Prologue
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a thirtysome-thing woman in possession of a stable career and fabulous hairdo must not be in want of anything, and Jane Hayes, pretty enough and clever enough, was certainly thought to have little to distress her. There was no husband, but those weren’t necessary anymore. There were boyfriends, and if they came and went in a regular stream of mutual dissatisfaction—well, that was the way of things, wasn’t it?
But Jane had a secret. By day, she bustled and emailed and overtimed and just-in-timed, but sometimes, when she had the time to slip off her consignment-store heels and lounge on her hand-me-down sofa, she dimmed the lights and acknowledged what was missing.
Sometimes, she watchedPride and Prejudice.
While Jane relished the myriad adaptations, the first one she’d encountered had immediately stolen her heart—the six-hour BBC version, starring Colin Firth as the delicious Mr. Darcy and that comely, hazel-eyed actress as the Elizabeth Bennet we had imagined all along. Jane couldn’t risk the series disappearing from streaming services, so she bought theDVDs and kept disc two permanently cued up in her ancient duo-TV-and–DVD player. She watched and rewatched the part where Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy look at each other over the piano, and there’s thatzing, and her face softens, and he smiles, his chest heaving as though he’d breathe in the sight of her, and his eyes are glistening so that you’d almost think he’d cry . . . Ah!
Each time, Jane’s heart banged, her skin chilled, and she clamped down on the distracting ache in her gut with a bowl of something naughty, like Fruity Pebbles. At night she would dream of gentlemen in Abraham Lincoln hats, and then in the morning laugh at herself and toy with the idea of donating her DVDs to the secondhand store, as well as her collection of Austen books and Regency-era memorabilia.
Of course, she never did.
The pesky film versions were the culprit. Sure, Jane had first readPride and Prejudiceat the precocious age of ten and reread it a dozen times since. But as soon as she consumed the miniseries, those gentlemen in tight breeches had stepped out of her reader’s imagination and into her nonfiction hopes. Stripped of Austen’s funny and insightful narrator, the movie became pure romance. AndPride and Prejudicewas the most stunning, bite-your-hand romance ever, the kind that stared straight into Jane’s soul and made her shudder.
It was embarrassing. She didn’t want to talk about it. So let’s move on.
1 Year Ago
Jane’s mother, Shirley, came to visit and brought along Great-Aunt Carolyn. It was an awkward gathering, and during the lapses in conversation, Jane could hear dead leaves crack as they hit her studio apartment floor. She loved her houseplants, but keeping them alive seemed beyond her skills.
“Really, Jane, I don’t know how you survive here,” said Shirley, picking the brittle leaves from among the sallow green ones. “We had a near-death experience in your coffin-of-an-elevator, didn’t we, Carolyn, dear? I’m sure your poor aunt wants to relax, but it’s like a sauna in here and not a moment of silence—traffic, car alarms, sirens nonstop. Are you sure your windows aren’t open?”
“It’s Manhattan, Mom. That’s just how it is.”
“Well, I don’t know about that.” She took a scolding stance, hand on hip. The eighty-year-old wood floor grunted beneath her feet. “I just picked up Carolyn from her apartment, andsitting in her front room it was so blessedly quiet I could have sworn we were in the country.”
That’s because money buys thick windows, Jane thought.
“Never mind. Tell me, how’s your . . .”
Please don’t saylove life! Jane thought.
“. . . friend Molly doing?”
“Oh, Molly. Yeah, she’s great, working freelance for the paper since she had the twins. Molly and I have been friends since the sixth grade,” Jane explained to Carolyn, who sat in her wheelchair by the front door.
Carolyn had as many wrinkles in her face as there are ridges in a fingerprint, not just around her eyes and mouth but in delicate folds rippling across her thin cheeks. She returned a blank stare but tweaked it slightly, the barest intimation of rolling her eyes. Jane didn’t know if it was pointed or conspiratorial, so she pretended not to notice.
It was odd enough that Shirley had deigned to leave Connecticut and drive into the city to visit her daughter. Including Carolyn in their lunch plans had come as a complete surprise. Jane hadn’t seen her great-aunt since she was twelve and at her grandmother’s funeral. But from the hungry, significant looks her mother kept pushing on Jane, she began to guess—the old woman was getting older, and Shirley wanted to make a last bid for a piece of Carolyn’s late husband’s seafood fortune. No doubt picking up Jane at her apartment rather than meeting at the restaurant was a ploy to show Carolyn her great-niece’s shameful living conditions.
“Shall we skedaddle?” asked Jane, eager to get the meddling over with.
“Yes, sweetheart, let me just fix your hair.”
And Jane, age thirty-two, followed her mother into her tinybathroom and submitted her head to twisting and slicking and spraying. No matter her age, whenever her mother did her hair, Jane felt exactly seven years old. Shirley had worked as a hairdresser before she’d married a retired accountant (Shirley had been thirty-five; Jane’s father had been seventy), and she still found rare tranquility in a well-placed do.
“Be sure youlistento her,” said Shirley, delivering her hushed, urgent lecture on How to Impress the Elderly. “They love that. Ask her about her childhood and let her go on, if she’s so inclined. At this point in her life, memories are all she has left, poor lamb. Memories and too much money.”
Shirley saidmoneythe way Jane might have saidchocolate lava cake. Jane winced. She knew what her mother wanted her to do, and a small and very young part of Jane yearned to give her mom whatever she wanted, proving to her somehow, after all this time, that Jane was worthy of her love. And another part felt repulsed, helpless, and dismal. So, a fairly typical maternal encounter for Jane.
When they emerged from the bathroom, Carolyn was no longer by the door. Jane gasped. Her great-aunt seemed so fragile, as if made of blown glass. What if she had fallen? Jane rushed farther into the room and spotted Carolyn in her chair by the window, leaning over to tug a floor plant into a yellow square of sunlight.
Jane heard athwackas herPride and PrejudiceDVD set fell from its arboreal hideaway and onto the floor.
She felt herself flush and silently cursed herself for trying to hide the DVDs from her mother in the first place. Stubbornly, she straightened her spine. So what if they saw it? A lot of people enjoyed that series. And there was nothing wrong with being a geek for Austen!
But Carolyn looked right at Jane and smiled, her uncountable cheek wrinkles gathered into a few deeper ones. Something in that smile made Jane feel as though she was wearing nothing but underwear. Dirty underwear.
