My Jane Austen Summer: A Season in Mansfield Park

gestured to where My Jane Austen would be if she were there listening as I felt she was, but stopped myself and turned back to him.

'I'm sorry?' he said.

'It's nothing.' I crossed my legs; wild horses could not force me to tell him about My Jane Austen.

'So,' he said, 'you're a reader.' Then Willis shrugged and looked sideways at me. 'Ever consider ditching all this and living in a novel?'

I blinked. He might be pulling my leg, hard to tell. I considered this attic full of junk, murky light struggling through the dirty window, this conversation with a handsome Bronte icon in a house reeking of Jane Austen, and him getting it. It seemed increasingly less likely I was conscious. Perhaps I was dead, this was heaven, and murder should be added to Magda's crimes against me. 'Yes,' I said, leaning forward.

He smiled at me. 'Life in a novel would be so much easier than this constant necessity to sort things out for oneself, don't you think?'

Whereas my life had been going from left to right in a general clockwise motion up until that moment, everything suddenly came to an abrupt stop—and resumed a fraction of a second later in the completely opposite direction—with a marked increase in tempo. As if I had crossed the prime meridian or the Continental Divide, suddenly there was a new way for everything to be. Looking into his eyes, I said, 'When I was ten I wanted to be the Witch of Blackbird Pond.'

'A witch.' His eyes lingered on my face, and for a second, not only did we share The Look, but I really felt like a witch. No one else had ever come close to understanding such thoughts. Not Martin, not my friend Lisa, certainly not Karen, not even my mother; no one but My Jane Austen. I felt so comfortable with this man, as if we were resuming a conversation we'd been having in a previous life. He appeared to feel the same energy.

'But then authors would be God,' he said.

'Ah.' I sat up straight. 'In that case, I could live my literature the way religious people live their faith.' I flinched inwardly as I said 'religious people' Mary Crawford came so naturally when I wasn't on stage.

'Interesting,' he said, with emphasis that made me feel brilliant. Willis folded his hands behind his head and propped his feet on my bench. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, Bets's cell phone, incarcerated in my JASNA bag, began to ring. Willis's mouth froze open, his next word unsaid.

'I'm so sorry,' I said, rummaging for the phone. Bets had annoyingly left a lot of her stuff in my bag. I found the phone and turned off the power. 'My roommate's phone,' I said, slipping it back in the bag, wondering if the caller was Karen. Willis looked different when I returned my attention to him. His body remained in the chair opposite but his face was somewhere else, seeing something I couldn't see.

His feet hit the floor as he looked at his watch. 'I'll have to excuse myself.' Those were not the words he had been planning to say before the phone interrupted. 'I've got to run,' he said, standing, thrusting arms into his jacket.

I held my ground, watching his face, hoping to grab him by the eyes, but he did not look at me. Instead, he pushed his laptop and some papers into a case. He slung the strap over his shoulder and paused for a moment, drumming fingers on the table, apparently trying to remember what he needed to take.

'A pleasure meeting you,' he said to his desk.

'Are you associated with the festival?' I asked. I'd just met my other half; I didn't want it to end. Would I ever see him again? Stumbling upon him in the attic would only work once.

'No,' he said, followed by a pause during which his eyes glazed, giving the impression he couldn't think and talk simultaneously. He stuffed pink message papers from a drawer into his pocket. 'I'm not with the festival.' He looked at me, finally. 'Enjoy your time here,' he said, smiling politely.

'I'm sure I will,' I said, following him out, hoping to continue talking as we walked. But our interview had ended, perhaps forever. I stepped over damp cardboard and tripped down the uneven steps trying to keep up, but Willis walked so fast I lost him after the second floor.

Nine

'How do you know it's Dad?' I asked Karen, talking from a bench in the rose garden behind the manor. The 'evidence' Karen had found was a picture of my dad with Sue. I looked up as a patron snapped my photo, Portrait of Regency Girl Talking on Cell Phone. My talk with Willis in the attic had changed my perspective, like sun shining inside me after a violent storm, and I didn't feel like dealing with my dad's bad weather. For a change, I was taking Karen's cautious approach, pushing bird flu and TB.

'He's wearing the shirt you gave him for Christmas,' Karen said.

'The red plaid one?'

'Yes,' Karen said. 'And the banner behind them says 'Happy New Year.' They're obviously at a party.'

'Do you recognize anyone else in the picture?' I touched a pink rose and bent to sniff.

'No.' Karen sighed. 'Not a one.'

'So,' I said, touching the chilly stone robe of St. Francis. 'What does this mean?'

'A couple of things,' Karen said. 'It means they knew each other before Mom was sick.'

A thorn pricked my back.

'And someone wanted me to know they knew each other.' Karen had already told me she'd found the picture on the counter near the kitchen phone. Sue had put it there on purpose. I could see Sue sorting pictures, choosing one for its power to convey specific information, and then placing it where she knew Karen would see it. 'Was Sue there when you found the picture?'

'Yes.'

Sue would watch Karen pick it up, maybe holding it in better light as she talked into the phone, the information in the picture too ridiculous to connect with what she knew. But the shock would gradually take hold as she struggled to finish her conversation with her husband or friend. All the while Sue would be watching, just like the old man in the car. The man asked me for directions. I was ten years old, walking home from the playground. He watched my expression as I realized his pants were open. Karen would take her children and leave the house in shock, exactly as Sue planned.

Karen sounded so tired. 'I just can't believe Dad would have an affair. I just can't believe it.'

'Well, maybe it wasn't an affair,' I said. 'Maybe it was an office party or something and Mom was there, too.' I remembered how my dad would accompany me to the park after the exposure incident, protecting me, even though I continued to go alone when Dad was away on business.

'Lily.' Karen paused. 'They're kissing.'

'What?'

'On the lips.'

The weakness came into my arms first. I felt the trembling and my breath choked in my chest. 'You didn't tell me that.' I slumped down on the pea gravel, my forehead pressing too hard against the base of the statue, Regency Girl Petitions St. Francis. 'And I didn't tell you about the last time I saw him,' I said.

'When?'

'The night you called to tell me they planned to marry.'

'Oh, Lily.'

'I couldn't help it,' I said. 'When you told me Sue cleaned out the garage to make room for her stuff it was like a bomb exploded inside me.' I told Karen the story of how, that night, I'd hung up the phone and run to my car. I could barely catch my breath, knowing in my heart it was too late. Driving as fast as possible through darkness, neighbors' urgent flaming carriage lanterns lit my way like torches in a Romantic horror version of my life. My mind raced and I imagined Sue walking through my parents' garage, touching things, peering inside boxes where bits of our family life lay in storage. Standing on the balls of her feet, the toenails painted deep burgundy to complement the purple veins in her always-bare legs, she would have pulled boxes from shelves.

The light turned red, forcing me to stop. I opened my window and groaned at the empty street as I imagined Sue touching my mother's Christmas wreath that lay in storage, or the antique chair waiting to be re- caned. My stomach swooped and my arms felt weak as I pulled into my dad's driveway, headlights illuminating the