Jane Actually

looked round quickly and saw a stack of napkins not far away. She snatched a handful and dropped them on the spill, preventing the coffee from staining any further papers.
    “Thank you,” the man said, still not looking at her while he retrieved his pamphlets. They were now both crouched down upon the floor and Mary also began retrieving his pamphlets, which appeared to be college blue books. Some of them had been graded with remarks on the covers.
    With the blue books now recovered both stood up. Mary handed her stack back to him. He glanced at her, thanked her, lowered his gaze again and then looked at her again, venturing a smile.
    “I … sorry for the …”
    “Absent minded professor routine?” Mary supplied.
    “Well, absent minded TA 1 routine,” he said, his smile no longer timid. “You are her, aren’t you. You’re Jane Austen’s avatar.”
    “Don’t say it so loud, I don’t want to be mobbed,” she said, looking around at the disinterested customers, most of them probably unaware of her employer’s fame or existence.
    “Excuse me, are you going to order or what?” the barista behind the counter said to Mary. She turned back to the barista and gave her order and then asked her new acquaintance, “Can I buy you a coffee? To replace the one …”
    “Yes,” he said with a vigorous nod. “Thank you, just a medium plain coffee.”
    “We just ran out of ‘plain coffee’ so it’ll have to be an americano,” the barista said, after a consultation with her coworkers to confirm that there was no regular coffee.
    Obviously that was a sore point with the man who grumbled, “OK, an americano.”
    Mary paid for their coffees while the man dumped the handful of soggy napkins, and his empty cup, in a trash bin.
    “Shall we sit?” Mary asked. He nodded and she led them to a table.
    “Thank you very much,” he said after sitting down. “And I’m sorry to have accosted you.”
    “That’s a bit of an exaggeration. I’m sorry I didn’t know what to do. Wait, didn’t I sign your copy? I mean didn’t Jane sign it.”
    “Yes you did, or rather she did. Or the two of you did. This is kind of confusing.”
    “Tell me about it. It’s Stephen, right?” she asked, amazed and, considering he was reasonably cute, happy that she’d remembered his name.
    He nodded. “Yes, I’m honoured you remember. So, what you are doing here, so far from the hotel?”
    “Well, I thought I was far enough away that I could remain incognito,” she said.
    His face reflected his discomfort. “I’m sorry that I …”
    “No, no, it’s OK,” she hastened to say. “You don’t look like one of the more rabid Janeites. What are you, a professor?”
    “Just a grad student and … well, my thesis is about … well Jane.”
    “Oh, so you
are
a rabid Janeite. And here I thought I could talk about something other than Austen.”
    Again he looked uncomfortable and Mary realized she’d again said something that could be misconstrued. Of course, truth was that as much as she was enjoying her job, she did want to talk about things non-Austen every once in a while.
    “Well, thank you for the coffee,” he said, and began to push back in his chair. To stop him, she reached out and put her hand on his arm.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “That came out wrong. Look, I’m here in Chicago and Jane’s given me the day off and I don’t know what to do. Maybe you could suggest something?”
    He sat back down and smiled. “Sure, there’re a million things to do here. Do you like museums? Ever been to the Field Museum?”
    Mary had nothing against a good museum and were she to spend a week in Chicago would undoubtedly visit it, but she didn’t want to waste her one day on one.
    “That sounds great. Where is it?”
    So Mary spent the day at the Field Museum with Stephen and afterward walked along the shorefront, which gave her more exercise than she’d had in weeks. The book tour involved sitting in aeroplanes and at signing tables and she’d worried that she’d put on weight, but evidently the nervousness of her role had kept her thin, although her muscle tone was awful.
    So she tried not to complain about all the walking for she was having a very good day with Stephen. She realized that she was having just the sort of day she’d have had in New York and recognized in Stephen a fellow starving student. He’d gained admission to the museum with a student pass and walking along the shorefront cost nothing and