Jane Actually

exercises. They give you an egg that you’re supposed to take care of for a week. It’s supposed to give you an idea of what it’s like to take care of a baby.”
    “That’s absurd. The proper way to learn what it is to care for an infant is to have four brothers who among them have more children than a foundling hospital. 1 How many cousins and nieces and nephews have you?”
    “Uh, none. My parents were only children, even Dad’s first wife was an only child, and my brother and sister don’t have kids yet. I’m sure I have second cousins or whatever, but we didn’t keep track.”
    “Oh!” Jane was taken aback. Of course she knew that modern families were small, especially in America. She didn’t know whether to feel pity for or envy of Mary.
    “I was sort of an only child as well because my brother and sister are a lot older than me and they’re only half relations. And because my father was in the military, we travelled a lot so I never really had many close friends.”
    “Then I am sorry for you, Mary. My family was my comfort. And a trial at times, certainly, but … your egg, how did it fare?”
    “I sat on it about thirty minutes after I got it.”
    “Then you failed in your parenting exercise?”
    “Oh no, the teacher just gave me another one.”
    “Well in that respect I should prove more durable than your egg for you cannot sit on me. No, I lie, you can sit on me but it will do me no harm.”
    Mary suddenly worried. “I haven’t ever sat on you, have I?”
    “No, either your good manners or I presume your training at the agency have resulted in the utmost concern for my person. And I believe you should have taken a right turn here. But no matter, you may turn right at the next street. No pardon me, the street after that. I must make allowance for one-way streets.”
    “Huh? Oh, thanks. You’re better than a voice navigation system. I’d be lost without you.”
    “Nonsense, despite my previous unkindness, I have to judge you are an excellent driver. I am quite envious.”
    “Why? Oh, of course, you can’t … maybe someday the disembodied …” Mary stopped, embarrassed that for a second she had forgotten her friend was disembodied.
    “Your confusion is very charming, Mary. You blush quite easily. It may almost become a game with me to elicit it. No, I do not refer to the present. I remember from my time when alive and how proscribed I was. Often my visits to Godmersham Park exceeded the length of my desire for I could not return home alone.”
    “Oh, yes, I remember that. Sounds like Saudi Arabia.”
    Jane ignored the reference she did not understand and said, “Although I could have
in extremis
travelled alone …”
    “Like Catherine Morland in
Northanger Abbey
.”
    “Precisely. Does this mean you’ve read it?” Mary already knew the characters and plots of the six novels and Juvenilia—in many ways she knew it better than Jane—but she hadn’t finished actually reading all of them.
    “Yes, I enjoyed that. I’m reading
Emma
now. Well, you already know that.” Her last words betrayed a little of the unease she felt at having a disembodied friend who observed everything she did.
    Jane did know Mary was reading
Emma
and had been for some time, and knew that Mary was having difficulty.
    “And do you like the story?”
    Mary was relieved Jane posed her question this way.
    “I adore the story and I love Emma. It’s just … it’s just kind of hard to read. I mean compared to
P&P.”
    Jane had heard this complaint before and had feared that some would have trouble appreciating her heroine and she told Mary this.
    “Duh! ‘I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.’ But I actually like Emma. It’s Miss Bates who drives me insane. She was boring.”
    Jane wished she could have smiled at this. “Poor Miss Bates. I was mean to her at the same time I delighted in making her dull, but there may come a day when you learn to appreciate her. And turn left here, for that is the book store car park.”
    “I need to get a bumper sticker.”
    “A what?”
    Jane’s question made Mary realize the vast gulf that sometimes separated them as she tried to quickly explain the concept of a bumper sticker.
    “It’s a slogan printed on adhesive backed paper affixed to the back of a …”
    “Oh those, I didn’t know that is what they were called. Why, what sentiment do you wish to convey?”
    “Jane Austen is my co-pilot,” Mary answered, and