Michael Ford: Jane Goes Batty

“I don’t know how you tell them apart,” Jane remarked as Lucy took a seat in the chair beside the desk.

After her novel topped the bestseller lists and Jane had become busy promoting it and working on her follow-up, running Flyleaf Books had become impossible. She had made Lucy manager and hired Ned and Ted Hawthorne as clerks. Twins, the boys were completely indistinguishable.

There were only two differences between them: one was gay and the other was not, and one was a vampire and the other was not. Jane could never remember which was which, and even when she successfully attached the correct name to the correct young man, she could not then recall which one was—as Lucy so cleverly put it—playing on her team.

It was due to Byron that Jane had come to employ the twins. They were former students of his from a short stint teaching English literature at a small college in the Midwest. Byron had become infatuated with the young men and cultivated an intimate friendship with them. Eventually he came to favor one over the other and one night, fueled by too much wine, made the decision to turn him so that they could be forever together.

Unfortunately, he had as much trouble telling the twins apart as everyone else did and turned the wrong one. Curiously, the other twin had so far refused to be similarly transformed. With the passage of time one of the Hawthorne boys would continue to age while the other remained forever twenty-one. At the moment the difference was not noticeable, but inevitably it would be, and time was running out for the nonvampire twin to make a decision.

“I have no trouble telling who’s who,” said Lucy. “You just need to spend more time around them.”

“Which is the gay one?” asked Jane.

“Ted,” Lucy answered. “The one who wasn’t just in here.”

“And he’s the vampire one as well?”

Lucy shook her head. “Ned—the straight one—is the vampire. Hence the problem. And by the way, shouldn’t you be able to tell the undead from the not undead?”

Jane sighed. “One of my many failings as a creature of the night,” she answered. “Remember, I didn’t even realize Our Gloomy Friend was a vampire.”

Our Gloomy Friend was a joke, but also something of a precaution. Jane half feared that if they spoke Charlotte Brontë’s name aloud it would somehow cause her to appear. Lucy and Byron humored her in this, although Jane suspected they agreed with her more than they cared to admit.

“Speaking of Our Gloomy Friend,” said Lucy, “her books have been selling like crazy lately. We moved twenty-three copies of Jane Eyre last week. Apparently the high school assigned it as summer reading.”

“How nice for her,” Jane remarked. “Pity she won’t see any of the royalties.”

“Says the woman who should be collecting half a million a year from the sales of her own books,” Lucy teased.

“At least I have a recent bestseller to my credit,” Jane countered.

“There’s that,” said Lucy. She hesitated. “Do you think she’s really gone for good?”

Jane, who had been wondering the same thing, heard herself say, “I do. If she was going to try anything, she would have done it by now.”

“I hope so,” Lucy said. “I still check under my bed every night.”

“Monsters only hide under the bed in horror films,” Jane said. “Where you really need to check is the closets.”

Lucy laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said. “And since we’re on the subject, what’s happening with the Constance film?”

Jane groaned. She told Lucy the news about the production crew’s imminent arrival in Brakeston.

“That’s so exciting!” Lucy said.

“It’s horrifying,” said Jane. “You have no idea what Hollywood people are like. They talk far too quickly, are forever fidgeting with their phones, and don’t eat anything yet manage to end up with two-hundred-dollar tabs. For lunch. ” She shuddered, remembering her three days meeting with producers in Los Angeles following the purchase of the film rights to Constance . “They’re terrifying,” she whispered.

“I still think it’s exciting,” Lucy told her. “And Portia Kensington as Constance! She’s the hottest thing around right now.”

“So I understand,” said Jane. “To be honest, I was hoping they’d get a more serious actress. Like Maude Firk.”

Lucy made a face. “Don’t you want people to actually see the film?”

“Maude Firk is an excellent actress,” Jane argued. “She’s won two Oscars.”

“And both of them before 1924,” said Lucy. “Anyway, at least you got the director you wanted. If anyone can make a good film out of your book, it’s Julia Baxter.”

“There is that,” Jane admitted. “I suppose it will be nice to spend some time with her.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Lucy, standing up. “I should get back to work.”

“Oh,” Jane said as Lucy walked out. “Do you know if we have any books on becoming Jewish?”

Lucy popped her head back in the office. “On becoming Jewish?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Jane. “You know, converting.”

“We have Judaism for Dummies ,” Lucy said.

“I suppose that’s as good a place to start as any,” Jane said. “Could you set a copy aside for me?”

“Sure,” said Lucy. “May I ask why?”

“It’s a long story,” Jane replied. “Actually, it’s not so much long as it is complicated . I’ll tell you later, though. I promise.”

“Okay,” said Lucy. “I’ll go find the book.” She gave Jane a peculiar look before leaving without another word.

I might as well get used to that look , Jane thought. I have a feeling I’m going to see quite a lot of it .

She returned to looking through the store receipts, but it took her all of five minutes to see that Lucy, Ned, and Ted were doing just fine without her. She felt a pang of jealousy. Although she didn’t want anything bad to happen in her absence, she liked to think that she was crucial to the store’s continued well-being.

“Here’s the book you asked for,” said a male voice.

“Thank you,” Jane said. She glanced up and saw Byron standing beside her.

He held out the book. “Interesting reading,” he remarked.

“Yes,” said Jane, taking the book from him. “I’m doing some research for my novel. One of my characters is Jewish.”

“And how is the new book coming along?” Byron inquired.

“Brilliantly,” said Jane.

“That well?” Byron remarked.

Jane picked at a loose thread on her blouse. “It’s very difficult producing art under pressure,” she said. “I’m not a machine.”

Byron nodded. “I imagine it must be very trying.”

“Stop gloating,” said Jane irritably.

“Me?” Byron objected. “I’m not gloating.”

“You are,” Jane insisted. “I can tell by your tone.”

“You wound me,” Byron said. “You know I wish you nothing but success. Why, I bought six copies of Constance to give as gifts.”

“Be that as it may, you’re still gloating. Might I ask how your writing is going?”

“Splendidly,” Byron answered. “I just finished the latest Penelope Wentz novel. It’s called The Scent of Love .”

Jane stifled a snort. Her opinion of Byron’s recent literary efforts was not high. But she envied his sales. Although Constance had sold extraordinarily well, Byron’s Penelope Wentz novels did even better.

“It’s about a parfumeur who has had her heart broken one too many times,” Byron continued, ignoring her. “Yet she manages to create scents that make people fall wildly in love. Then one day a man comes into her shop and asks her to make a perfume that will remind him of his beloved wife, who died tragically a year before. Our heroine does, of course, but in the process she falls in love with the grieving widower and finds herself altering the formula to make him fall in love with her. ”