Austensibly Ordinary (5 page)

“Perhaps Eliot Ness was a miscasting. You could hit the Driskill as Al Capone . . . or Pretty Boy Chavez.” I grinned.

“I could . . . except, as I mentioned, I already have plans.”

“Right. What did you say those were again?”

“I didn't,” he reminded me. “You ready to bust that book outta here?”

T
hrilled with my luck in convincing Mom to let me “borrow” the entire rack of her latest finds, and exhilarated by my under-the-table score at Torchy's, I'd hurried back home with a smile on my lips. Now I was sprawled on the couch in my little Doris Day— inspired garage apartment with a butterscotch Dum-Dum tucked into the corner of my mouth. I'd changed out of my teacher clothes and couldn't decide what to do first. I was twitchy with excitement and eager to try on those dresses that oozed vintage sex appeal, but just as impatient to christen my new journal.

But I needed to get into character first. More than that, I needed a definitive alter ego—a secret identity—a Hyde to my Jekyll. My life was quite suddenly—and thrillingly—turning into a good story, and I needed to flush out a name and personality for a very important character.

I was Cate Kendall, and that name spoke volumes about me. Sensible, reliable rule follower. I wanted to be mysterious, flirtatious, and sexy. A bit of a minx . . . Cat. I smiled to myself. If I were an author, it would be the smile of the cat that got the cream, but I wasn't, and that was a little clichéd. I liked it anyway.

Now for a last name. I could pick something completely deviant from my real name, but I felt like I'd have a better connection if the new identify was a shade of myself.

Kent . . . Kettering . . . Kimball . . .
Kennedy!
The second I hit on it, I knew it was the one. Cat Kennedy hinted at a sophisticated, independent woman with an undercurrent of sex. Perfect.

I climbed off the couch, pulled the midnight blue dress down off the corner of the armoire, and stepped behind the door—as a sexy little boudoir or a phone booth, it was the best I could do.

I emerged feeling very sexy indeed—I couldn't keep my hands off me. The line of the bodice, sliding smoothly down into the trim fit of the skirt, and the crisp lustrousness of the fabric was irresistible. Then there was the transparent little shrug, tied above the waist, teasing and hinting at the curves beneath—I was in lust! I slipped into some dark heels and posed in front of the mirror. My legs looked like they were a mile long. What can I say? Clichés were clichés for good reason.

Something would need to be done about my tousled blond bob and fresh-faced makeup, but for now, this would definitely do. The Dum-Dum lollipop wasn't exactly anachronistic, but it was definitely out of character. Shooting myself a smoldering gaze in the mirror, I trapped the stick between my fingers and pulled it out of my mouth, cigarette style, casually puffing out imaginary smoke like a ten-year-old.

Definitely glamorous, but not worth the risks. I flipped the stick into the trash and waved my hand in the air in front of me like a moron, dispersing the imaginary smoke I'd conjured. Cat Kennedy was definitely not a smoker. And she only experimented with lollipop sticks.

I kicked off the heels and dropped onto the couch, reaching for the purloined book. I shook my head faintly. No, not purloined,
found, without identification.
I sat with it in my lap and tucked my feet up under me. This was the beginning . . . of something. It could be anything. I just had to decide. And I wanted it to be good. Novel-worthy. No, take that back . . . banned-book material.

Paging past the dedication, I stared at the first clean page, took a deep breath, and began to write.

 

 

I lifted my pen off the paper and stared at those words, tipping my head back and forth, feeling them out. They felt good.

 

 

Tipping the book closed, I stayed in character, keeping a mysterious smile on my face until I'd emerged from the makeshift phone booth in my jammies. Then a huge grin split my face. This was totally going to happen, and it was going to be awesome!

I spent a solid minute reveling in the possibilities before I slipped on my teacher glasses and propped myself up on the couch with a stack of term papers and a red pen. I still needed the day job to pay for the glamorous dual life I planned on leading.

 

By Sunday afternoon I was a wreck . . . in a good way, but still a wreck. Saturday I'd been good, grading papers and finalizing lesson plans. Mom had spent the day working the kinks out of her computer with the Geek Freaks—their boxy little green Scion had been parked in the driveway for at least three hours. I didn't even want to imagine what was wrong with it—I always just called Ethan. I suspected he'd be happy to deal with her wonky computer if I asked him, but I dreaded the matchmaking fallout. Saturday night I'd spent rewatching
North by Northwest,
swooning over Cary Grant, awed by Eva Marie Saint's portrayal of an undercover spy, my head spinning with intrigue. Now I was jazzed to step back into the phone booth and suit up for the evening ahead, but I couldn't. I needed to focus on being Cate Kendall for a few more hours yet because Ethan would be here any minute for our weekly Scrabble match. I was prepared for a thorough trouncing and actually a little relieved to finally have an excuse for one. Not as thrilled to have to keep it to myself, but those were the breaks.

Pacing the tight quarters of my little apartment, a piña colada Dum-Dum lodged between my teeth, my gaze bounced from the armoire and away, over and over again, finally touching down on the journal I'd laid on the coffee table. Perfect. I'd while away the minutes with my alter ego and give myself a little pep talk.

A glance at the clock indicated I had about ten minutes before Ethan was due to show up, so I kicked back in my at-home jeans and propped my feet on the coffee table, wiggling my pale-polished toes in excitement.

Settling the charming little book on my lap, I traced my fingers over the detailing, once again marveling that someone had left this treasure behind. Guilt nudged at my conscience, but I tamped it down quickly. Finders, keepers. Besides, I'd already written in the book, and nobody wanted a used diary. I flipped to the one and only entry, my proof of ownership . . . and found it not quite the same as I'd left it.

Weird. How could it have all disappeared? Well,
all
of it hadn't disappeared, just most of it. A few words hadn't budged, and that was every bit as weird as the rest of them skedaddling. I stared at the page, my eyes scanning over each word in turn. It almost seemed . . . but that was impossible! And yet, I was staring at the proof. There was a message here. Oh. My. God. My world had gone Gothic!

I quickly rallied. It absolutely had not. I, unlike Courtney, did not believe in ghosts even one little bit. And the possibility of one haunting a journal stashed under a picnic table in a trailer park was ludicrous. I flipped back to the cover and tumbled the volume over on itself, looking for any clues, and found nothing I hadn't noticed before. Hmm.

The dedication got another quick perusal, put me in mind of Jane Austen, and was promptly abandoned. At that point I resumed staring at the words remaining.

Now the left side was populated with all the little words, while the bigger ones were clustered mostly on the right, all of them pretty evenly spaced. It was like a particularly daunting game of Red Rover with words. Probably not a plausible explanation for the missing words. I blinked and looked again. With a little zigzagging, scanning top to bottom, putting it all together, it read
at times the answer is hidden in plain sight,
and that had potential written all over it. My mouth dropped open and I heard my own audible gasp of astonishment. This really was a message. A secret message to me . . . A small voice in my head whispered, “Or, more likely, the journal's previous owner,” but I shushed it.

For one fleeting moment, I imagined this was a philosophical truism posed by the universe and magically appearing in the book like an image of the Virgin Mary in the rind of a cantaloupe. Good sense quickly took over and just as quickly subsided when I succumbed to the power of wishful thinking as my eyes widened in mingled excitement and disbelief. Clearly this was some sort of wonky spy gadget!

As far as I was concerned, this was as good an explanation as any, and further, it was the one I wanted right now. Beyond that superior logic, everything was nebulous, but I had a good feeling about this. Questions and possibilities flooded through my mind and left me clinging urgently to this solution.

Was this like
Gharlie's Angels?
Would I be messaged instructions for secret missions via this book? Would I need to learn some karate kicks and maybe the wuxi finger hold? Was I ignoring a completely obvious explanation, letting my imagination spin away from me, altering reality to fit my daydreams? Was I hallucinating the whole thing? Mom had made grilled vegetable sandwiches for lunch—had she been experimenting with questionable outsourced mushrooms?

Okay, wait! What about the dedication—how did that fit in? Could Jane Austen be the key? Were the remaining words some sort of book cipher key that used one of Austen's novels to send a secret message? That would be freakin' awesome! But which one? And how the hell was I going to figure out how to do that?? I was a British lit major. My code-breaking skill was limited to figuring out which of my students read the assignments based on their answers in class and which chose the Dark Side. And even if this were true, who the hell was sending the code?

And let's not even forget the personal questions: Why me? It was pure coincidence that I was at Torchy's Tacos Thursday night, that I sat at that table and knocked the book from its hiding place. Was it meant for me to find? This was sounding embarrassingly ridiculous, even within the confines of my own mind, but how could I not ask these questions?? This stuff was always happening in books . . .
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Mary Poppins, Peter Pan . . .
And probably plenty of modern fiction as well, which I'd be up on if I weren't so enamored with classic British lit. So why couldn't it happen to me?

A squeamish little shiver ran up my spine, and I felt compelled to rain on my parade a little. Did I really
want
any of this to happen to me? Did I want the responsibility involved with quests, secrets, and missions?

It took me all of two seconds to decide.

Hell yeah, I did!

Still . . . I didn't have a lot to go on. Other than
at times the answer is hidden in plain sight.
Right. I guess I'd figure it out. Or maybe an experienced sidekick would show up with all the answers.

The sudden knock on my door was way too clichéd, but it sent my heart ricocheting around cartoon-style all the same. I slid my cagey little spy book under the couch and answered the door.

Of course it was Ethan.

I knew that. I'd been expecting him. I just hadn't been expecting him to show up at the precise moment I was itching for a sidekick. I gave him a quick once-over, getting momentarily hung up on the slope of his biceps in the short-sleeved, oil-stained Austin City Limits T-shirt he had on. Ethan could be great sidekick material if he wasn't always treating me like I needed to just grow up and get on with things. Then again, maybe this was my moment of truth, my chance to show Ethan what lurked behind my teaching glasses and teasing grin.