Jane Actually

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
    “A rgh!” 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 Paltrow 1 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