Jane Actually

away, wearing a big smile accentuated by her many piercings.
    The line moved forward and now Stephen could see her eyes, which were hazel. Life is Good guy was talking to her and produced four copies with very specific instructions for the inscriptions. The avatar seemed not at all nonplussed and cheerfully spoke with him. Stephen was suddenly conscious of his own attire: baggy shorts and an untucked colourful print shirt.
    The line moved forward again and now the woman before him blocked Stephen’s view, so he paid attention to the other woman at the table. She looked familiar and he tried to place her, then recognized her as one of the local JASNA members. She caught him looking at her and recognition also appeared on her face.
    Phyllis, that’s her name,
Stephen remembered.
Talked my ear off a year ago about the latest Wuthering Heights movie before I finally admitted I’d never seen it or read it. Hopefully she’s forgotten that.
    The line moved forward and he found himself facing Jane Austen.
    “Hello, Miss Austen. It’s a pleasure,” he said, handing her his two copies. Suddenly he had to fight the almost overwhelming urge to do a stiff Darcy bow.
    She took the book and said, “Thank you very much, sir,” and inclined her head.
    It was too much and he couldn’t help bowing his head ever so slightly.
    “Two books, is it? And whose names should I write?”
    “If you could address one to Stephen Abrams … with a PH. And the other to Alice Davis.”
    “You’re getting a copy for Alice?” the JASNA member asked. “You’re Stephen, one of her graduate students, aren’t you. The one who doesn’t like Emily Brontë?”
    “Would that be Dr Alice Davis?” the avatar asked.
    “What, oh, yes,” he said to the JASNA woman, and then to Austen. “Uh … she couldn’t be here and she asked me to …”
    “If you’re one of her students, then you are studying …” She looked at Stephen very directly and she seemed to be leaning her head slightly to the right, as if listening to something.
    “Uh … yes … I’m a doctoral candidate and … uh … yes.” He could feel his face flush.
    Phyllis leaned over to whisper in the avatar’s ear.
    “Oh, something about the Enclosure Movement? That is your thesis?” the avatar asked.
    “The Enclosure Movement and the changing demographics of the Regency world as revealed in the novels of Jane Austen,” he said, rushing through the words from long practice, attempting to get it all said before a glassy-eyed look would possess the listener.
    “I hope it will see publication someday. I have been informed that my novels contain all manner of deeper meanings when truly all I was doing was writing my little stories.” She smiled and then returned her attention to his copies, signed them and returned them to him.
    “Thank you,” he said, “thank you very much, Miss Austen.” As he said her name, it felt right and proper.
    “You are welcome,” she said, with a gravity that belied her youth. For a second he looked directly into her eyes.
Contacts, she’s wearing contacts,
he thought, and the spell was broken. She turned her attention to the next person in line.
    Stephen left the table slowly, looking back at her often. Each person she greeted seemed delighted to speak with her and each person received her smile. It was a Mona Lisa smile, a reserved smile, but warm nonetheless.

Meet cute
Stephen and Mary spend the day
    “E xcuse me, Miss Austen?”
    Mary turned around, ready to acknowledge the greeting, a pleasant smile fixed upon her face, before she remembered she was off the clock, wearing jeans and two miles from the hotel and that she did not have Jane’s voice in her ear.
    “I’m sorry, you must have me confused with someone else,” she said to the handsome man who had addressed her. But she still had the smile on her face and her arm already outstretched to accept his greeting, which she now uncomfortably retracted.
    “Oh, I’m very sorry. I thought you were … but of course, you’re not working.” He looked down to conceal his embarrassment and stepped back, colliding with the table behind him in the small coffee shop. The collision prompted him to drop the bundle of pamphlets he carried in his left arm.
    He bent down to pick them up and as he did so spilled some of the coffee he carried in his right hand.
    “Oh crap,” he said. He hurriedly put down the paper coffee cup and pulled the pamphlets away from the spreading spill.
    Mary