Regancy Land
Ok, so here is one of my "completed" pieces from the past semester. Comment and enjoy!
Edit:
Ok, quick summary, then: This is a hybrid piece where Jane Austen meets modern-day South Carolina.
Jane is always on her computer, you know? Writing away. She told me she ticked her mom off something terrible with the habit of it. I was writing her an email the other day and she wrote back to me about her niece Fanny.
“My dear Mr. Turner,” she says, “Fanny has been most intolerable lately.”
Can you believe that? She says “most intolerable.” How charming! I always say she talks like quite the lady in our day and age.
Did I tell you we met in a chat room, Jane and me? I’ve taken to the Internet a lot more often lately. Things have been a little unsettled around my district and I needed some indoor-escaping. You go away up north to New York for college and you come back to the Low Lands hoping for the quite of the country only to have construction and orange cones from one end of the county to the next. So, I’ve taken to the indoors and the computer. I forget what room we were in exactly, but it had something to do with that PBS show, “Regency House.” I had missed it but managed to catch “Edwardian Home.” I was asking where I could find episodes of the show, she was asking for advice on men. It seemed odd, but I imagined I’d just come into the conversation at an off time.
Jane1820: I am excessively disappointed with the ridiculous behavior of the gentlemen that I have been subjected to of late.
Heman02: Im real sorry to hear that
Heman02: Are they city guys or country boys?
Jane1820: Mostly country gentlemen.
Heman02: So you live out in the low lands?
Jane1820: Oh, yes, I reside in the country. Every so often I visit family in the city and take care of my business affairs.
Heman02: What kind of business is that?
Jane1820: Just the occasional writing. Mother disapproves greatly but I am finding some ardent admires of my work the more I venture out of my familiar circle of acquaintances.
Heman02: That’s good. I’d like to see some of that writing one day.
Jane1820: It would be my pleasure to provide you with one of my works if we were ever to meet. How do you make your living?
Heman02: Working at my father’s antique store these past two years. I think my BA in anthropology isn’t worth much around these parts.
Jane1820: I am sorry to hear you’re not employing your education as you’d like.
Heman02: It’s not too bad. BTW, do you know where I could find episodes of Regency House?
Jane1820: No.
After that we kept talking online and eventually we began calling each other. Of course we haven’t met in person yet. I know not to just meet right up with someone straight off the Internet. I wouldn’t have to worry too much about anyone trying to harm me, but Jane’s a lady and it isn’t reputable for her to fraternize with a person who she only knows from a chat room. My old friend and housemate, Chace, keeps telling me he thinks she’s some sort of little girl pretending to be someone else and I should watch out for Chris Hanson. He never went away to college but hung around here, wasting beer and air. He’s a quiet enough roommate, but he really has nothing of substance to say. I don’t think that holds one grain of truth. I reckon that she’s exactly who and what she says she is.
How do I know that? I talked to her on the phone last week. She has a woman’s voice. A sad one. Like all her hopes and dreams have swirled away from her faster than sand through a sieve. She told me she had trouble using the phone but that she “enjoyed the experience.” Everything she says sounds so much smarter than anything I say, except for that bit about the phone. I’m afraid she was acting, like those girls who pretend not to know how to play pool just to get a man on their behind. It’s almost intimidating, girls who act all the time. But that’s all right. I can see through it. People don’t think I can see though a piece of cellophane to save my life, but they don’t bother to try to see into me.
I talked to her again last night and we agreed to meet in the park down by the Wal-Mart this Sunday around 11 am. She said she would be unescorted. I don’t know why that was important. I wonder if she’s worried to meet me?
You think this is ridiculous, don’t you? Well, no one can harm me or do any sort of damage. I got nothing to lose and nothing to gain, really. There’s no one to disappoint. I’ve lost touch with everyone from college, my father is happy enough to know I’m back south again, and all Chace needs is for me to keep the refrigerator full. Jane could be a good change for me.
Yeah, this is the picture she sent me on aim. I asked if she had somethin’ more recent, but she told me this is it. Apparently her niece, Fanny, drew it for her. She did tell me that that dress is old and she doesn’t wear it anymore. Apparently she recently relocated and gave her life a bit of a makeover. I don’t know… I reckon you can’t really trust a picture so much, anyways. I keep reading a livejournal entry of hers, trying to see if I can glean anything from it. I’m not gonna lie; who goes around calling themselves Jane Austen and talking like that nowadays? She may be crazy, she may be fun, or she may just be a misfit. I figure she’s got to be interesting enough. I’ll see her for myself this Sunday.
www.Jane1820.livejournal.com
April 20 2008
Subject: Meeting with Mr. Henry Turner
Time: 7:13am
I am not so sure about this new journal my niece has introduced me to. It is not as substantial and lasting as a traditional diary, but it does cause less calluses.
I am excessively nervous about meeting with Mr. Turner tomorrow. He really seems like quite the gentleman, but one can never really know until you have met in person. If it goes well, I will thank Fanny most graciously for introducing me to AIM.
Mother most likely will not approve of this arrangement. That is why, as of this moment, she knows nothing of it. It is nice not having to speak with her in person because I can keep so much more to myself! If something becomes of my correspondence with Mr. Turner, then I will begin to consider an explanation for mother. Until then, she will remain in the dark!
I suppose it is very lucky that I moved away from our home in England. The weather in South Carolina seems to be having a good effect on me. The sun has brought out the freckles along my nose and shoulders I used to fret about. Now, they are a welcome occurrence. People around here are positively brown! It becomes warm so early in the morning I can’t help but stroll out onto the porch for breakfast. Though, sometimes, the air becomes sticky and thick. It is almost as if you have to push through it, breathing in the wet atmosphere. It clings to my hair and the most obnoxious sprigs of hair pop out all around my head.
I love traveling through the lowlands to Charleston. It really is beginning to feel like a new home among the moonlight and magnolias, old ladies sitting on porches in straw hats, grasping mint juleps while still wearing their gardening gloves. I imagine myself becoming like them one day.
I imagine myself fitting in here very well someday.
************************************************************************
Some times, you’ve just got to get off the Internet. Staring at the computer for so long will ruin your retinas.
************************************************************************
I throw my satchel over my shoulder and proceed to the designated meeting place Jane and I had discussed earlier in the week. The quite park behind the new
Wal-Mart. It’s such a small town here that you can walk everywhere. It’s strange, that in a town with a population of only a few thousand, we have a super Wal-Mart. Is that really necessary? It’s also open 24-7. Also, necessary? No, I think not. I think I’ll ask Jane how she feels about it.
The street I walk down is the same one I’ve lived on my whole life. Worthington Way, in the lovely Low Lands of South Carolina. I hear they got the name “Low Lands” from the area being inundated with waterways. It’s like the heavy, water-sodden land sinks right down into the Earth itself. The tupelo swamps and the cypress forests of the area are so beautiful I wish I could just sit under a willow for ages and let the Earth soak me in. They surround once great plantations that many a southern gentleman gave his life for. Too bad it was all for nothing. The Lexington plantation house is on the right as I walk to the park. In fact, the park is located on the very edge of what was a cotton field. If I look far out into the miraculously undeveloped land I can see the ruins of the old field hand houses. This plantation was one of the smaller ones, with only 80 slaves at its peak. It was the center of a small skirmish around 1866 that sent one Union Lieutenant home in a casket. That Lieutenant was named Felix Angus. He was a Maryland native, which meant he was a conflicted man. With a state directly below the Mason Dixon line and a president fighting to keep his surrounding territory in the union, Angus was definitely not of the popular opinion when he joined the northerner’s cause. Maryland was strictly a southern state, according to most of its inhabitants. Maryland was a northern state, according to Lincoln and a small number of union supporters in the region. No doubt about Southern Carolina, though. It says it right in its name.
It’s still moonlight and magnolias here. Good ol’ boys pervade the landscape and the “stars and bars” is still considered just as official as the star spangled banner. Tradition reigns supreme. I heard a joke recently, someone said “South Carolina, where men are men and sheep are scared.” I guess it’s because of the back woods feeling of the Appalachians trailing down into the state. I always thought of that sentiment as belonging more to West Virginia, where I hear “if you can’t go down the street, go down the hall!” I wonder if Jane knows about all this. She’s new in the area. I’m afraid the suffocation of tradition and southern sentiment will be too much for her to handle. I wonder how Lieutenant Angus felt when he was fighting against the sentiment of his state. What happens to a person who comes from a place that can’t even define itself? What happens when a person doesn’t belong to where they’re form? The Lieutenant was transported back to Pikesville, Maryland after he was killed down by Lexington plantation. On top of his grave they placed a counterfeit statue. She was an illegal replica of “Grief” who sits upon the tomb of John Quincy Adams’ wife.
Poor Aggie, pretending to be something she’s not. She’s not original. She’s not even a grave marker anymore. An insurance company bought her and made her into a talking point in their courtyard. She used to sit in a place of prominence, daring frat boys to climb into her lap and hear her dark whispers. Her eyes were said to glow red and a graveyard attendant even claimed that she requested him to saw her arm off. I guess all the turmoil of Lieutenant Angus and her own illegitimacy got encased in her bronze shell. After a few decades of vandalism and rumors of Aggie literally scaring the life out of someone, they took her to the basement of the Smithsonian. There she stayed for a decade or so, as peaceful as she probably ever wanted to be among other artifacts important enough to be taken in but not good enough to be placed on display. Then, some clever business-man bought her for his corporate courtyard. I don’t like what they’ve done with her at all. She’s a counterfeit that doesn’t seem to be able to fit anywhere. They didn’t want her in the graveyard for causing too much trouble and now her sad dark form sits between cubical jockeys on smoke breaks. Maybe she doesn’t really belong anywhere anymore.
I think I could relate to that feeling. I was glad to leave New York after four years there, but this isn’t my quiet home anymore. Dad called me a “Yankee” and Chace swears I dropped almost all my accent. I reckon I did a bit, to fit in. I can see they way the locals squint at me when I talk to them, like they think I’m an outsider. Jane must have some of the same feelings as she’s got a very distinct accent. She probably feels just as displaced here as I do.
I can see the park up ahead. I think I see a lady on the bench. I reckon that’s Jane.
She’s sitting with her back to me, but I know it’s her. She has a dark grey dress on with cap sleeves. It looks like the hem is dirty from tromping through the muddy Low Lands. Please turn around and see me, I hate sneaking up on people from behind….
I hear him coming. Certainly it would be no trouble to turn and acknowledge him but I think it is his duty to approach me first.
“Hello? Jane?”
“Mr. Turner?” I reach out my hand and he takes it in a vigorous shake. It is not what I intended, but excessively endearing.
“Nah, just ‘Henry’” he says in a very light southern drawl, like his voice has partially forgotten how to sound southern. It’s a kind voice, slow, maybe a tad nasal, and much more winning in person. Mr. Turner’s, Henry’s, face is broad and tan with a strong nose. His dark eyebrows are raised high, making what a novice would perceive to be an innocently sweet face. I see beyond that. His dark eyes, opened wide to look into mine, are almost too keen for his face. There is a whirring, much quicker than his drawl, going on behind them. A slight, barley perceptible squint in one eye and a quick bite to his lip indicates this is a play of sweet dullness he has almost perfected.
“Just Henry, then.” I say. He smiles that practiced, innocuous smile at this.
“Jane, can I ask you something a little strange?” His eyes dart to my hand which I am sure he’s seen involuntarily clench.
“I suppose. But, I will only answer if it is not an offensive or inappropriately intimate query. Though, I know you would never overstep those boundaries, would you, Mr. Turner?”
“Henry.” He says, eyebrow cocked.
“Henry.”
He takes a breath and keeps his smile in place. “Are you really who you say you are?”
“What do you mean by that?”
His face is still a practiced mask of polite confusion; his eyes are positively sparking, though. “I mean, if I were to look at your birth certificate and social security card, they would read ‘Jane Austen.’”
“Yes.”
“And the birth date would be…?” His smile is fading.
“August 12, 1979.” I’m fading, too.
He shifts; it is a move of relief. There is a breeze and I turn my face from his and to the sun.
“You act very mature for someone under thirty,” he says off handedly.
I shrug. “I am an old soul.”
“For someone in the South Carolina during the summer, you’re awfully pale.” He drops down next to me on the bench. I want to say he’s being too forward, that the shoppers pushing blue plastic carts from the white shinning super-store will gossip, but I’ve decided I don’t care and I’m sure they don’t either.
“I’m from England.”
“Yes,” he chuckles, “Jane Austen, the writer from England.”
“No, Jane Austen, a writer from England. I’m not published.” I turn back to Henry. He’s not smiling anymore. “What is it that you are involved in, Mr. Henry?”
“I work at my father’s shop, remember? Not much else.” He sighs and I can feel the waves of disappointment roll off of him. “If you’re not published, how do you make money, Miss Jane?”
“Collecting my inheritance.”
“Is the Austen family rich?”
“There are many Austen families, and mine happens to be one of the rich ones.”
We lapse into silence. I wonder if Henry can read me as well as I can read him. I’ve practiced my face as much as he has. One actor can detect another, I am sure.
“Jane,” he says suddenly, “Who are you?”
“Well, Mr. Turner, I feel I can ask the same thing of you!” I try to keep my tone light but my throat is tight and my voice is no longer completely under control.
“I’ve told you pretty much everything. I’m a post-graduated working for his dad. Sad, isn’t it?” As Henry says this, his whole visage is transparent for the first time since we’ve come face to face. The corners of his mouth are deeper, his brow is creased, and his eyes are still.
“Then why did you come back here if all that awaited you was an unfufilling job?”
“I thought this was where I belonged. It is home after all.”
“Not anymore, though?”
Henry gives me a nod at this and turns to the big grey, white, and blue monstrosity across the way. “Alright, Jane. I may not fit here anymore, but I got roots. What are you doing here?”
“Have you ever seen ‘Regency House’ on PBS?” His dark brows contract and he looks off to the distance, putting on a show recalling something he has no memory of. Finally he says “No. I wanted to, but I missed it. I saw the Edwardian one.”
“Google it.”
“No, that’s alright.” He turns back to me, staring a little too intently for my liking. “I’m taking a break from the computer. You tell me about it.”
“Well, there are people who are interested in how it would have been to live back then-”
“Like you?” He cuts me off and surveys my attire.
“Yes, like me. Those people were invited to try it out for themselves on the program.”
“So you’re a reality show star?” Henry’s eyebrows almost touch, they contract so much at this. The idea of a ‘reality star’ is obviously not palatable to him.
“No, I was a production assistant.” He still looks concerned. I am concerned, too because he is the first person I have spoken too about my former life since I changed. “I became jealous of how those people got to play make-believe all day long. I was tired of watching them live a fantasy I had had for so many years. After the show ended, I took a few of the gowns and planned to leave London as soon as I could.”
“Was it really so bad at home that you had to run away and completely change your life?”
I allow myself a small smile. “I lived with my mother and six cats. It was becoming a little too ‘Grey Gardens’ for my comfort.” Henry’s eye light up and he laughs for the first time this afternoon.
“So you left your mother all alone in England?”
“No, Fanny is there taking my place. She’s a little bitter that I got away, but I say she gets what she deserves for dropping out of university.”
“And now you’re in the South Carolina back-country, where people shop at
Wal-Mart and recreate the Civil War every weekend in their back yards.”
“Yes. I determined that I needed to be very far from everyone who ever knew me so I came across the Atlantic hoping to find a nice quiet town. Though,” I gesture to the Wal-Mart “ there really is no safe haven anywhere. Well, perhaps my computer room.”
Henry chuckles softly. “Yeah, it must have gotten lonely. The internet can be handy in finding friends when you’re desperate.”
“I wouldn’t say I was desperate, Mr. Turner-”
“Henry.”
“Mr. Turner. I was looking for someone like me. Someone who didn’t quite fit in.”
“And you found me.”
“Indeed, I have.”
Henry leans back against the bench and studies my face openly. “Convenient that your real name is Jane Austen.”
“Yes, I should blame this whole infatuation of mine on my mother for insisting on giving me the name ‘Jane.’” I almost giggle at myself. Looking right back at Henry, I realize how ridiculous the two of us are. Two people trying to play roles in real life. Maybe we need the make-believe because who we’ve become is not who we were meant to be.
We sit quietly on the bench for perhaps a quarter of an hour, watching people roll in and out of the Wal-Mart. I’m glad for them; glad that they have each other and their low priced goods for I have Henry, one of their own, and I’m glad that we don’t really belong here.
Edit:
Ok, quick summary, then: This is a hybrid piece where Jane Austen meets modern-day South Carolina.
Jane is always on her computer, you know? Writing away. She told me she ticked her mom off something terrible with the habit of it. I was writing her an email the other day and she wrote back to me about her niece Fanny.
“My dear Mr. Turner,” she says, “Fanny has been most intolerable lately.”
Can you believe that? She says “most intolerable.” How charming! I always say she talks like quite the lady in our day and age.
Did I tell you we met in a chat room, Jane and me? I’ve taken to the Internet a lot more often lately. Things have been a little unsettled around my district and I needed some indoor-escaping. You go away up north to New York for college and you come back to the Low Lands hoping for the quite of the country only to have construction and orange cones from one end of the county to the next. So, I’ve taken to the indoors and the computer. I forget what room we were in exactly, but it had something to do with that PBS show, “Regency House.” I had missed it but managed to catch “Edwardian Home.” I was asking where I could find episodes of the show, she was asking for advice on men. It seemed odd, but I imagined I’d just come into the conversation at an off time.
Jane1820: I am excessively disappointed with the ridiculous behavior of the gentlemen that I have been subjected to of late.
Heman02: Im real sorry to hear that
Heman02: Are they city guys or country boys?
Jane1820: Mostly country gentlemen.
Heman02: So you live out in the low lands?
Jane1820: Oh, yes, I reside in the country. Every so often I visit family in the city and take care of my business affairs.
Heman02: What kind of business is that?
Jane1820: Just the occasional writing. Mother disapproves greatly but I am finding some ardent admires of my work the more I venture out of my familiar circle of acquaintances.
Heman02: That’s good. I’d like to see some of that writing one day.
Jane1820: It would be my pleasure to provide you with one of my works if we were ever to meet. How do you make your living?
Heman02: Working at my father’s antique store these past two years. I think my BA in anthropology isn’t worth much around these parts.
Jane1820: I am sorry to hear you’re not employing your education as you’d like.
Heman02: It’s not too bad. BTW, do you know where I could find episodes of Regency House?
Jane1820: No.
After that we kept talking online and eventually we began calling each other. Of course we haven’t met in person yet. I know not to just meet right up with someone straight off the Internet. I wouldn’t have to worry too much about anyone trying to harm me, but Jane’s a lady and it isn’t reputable for her to fraternize with a person who she only knows from a chat room. My old friend and housemate, Chace, keeps telling me he thinks she’s some sort of little girl pretending to be someone else and I should watch out for Chris Hanson. He never went away to college but hung around here, wasting beer and air. He’s a quiet enough roommate, but he really has nothing of substance to say. I don’t think that holds one grain of truth. I reckon that she’s exactly who and what she says she is.
How do I know that? I talked to her on the phone last week. She has a woman’s voice. A sad one. Like all her hopes and dreams have swirled away from her faster than sand through a sieve. She told me she had trouble using the phone but that she “enjoyed the experience.” Everything she says sounds so much smarter than anything I say, except for that bit about the phone. I’m afraid she was acting, like those girls who pretend not to know how to play pool just to get a man on their behind. It’s almost intimidating, girls who act all the time. But that’s all right. I can see through it. People don’t think I can see though a piece of cellophane to save my life, but they don’t bother to try to see into me.
I talked to her again last night and we agreed to meet in the park down by the Wal-Mart this Sunday around 11 am. She said she would be unescorted. I don’t know why that was important. I wonder if she’s worried to meet me?
You think this is ridiculous, don’t you? Well, no one can harm me or do any sort of damage. I got nothing to lose and nothing to gain, really. There’s no one to disappoint. I’ve lost touch with everyone from college, my father is happy enough to know I’m back south again, and all Chace needs is for me to keep the refrigerator full. Jane could be a good change for me.
Yeah, this is the picture she sent me on aim. I asked if she had somethin’ more recent, but she told me this is it. Apparently her niece, Fanny, drew it for her. She did tell me that that dress is old and she doesn’t wear it anymore. Apparently she recently relocated and gave her life a bit of a makeover. I don’t know… I reckon you can’t really trust a picture so much, anyways. I keep reading a livejournal entry of hers, trying to see if I can glean anything from it. I’m not gonna lie; who goes around calling themselves Jane Austen and talking like that nowadays? She may be crazy, she may be fun, or she may just be a misfit. I figure she’s got to be interesting enough. I’ll see her for myself this Sunday.
www.Jane1820.livejournal.com
April 20 2008
Subject: Meeting with Mr. Henry Turner
Time: 7:13am
I am not so sure about this new journal my niece has introduced me to. It is not as substantial and lasting as a traditional diary, but it does cause less calluses.
I am excessively nervous about meeting with Mr. Turner tomorrow. He really seems like quite the gentleman, but one can never really know until you have met in person. If it goes well, I will thank Fanny most graciously for introducing me to AIM.
Mother most likely will not approve of this arrangement. That is why, as of this moment, she knows nothing of it. It is nice not having to speak with her in person because I can keep so much more to myself! If something becomes of my correspondence with Mr. Turner, then I will begin to consider an explanation for mother. Until then, she will remain in the dark!
I suppose it is very lucky that I moved away from our home in England. The weather in South Carolina seems to be having a good effect on me. The sun has brought out the freckles along my nose and shoulders I used to fret about. Now, they are a welcome occurrence. People around here are positively brown! It becomes warm so early in the morning I can’t help but stroll out onto the porch for breakfast. Though, sometimes, the air becomes sticky and thick. It is almost as if you have to push through it, breathing in the wet atmosphere. It clings to my hair and the most obnoxious sprigs of hair pop out all around my head.
I love traveling through the lowlands to Charleston. It really is beginning to feel like a new home among the moonlight and magnolias, old ladies sitting on porches in straw hats, grasping mint juleps while still wearing their gardening gloves. I imagine myself becoming like them one day.
I imagine myself fitting in here very well someday.
************************************************************************
Some times, you’ve just got to get off the Internet. Staring at the computer for so long will ruin your retinas.
************************************************************************
I throw my satchel over my shoulder and proceed to the designated meeting place Jane and I had discussed earlier in the week. The quite park behind the new
Wal-Mart. It’s such a small town here that you can walk everywhere. It’s strange, that in a town with a population of only a few thousand, we have a super Wal-Mart. Is that really necessary? It’s also open 24-7. Also, necessary? No, I think not. I think I’ll ask Jane how she feels about it.
The street I walk down is the same one I’ve lived on my whole life. Worthington Way, in the lovely Low Lands of South Carolina. I hear they got the name “Low Lands” from the area being inundated with waterways. It’s like the heavy, water-sodden land sinks right down into the Earth itself. The tupelo swamps and the cypress forests of the area are so beautiful I wish I could just sit under a willow for ages and let the Earth soak me in. They surround once great plantations that many a southern gentleman gave his life for. Too bad it was all for nothing. The Lexington plantation house is on the right as I walk to the park. In fact, the park is located on the very edge of what was a cotton field. If I look far out into the miraculously undeveloped land I can see the ruins of the old field hand houses. This plantation was one of the smaller ones, with only 80 slaves at its peak. It was the center of a small skirmish around 1866 that sent one Union Lieutenant home in a casket. That Lieutenant was named Felix Angus. He was a Maryland native, which meant he was a conflicted man. With a state directly below the Mason Dixon line and a president fighting to keep his surrounding territory in the union, Angus was definitely not of the popular opinion when he joined the northerner’s cause. Maryland was strictly a southern state, according to most of its inhabitants. Maryland was a northern state, according to Lincoln and a small number of union supporters in the region. No doubt about Southern Carolina, though. It says it right in its name.
It’s still moonlight and magnolias here. Good ol’ boys pervade the landscape and the “stars and bars” is still considered just as official as the star spangled banner. Tradition reigns supreme. I heard a joke recently, someone said “South Carolina, where men are men and sheep are scared.” I guess it’s because of the back woods feeling of the Appalachians trailing down into the state. I always thought of that sentiment as belonging more to West Virginia, where I hear “if you can’t go down the street, go down the hall!” I wonder if Jane knows about all this. She’s new in the area. I’m afraid the suffocation of tradition and southern sentiment will be too much for her to handle. I wonder how Lieutenant Angus felt when he was fighting against the sentiment of his state. What happens to a person who comes from a place that can’t even define itself? What happens when a person doesn’t belong to where they’re form? The Lieutenant was transported back to Pikesville, Maryland after he was killed down by Lexington plantation. On top of his grave they placed a counterfeit statue. She was an illegal replica of “Grief” who sits upon the tomb of John Quincy Adams’ wife.
Poor Aggie, pretending to be something she’s not. She’s not original. She’s not even a grave marker anymore. An insurance company bought her and made her into a talking point in their courtyard. She used to sit in a place of prominence, daring frat boys to climb into her lap and hear her dark whispers. Her eyes were said to glow red and a graveyard attendant even claimed that she requested him to saw her arm off. I guess all the turmoil of Lieutenant Angus and her own illegitimacy got encased in her bronze shell. After a few decades of vandalism and rumors of Aggie literally scaring the life out of someone, they took her to the basement of the Smithsonian. There she stayed for a decade or so, as peaceful as she probably ever wanted to be among other artifacts important enough to be taken in but not good enough to be placed on display. Then, some clever business-man bought her for his corporate courtyard. I don’t like what they’ve done with her at all. She’s a counterfeit that doesn’t seem to be able to fit anywhere. They didn’t want her in the graveyard for causing too much trouble and now her sad dark form sits between cubical jockeys on smoke breaks. Maybe she doesn’t really belong anywhere anymore.
I think I could relate to that feeling. I was glad to leave New York after four years there, but this isn’t my quiet home anymore. Dad called me a “Yankee” and Chace swears I dropped almost all my accent. I reckon I did a bit, to fit in. I can see they way the locals squint at me when I talk to them, like they think I’m an outsider. Jane must have some of the same feelings as she’s got a very distinct accent. She probably feels just as displaced here as I do.
I can see the park up ahead. I think I see a lady on the bench. I reckon that’s Jane.
She’s sitting with her back to me, but I know it’s her. She has a dark grey dress on with cap sleeves. It looks like the hem is dirty from tromping through the muddy Low Lands. Please turn around and see me, I hate sneaking up on people from behind….
I hear him coming. Certainly it would be no trouble to turn and acknowledge him but I think it is his duty to approach me first.
“Hello? Jane?”
“Mr. Turner?” I reach out my hand and he takes it in a vigorous shake. It is not what I intended, but excessively endearing.
“Nah, just ‘Henry’” he says in a very light southern drawl, like his voice has partially forgotten how to sound southern. It’s a kind voice, slow, maybe a tad nasal, and much more winning in person. Mr. Turner’s, Henry’s, face is broad and tan with a strong nose. His dark eyebrows are raised high, making what a novice would perceive to be an innocently sweet face. I see beyond that. His dark eyes, opened wide to look into mine, are almost too keen for his face. There is a whirring, much quicker than his drawl, going on behind them. A slight, barley perceptible squint in one eye and a quick bite to his lip indicates this is a play of sweet dullness he has almost perfected.
“Just Henry, then.” I say. He smiles that practiced, innocuous smile at this.
“Jane, can I ask you something a little strange?” His eyes dart to my hand which I am sure he’s seen involuntarily clench.
“I suppose. But, I will only answer if it is not an offensive or inappropriately intimate query. Though, I know you would never overstep those boundaries, would you, Mr. Turner?”
“Henry.” He says, eyebrow cocked.
“Henry.”
He takes a breath and keeps his smile in place. “Are you really who you say you are?”
“What do you mean by that?”
His face is still a practiced mask of polite confusion; his eyes are positively sparking, though. “I mean, if I were to look at your birth certificate and social security card, they would read ‘Jane Austen.’”
“Yes.”
“And the birth date would be…?” His smile is fading.
“August 12, 1979.” I’m fading, too.
He shifts; it is a move of relief. There is a breeze and I turn my face from his and to the sun.
“You act very mature for someone under thirty,” he says off handedly.
I shrug. “I am an old soul.”
“For someone in the South Carolina during the summer, you’re awfully pale.” He drops down next to me on the bench. I want to say he’s being too forward, that the shoppers pushing blue plastic carts from the white shinning super-store will gossip, but I’ve decided I don’t care and I’m sure they don’t either.
“I’m from England.”
“Yes,” he chuckles, “Jane Austen, the writer from England.”
“No, Jane Austen, a writer from England. I’m not published.” I turn back to Henry. He’s not smiling anymore. “What is it that you are involved in, Mr. Henry?”
“I work at my father’s shop, remember? Not much else.” He sighs and I can feel the waves of disappointment roll off of him. “If you’re not published, how do you make money, Miss Jane?”
“Collecting my inheritance.”
“Is the Austen family rich?”
“There are many Austen families, and mine happens to be one of the rich ones.”
We lapse into silence. I wonder if Henry can read me as well as I can read him. I’ve practiced my face as much as he has. One actor can detect another, I am sure.
“Jane,” he says suddenly, “Who are you?”
“Well, Mr. Turner, I feel I can ask the same thing of you!” I try to keep my tone light but my throat is tight and my voice is no longer completely under control.
“I’ve told you pretty much everything. I’m a post-graduated working for his dad. Sad, isn’t it?” As Henry says this, his whole visage is transparent for the first time since we’ve come face to face. The corners of his mouth are deeper, his brow is creased, and his eyes are still.
“Then why did you come back here if all that awaited you was an unfufilling job?”
“I thought this was where I belonged. It is home after all.”
“Not anymore, though?”
Henry gives me a nod at this and turns to the big grey, white, and blue monstrosity across the way. “Alright, Jane. I may not fit here anymore, but I got roots. What are you doing here?”
“Have you ever seen ‘Regency House’ on PBS?” His dark brows contract and he looks off to the distance, putting on a show recalling something he has no memory of. Finally he says “No. I wanted to, but I missed it. I saw the Edwardian one.”
“Google it.”
“No, that’s alright.” He turns back to me, staring a little too intently for my liking. “I’m taking a break from the computer. You tell me about it.”
“Well, there are people who are interested in how it would have been to live back then-”
“Like you?” He cuts me off and surveys my attire.
“Yes, like me. Those people were invited to try it out for themselves on the program.”
“So you’re a reality show star?” Henry’s eyebrows almost touch, they contract so much at this. The idea of a ‘reality star’ is obviously not palatable to him.
“No, I was a production assistant.” He still looks concerned. I am concerned, too because he is the first person I have spoken too about my former life since I changed. “I became jealous of how those people got to play make-believe all day long. I was tired of watching them live a fantasy I had had for so many years. After the show ended, I took a few of the gowns and planned to leave London as soon as I could.”
“Was it really so bad at home that you had to run away and completely change your life?”
I allow myself a small smile. “I lived with my mother and six cats. It was becoming a little too ‘Grey Gardens’ for my comfort.” Henry’s eye light up and he laughs for the first time this afternoon.
“So you left your mother all alone in England?”
“No, Fanny is there taking my place. She’s a little bitter that I got away, but I say she gets what she deserves for dropping out of university.”
“And now you’re in the South Carolina back-country, where people shop at
Wal-Mart and recreate the Civil War every weekend in their back yards.”
“Yes. I determined that I needed to be very far from everyone who ever knew me so I came across the Atlantic hoping to find a nice quiet town. Though,” I gesture to the Wal-Mart “ there really is no safe haven anywhere. Well, perhaps my computer room.”
Henry chuckles softly. “Yeah, it must have gotten lonely. The internet can be handy in finding friends when you’re desperate.”
“I wouldn’t say I was desperate, Mr. Turner-”
“Henry.”
“Mr. Turner. I was looking for someone like me. Someone who didn’t quite fit in.”
“And you found me.”
“Indeed, I have.”
Henry leans back against the bench and studies my face openly. “Convenient that your real name is Jane Austen.”
“Yes, I should blame this whole infatuation of mine on my mother for insisting on giving me the name ‘Jane.’” I almost giggle at myself. Looking right back at Henry, I realize how ridiculous the two of us are. Two people trying to play roles in real life. Maybe we need the make-believe because who we’ve become is not who we were meant to be.
We sit quietly on the bench for perhaps a quarter of an hour, watching people roll in and out of the Wal-Mart. I’m glad for them; glad that they have each other and their low priced goods for I have Henry, one of their own, and I’m glad that we don’t really belong here.