Boyfriend #2
Justin Kimble, age eleven
According to fifth-grade reckoning, Jane and Justin had been “going out” since fourth grade, when he’d shared his Pixy Stix with her during the class carnival. This meant Justin sometimes looked straight at her before quickly looking away. Jane gave him significant valentines (I “heart” you), and, at class parties, they might even eat from the same bowl of popcorn.
And then came the fateful day Mrs. Davis went through her class list, letting each boy pick his folk dance partner for the upcoming “Hooray for Culture!” assembly.
Mrs. Davis called Justin’s name.
Jane sat up straighter.
Justin said, “Hattie Spinwell.”
Hattie flipped her hair. And Jane’s heart flipped upside down.
For years after, there were few things Jane distrusted so much as the wordsguy’s choice.
Day 3
“You will simply adore Amelia Heartwright,” Aunt Saffronia said as the ladies embroidered in the morning room. Jane eyed her aunt’s neat little flowers and fields of cross-stitches. She was transforming her own fruit basket sampler into a knotted mass that resembled a cornucopia beaten and left for dead. As an artist, she would have hoped she had a little more skill, even in a new medium. Maybe she’d spent too long in the creative desert, and now she was simply a former artist. That was disappointing.
Also disappointing was waking to find that the gentlemen were out hunting. Her intense anticipation last night had made falling asleep feel like trying to catch a fly with her toes.
“How did you sleep, Miss Charming?” she asked.
“Like a pig in a poke. I mean”—she straightened, her lips tightening—“like a . . . proper pig in a British . . . uh, whatever a poke is.”
Miss Charming had abandoned her embroidery in favor of pacing by the door, ready for the first sign of the gentlemen’s return.
“Miss Heartwright has been living in town this past year,” Aunt Saffronia babbled on, “and is only just returning to the country to tend to her mother in her declining health. Mrs. Heartwright is Sir John’s widow aunt. It is so good of him to set her up in Pembrook Cottage. I have not seen Amelia Heartwright in a year at least. Last she was here—” Aunt Saffronia glanced at the hallway and then at the window as if suspecting eavesdroppers. She lowered her voice. “Last she was here, I detected some attachment between her and a young sailor, a certain George East, of decent breeding but no real prospects. I do not know what became of them. Miss Heartwright returned to London and Mr. East to the sea, I suppose. A shame, even if he was as poor as a farmer. They did seem very fond of each other, but young hearts are fickle things, are they not, Miss Charming?”
“What?” Miss Charming had been looking out the door. “I mean, what-what? Just so, pishposh.”
Jane wished that last night she’d slept like a British pig in a proper poke, whatever that meant. The time change was still pulling her between continents, twisting her till she dripped dry. She stood up to stretch, and her muscles groaned and scolded her for so much sitting. It had been days since she had done anything that in good conscience could be considered “exercise.” She had a magpie soul, flitting this way and that, distracted by every new, shiny thing. Without a routine, she could lose hours to daydreaming, and whenever she ignored her compulsion to exercise hard, her body freaked out on her and demanded she eat enough sugar to choke her pancreas.
That morning, she had properly poked around the grand house searching for a gym, but Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s Ideal Client, apparently, insisted historical accuracy be set aside for mascara and blush but not for an elliptical. So as soon as Aunt Saffronia’s raptures about Miss Heartwright waned, Jane excused herself and slipped out the front door. Matilda had dressed her in the worst of her wardrobe (the pink gown with little rosebuds that resembled splattered tomato sauce) and so Jane felt no fear for its ruin when, once out of sight of the house windows, she held the hem above her knees and ran.
It was awkward in her ankle boots, the slap-slap of her uncushioned feet insisting she tone it down to a speed walk. Even so, speed walking in a corset was surprisingly vigorous, and soon the temperate autumn day began to feel like a crispyhot Texas summer. She headed onto a path through a grove, the trees showing off yellows and reds, the footpath softened with fallen leaves. Her track spilled out into a manicured garden with a bench beckoning her to rest. She sat and immediately pulled her skirts up on her thighs, resting her elbows on her knees as she tried to slow her breathing.
“Um, I think I should tell you I’m here.”
Jane sat upright, quickly pulling her skirts back down to her ankles. She had been wearing drawers, of course, but it still felt absurdly immodest to sit that way in 1816 attire. She looked around, seeing no one.
“Where are you?” she asked.
Theodore, her dance partner of late, stood from behind the bush directly in front of her. His impressive height made it seem that he was slowly expanding while standing up, like stretched taffy.
“What were you doing back there?”
“I’m a gardener,” he said, raising the shovel and pick like a show of evidence. “I was just working here, I wasn’t trying to spy.”
“You, uh, caught me there at an unladylike moment. Mrs. Wattlesbrook would probably box my ears.”
“That’s why I spoke. I wanted to let you know you were not alone before you did something—something worse.”
Jane felt a laugh bubble up in her throat. “Like what?”
“Whatever women do when they think they’re alone.” His mouth twisted into a self-conscious grin. “I don’t know what I’m talking about, you surprised me and I’m just—” His smile dropped. “Sorry, I shouldn’t talk . . . I’m not supposed to talk to you.”
