At this, I turned to him. “And what of her family is good, Edmund? Their standing? Their status? Their financial situation? What exactly is so good that you believe her to be a perfect match for you?”
He shook his head with some disbelief. “Well, all of what I just mentioned, Fanny. All of it.”
The scene came to an end, and we looked at one another for a prolonged moment.
“I think that was pretty good,” I said, my voice unusually raspy.
“Indeed, it was,” a feminine voice called out.
Startled, Matt and I turned to see Abbie at the door.
“Sorry for barging in. I couldn’t help but hear you two from the hall and...well, I just wanted to let you know how good it sounded,” she said. “And watching you together...yeah, the chemistry between you two is incredibly appealing.”
“I guess it helps that we already know one another,” I said.
“Have you come to the kissing scene yet?”
I felt the instant rush of blood to my cheeks.
“Um, no,” I said. “We haven’t reached that scene yet.”
“Well, anyway, Keely was hoping to have a little impromptu lunch with all the members of the Jane Austen Association that are a part of this production.”
“Oh?”
She nodded. “I think she would just like to have a little feedback on her vision of this movie. Nothing formal. Nothing too serious. Just throwing out ideas and the like.”
“I’ll be right down,” I said.
With a final nod, she backed out and closed the door.
Matt looked at me, a sheepish grin on his lips. He seemed slightly taken aback by Abbie’s sudden interruption. “I guess I’ll leave you to your meeting. Besides, I think we’ve gone through a good number of scenes already.”
“Okay.”
He slowly walked to the door and seemed reluctant to open it, his hand simply limp on the doorknob. “I think this is really going to be good,” he said. “Like Abbie said, I think we work well together.”
“So do I.”
He finally opened the door and walked out.
And the room was still and silent as I just stood and stared at the space he’d occupied.
*****
“ILIKE THE IDEA OFdelving deeper into Fanny’s trauma,” Ayra said.
“Then again, I don’t think we should get too dark and deep,” Abbie said.
Holly and Susan nodded their agreement.
Seated around the breakfast table, set with all the makings of an afternoon tea, we exchanged ideas and thoughts freely.
On entering the large breakfast room, a flash of Britney dipping my hair in honey had quickly come to mind. I’d had to have three inches of my hair cut off, amusing Britney even more.I’d begun to dislike her at that point, but the more I had tried to ignore and avoid her, the more she’d gone out of her way to seek me out and find a novel way to make me miserable.
I shook off the horrible memory, determined to have a good time at Barry Park despite her presence. I had a wonderfully supportive group of women around me and they were the ones I wanted to focus on.
“This is one of Austen’s more difficult novels to bring to the screen,” Penny was saying. “Fanny is so often in her own head, so often passive.”
