Lies Jane Austen Told Me by Julie Wright

Author:Julie Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shadow Mountain Publishing
Published: 2017-09-21T00:00:00+00:00

“Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing; but I have never been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.”

—Jane Austen, Emma

Lucas had apparently taken my invitation to do what he wanted on his day off to mean spending the day at the family shelter helping them with anything they needed and then buying anyone and everyone pizza and root beer for dinner.

I slid my hands into a pair of plastic gloves and helped to serve the people still entering the dining hall. “This really wasn’t what I expected when you asked me to join you for dinner.” To keep myself from staring at him in awe, I focused on the pizza boxes.

“Totally better, right?” he said, his eyes filled with a happiness that had been missing during our time in Boston.

“Totally better.”

The line got busy again as another wave of people picked up paper plates and smiled at us expectantly. So many of them wanted to talk, to have someone listen. We served more than food while in that line; we served our attention by the plateful. And unlike the pizza boxes, it seemed that the more we gave, the more we had. With each person and the stories they shared, I found myself so caught up in the moment I actually forgot about the man at my side who made my stomach flutter in a way I didn’t want to admit to anyone.

At least I forgot about him until someone plugged a phone into some worn speakers of questionable sound quality. The static-hum of a phone jacked in hissed in the room before music blared through. The playlist was fun—punchy, upbeat folk music, the kind you’d hear at a coffeehouse near a college campus. A few kids began to dance. Our line for pizza dwindled to stragglers who were in animated conversation with the older woman next to Lucas. She must have worked regularly with them because it seemed they all knew her.

Lucas grabbed my hand, and the little flutter that occasionally beat its wings in my stomach became a desperate, full-on flight. I turned to him, my mouth open in surprise, when he said, “Let’s dance!”

And then we were doing exactly that. He spun me around the table and to the middle of the floor so fast the movement didn’t even register in my head until we were already there, already dancing. His one hand in mine. His other on my waist. His smile like sunshine breaking through a cloud-bruised sky. With his face so close and him not seeming to mind, I felt he’d truly forgiven me for my cruel accusations.

The folk song turned to a rap dance song. Lucas had no trouble shifting styles and tugged me along. “C’mon, Ms. Pierce! You got this.”

I snickered at his calling me “Ms. Pierce” and followed his lead as best I could. My herky-jerky movements made me look more like a drunk scarecrow than a rap-song dancer, and Lucas laughed, the belly kind of laugh.

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