Jane Actually

separated and when they returned, Jane replied: “What does love even mean for us? What form does it take? How do we show it or profess it?”
    And suddenly Albert realized he must be the hero of his own story—of their story. With an eloquence he never knew he possessed, he said, “All I require from you is three words, uttered once. I require no minister, no ceremony, no announcement. All I require is the sure and certain knowledge that you love me, for if you, whose opinion I hold more dear than any one I have ever known, say those words, I know that it is writ in stone. You would not say those words simply to comfort me or on a whim. You would only say them if you meant them.”
    How well he knows me
, she thought.
But then in the space of a few short years, I have spent more words with him than with any man I have ever known.
    “But I have never let you truly know me,” she said with an attack of guilt. “How can that be a basis for love?”
    “You have leaked your soul to me drop by drop. Despite your deception, and despite my overreaction to it, I think I know your heart and soul and I think you love me.”
    “But what does that matter when …”
    “Oh for God’s sake, just tell him you love him!” Mary silently screamed into her terminal. She had stopped in mid step while Stephen and the other dancers continued, causing a small collision.
    Jane saw the confusion. Her avatar remained motionless and now the crowd was beginning to notice the commotion and that Mary was the cause of it.
    “YOU WERE LISTENING!” she said to Mary, angered that her avatar would again presume.
    “Tell him you love him or I swear I’ll scream,” Mary said, still silently, but Jane could see Mary’s face and throat colour from emotion.
    “You had no right to listen,” objected Jane.
    “Tell him!” And for just a second, Jane fancied that Mary could see her and she wilted before the determined look of her friend.
    “I will, I will, just continue dancing,” she said.
    “Say it now,” Mary demanded.
    “Yes, I love you, Albert.” Jane said it as quickly as she could and with her words came a tremendous relief and a disbelief that it should have been so hard to say.
    Albert, surprised by the exchange between Jane and Mary, was taken aback.
    “What? You do?”
    “Yes, I love you.”
    “Jane! If I could only kiss you …”
    And Mary, still listening, loudly whispered to Stephen. “Quick, kiss me.”
    “What?”
    “Just kiss me. Now!”
    And Stephen did.
    1
Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot
and
Hole in the Wall
are English country dances that should be familiar if you’ve watched a few Austen movie adaptations.
Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot
was featured in the 1995 BBC adaptation of
Pride and Prejudice
. (In this context, maggot means a whimsical fancy.) By Jane Austen’s day,
Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot
was considered ancient. Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy (and Harris Bigg-Wither) can be seen dancing
Hole in the Wall
in the movie
Becoming Jane
.
    2 Uttered by Fitzwilliam Darcy in
Pride and Prejudice
, Volume I, Chapter 6
    3 From William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116

Antigone…with zombies
Six months later
    “D efy our father! It would be the death of us all,” Mary cried out. She took a step toward Zoe, the actress playing the part of Antigone.
    “No! No! Mary—Ismene is timid—don’t get all in her face,” the director said. “Dial it down a notch and try again.”
    She bit back the remark she was about to make.
    It’s just not worth it, they’ll just cut me and hire somebody else if I tell him how wrong he is.
    “OK, David,” she said instead. He smiled and she read through the lines again straight to the end of the scene.
    “Good read through, everybody. Let’s take five, and by the way, I heard at least two ringtones while we were reading, so please turn off your damn phones.”
    He dismissed them and caught Mary as she left the room, “Thanks for taking direction, Mary. I know Ismene is written as standing up to her sister, but I wanted to do something different.”
    “Oh, sure,” she said, happy to know she hadn’t misread the character. She was going to say more but he’d already turned away, apparently eager to have another little talk with somebody else.
    He’s wrong about Ismene, of course, but it was nice of him to say something.
    It wasn’t a great play—Antigone set against a modern-day zombie apocalypse and faux Greek tragedy dialogue—but she tried to treat it as seriously as she could.