Jane Actually

sending the email forced her to think of the future, which hadn’t been discussed. She had no idea what might happen after October. She had signed a one-year exclusive contract with the avatar agency and had notified her school she would be leaving after Jane had picked her to be her avatar. She actually couldn’t work as an actress during that time in exchange for a steady pay packet. She couldn’t go back to school until the new year.
    But will Jane need me after the AGM?
The thought filled her with sadness; she truly enjoyed playing Jane Austen.
    She never thought she would become an actor trapped in a role, not at the age of 23. Of course, playing Jane was a role like no other. The script was being written in real time, she had no time to learn her lines and she had to deliver them without thinking. It was all rather daunting, especially with the playwright and director standing next to her the whole time.
    And yet she thought they pulled it off beautifully. She could now finish Jane’s words for her almost as fast as Jane could think them and over time, she was losing herself so much in the role that she didn’t know where Jane stopped and she began.
    I’ve got to ask Jane how long a gig this is
, she thought.
Because if it does end after October … I’ve got to make plans to continue my life after this.
    The loud wail of the baby in the next booth broke her thoughts. She checked her phone for the time and realized she should get back to the hotel. She quickly finished her sandwich and tried to ignore a slight twinge in her mouth. She dumped the paper wrapper into the waste bin by the door and walked back to the hotel.
    The traffic was loud on the downtown Denver street and the sun was particularly hot as she made her way to her Lower Downtown hotel. It had been suggested to her by the bookstore as being convenient, historic and charming. By now on the book tour, however, all Mary required was clean and quiet with good Internet access. But a mention of the Tattered Cover when booking the room gave her a slight discount and the Oxford Hotel was certainly convenient.
    She went to her room, opened the door and called out to her roommate.
    “There you are. I thought you’d forgotten,” Jane’s digitized voice said from their laptop.
    “Sheesh, I’m a minute late,” Mary said, which was not literally true. By the clock on their shared laptop, Mary was nine minutes late and Jane had been watching the clock with her usual preoccupation.
    By now, Jane had lost much of her anxiety when finding herself alone behind a closed door. She knew Mary would eventually return or that a maid would enter, but still she chafed, especially when expecting Mary to return at a specific time. The misery of the two months she had spent trapped in a room still haunted her.
    But Mary had seemed to want to eat her lunch alone and Jane had taken the time to compose a long email to Albert. Every second past Mary’s expected return, however, added to Jane’s discomfort.
    Mary knew the source of Jane’s upset and reassured her employer. “I’m sorry I made you worry, Jane.” She decided not to throw back at her the times she’d worried about Jane’s late-night forays.
    Mary was speaking from the bathroom where she was brushing her teeth. It wouldn’t do for Jane Austen to smell of an Italian special with onions and extra peppers. Then she stripped off her jeans and T-shirt and took her costume from the closet.
    “I wasn’t worried,” Jane replied, “just anxious that we shouldn’t be late for our appearance.”
    “Uh huh,” Mary said, certain that Jane had envisioned her crushed under a bus. It was the writer in her employer, she knew, that made her think of tragic ends for her avatar. She knew Jane wasn’t obsessively planning her demise; it was more an idle exercise in plotting, but it still sometimes unnerved her.
    “I don’t plan on needing my own avatar anytime soon, you know.”
    “Of course not Mary. I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
    “So you’re pretty excited about this book signing. What’s so special about Denver? Have you ever been here before?”
    “Not recently, but I have been in contact with many JASNA members in Colorado and hope to meet them here. And the Tattered Cover is one of the biggest book stores in the region and Melody has said I should … we should be extra nice.”
    “When are we not?” Mary asked, rather pleased at her phrasing, which was lost on Jane, of course. She