Jane Actually

long enough that Mr Pembroke added, “I’m sure Miss Kramer will want to make any notes that will help Miss Austen during introductions.”
    “Jane doesn’t follow gossip,” Melody said, blatantly lying but wanting to defend the impression of Jane as a high-minded individual. In fact, she looked forward to sitting with Jane and dishing dirt on the celebrities they hoped would attend. Jane would pretend to that high-minded tone, but in fact she followed the careers of those actors who had played her characters. But it was true that she knew almost nothing of contemporary British comedians and actors and television outside her interests. She recalled her attempt at explaining
Doctor Who
to her—a difficult task because Melody didn’t really understand
Doctor Who
—and the fascination with whatever actor was the latest to portray the famous Time Lord. Fortunately Mary was able to help with that topic.
    “So it really would help if I could give her a head’s up on who’s sleeping with who … I mean whom,” she added.
    “Er, yes, we’ll send you something today. Problem is the list keeps growing because the launch party is already an open secret and everyone wants to make sure they’re invited,” Mr Laurence admitted.
    Mr Pembroke rolled his eyes, annoyed the London office wanted to economize when the book launch was drawing this much attention. Still, he was glad it wasn’t coming out of his budget. The New York launch was already causing grumbling.
    “I know how it is William,” Mr Pembroke said to his counterpart. “We’re having the same problem and we’ve had to change hotels here to accommodate the larger group. We’ll need Lincoln Center by the time we’re done.
    “Now can we move on to the poster for the launch party. I notice your latest mockup uses Goudy Old Style for the title.”
    Oh God, kill me now,
Melody thought. Once Alan started going on the topic of fonts, she knew she was doomed. Problem was that he’d started out in life as a typographer, back in the day when Helvetica was considered avante garde—
crap, that was practically a type joke
—and had no taste for modern typography. Which made him a pretty good choice for working with a Jane Austen novel, but didn’t endear him to graphic designers on either side of the Atlantic.
    She decided it might be a good time to sneak out for a bathroom break and whispered to him—“I am just going outside and may be some time”—and stole from his office, he little caring for he was busy debating the fine points of the kerning of the words “You’re invited to:”
    Melody did use the opportunity to visit the lavatory and then found the break room where she topped off her travel mug. She nodded pleasantly at the receptionist who was heating her microwave diet meal and confessed her fondness for her frozen chicken parmigiana entrée, the pathetic aroma of which failed to arouse any hunger from Melody, but she still enjoyed the conversation. Because of the weeks and months of the book negotiations and then the planning for the book tour, she had become almost a fixture in the office.
    Fortunately the receptionist was taking her meal back to eat at her desk, leaving Melody alone. She used the time to call Tamara.
    “What are you doing?” Melody asked her partner when a breathless Tamara answered the phone amid the clamour of rattling pans.
    “I just thought I’d try making something a little special for tonight,” Tamara answered. She had thought about spaghetti bolognese.
    “What about chicken parmigiana?” Melody suggested.
    “Oh, I’ve never tried that before,” Tamara replied, surprised at the request. She was celebrating the success of the new work schedule implementation and finally had some time on her hands. She and Melody had been living on takeout for weeks—that is when Melody was actually home.
    “But I’m sure it’s not much more difficult than the spaghetti,” she lied. There were chicken breasts in the freezer, and she’d need to get some real parmigiana and mozzarella, and Panko bread crumbs for the chicken breast and she’d need to make marinara sauce instead of the bolognese sauce and that meant she’d need white wine instead of red; and all these thoughts were going round in her head alongside the guilt of a kept woman.
    The kept woman guilt had finally struck her the other day when she caught a glimpse of one of the movie offers for
Sanditon
. Melody had written down some quick figures that