Austensibly Ordinary (21 page)

“So . . . do you hang out strictly in the ladies' room? Or do you like to spook the guys every now and then?” I didn't even bother writing that down.

There was a snicker from Courtney, but I ignored it. It wasn't like she was coming up with any material. Our ghostly visitor answered with a shy smile and averted eyes. I should have known she'd have nineteenth-century sensibilities. Then again, I wouldn't be caught dead hanging out in the men's room either.

I glanced down at the clipboard. I didn't feel like I was closing in on anything.

“I'm definitely getting some EVP,” Courtney said, tossing out the acronym that had stumped her less than a week ago. “Keep talking.” She was nearly squeeing with excitement.

“Right,” I said, utterly exasperated. Difficult as it was to believe, the novelty of seeing an actual ghost had pretty much worn off. With the absence of any spooky—or even mischievous—behavior, this one-sided conversation could just as easily have been occurring with my own reflection.
Suck it up for Courtney's sake. If for no other reason than to give her something titillating to discuss with Sportcoat.

Pen poised over the clipboard, I pulled out a new question.

“Is there a message you want to deliver?”
Oh my God, did she just nod?!
Yes!

I scribbled onto the clipboard.

“Can you give it to me?”
Another nod.
Yes!

My blood pounded through my veins, proof that Courtney's excitement had rubbed shamelessly off on me. But as the moments passed and nothing happened, my whole attitude slumped in exasperation. Clearly I was going to have to pry the message out of her. But how? I stared down at the clipboard, fidgety with frustration, doodling in the margins. I knew that if I had to continue this ridiculous Q&A session, I might just lose it, ghost or no ghost.

“How about a hint . . . enough to get me started?”
I scribbled the words out, simultaneously sending subliminal messages, willing to try anything at this point. I figured it was worth a shot. Evidently it was the million-dollar question, because her entire demeanor changed as soon as the words were out of my mouth. She tipped her head in a Mary Poppins sort of way—a sort of polite arrogance—unlaced her fingers, and gestured for me to look again at my clipboard.

I was midway through my follow-up question before I bothered to look, but it was never added to the formal ghost-sighting minutes because I was completely derailed by the once-friendly clipboard that had gone over to the other side. One by one, starting at the most recent and moving backward toward the beginning, the words were disappearing off the page as I watched. I would have dropped the clipboard if my hands hadn't curled into white-knuckled fists.

“Court!” I yelped, looking back, holding the clipboard out in front of me like it was a dead rat.

“I'm trying to get a picture of her,” she said quellingly.

“That can wait,” I insisted. “Get a video of this instead.”

But the words were disappearing quickly now, almost flying off the page. And Courtney wasn't particularly keen on giving up her photo op, so by the time she'd switched to video mode and had her camera positioned over the clipboard, it was too late. The words were gone, only a handful left to grace the page, fodder for an utterly stagnant video, highlighting a scattered cookie-less fortune.

 

“W
hat the freakin' hell?”

That was Courtney. Unlike me, she wasn't yet used to words disappearing willy-nilly—she didn't know about the journal or Gypsy Jane. Me, I had a good hunch on the identity of the ghost two sinks down. The ghost of Jane Austen was here—in Austin, Texas—barely three feet from me, and I hadn't recognized her! Although in my defense, circumstances were slightly extenuating. Journal or no, she was probably the last person I would have expected to arrange visitation in a hotel bathroom, and yet it was unquestionably her. And I suspected I could read between the lines of this latest supernatural message.

Evidently I'd made some poor assumptions, jumped to all the wrong conclusions, and failed to register that she was bent on setting me up with my Sunday Scrabble partner! A shocking, almost out-of-body revelation had me wondering,
Was it
her
idea that I hook up with Ethan?
Had those little fortunes brainwashed me into an ill-conceived romance? I'd admittedly been the one to suggest we try out the benefits, but the idea had seemed to come out of
nowhere.
Did her talents extend beyond the written page? Because word games I could deal with—mind games were going to be problematic.

I tipped my head back up, away from the latest snippet of advice, to see if I could wring even the tiniest bit of explanation out of her: Why Ethan? Why Austin? And why the silent treatment? To say nothing of, what's next? I was all over the map, but after the last couple of weeks, could she really blame me for having a surfeit of questions? Either way, she clearly wasn't in the mood to answer them; her little “smirk and shimmer” was gone as quickly as it had appeared. The pop-in was over.

 

Over a huge plate of nachos ordered off the room service menu, I filled Courtney in on the Gypsy Jane situation. Well, some parts. I was keeping Ethan's involvement out of it—for now. I was having a hard enough time dealing with the reality that Jane Austen herself, or more specifically, her ghost, had likened Ethan to the adorably dependable Mr. Knightley. Did that also imply that I was the Emma of the scenario? Because Emma wasn't my favorite of the Austen heroines—she was pushy and overconfident and utterly misguided. My thoughts whizzed about, skimming over the last couple of weeks as I attempted to keep up my end of the conversation.

“That night at the Trailer Park . . . you, me, and Ethan?” Courtney quizzed, wanting all the details. “You found a magical journal, enchanted by the
ghost
of
Jane Austen?
That tells fortunes and makes words disappear? All after I left?”

I nodded, confirming every bit of it with my lips pressed snugly together. The reality spoke for itself, and explanations were both disappointingly absent and superfluous.

“Why the hell didn't you say anything?!
You let me drag you around the hotel, the two of us hunting ghosts like a couple of goobers, when you had one at your damn beck and call??” Her voice had risen to a shrieky pitch and then fallen off again, hurt and betrayed.

I sat up straighter in my chair, eager to defend myself, figuring now wasn't the time to press her on the goober thing. “Okay, first of all, I didn't know what I had for days. And I'm too embarrassed to even admit the ideas that flitted in and out of my brain in an attempt to explain the crazy behavior of that journal.”

“And second?” Her face had softened slightly, and in answer, the tightness in my chest had relaxed just a bit.

“If we hadn't gone hunting, we never would have run across Sport—er, Micah.” I smiled big to cover my bobble. “Or his equipment,” I added, with a wink.

“And possibly not even Jane herself,” Courtney finished, crunching into a chip heavy with cheese and black olives.

“Very true,” I agreed. My eyes met hers, and together both pairs rounded like saucers. “That was beyond, beyond,” I said, having no coherent words for what we'd just experienced.

“Damn eyelash,” Courtney groused. “Damn camera. Damn slow reflexes. We essentially got nothing.” She bit her lip, holding back a chuckle that if released would, no doubt, be at my expense. “Except the transcript of your exclusive, hard-hitting interview: ‘Do you come in peace?'” The chuckle could no longer be held back and actually took the rowdy form of a guffaw.

We smiled at each other, truce called, and spent a quiet moment, each lost in our own thoughts.

“So do you have any idea what today's fortune meant? Who's ‘K,' and who's ‘he'? Is it Ethan?” she asked, clearly giddy with I-told-you-so potential.

“No idea,” I lied, punctuating with a shrug and feeling only vaguely guilty. What was one more little white lie, after all? I wasn't even 100 percent certain that Courtney had read—or even watched—
Emma
(although she'd definitely seen
Clueless
), so confiding in her could well be pointless. I needed to work this out on my own.

“You don't have it with you, do you? The journal?” Her eyes lit up with vicarious possibilities, and sparkled and fizzed like fireworks when I drew the unassuming book out of my bag. I ate quietly amid the rasp of pages, the gasps of disbelief, and the oohs of junior high–style teasing. When she was all caught up (I hadn't mentioned that there was a key), she slapped the book closed, leaving her finger to mark the place, and leveled me with a steely-eyed stare.

“No idea? Seriously? You're either clueless or lying.” She tipped the book back open to the saved page and read,
Ethan is sweet, serious, stable. Work your magic.
Then she tipped her head to the side and said, “You idiot—‘he' is obviously Ethan.”

“Really? So who is ‘K'?” I countered, truly hoping that reference had stumped her.

She pursed her lips, thinking hard. “K, K, K . . .” She looked at me with a triumphant light in her eye. “Could it be a character in one of her novels?”

I shrugged, striving to look clueless. “Could be.”

“Let's look it up!” And suddenly she was pushing away from the ignorant bliss of our nacho huddle to the business end of her computer. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, and within two seconds, I'd caved under the weight of my guilty conscience.

“K is for Knightley!” I blurted, wondering if I'd have any secrets left by the time we parted ways. Clearly Ethan never should have confided in me—I could not be trusted.

“Uh-huh.” She smirked, simultaneously searching her memory and gloating. “Knightley's the hero of
Emma
, isn't he? The best friend—the trustworthy neighbor—the sexy secret crush. Sounds about right.” She reached for her travel mug. I wondered if she'd be able to stop grinning long enough to prevent water from dribbling out around her teeth. Then again, our bathroom fun had left her prepped and ready for a wet T-shirt contest, so it probably wasn't of particular concern.

She rallied quickly, as I'd imagined she would, no longer so inclined to be indulgent.

“Hold up! Less than an hour ago, you were trying to hook me up with Ethan. What the hell, Cate?”

I sighed. I'd known we'd eventually come back to this and was now feeling slightly crappy that I was telling lies of omission and disappointed that I couldn't dish on my secret life with Ethan.

“I thought the All-Powerful Jane was matching the two of you, so I was . . . facilitating.” I smiled ruefully. “Now, I'm just in shock.”

“Oh, we are so gonna make this happen, chickie. This has been a
long
time in coming. Now, you can go one of two ways with this, but both rely on the element of surprise and some serious flirting.”

I'm sure I looked skeptical, feeling, as I was, that my life was already full to overflowing with the “the element of surprise.”

“Option one: Bake him a plate of irresistibly fudgy brownies, because brownies are known to attract quality men. It's a fact.”

She pressed onward, ignoring my eyebrows, which were turned down in disbelief.

“Are we talking special-ingredient brownies?” I asked coyly.

“No, just normal brownies.”

“Has this method been recently tested on Micah?”

She blushed and fiddled with the nachos, trying to even out the toppings among the remaining chips.

“With great success,” she said definitively, marginally distracted by her own thoughts.

“What's option two?” I pressed. I needed to wrap this up and get myself out of there. Parent Night was tomorrow, and I didn't want to be dragging by the time six-thirty rolled around.

“Option two is to offer up a little sexy surprise. And I'd say you've already got a jump on that one. Just send in Cat Kennedy,” she suggested, a single eyebrow raised. “Let her do your dirty work.”

I fought hard to keep my face impassive and my secrets well hidden. I tried pensive, dubious, and even shocked, feeling that none of them was a sufficient camouflage to cover my guilty-awkward feelings. And ironically, I think the indecisiveness was my undoing.

Courtney's gaze sharpened within seconds. If this had been a duel, she'd have had the tip of her rapier at my throat, insisting on the full disclosure that honor between friends demanded.

I shifted uncomfortably and distractedly reached for an olive.

“You've already
done
the dirty, haven't you? You are just full of naughty little secrets tonight, aren't you?”

I didn't answer. I couldn't. I hadn't a clue what to say to her.
It would have worked if you'd have given it a chance. . . . You and Ethan as the adorable couple, and me playing the mistress. . . .
I was really hoping I could blame that little lapse in judgment on Jane Austen, but I wasn't even sure she condoned “benefits.” Difficult as it was to admit it, this might have been all me.

Courtney sat back in her chair, not judgmental, not angry, more . . . concerned.

“You need to figure a few things out, Cate. I think you're a little in love with Ethan—which doesn't surprise me at all, by the way—and you're afraid to take that next step. Maybe you never planned on ending up with Mr. Knightley, but that doesn't make it the wrong choice. I bet you can't even give me one definitive reason why he wouldn't be perfect for you.”

I stared into her eyes, secrets fairly swirling in the air around us. I couldn't answer her—couldn't confide that the biggest reason was classified—a secret that, until two days ago, I hadn't known myself, and even now I wasn't sure what to do with.

“His feelings on brownies are unconfirmed,” I finally answered.

“First things first, then,” she said, managing a look of bossy compassion. “Full disclosure:
How was it with Mr. Chavez?”
She grinned at me.

“If Chavez is Clark Kent, then I found his phone booth, figuratively speaking.” I giggled, wishing I dared to order a glass of wine and while away a couple of hours with a little buzz and a lot of girl talk.

“I could see that,” Courtney said, nodding, her eyes nearly crossed in an effort to picture that. I snapped my fingers in front of her face in an attempt to derail the wanderings of her imagination and stood up, suddenly exhausted.

“I better escape while I can before word gets around that I'm interviewing ghosts, asking the hard-hitting questions. Right now I don't want to think about anything more confrontational than a bubble bath and a hot cup of tea.”

I'd slung my bag over my shoulder and had my hand on the door when I turned to look back at Courtney.

“Court, are you good to keep all this between us—well, at least the bits about Jane Austen and Ethan? The sighting is fair game, as long as you keep it anonymous. I don't know exactly what I'm dealing with here, but I'd prefer to work things out without the whole world looking over my shoulder, if you know what I mean.” I rolled my eyes. “Imagine all the amateur ghost hunters who would crawl out of the woodwork in response to a little leaked interview with you know who.” With the CIA crawling out right behind them over an entirely different interview. But then Courtney didn't know about that. . . .

“Take your time. Just out of curiosity, is he in possession of a good fortune?” she teased.

She'd be surprised.

 

Tuesday I spent the hours between the last bell and the start of Parent Night in my classroom, grading papers and jotting down little notes on each student, making sure to have something positive to relay in addition to the struggles and expectations.

At six o'clock, an e-mail pinged its way into my in-box with a subject line I couldn't resist: “The Lost Work of Jane Austen.” It was from Ethan.