'Nah, I'd be disappointed, as usual.' Omar shrugged.
'Probably,' I agreed.
We were watching bats fly overhead, little black specks that surely slept in my attic during the day, when Mrs. Russell appeared. I almost missed her, dressed as she was in twenty-first-century jeans. 'We're saying good-bye to the house,' I said.
'Oh my dear,' she said. 'You'll miss the ball.'
'The ball?'
'You didn't hear? Nigel called me last night and I rushed right over'—she indicated her attire—'dressed as I was'—she covered her mouth—'with a toothbrush in my purse.' She laughed confidentially. 'I slept upstairs last night,' she said. 'I've no time to turn around. The ball's Sunday and we're all pitching in to make it happen.'
'I'm so glad,' I said. 'You've worked for it so long.' Nigel's parting gift to the volunteers.
'Now or never.' Mrs. Russell shrugged and I realized how alike she and I were, each of us projecting ourselves into dead Jane Austen. Mrs. Russell's need illuminated my own need to create my personal heroine. The real Jane Austen was unknowable. She was not the creature of perfection the family memoirs put forth, their lack of particulars allowing us to imagine her in our own image. I considered giving Mrs. Russell a copy of Magda's textbook.
'You know what I think I learned this summer?' I said, after Mrs. Russell left us.
'You can act,' Omar said.
'Besides that.'
'What?' Omar turned to face me, expecting something really interesting.
'I think I'd never make it in a Jane Austen novel; the experience might be worse than real life.'
'Congratulations, Dorothy. You can tap your ruby slippers and go home now,' Omar said.
'For example,' I said, setting the book on the step in front of me and hugging myself in the evening chill, 'Henry Crawford could crook his little finger and I would be a ruined woman before the story had a chance to begin.'
'No you wouldn't,' Omar said. 'Not anymore.'
I turned to look at Newton Priors in the waning light. How long would its details remain crisp in my mind? How would it appear from the distance of my humble gray cubicle? 'I used to imagine myself as the protagonist in every novel I read,' I said.
'Don't we all? Hard work being a protagonist.'
'You can say that again.'
'Hard work being a protagonist.'
I socked him in the arm.
Omar smiled big and patted my knee. 'Lily, I'm going to miss you.'
'I'm going to miss you, too, Omar.' My eyes filled with tears.
Omar departed for Michigan; I didn't see him again. I had hoisted my suitcase onto my bed packing everything I would not need before departure, when a knock sounded on my door.
'Can I come in?' Vera asked, her voice flowing over the transom. We had not spoken since my meltdown and I knew we needed to reconcile before I left. I'd been rehearsing potential lines in my head. Vera sat across from me on Bets's bare mattress, and from the way she leaned forward I sensed she had an agenda.
'What will you do, Lily?'
'I'm going home peacefully,' I said. 'I'll probably stay with my friend Lisa until I get a job,' I added.
'But what will you
'I haven't figured that out yet,' I said. 'For starters, I'll probably gather courage to deal with my new wicked stepmother and then hope a gray cubicle offers me a paycheck and benefits.' I waited. 'Why are you asking?'
'I've been thinking,' Vera said. 'And I have a couple of ideas.' I watched from my bed as Vera stared into middle space. 'The first idea is rather ambitious, really.' She looked at me. 'Perhaps we could move this whole thing to Bibliophile Books—do it in Dallas.' Vera's eternal creative optimism surprised me as she waited for my reaction, the old spark waiting to connect.
'Produce Literature Live in your bookstore?' Perhaps the problem was not Vera alone. Perhaps the combination of her eternal creative optimism with my indiscriminate hopeful longing equaled danger. She hadn't meant me harm; she was reckless and I was naive. I sat up straight. 'You're right,' I said, 'that's very ambitious.'
'Yes.' Vera rested her chin on her fist. 'And I'm needed here,' she said, looking at her feet, clearly expecting me to understand her meaning.
'Is Nigel okay?' I asked.
'No,' Vera whispered. She looked up and shook her head, eyes glistening.
'I'm sorry,' I said, my voice catching, my own eyes filling with tears. Perhaps I'd used her just as much as she had used me, casting her as my new mother, expecting her to lead me to a safe place where I could belong to someone again.
'I can't keep him alive, no matter what I do, no matter how hard I wish it away,' she said, clearly worn down by the resistance campaign she'd mounted over the last months.
'I'm so sorry,' I repeated.
'Nigel is going to stay in Hedingham and I would like to stay with him,' she said, stopping to compose herself. 'You know'—Vera looked at the ceiling, wiping her tears with her hand—'our marriage wasn't ideal,' she said, 'but I never imagined being in the world without him. And I'm quite beside myself.'
I searched my drawers for a tissue. 'Is there anything I can do to help?' I asked, handing her a towel I pulled out of my suitcase.
'Well,' Vera said, wiping her eyes, 'that brings me to my second idea.' She paused. 'And that is—why don't you manage Bibliophile Books for me?'
I imagined leaving my gray cubicle to spend entire workdays in the stacks.
'You remind me so much of myself at your age,' Vera said. 'You know, I married Nigel with the understanding I'd never have children. But if I'd had a daughter, I'd want her to be like you.'
'Thank you,' I said, touched by the tribute, but still thinking about a day job surrounded by books, talking about books, touching books; freely reading through my lunch hour. Working in a bookstore would be an all-day party with a diverse guest list: Natasha Rostov and Prince Andrei, Daisy Miller and Miss Havisham, Nick Adams and Captain Wentworth. Jane Austen might join us.
She looked at her hands. 'Nigel and I will be sorting through the books here, deciding which to send to the store,' Vera said.
I imagined Nigel ending his days scanning the titles of hundreds of books, opening his favorites and reading a line to Vera, saying good-bye to old friends. I thought of them sharing this distraction, quite happy, in a way I didn't have the experience to understand.
'Some will be sent to Texas as inventory for the store. It would be very helpful if you could be on the other end to receive them. Chutney can't cope with large shipments.'
I imagined Chutney sneaking out to the Dumpster after hours, tossing entire boxes of musty books into its pit. 'I would love to,' I said. 'What a privilege.'
'You know,' Vera said, 'when the books started coming in, he gave them all to me. He never said so, but I think the books are my compensation.'
I would have to think about that.
'And Lily,' she said, fixing my attention. 'I'm sorry for the way things went with Randolph.'
'Oh, Vera.'
'It was a farfetched idea.' She stood and reached for my hand. 'And I was being very selfish.'
Without considering, I used my best British accent and channeled Mary Crawford, 'Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.'
'Touche,' Vera said.
