Jane Actually

choice of spectacles of one of the JASNA ladies.
    Oh, I had best let her sleep. I can tell her in the morning. She does look all knocked up.
4
    She realized how much she wanted to tell Mary about the evening and suddenly knew that was the thing that was missing from her relationship with Mary.
    After all, in many ways Mary was as close to her as her own sister. Since the start of the book tour, they had been together constantly. She and Cassandra, however, were often parted, sometimes for months on end and during those separations they would write long letters about what they had seen, who they had met, what people were wearing and who had danced with whom. Even dear sisters benefited from time apart, if only for the opportunity to tell stories from the perspective of having witnessed events alone.
    The very small irritation she had earlier felt, that very small resentment that Mary was living her life, was now gone. She would have been delighted to see Mary wearing the buffalo hat and would have traded on that story for a good long while. She could just imagine Mary’s look of annoyance and knew it would have mirrored her own in the same situation. And she knew that Cassandra would have counselled her to accept the wearing of the hat with good grace and dignity.
    Looking at Mary, she knew that she could never want another to represent her. She decided to email Melody to see if they could make their partnership permanent.
    1 Bent’s Old Fort was a trading post along the Sante Fe Trail in southeastern Colorado. The building that stands there now is a recreation. The Fort Restaurant in Morrison, Colorado, is a replica of the re-creation, and famously serves game meats and other oddities, such as rattlesnake, alligator and Rocky Mountain Oysters.
    2 The Jane Austen Society of North America, the Jane Austen Society of the United Kingdom, the Jane Austen Society of Europe and the Jane Austen Society of Australia.
    3 A reference to an advertising campaign urging people to visit Las Vegas, Nevada: “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
    4 Exhausted

Homecoming
Excess baggage
    M elody shoved the door closed with her butt and announced, “I’m home.” She dropped her purse and computer bag to the floor and let the carry-on bag tip over with a loud thud, but there was no response to her announcement.
    “Where is she? It’s almost nine,” she said. The flat maintained its silence until the sound of a jingling collar signalled the arrival of their cat Sally, who stopped short once she caught sight of Melody. Sally was really Tamara’s cat, but still Melody didn’t think she deserved the suspicious look she was getting.
    “Stupid cat,” she said, before crouching down and offering her hand. After a little hesitation, Sally approached and allowed Melody to scratch her before running to the kitchen in hopes of food.
    Melody stood up, her back stiff from the flight from Los Angeles, and followed Sally. Walking past the dining table, Melody saw that Tamara had made a neat pile of the letters addressed to her. She stopped to look through them quickly while ignoring Sally’s pleading. Once Sally was wrapped around her leg, however, she tossed the letters back onto the table.
    “OK, food, I know.” In the kitchen, she opened the refrigerator, looking for an already opened can. As usual it was buried in the back. She had to move a takeout box aside to retrieve it.
    “Provenza’s,” she said, reading the name of their favourite Italian restaurant. She’d promised Tamara they would go to Provenza’s before she’d left for the two-week trip.
    She fed the cat a tiny spoonful, even though she’d undoubtedly already been fed, as a peace offering. It was gone instantly and the cat, perhaps knowing that she’d been given an illicit meal, quickly disappeared.
    Melody exchanged the cat food for a bottle of pale ale and took it back to the living room where she collapsed onto the couch. Despite the still long late summer day, it was dark, a consequence of their being on the east side of the high-rise. She found the TV remote as usual buried in the couch cushion and reached up for the reading lamp. After a few seconds of unsuccessful fumbling she turned to look and saw that the floor lamp was gone, replaced by a new Japanese-looking lamp made of rice paper shades and wood.
    She looked around the living room with no sight of the floor lamp that she’d bought from a thrift shop for her first apartment. It had three