“It’s the finest thing I have ever seen,” Jane said. She held up the pen as though she examined a gold nugget.
“Keep it,” Sofia said.
“I could not possibly,” Jane said. “A self-inking quill must cost a fortune.”
“It’s yours.”
Jane gasped and nestled the pen in her hands.
“Now, I must get my beauty sleep,” Sofia said. “You have everything you need?”
“I am well, thank you,” Jane replied, still staring at the pen.
The interaction struck Sofia as odd, though not unpleasant. The Jane impersonator seemed determined to uphold the farce, despite Sofia’s insistence that no cameras existed inside her brother’s private property. Still, Sofia didn’t mind. She could not put her finger on it, but something otherworldly surrounded this actress. What Sofia had earlier written off as bad acting now struck her as something different altogether. Jane appeared to be genuinely taken with the pen and the desk lamp. She showed an interest in everything Sofia said, whereas most people zoned out the minute Sofia opened her mouth. She seemed to be one of those annoying types who liked people. Sofia commanded herself to remain frosty and professional with the woman, however, to not like her too much, for Sofia was the movie star, and this Jane was a nobody, employed by a film studio to make fun of her. With any luck, she would just stay the night and be gone by the morning, and Sofia would never see her again.
“Good night, then, Jane Austen,” Sofia said.
“Good night, Sofia,” Jane replied.
Sofia left the room and shut the door.
Chapter Seventeen
Fred sat in the Black Prince Inn and drained his third lager for the evening.
Four weeks ago, his sister, Sofia, had showed up on his doorstep and turned his life upside down. It was the first he’d heard from her in three years in any meaningful way; she flew around the globe from red carpet to film set and they exchanged brief, humorous text messages around birthdays and holidays with a distinct lack of any real emotion. That’s how they did it in their family, with jokes and booze. When he had learned about her separation from her husband (on the internet), he’d made an awkward, half-hearted offer to call, but she hadn’t replied, which he had been grateful for, for he had no idea what he would have said if she’d taken him up on his offer.
In the last few weeks of living with him, she’d already managed to destroy his stereo, scratch his car, drink all of his wine, and somehow spill rice into every drawer in the kitchen and corner of the floor. Grains of rice still stabbed his feet when he got up in the night.
She’d returned to Bath to shoot some period film—a Jane Austen movie, like they all were in Bath—and she’d asked to stay with him, declaring that no hotels in Bath met her standards. The request had startled him. Sofia wasn’t just some actress. She was a movie star, and the last time he had seen her face, it had been on a thirty-foot-high billboard in Piccadilly Circus. She didn’t stay with relatives, she stayed in presidential suites and on yachts, and bunking down in the little cottage they had both grown up in seemed several levels beneath both her taste and price range. He’d tried to assuage her concerns and reassure her of the quality of hotels in Bath; after all, the city had hosted Roman emperors and kings for two thousand years; there were more than a few decent rooms in town with appropriately eye-watering price tags. “None good enough for me,” his sister had insisted. “I’ll have to stay here.” She’d scratched her face then and gazed at the floor. He had never seen his magnificent big sister look so tired and small. They still hadn’t discussed her marital split, and he didn’t plan on bringing it up anytime soon.
“You’d better stay here, then,” he’d said, realizing she wasn’t going to budge.
She’d done an odd thing then. She’d hugged him. He recalled her leather jacket crackling like crushed cellophane as she held him tight. She reeked of French perfume and money. She embraced him for almost a minute, saying nothing. She hadn’t hugged him—or perhaps anyone, from what he could gather—in a long time. It was all very strange.
“Don’t tell anyone I did that, or I’ll crush your bollocks,” she muttered afterward.
Next thing he knew, he was acting as an extra on the set of her new movie. “It will be fun,” she had said when making the ludicrous request. “Sister-brother bonding!”
Fred had laughed; normally Sofia couldn’t get far enough away from her family, and now she wanted a member of it lurking around her workplace. Something was up. “Please?” she added, when he scoffed at the idea. The please signified more than the request itself. Sofia never said please. “It would be nice to see a friendly face on set,” she’d mumbled then, and looked at the floor again. He’d never known his big sister to be anything but brimming with obscene confidence, pouty and haughty. He’d finally agreed to go to set with her, and relief had danced across her face like he’d never seen.
Almost as soon as he agreed, he regretted his decision. For two weeks already, he’d been initiated into the ludicrous world of film sets. Moviemaking seemed mostly to involve standing around and occasionally being shouted at by people with headsets. The production people dressed him in a Regency-era costume that included a frock coat and jodhpurs. He complained of feeling silly but this was the one part of the whole thing he secretly enjoyed. He often instructed his A-level students on the Napoleonic Wars, and he also suspected he looked quite dashing in the clothes, maybe like someone who fought pirates. They told him his character was an officer in the navy and gave him a plastic sword to complete the look. When no one was watching, he swished
