted
to go to him and see what it would be like--happily ever after with an English lord. What if this was the real thing--or could become the real thing? If I backed out now he would be mad at me. My Jane Austen grew withered and pale, less vivid every moment, fading while I stressed. She chose that moment to turn her completed list so I could see it, but I already knew what the list said. She'd written across the top: "Lily's Life." And made two columns: one for protagonists, and another for secondary characters. The list of protagonists in my life was very long, among them Sara Stormont. But the list of secondary characters was short; only one name and it was mine: Lily Berry, playing herself over and over in other peoples' lives. When I backed away, my shawl fell to the ground and My Jane Austen vanished. Gone. I bent to retrieve the shawl and restore it to my shoulders but she didn't reappear. I kept blinking hopefully, searching for her in my peripheral vision. Whoever she was, a projection of myself, my mother, bits of the great writer thrown in, she never returned after that moment.