Jane, Actually Read online

  After the interview, which lasted only about five minutes, Jane was led to another room they called the obstacle course, although it was nothing more than a furnished room. Jane was asked, via instructions pre-recorded on the terminal Ms Prentiss wore, to navigate the room and pick up and handle various objects, such as a brush, a television remote and a cell phone. Ms Prentiss was unaware of the pre-recorded messages and instead responded to Jane’s instructions.

  At first Jane moved too quickly for her avatar, but soon they were moving in unison, almost a dance. She was confused by the television remote and the cell phone but decided she could simply depend on Ms Prentiss to operate those devices.

  During all this Ms Prentiss refrained from any remarks and Jane refrained from posing anything as a question. The cool efficiency of the woman impressed Jane and she recalled that Ms Prentiss had been with the agency three years. Her professionalism was apparent.

  At the end of the training session, Jane finally addressed her avatar directly.

  “That was very impressive, Miranda,” Jane said, successfully remembering to call the woman by her first name.

  “As were you, Miss Austen. Was this truly your first time partnering with an avatar?”

  “Partnering, yes, that’s what it is,” she replied, although truthfully she meant it to be a private thought.

  “I would have edited that,” Ms Prentiss confirmed.

  “Thank you. Yes, it was my first time and it was a very … I don’t know how to describe it … it was very intimate.”

  “It should be. And Miss Austen, may I say how very honoured I am to be a finalist. I have been a fan of your stories since … well since high school. I’ve seen every movie and been to live productions. I truly hope you will pick me.”

  Ms Prentiss’s professionalism fell away and Jane was confronted for the first time with an adoring fan.

  “Yes, well, I’m sure you give me too much credit, but I thank you sincerely.”

  Afterward she reunited with Melody, happy for the moment with the more primitive terminal her agent wore.

  “How was it Jane? What was it like to have an avatar?”

  “Beyond anything I could imagine, but I find myself somewhat fatigued. Perhaps I could watch you take lunch.”

  A look at the clock on the terminal confirmed it was near 2 pm. She knew Melody would be hungry.

  Melody looked at her watch and agreed. “Sure, we’ve got some time before the next interview, but I’m not going to eat clotted cream again just to please you. I could feel my arteries harden while I ate.”

  Differing opinions

  Jane and Melody clash on choice of avatar

  “I really think your avatar should have read one of your books,” Melody said. Or at least that’s what Jane believed her agent had said, although it was difficult to follow Melody’s words as she bounced up and down on the elliptical trainer.

  “I don’t see what difference that makes,” Jane said in response. “The avatar is merely my mouthpiece.”

  “Really Jane, ‘mouthpiece?’ Who are you, Philip Marlowe?1 And just yesterday you were saying your avatar had to do more than just parrot your words.”

  Jane could not contradict Melody, for she had said something similar while defending Mary as her choice. So she decided to change tactics.

  “Then who do you suggest?” Jane asked.

  “Well isn’t it obvious? Miranda did a great job with you on the interview.”

  “Who? Oh, the stammerer.” Jane immediately felt guilty for adopting this ploy of pretend ignorance and disparagement. Ms Prentiss certainly had impressed with her skills. Mary Crawford, with her inexperience, had not.

  “Oh Jane, that is beneath you. You know Miranda Prentiss was by far the best in the mock interview. She was perfect.”

  This surprised Jane, for she thought Melody more partial to Ms Holland, but her friend had apparently changed camps after Ms Prentiss’s perfect performance.

  But of course that was Jane’s principal objection to Ms Prentiss. She was perfect and loudly praised and admired by everyone, even Jane. She had to admit that Ms Prentiss’ skill at conveying her words so effortlessly was an amazing experience, whereas Melody said Mary Crawford looked like someone “hearing a who.”2 Jane wasn’t sure what that meant, but assumed she meant Mary gave the impression she was merely reciting Jane’s words transmitted through the earbuds.

  Jane had to admit that her interaction with Mary was not perfect, or good or even acceptable, but by the end of the interview, they had improved. Part of Jane’s preference for Mary was influenced by the fact that Mary wasn’t familiar with her novels. She most enjoyed interacting with people new to her work.

  “… the fact her name is Mary Crawford. You think it’s some sort of sign,” Melody said. Jane realized she had drifted away from Melody’s terminal and had just drifted back, catching the tail end of Melody’s argument.

  “Nonsense, I realize it’s just coincidence,” Jane replied. “I know it cannot be an uncommon name.”

  “And it’s a little too … well it’s a little too weird.”

  Jane detected a possibility.

  “Is that why you dismiss Mary?” Jane asked. She knew Melody had a distaste for anything that smacked of the supernatural. She had an almost superstitious distaste of it.

  “What? No, I just thought maybe she’d given a false name to …” she trailed off without completing her theory.

  “Is it likely the avatar agency would have allowed such an imposture?”

  “No, it’s not. I double-checked. It really is her name.”

  “I really think, Melody, that it should be enough that I enjoy Miss Crawford’s company and that I think I might work well with her.”

  “She’s too young for one thing,” Melody said, desperate for another argument against Mary.

  “And yet you and Mr Pembroke had earlier suggested a younger avatar would make me accessible to younger readers.”

  Melody was ready to object to this until she remembered her private conversation with Mr Pembroke where the subject of a younger avatar had been discussed.

  “I think Ms Prentiss, while very capable, might be perceived as too much of a pedant.” Jane added. “She might appeal to Janeites, but I thought our intent was to attract a new audience to my novels.”

  “But do you think you can improve her … Mary’s … skills enough that she won’t look like she’s hearing voices?”

  “I think that possible, yes. But in all honesty, I think at least half the blame falls on me. Ms Prentiss overcame my own poor performance in the interview while I think Miss Crawford may have been distracted by my own nervousness. I’m sure we would improve with practice. After all, neither of us had ever done anything like this before.”

  Melody wanted to point out this would be one of the arguments for choosing Ms Prentiss, but Jane’s comment about Miranda’s pedantry was accurate. She did come off a bit academic.

  “I suppose it is a matter of who you think you would work best with,” Melody then conceded. “I mean ultimately it is your choice.”

  “But only if I have your support, Melody. I should not want to make such a decision without your support.”

  Melody rolled her eyes at this, knowing full well that Jane was peddling snake oil.3

  “Of course Jane, we work best when we work as a team,” Melody said.

  1 The hard-boiled detective created by author Raymond Chandler

  2 A reference to the Dr Seuss story Horton Hears a Who! In the children’s story, only Horton the elephant can hear the infinitesimally small inhabitants of Whoville. He is ridiculed for believing in the existence of something only he can hear (because of his big ears).

  3 A quack cure or remedy with no medicinal value

  Sandwich money

  Jane chooses Mary

  “Argh!” Mary cried in a voice so small no one in the library looked at her. She put down the book she held, not knowing what purpose it would serve to read it now
. She’d reserved the book before her mock interview with Jane, but now she didn’t know if there’d be any point in checking it out. Based on her performance, she was unlikely to be hired as the author’s avatar. In fact, she’d be lucky if the agency decided to keep her on call.

  She looked at the book’s cover, which showed a woman painting another woman awkwardly holding a Grecian urn and the simple title at the top and the author’s name. She’d enjoyed watching the movie—Gwyneth Paltrow1 almost took her breath away she was so lovely in the role—and had decided to read Emma even before Pride and Prejudice. Despite his charms, she found Colin Firth a little too insufferable in the miniseries, and that was enough to dispose her toward Emma.

  Mary’s feelings were conflicted because though she had to admit her performance was awful, she didn’t think it reflected at all on her acting ability. Being able to voice what someone was saying in your ear in a computer monotone was not a skill she’d practiced, although she thought she’d improved by the end of the interview.

  What truly upset her about the interview, however, was the fact that she was beginning to like Jane Austen. Her patience and kindness during the whole experience was something she’d missed since moving to New York. And she felt that by being Jane’s avatar, she had a connection to all the actors who’d ever played a Jane Austen character.

  She got up from her chair still undecided whether to check the book out. Looking ahead at the self-checkout kiosks, she saw they were all occupied, but as she approached, one was freed and so she stopped to swipe the book and her library card.

  She left the library and stepped out into the brisk air. She turned toward the subway station that would take her home, but decided she didn’t much feel like returning to the dingy flat she shared with two other women, both of whom were out of town. The flat, normally a cramped space, would, in her current mood, feel too empty. So she found a coffee shop and began reading the book, her first real introduction to Austen.

  The language was remarkably modern for being almost two centuries old, although she wished her ancient brain-dead phone had a web browser so she might look up “valetudinarian.”2 She was actually making rapid progress through the book, although she realized it was coming at the expense of some retention. The paragraphs were long and complex enough that she’d started skimming, which was always her habit, especially when reading literature with a capital “L.”

  She was a little confused at the notion of Frank Churchill being Mr Weston’s son, but being raised by his aunt for the reasons stated. And she was also confused by Harriet Smith being brought up by a woman who essentially ran either a day care centre, an orphanage or an unlicensed school. She vaguely remembered these complications from watching the movie but the full import of the vastly different world of the early 19th century struck her. The idea that if you lost your wife you could ship off your son to a relative seemed bizarre, but then she remembered the complications of Charles Dickens stories and also some of the scandals from the southern branch of her own family.

  She’d read long enough to have finished her first cup of coffee, taken advantage of the one free refill and then used a shift change to sneak in an additional refill. Having seen the movie had certainly helped. She thought she would not have gotten as far reading otherwise and was already looking forward to Emma painting Harriet’s portrait. Of course the more interested she became, the more she felt the loss of not getting the job.

  She was thinking she might get a sandwich to counteract the pit of coffee in her stomach, and was calculating how much money she had when her cell phone rang.

  She answered it absentmindedly and heard a flat, digitized voice in response to her “hello.”

  “Hello Miss Crawford, this is Jane Austen.”

  The surprise of getting a call from a disembodied author was a little too much for Mary and she dropped her phone to the table, where it bounced and fell to the floor. Mary let out a little cry that brought the attention of others in the coffee shop. Several well-meaning people bent down to pick up the phone, which resulted in no one being able to pick it up at all. And so it took some time before Mary was handed back her phone, fortunately still working. She heard the digitized voice saying, “Hello? Hello?” with a fake interrogative accent.

  “Miss Austen, hi. I’m sorry, I dropped the phone. I didn’t expect … I didn’t know you could …”

  “Quite all right, Miss Crawford. Melody always says I shouldn’t call, but I am unable to appreciate why getting a call from a disembodied person should be so much more upsetting than talking to one online. I fear the intimacy of telephonic conversation remains a mystery to me.”

  “No, I’m not upset,” she lied, for dropping her phone to the floor certainly would indicate she had been upset. “Just surprised.”

  Austen’s response took long enough that Mary thought perhaps her phone had been damaged. Then Mary realized the pause was the consequence of the author forming the words in her mind and then projecting them into the AfterNet field, after which the terminal translated those words into speech.

  She’d already grown accustomed to the pauses while speaking to Austen in person—or whatever it could be called—but over the telephone, the pauses were more distracting.

  “Well, I hope you’ll find this a pleasant surprise, but I wanted to tell you that I … we have chosen you to be my avatar, if that will be convenient.”

  “Yes, very convenient,” Mary said, and silently added: especially as I was just wondering if I had enough change to buy a sandwich.

  “Good. Would you be available soon? I don’t wish to rush you, but …”

  “I can begin immediately. Or now. I could start now. I mean I can be there in …” Mary didn’t finish the sentence for she realized she didn’t know where there was.

  “Oh, I wish I could make this thing laugh,” Jane replied. “I am told the effect is rather too horrible for words. Tomorrow will suffice. I believe the avatar agency will allow us the use of a room where we might start practicing. I … I will be honest, I do not think we were at our best for the mock interview, but I do think we improved.”

  “I am sorry, Miss Austen. I’m afraid my acting classes didn’t cover … but I really think I got better.”

  “No, Miss Crawford, please do not feel the need to apologize. We are both new to this and with practice we shall become accomplished, but it will be hard work. And so we begin tomorrow morning, say at 10 o’clock?”

  “Yes, that will be fine, Miss Austen.”

  “Please call me Jane. If you are to be my voice, we must become fast friends.”

  “Thank you, Jane. And I would be pleased if you would call me Mary.” Mary wondered at the formality of her reply and realized she was starting to slip into the role.

  “Thank you, Mary. Oh, Melody reminds me you might want to arrive a little earlier for the agency will undoubtedly want you to fill out more paperwork. Until tomorrow then.”

  Jane rang off and Mary put away her phone, slightly dazed to have had her first phone call from a dead person and gotten a job. But after contemplating her good luck for a minute, her stomach reminded her that it was still hungry. With a smile, she decided to use her one still working credit card to get that sandwich.

  1 The actress portrayed Emma in a 1996 film

  2 A person unduly anxious about their health; a hypochondriac

  Hampshire

  Jane compounds her lie

  BertieFromHants Says:

  Jane, so glad you made it.

  JaneAusten3 Says:

  Oh Albert, I am so sorry to have missed our last rendezvous!

  BertieFromHants Says:

  Amazing woman! I did not mean anything by my remark.

  JaneAusten3 Says:

  Oh, come now. “So glad you made it.” Is there not an accusation, Albert?

  BertieFromHants Says:

  Very well, perhaps a little. I was disappointed you couldn’t join me for our usual conversation.

  JaneAusten3 S
ays:

  I did send you an email.

  BertieFromHants Says:

  Yes, thank you, but it hardly made up for missing your company.

  JaneAusten3 Says:

  I am suitably chastened, sir. Am I forgiven?

  BertieFromHants Says:

  Once you tell me what made you miss our chat.

  JaneAusten3 Says:

  I’ve started employment … a job. I have a job. That’s such an odd thing to say. I have a job.

  BertieFromHants Says:

  Jane, that’s brilliant! And I know what you mean. As inane as my job is, it’s great to be working again. What is it?

  JaneAusten3 Says:

  It’s in the publishing industry. I’m editing a book.

  BertieFromHants Says:

  Well with a name like yours I shouldn’t wonder you’d be good at it. Do you have to go to an office? And what company?

  JaneAusten3 Says:

  No, I can work from … well where ever I happen to be. And it’s Random House.

  BertieFromHants Says:

  In London?

  JaneAusten3 Says:

  No, I’m in New York City, which I am sure my status reflects … oh, no I guess I hadn’t updated that. Well, I am in America and I am staying with a friend—a living friend. So I suppose I have taken all your advice to heart.

  BertieFromHants Says:

  I did say you would enjoy visiting America.

  JaneAusten3 Says:

  And I said I had visited America, and I haven’t said that I am enjoying myself.

  BertieFromHants Says:

  But you are, aren’t you?

  JaneAusten3 Says:

  Very well, Mr I Am So Clever. I am enjoying myself, despite my preference for a quiet life. It certainly helps that I can’t hear the traffic or smell … well I shan’t say what I am spared. But bagels, I wish I might smell those. And the lox, I wish I could taste that.

  BertieFromHants Says:

  Well look at the shiksa now.