The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler Page B

partners in crime. Sylvia mustn’t be told about the jump, but Allegra was still too faint, too fading in and out, to trust herself on the phone with her mother. “Don’t tell her anything,” Allegra said. She remembered how she’d broken her foot years before, in kindergarten, falling off the monkey bars. She’d spent a night in the hospital and Sylvia had stayed the whole time, sitting by the bed in one of those awful plastic chairs, neverclosing her eyes. Allegra would have said she was closer to Daniel than to Sylvia—even within the family there was something guarded about Sylvia—but now, with her arm hurting horribly, she wanted her mother. “Make her come.”
    She lay on the gurney, her mind drifting over the white swirling contours of the ceiling like snow. Corinne punched her cell phone and then picked up Allegra’s unhurt hand while she talked, stroking it with her thumb. “Mrs. Hunter?” Corinne said. “You don’t know me, but I’m a friend of Allegra’s. Allegra is fine. We think her arm is broken, but I’m here at the Vacaville Kaiser with her and she’s going to be fine.” Corinne described, in great detail, an unfortunate chain of events. A friendly dog, a boy with a ball, a pebbly patch of road, Allegra on a bicycle. Sylvia bought it all. These things happened, even when dogs were friendly, even when bike helmets were worn. Allegra had always been so careful to wear her bike helmet. But sometimes it just didn’t matter how careful a person was. She and Daniel would be there as soon as they could. They’d hope to thank Corinne for her kindness in person.
    Allegra was impressed. Anyone who could lie as effortlessly as Corinne was someone to keep on the right side of. You would want her lies told for and not to you.
    But Corinne turned out not to be the thrill-seeker Allegra assumed. Later, when Allegra mentioned some ideas that might add a touch of adrenaline to their lovemaking, Corinne was unreceptive. She’d been skydiving only as an antidote to writer’s block. She’d hoped to shake something loose. She saw the void as the blank page; she was throwing herself onto it. The skydiving had been a metaphor.
    But it hadn’t helped, and she would be a fool to repeat the experiment. “You broke your arm!” she would say, as if Allegra didn’t know this. Corinne kept herself on the ground, at safespeeds, inside her apartment, drinking cups of fretful tea. She was a dental hygienist, but not a passionate one—she’d chosen it because it seemed like a job that would allow her time to write. Really, she lived the most boring life, though Allegra was totally in love with her before she saw this. The only part of Corinne that Allegra had seen clearly in those hours at the hospital when she was flying on painkillers and falling falling falling in love was the lying.
    S ylvia had uncorked a nice Petit Syrah, something that went well with cheese and crackers, the rain and the fire. Jocelyn had drunk just enough to feel companionable, not quite enough to feel witty. She was holding up her glass so the firelight came through it. It was a heavy, faceted crystal, a wedding gift once, now unfortunately clouded by thirty-two years of hard water in the dishwasher. If only Sylvia had taken proper care.
    â€œ Sense and Sensibility features one of Austen’s favorite characters—the handsome debaucher,” Jocelyn said. “She’s very suspicious of good-looking men, I think. Her heroes tend to be actively nondescript.” Twirling her glass so the ruby-colored wine rose in thin sheets and fell again. Daniel was a nondescript man, though Jocelyn wouldn’t say it and Sylvia would never concede it. Of course, in Austenworld, that was all to his credit.
    â€œExcept for Darcy,” Prudie said.
    â€œWe haven’t gotten to Darcy yet.” There was a warning in Jocelyn’s voice.