Page 66 of Is She Really Going Out with Him?
“Well, I hope you aren’t working this dear girl too hard. It’s important to ease back into work gently. You mustn’t overdo it when your body is recovering,” Loretta says, reaching out to squeeze my hand. Now Will and Michael are both looking back and forth between us in confusion.
“Um, yes, I think there was a small misunderstanding the last time we met,” I start to explain, feeling my face burn. “I’m not ill. I’m not in recovery either. Crossed wires.” I hope this will be enough of an explanation, but everyone is still looking at me, so I fear it may not. “I met Loretta at the theater. I was wearing a headscarf as a precaution, against, um, nits, though it turns out I didn’t have them. Loretta assumed…I should have said straightaway, but I was embarrassed, and you were being so nice. I’m so sorry.” This might be the worst conversation I’ve ever been a part of. Will and Loretta exchange looks, and my heart pounds with mortification; my borrowed finery now feels like a straitjacket.
“You’re not in recovery?” Lorretta asks, confused.
“No, and this isn’t a wig, it’s my real hair.”
After a long pause, Loretta starts laughing, and now I can’t help laughing too.
“Oh dear, how foolish of me to assume.”
“Not at all, it was entirely my fault,” I tell her.
“Now youmustcall me for a gin sometime. We can laugh about this some more,” Loretta says. “No excuses.”
“No excuses,” I say, relieved to have the misunderstanding cleared up.
As we say our good-byes, Will looks at me strangely again, then blushes, as though I am walking the streets in lingerie or something equally exposing. I cringe as Michael and I continueour walk along the crescent. Michael gives my arm a comforting squeeze. “You know, I’d wager courting in Austen’s day was easier,” he says. “Perhaps we have too much choice now, we expect too much.”
“I don’t agree. I think it’s easy to romanticize the past,” I say. “But beneath all the beautiful dresses and the formality, marriage was an exchange of property between two men. We wouldn’t want to go back to that.”
“That is true,” says Michael.
Looking up at these stately houses, I wonder how many marriages have played out behind these doors. How many great love stories, how many miserable ones, how many women powerless to leave unhappy marriages. I realize how much I take for granted.I am free to divorce, to date, to earn my own living, to be alone if I want to be, to choose my own happiness. How many women—people—throughout history have not had that,stilldo not have that?
“Maybe I don’t want to go back in time then,” Michael says. “All I want is a woman who appreciates Jane as I do, who’s open to a little role play here and there.” His cheeks flush. “Who won’t be ashamed to go out with me dressed like this. Who will come to the ball having learned the appropriate steps for the cotillion. Is all that really too much to ask?”
“Have you ever tried internet dating, Michael?” I ask him.
“No.” Michael makes a face. “I don’t think it would be for me.”
I explain that while I too had my reservations about finding love online, if he is looking for something quite specific, then the internet might be the perfect place to look. Online, every Janeite cosplay aficionada within a twenty-mile radius would be at his fingertips. “Let me set you up a profile?” I plead, excited about the prospect of focusing on someone else’s love life for a change. “Let me find you a date for the Regency ball!”
“This all feels rather Emma Woodhouseish,” he says with a hint of a smile. “But okay, I would love you to help me find an appropriate date for the ball.”
“Yes!” I clap my hands, inexplicably excited about my new role as Michael’s personal Emma.
“On one condition,” Michael adds. “You readPride and Prejudice, the book, properly, cover to cover. I don’t think we can be friends otherwise.”
“Fine. It’s a deal,” I say, reaching out to shake his hand.
After we get back to the Jane Austen Centre and change back into our normal clothes, I bid Michael a fond good-bye.Then on my walk home, I call Loretta and leave a message on her answerphone, asking when she might be free to meet me for a coffee. Or perhaps a gin.
Google searches:
Dating apps for Janeites
West Country Regency enthusiasts
Quiz, which Jane Austen character am I?
Who was the best Darcy, Colin Firth or Matthew Macfadyen?
Chapter 22
“Why can’t we drive again?”Will asks as we wait on a remote country road for our connecting bus.
“Because it’s an eco-retreat, they encourage people not to bring their cars,” I explain for the third time.
