Austentatious

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 menfolk 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 cliches 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