The Jane Austen book club did meet one more time. In November we gathered at the Crêpe Bistro to have lunch and take turns looking at the pictures from Bernadette’s Costa Rican trip on her laptop. It was too bad she’d done no editing. Every time she saw something breathtaking, she took two or three identical shots. There were also two photos of headless people, and one in which you saw nothing but two red spots, which Bernadette said were jaguar eyes, and we couldn’t prove they weren’t. They were very far apart, though.
She told us how one day the tour bus had broken down in front of a plantation named The Scarlet Macaw. The owner of the plantation, the courtly Señor Obando, had insisted the group all stay there until a new bus could arrive. In the fourteen hours that took, they hiked around the plantation. Bernadette saw a bare-necked umbrella bird, a torrent tyrannulet, a rufous motmot, a harpy eagle (a cause for considerable celebration), a stripe-breasted this, and a red-footed that.
Señor Obando was a great enthusiast, had enormous energy for a man his age. He was determined to get his plantation on the ecotour circuit, and not for himself, but for the birders. It was his dream, he said. Surely there was no plantation anywhere with better birds or better trails. They could see for themselves how good the accommodations were, how varied the feathered denizens.
He and Bernadette sat on the veranda, drank something minty, and talked about everything under the sun. His relatives in San José—sadly infirm. They wrote often, but he rarely saw them. Books—“I’m afraid we don’t have the same taste in novels,” Bernadette said—and music. The relative merits of Lerner and Loewe versus Rodgers and Hammerstein. Señor Obando knew the songs from a dozen Broadway musicals. They sang “How Are Things in Gloccamora?” and “I Loved You Once in Silence,” and “A Cockeyed Optimist.” He encouraged Bernadette to talk more; he said listening to her would improve his English. A week later Bernadette had added Señor Obando to her Life List.
She was married again. She showed us a ring set with a large aquamarine. “I really think this is the one,” she said. “I love a man with a vision.”
She’d come back to see the kids, the grandkids, the great-grandkids, and to pack up her apartment. She was grabbing her coat and getting her hat. Just forward her mail to The Scarlet Macaw.
We were happy for her, of course, and lucky Señor Obando, but we were a little sad, too. Costa Rica is far away.
Grigg said that he, in particular, missed our meetings. Grigg and Jocelyn were just back from the World Fantasy Convention in Minneapolis. It was a serious convention, Jocelyn said. For serious readers. She’d liked everyone she’d met, and seen nothing of which to disapprove. Grigg said that she hadn’t been looking too closely.
In fact, he’d thought her awkward and uncomfortable, surrounded by so many people she didn’t know. It didn’t worry us. Give her time to relax, give her time to see what was needed, and Jocelyn would have the whole community in order. The matchmaking alone could occupy her for years.
“We could read someone else,” Grigg suggested. “Patrick O’Brian? Some of his books are very Austenish. More than you’d expect.”
“I’m a big fan of boats,” Prudie told Grigg. “Ask anyone.” Her tone was polite, at best.
Grigg never had quite gotten it. If we’d started with Patrick O’Brian, we could have then gone on to Austen. We couldn’t possibly go the other direction.
We’d let Austen into our lives, and now we were all either married or dating. Could O’Brian have done this? How? When we needed to cook aboard ship, play a musical instrument, traverse Spain dressed like a bear, Patrick O’Brian would be our man. Till then, we’d just wait. In three or four years it would be time to read Austen again.
Sylvia and Daniel had stayed at Jocelyn’s to watch the kennel while Jocelyn was at World Fantasy. Afterward, Daniel moved back home. Sylvia told us she picked up some useful marital tips from Sahara and the matriarchal Ridgebacks. She says that she’s happy, but she’s still Sylvia. Who can really tell?
We see a lot less of Allegra these days. She moved back to San Francisco and back with Corinne. None of us expects this to last. Daniel told Sylvia the things Corinne had done, and Sylvia told Jocelyn, and now we all sort of know. It’s hard to like Corinne much now; it’s hard to have a good feeling about the relationship. You have to believe in fundamental reform. You have to trust Allegra. You remind yourself that no one can push Allegra around.
There’s a whole story involving Samantha Yep, but Allegra says she’s never telling it, not to us, not to Corinne. It’s a good story, that’s why. She has no intention of finding it in The New Yorker some day.
We all ordered a glass of Crêpe Bistro’s excellent hard cider and toasted Bernadette’s marriage. Sylvia brought out the Ask Austen, not to ask a question, just to give the last word to the right person.
South or north, I know a black cloud when I see it.
Except that Austen wouldn’t want us to end things that way.
A single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable.
Better. A good sentiment. Not so true, though, as other things she said. We’re sure you can think of exceptions.
The mere habit of learning to love is the thing.
There.
In honor of Bernadette, with best wishes for her future health and happiness, Austen repeats herself:
The mere habit of learning to love is the thing.
—JANE AUSTEN, 1775–1817