Jane Bites Back_ A Novel - Michael Thomas Ford [11]
Dear Jane:
Kindly excuse the shortness of this email. I am currently on a train from Paris to Vienna, and am not at all confident that my wireless connection will last.
I have just finished reading the manuscript you sent in September. In short, I love it. I fear, though, that I am probably too late and that another, more efficient editor has already claimed it. If that’s the case, I will be disappointed beyond words, but will have only myself to blame.
If, however, the novel is still available, I would like to put a claim on it. I will be traveling for the next few days, but please reply if this reaches you and you are interested in further discussion. If I don’t hear from you, I will contact you when I am once again in New York.
All my best,
Kelly Littlejohn
Senior Editor
Browder Publishing
Jane read the email through four times in disbelief. On the fifth read she allowed herself to be the tiniest bit excited. By the seventh she was genuinely thrilled.
“Someone likes my book!” she called out. “Did you hear that, Tom? Someone likes my book. No, someone loves my book,” she corrected. “Kelly Littlejohn loves my book.”
She couldn’t remember sending the manuscript to anyone called Kelly Littlejohn, but that didn’t surprise her. She’d sent it to so many editors that their names cluttered her mind like scraps of paper. But she had sent it, and Kelly—bless her heart—loved it. She wanted to publish it.
Jane considered playing it cool and not responding to the email. And for a full minute she succeeded. Then, fearful that the editor might take her silence for rejection, she typed a quick note.
Dear Kelly:
Thank you for your message. Yes, the book is still available, and yes, I would be interested in speaking with you when you return.
Sincerely,
Jane Fairfax
She hit send before she could change her mind. She wanted her response to be positive but not fawning, interested but not desperate. “It’s a fine line,” she reminded herself.
She read Kelly’s email again. After so many rejections she felt as if she were reading a message about someone else’s book. For a moment she even feared that the editor had mistaken her book for another and contacted the wrong author. She was tempted to write again and confirm that it was in fact her novel Kelly wanted, but she refrained.
Money didn’t enter her mind. Neither did the possibility of fame. She was going to be published. For the first time in centuries she would be able to hold in her hands a new book she’d written.
She read Kelly’s email one more time, feeling for the first time in two centuries like a little girl on Christmas morning.
Chapter 5
She told herself that she detested parties. In particular she was weary of the exchange of frivolous gossip that masqueraded as sophisticated conversation. What did she care about Emilia Rothman’s new dress, and what of interest could be found in the whispered debates regarding the handsomeness of Arthur Potts’s recently acquired moustache?
—Jane Austen, Constance, manuscript
“SO YOU’LL BE OKAY LOOKING AFTER THE STORE FOR A FEW DAYS?”
“Of course I will,” Lucy told Jane. “It’s a bookstore, not a day care.”
“All right, then,” said Jane. “I don’t imagine you can do too much damage in that amount of time.”
“You might be surprised,” Lucy teased.
It had been a week since Jane had received Kelly Littlejohn’s email. She still hadn’t spoken to her new editor, but they had corresponded by email several times. Twice now the editor had called the novel “Austenesque,” which always made Jane giggle when she read it.
Kelly had emailed Jane the previous evening to say that she was returning from Europe earlier than expected and to suggest that Jane take the train down to New York on the second of January so that they could meet in person. The publisher would put her up in a hotel. Jane had agreed before asking Lucy if she would mind the store, knowing full well that her assistant would jump