Page 25 of Inventing Mr Darcy

“Only bent them,” he reassures me as he starts the car. Once again I’m treated to his profile: those sharp features and the hint of a smile. “But since it would be risky to make an important decision based on a corrupted data set, the only responsible course of action is for us to go out again.”

TEN

Sunday morning, I’m awakened by a phone call. My heart is hammering against my ribs even before I hear my mom say, “You won’t believe what your father’s done.”

I flail to shed the covers and shove my hair out of my eyes. “What is it, Mom? What’s happened? Is Dad all right?”

(The only good thing about these few seconds of pure terror is that they make me forget to chastise her for Bill’s unannounced visit. Because to be fair, she did try to warn me. At least I assume that’s what her three missed calls last Tuesday were about.)

“You remember his friend Rob bought that condo in Florida? Well, he offered your dad the use of it for six weeks this winter, and your dad didn’t even ask me. He just said yes!”

I take a deep breath and try to rein in my pulse. “Condo?” I repeat, trying to process what she’s telling me. “Florida?”

“Can you believe it?”

I mean, yes and no. I’m still not used to thinking of my parents as retirees—well, actually, it’s just Dad; he was a middle-school teacher, and he’s only fifty-eight, so understandably, he’s a little restless with all this free time.

“Maybe you’ll like it,” I suggest. “You’re always complaining about the cold.”

“How am I supposed to take six weeks off work?”

Now, Mom’s a paralegal at a big firm and mostly sets her own hours, plus she probably has two years of paid time off banked, so this isn’t the dilemma she’s making it out to be. “Just tell Dad—”

“Tell him?” she snaps. “You know how he gets.”

“I—?”

I don’t have any idea what she means, actually. He’s always been the very definition of easy-going. When I hesitate, shaking my head to clear any remaining sleep cobwebs, struggling to choose my words, she jumps in to bemoan the fact that they’ll be away from home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, leaving their baby (me) all alone. I try to reassure her, but by the time we hang up, she’s in tears, still railing against my dad’s selfishness.

I won’t try to claim that my parents’ marriage is without conflict, but I’ve never known their occasional disagreements to escalate to a fight. Maybe things have changed between them since I moved away? I try to tell myself I’m exaggerating the significance of this squabble, or she is.

But all I can think is that it’s so unlike my dad, not to put my mom’s happiness first.

When it’s clear I won’t be going back to sleep, I do a quick scan of my phone, swiping away the email notifications to see if there’s a good morning text from Fisher, even though he warned me he was going to be tied up with some big project for his advisor this weekend.

My only message is from Cassie, whom I’ve hardly seen since Friday night. I haven’t even had a chance to tell her about Blush & Bloom. She’s always heading out somewhere or working in her room with the door closed, and from her unwillingness to talk about her date, I assume it didn’t go well. At least, that’s what I think until I read her text, which says, simply, Gone to church.

Even though it’s only three words, I have to read it twice to process what they mean. Not that I have any problem with her going to church. It’s more that … well, let’s just say in all the years I’ve known her, it’s never been part of her routine. And naturally, I suspect Bill is behind her sudden change of heart where religion is concerned. Somehow, even though he’s a minister and the worst thing I know about him is that he’s boring, I’m wary of his influence on her.

I intended to spend my day working on the Great File Reorganization Project (finally), but now I’m unsettled again. Restless. I need to put a little space between me and all this strangeness and chaos. So I dress, grab some breakfast, and go for a drive instead.

By the time I reach my destination—the closest bookstore, albeit part of that big corporate chain, you know the one—I have talked myself into a calmer state. My mom is just being overly dramatic. Probably hormones, or lack thereof. And Cassie? Well, she’s understandably stressed about the future and longing for a little stability and reassurance, that’s all.

Inside, I draw a deep breath, but all the subtle bookish scents are overwhelmed by the aroma of too-strong coffee from the café that takes up almost a third of the store. I stroll through the Fiction section and trail my fingertips along the shelves, seeking comfort. See? Plenty of women writers. Even Charlotte Brontë. Julian Pedersen is just an ass.

I round the corner, expecting to be greeted by a display of paperbacks with cheery illustrated covers. A table with a banner saying BeeSocial Made Me Buy It. A stack of thick hardcovers with painted edges and foil-embossed titles like A Sheen of Pearl and Blade.

I collide with a solid row of bookshelves labeled “Self-Help.”

Well, stores reorganize their layouts all the time. They want to lure customers in. I wander a bit more, certain with every turn I’ll find the familiar sign that says “Romance” hanging over the largest section of the store.

At the edge of the Children’s section, in the very back, I collapse onto a tiny stool and drop my head into my hands. This time, I don’t cry. I’m pissed. (They say that anger is just another stage of grief. If so, I’m right on track.)

All the evidence points to one conclusion. Romance—as a grouping, a category, the largest and most profitable genre in the world—has vanished too.

In the world I used to know, Pride and Prejudice was the archetype, and romance novels were its legacy. So I suppose it only makes sense that, when Pride and Prejudice disappeared, it took with it every other spunky heroine. Erased every rich, arrogant hero who’s humbled by her. Silenced readers’ knowing, satisfied chuckles every time two people in a story look at each other and think oh, absolutely not.

Maybe, as with the sticker on my laptop, I should’ve expected this development, recognized the connection, anticipated the result. But when combined with all the ordinary stressors of grad school—my graduate assistantship, my dissertation, my roommate—plus whatever it is I’m doing with Fisher, the diffuse effects of the Austen anomaly keep drip-dropping into my life like scattered showers from a cloudless sky—and leaving devastation in their wake, like a hurricane.