Jane Actually

the other disembodied passengers. Mary eventually gave up trying to read and instead closed her eyes, but without the distraction of the book her mind wandered to the topic she couldn’t escape.
    Jane and Melody had finally addressed the question of what would happen after the AGM: they’d offered to buy Mary’s remaining contract with the agency if Mary would agree to be Jane’s avatar for a further five years.
    “I can’t imagine anyone else who could be Jane’s avatar,” Melody had told her. “Everybody, including me, thinks you’re great and you and Jane obviously get along. Even I forget who I’m talking to sometimes.”
    Which was not necessarily the right thing for Melody to say. More than ever, Mary was determined that she didn’t want to be trapped into playing Jane forever. And yet, she could not imagine her feelings if she saw another avatar take on the role.
    True, Jane and Melody had said they had no plans to seek another avatar, but Mary wondered if their resolve would hold once the promotion for the
Sanditon
movie began or Jane finally finished her “something new.”
    This must be what it’s like to play James Bond,
she realized, but she had the further complication that she had become best friends with the director, screenwriter and producer.
    “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve just begun our descent to DFW,” the flight attendant who’d talked to Mary said over the intercom. He then put on a Texas drawl that mimicked the voice of the pilot. “Please move your seats back to the upright position, replace your trays to the locked position and give your seat belts an extra tug. Yee haw!”
    The plane’s descent angle steepened, the controls on the wings made their usual alarming sound and Mary willed away her thoughts and worries. Whatever happened later, she had one final performance of the book tour coming up and she was going to make it her best yet.
    1 A person who attended Texas A&M (Agricultural and Mechanical) University in College Station, Texas
    2 Before she battled vampires, Kate Beckinsale played Emma in a 1996 ITV television adaptation

Fort Worth I
Albert arrives
    A lbert realized his difficulty once he arrived at the ground transportation pickup area. Although he felt justifiably proud of his planning, he realized he’d not researched how he would get to the hotel. Back home, he knew his bus routes by heart or could easily text a taxi to deliver him wherever needed. But confronted with the confusion of the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, he realized he would need to find a public terminal and determine what bus to take or go to the expense of arranging a taxi or airport shuttle.
    But then he saw the four women standing together near the SuperShuttle pickup stand and thought he might be in luck. Three of the women were of that certain age and from their clothing and deportment he thought they might be Janeites also just arrived and awaiting transport for the hotel. The fourth woman, by contrast, was much younger, with multicoloured hair and wearing low slung jeans and a midriff revealing T-shirt that would normally make her an unlikely candidate to be a Janeite, but the words “Dead leaves!” on her T-shirt proved her to be part of the group. 1
    He decided to join them and jumped inside before the doors closed. Once the driver was on his way the thought occurred to him that the women might not be staying at the Renaissance Worthington, but a glance at the itinerary being referred to by one of the ladies listed the hotel. He settled into the back of the van, perched atop the luggage, and observed the women. They were all happily chatting, almost certainly about the AGM or Jane or both in that spontaneous communion common to Janeites. He wished he might join them but reasoned he’d soon have the opportunity to talk about Jane once he reached the hotel.
    Unfortunately that opportunity was delayed because their van never left the airport on their first or second attempt. The driver kept returning to the airport, visiting two of the five terminals, and picking up additional passengers. It was not until their third time returning to the airport that the van, now laden with six women and one man, left the airport for the interstate and the drive to Fort Worth.
    Despite the ridiculous cowboy hat worn by the man, he also appeared to be a Janeite judging by his instant rapport with most of the women. The last woman to have entered the van was by the same measure very obviously not a