Jane Actually

inconsequentials.
And why would a co-worker be asking her a question at six in the morning. True, she might be working unusually early at her office, but why would a co-worker be that early.
    The co-worker might also be disembodied,
he thought. Soon he was constructing an elaborate scenario for why she might be at her office so early and the identity of the mysterious co-worker who demanded her attention.
    You’re a fool, Bertie. How can I be jealous of this person I’ve just dreamed up. How can a dead man be jealous of another dead man claiming the affections of a dead woman? It’s ridiculous and you’re just a ridiculous old fool.
    But why does she now conceal her location?
he asked.
Her AfterNet profile no longer lists her location as New York City and in fact the location heading was missing.
    I should never have suggested we attend the AGM. My offer to pay her registration was too forward. She obviously retains the proprieties of her time when alive and was offended. But then why did she call me?
    But unvoiced in his thoughts was the worry that perhaps Jane
had
shed those proprieties. After all, what loyalty did a disembodied woman owe a disembodied man?
    Instead he consoled himself that she had never said she wouldn’t attend the AGM, although that immediately invited the thought that she could always attend it but without his company … or in the company of another.
    I could send her an email asking whether my invitation was ill-advised.
But he gave up that idea, fearing an answer.
    I will simply send her an email saying that I forgot to ask when we would next chat. That way I put the blame on me.
    1 The ton, or haut ton (also haute ton), is borrowed from the French and during Jane’s lifetime referred to high society, the fashionable

The Men’s Club
Stephen chats with his roommates
    S tephen was a little startled when his computer quacked to warn him of the upcoming chat. It should have been no surprise, for he’d been looking forward to it all day, but he was again lost in the inventory from Chawton. The mind-numbing depth of the project had sucked him in and he had found himself following fake leads and clicking on tantalizing links that revealed mundane objects, rather like Catherine Morland finding the laundry list when she had hoped to find evidence of some Gothic intrigue. 1
    And so the multiple alarms he had set to remind him of the chat proved providential, and he quit Virtual Chawton and turned to his web browser. He clicked the bookmark he’d saved for the chat and logged into the AfterNet. A look at the clock in the menu bar of his laptop assured him he was still four minutes early but a glance at the number of people in the chat room showed him he was the last to arrive.
    Apparently he was not the only one looking forward to the chat. Almost immediately his future roommates greeted him, their onscreen avatars waving their hands or brandishing their swords or firing signal flares or doffing their hats or whatever they were using to signal their greeting. His avatar, a proper Regency dandy, jauntily twirled his cane in response.
    The background of the chat room resembled a Regency ballroom, and the assembled avatars looked incongruous against the parquet floor, the chandeliers and the plaster reliefs on the walls. All the men chose a military theme, redcoats from the Napoleonic War, one man in the green jacket of a rifleman and another wearing the infamous armour of Henry VIII with the giant codpiece. And a Tommy from the Great War.
    Might we be over compensating here?
he thought.
Do even literate disembodied men feel a little emasculated for enjoying chick lit?
    The visual was more than a little distracting so he maximized the chat transcript, reducing the animated characters to a thin strip at the top of the browser window.
    BeauAbrams has entered the room
    BeauAbrams says:
    Greetings gentlemen. Glad you could make it.
    He got effusive replies from the men in the room and again the avatars, relegated to the top of the window, signalled their greetings. Stephen felt a little embarrassed that his simple offer to be a roommate to the disembodied men prompted such gratitude. In fact he hadn’t given his offer much thought; he’d been asked by one of the AGM organizers and readily agreed once he learned his registration would be reduced $50.
    Of course he hadn’t expected to become such friends with the men and if time were money, he’d probably lost the $50 savings and more in the time