Jane Austen Made Me Do It (43 page)

“I gotta get home.” I did not need to run into the vamps and zombs with me dressed like a buckaroo. “But next week, uh, first two dances, okay?”

She gives me this little curtsey, like in class, and says, “ ‘Mr. Darcy is all politeness.' But it doesn't mean we're engaged or anything.”

When I get back, Mom's on the computer and she goes, “Did you have a good time?”

And the way she says it, the look on her face, says she knew what I set myself up for, and I sort of explode. “What the heck? Couldn't you warn a guy? It gets out I'm prancing around with guys wearing
frills. Lace!
I'll be lucky if it doesn't get out I'm gay.”

“Nobody thought Mr. Darcy or Henry Tilney were gay.”

I swear, sometimes it's like my parents were never teenagers, never even went to high school. If they had, they'd know it's not who you are, it's who everyone else says you are.

“So you didn't like it?”

“It was okay.”

“Does that mean that you
did
like it ‘against your will, against your reason, and even against your character'? Or does it mean there were a few girls your age in the class?”

So I give the shrug and I ask Mom if I can borrow one of her copies of
Northanger Abbey
—she's got a two-book minimum of
everything Jane Austen wrote—and she goes, “Sure, sweetie,” and looks happy about it. The thing is, even though I kind of
know
Jane Austen (you can't live in this house and not
know
Jane Austen), I never really
read
Jane Austen, so I take the one with all the underlines and notes, to clue me in to what it's about.

So before the next class, I finish
Northanger Abbey
and it's not bad. It's about this teenager, Catherine, who's hooked on Gothic novels. Ghosts, vampires, haunted houses, psychos locked in the attic, pretty much what kids are reading now. And it kind of messes with her head, like there's the story world and the real world and she can't always keep them straight. She also likes this guy, and she is not smooth at all—and believe me, I have been there.

I still think General Tilney might've killed his wife.

Next class was a little better. First off, I traded the cowboy boots for khakis and a white shirt, and I met Cathy outside class and we went in together.

We ran through the cotillion, and then Ms. Caverley lines us up for these longways dances, and she reminds us that back in the day it was not good manners to dance more than twice with the same partner. So after I danced with Cathy, I wind up with Mrs. Blake, who's wearing a Jane Austen getup again, this time with even more feathers sticking out of her head, and for all the Oreos she puts away, she could dance rings around all of us. Then I dance with some lady who's got nine kids and twenty-three grandkids, and at one point I'm next to a guy who told me how he met his wife at a country dance class and how they were in a country dance group for forty-seven years and how he's kept it up now that she died. And he said it took him a year to get the hang of some of the dances and how excellent it was I caught on so fast. And I gotta say, it's weird how interesting everybody was when
you get talking to them, and how much fun they were all having, always laughing at
themselves
but never putting
you
down, and if you mostly hang with teenagers, that takes some getting used to.

I didn't get to dance with Cathy again until the last one, and I told her I read
Northanger Abbey
, and how I thought Catherine sounded like the kids around here. “They're all about werewolves or zombies, and she wants to be, like, a heroine. I mean I liked her and all, but she wasn't real sharp when it came to people.”

Cathy smiled like she thought I said something smart, and said, “A lot of her characters are like that—not that they all get carried away, but they're not people smart. Except for Fanny Price.
Mansfield Park
? But the rest of them, they take someone at face value or listen to gossip and then they find out that person was totally different. In Jane Austen it's always a big deal—what people are versus what people think they are.”

It's still a big deal.

We went our separate ways at the library again—she said she needs to grab a computer station because her family doesn't have the online up and running yet, and I tell her if the mob is hogging them, rat them out to Mrs. Radcliffe—and I go home and grab one of Mom's copies of
Mansfield Park.

After
Northanger
,
Mansfield
was no walk in the park. At first I didn't like Fanny. I mean, it would've sucked to be shipped off to people you didn't know, and Mrs. Norris always reminding you what a nobody you were and how much you owed all of them, but still, draw the line, already.

Then I thought about it some more, and you know, Fanny was actually a lot tougher than she seems at first. She actually had more backbone than anyone in the book. She didn't let herself get talked into that stupid play; she stuck to her guns, and she wasn't
a phony.
She
wouldn't spend her summer trying to figure out if she'd rather hang with the vamps or the werewolves. The more I thought about it, the more I wished I was like her.

Next class, there was one less—Mrs. Blake wasn't there, so the guy who called the steps took her place and called them from the line (set). And it was still fun and we all did pretty well, but the thing is, something was missing, and I hate admitting this, but I sort of missed Mrs. Blake. I thought her bouncing and laughing and “Jamie!” got on my nerves, but it gave us all a boost, too, and class just wasn't as fun without her.

At the break, I heard a few people whispering about “sending Lottie a card,” and I knew they were talking about Mrs. Blake—around the library, the kids called her “Lotta Blake,” and I wondered if she was sick. When I asked, Mrs. Caverley explained that Mrs. Blake's daughter had a baby, and she'd taken a week off to help.

I confessed to Cathy that I sort of missed Mrs. Blake, and she said she did, too. “She's kind of our Mrs. Jennings,” said Cathy. “We get aggravated with
her
like Marianne does with Mrs. Jennings, and then when she's not around we're like Elinor—we start thinking of the nice things she says and does, and how people perk up when she's around.”

Mrs. Caverley reminds us that these are steps we can practice at home “—because skill at the dance meant that the dancer was a person of diligence and taste.”

“Like Fanny practicing her dance steps in the drawing room,” I said, trying not to be all, “I READ
MANSFIELD PARK
!”

And Cathy laughs and goes, “I'm hoping that
my
awkwardnesses are as good as graces.” She had a great laugh.

Cathy stayed behind at the library again, and I felt sorry for her, having to put up with the zombs and the werewolves just to log some online. I told her if she couldn't put up with the weirdness,
she could come over to my place and use ours, but she says it's okay, there was a stubbornness about her that never can bear to be frightened at the will of vampires, zombies, werewolves, etc.

So I go home, and all I say is, “Mom? Marianne and Elinor.”

“Sense and Sensibility.”

And I have to say that after
Mansfield Park
,
Sense and Sensibility
was a coast. The girls and their mother lose their house and don't have much money, almost like when the economy takes a dive, and these two sisters, Elinor and Marianne, both fall in love with guys who can't marry them, but Elinor sucks it up while Marianne goes all emo princess and almost dies. And I think the point is, stuff happens, so do you deal or do you get all “Poor me”? Are you Team Elinor or Team Marianne?

Next class, I decide to wear a sport coat. I'm not to where I'd pike my mom's velvet blazer and try to go the full Darcy, but all the other guys wear jackets.

Mrs. Blake's back and she looks tired, but I still get a “Jamie! How nice you look!” and I go, “Thanks,” and figure, okay, I'll tell her she looks nice, too, and she gives me this look, like she's grateful, like nobody's ever told her she looks nice.

By this point Cathy and I pretty much have a pact that we'll go the first and last dances and as much of the rest as we can get away with, but Mrs. Caverley says we're gonna draw for partners. Cathy gets the guy who lost his wife and I get one of the college girls and we try to stake out places next to each other in the set, but Mrs. Caverley says because I've been making so much progress me and my partner can open the dance. (I got good the way she said. I practiced at home by teaching the steps to Darcy. She thinks it's cool and she's not a bad dancer and having someone else to teach helped me get the steps down.) Opening the dance is supposed to be an honor, but the fact is, you do your moves and then you pretty much stand around and talk, but it was okay because
this girl—her name was Chrissy—she spent a semester in England and made it sound cool, and then we got new partners and I'm with Mrs. Blake who said I had to thank my mom for the card and I asked how was her daughter feeling and how's the baby, and she looked so grateful that I swear I will never cop another one of her Oreos again so help me. At the end of class she cornered me and a couple others with pictures of little Tommy, and he was cute, and I tell them all the stuff Charlie's getting into, and I turn around and saw that Cathy left.

End of August, I can arm and cast and hey and allemande with the best of them, and the last class was more like a party where we just ran through all the dances and had punch and cookies and Mrs. Caverley gave out these silly prizes—Mrs. Blake got the Marianne Dashwood award for being earnest and eager in everything she did and Cathy got the Jane Fairfax award for remarkable elegance and I got the Darcy prize for being the one who improves most on acquaintance. And Mrs. Caverley reminds us that they are giving classes through the year and they have dances the first Tuesday of every month and she hopes she'll see all of us again.

So the first day of school comes and it hits me I don't have a pack, a clan, or a mob, unless you count the Jane Austen crew I hung with for six weeks, and they were all way past high school, except for Cathy. But I wasn't where I'm going all Sir John Middleton, and the dread of being alone's my prevailing anxiety 'cause I knew a couple people who hadn't turned into total creets—yet—and Cathy would be there. And because Cathy's gonna be there, I pass on the black jeans/black T-shirt and go khakis/blue shirt, and I put a tie in my pocket and buff up my shoes.

I could see Darcy revving up her “What are you
wearing
?” but
I cut her off at the knees. “Boy, Darce, your shirt is ill. Like how you did your hair, too.”

Dad looks up at Mom and she goes, “ ‘Ill' is the new ‘awesome.' ”

“I thought ‘wicked' was the new awesome.”

“ ‘Wicked'
was
the new awesome.”

“Then ‘ill' is the new ‘wicked,' right?” Dad sighed. “What happened to ‘cool'?”

“Nothing.”

“Cool.”

I walk to school, and most of the time, nobody pays attention to me unless it's to give me a look like they think I'm gonna jack their yard gnomes, but now it's, “Morning, James,” and “Don't you look fine today?” and I go, “Good morning, Mrs. Smith” and “Good morning, Mr. Jones” and they light up.

So I head for the sidewalk in front of the school entrance and I see the clan and the pack and the mob all hanging with their own. The zombs looked pretty much fried, and the pack, they're pulling all these creet stunts trying to get the vamp girls to notice them, and the vamp guys are trying to look wasted and cool (ill) like you-know-who, in you-know-what-book/movie.

And the wolves got their hair all gelled into points that are supposed to look like ears, and the vamps and zombs are all pasty-faced and all in black and the only way you can tell them apart is the zombs kohl up their eyes like pandas and the vamps guys wear fake fangs and the girls wear dark lipstick.

I hear someone calling my name, “James—hey, James!” and it's one of the vamp girls, but I can't tell which one because they're all Casper, black hair, black jeans, black lips.

The girl waving at me is almost my height and thin and there's
something familiar about her—and I get it about a half second before she goes, “It's me.”

“Cathy?” I gotta be honest, there was a moment when it sucked a little, but I can't say I didn't understand it. I knew at least a couple kids who weren't creets, but the new girl wouldn't have anybody.

And she looks me over and smiles, almost like she's embarrassed, and goes, “You look … nice.”

“Then how come I wish I stuck with the jeans and a T-shirt?”

Jack Willoughby breaks away from his mob and plunks himself in front of me and goes, “What are you
wearing
, Austen? Parochial school's on the other side of town.”

But I don't back down. I go, “Don't feel bad, lobot. I'm far from requiring that elegance of dress in
you
that becomes me.”

Comeback Jack couldn't do better than, “Yeah … well …” and then you could hear a leaf hit the grass.

So I go, “ ‘You are silent, absolutely silent. At present I ask no more.' ” (That's off
Emma
). And Wolfman Willoughby lurches off, straining gray matter.

Then the bell rings, and they all head for the entrance, just this one big drift of which-one's-who, and it hits me: all this stuff kids say about how they want to be individual and unique and their own person and not like everybody else, and first chance they get they gear up like they all came off the same assembly line, same date, same lot number. The only one in front of school who didn't look like everybody else was … me.