I needed a private place to call my sister. Not in the hall crawling with nosy patrons, nor the busy office. The timid English sun briefly appeared in the fan window above the door, coaxing my gaze upward. Omar had mentioned a third floor. "Off-limits," he'd said. The perfect place. I moved quickly, avoiding Mrs. Russell selling tickets in the foyer.
On the second floor, surrounded by doors, I turned a random knob seeking stairs to the third floor but found a closet stuffed with yellowing roll-up blinds and rotting drapery fabric. The closet smelled musty like My Jane Austen. I chose another door, opened it a crack, and peeked inside. Too dark to see anything, I opened a bit wider and light shone onto a narrow staircase. Ascending carefully, the prehistoric steps not deep enough to accommodate my entire foot, I climbed, balancing in the dim light by touching the naked brick wall. Chilly air at the top smelled of damp decomposition, a likely habitat for unquiet spirits. Moldering boxes and furniture skeletons, paint cans, and rolls of carpet barely left a path from one end of the vast attic to the other. I spied movement out of the corner of my eye but it was only My Jane Austen looking particularly dead in the dim light. "You scared me to death," I said aloud.
The torn side of a box revealed papers tempting me to explore its content. Omar said he'd been through the household stuff and found nothing of interest, but had he been up here? I touched the torn box, imagining a bundle of love letters straining a once-lavender ribbon, glad I'd discovered this part of the house before being extradited to Texas. But then I remembered Karen and her devastating news and the reason I'd initially sought this attic. Pulling the phone out of my JASNA bag, I sat on the top stair and dialed her home number where it must be late afternoon. I listened to the phone ring in my right ear.
"Hello," a man's voice called. But I heard him in my left ear.
"Hello," I responded, the phone still ringing for Karen in my right ear.
"Sorry if I frightened you," the voice said in my left ear.
Karen's machine came on. "You have reached the Adams family," Karen said, followed by the TV theme song. I stood, leaning into the room where I could see a man, ominously back-lit, sitting behind an open laptop at a table near the far window.
I blinked. "If you want to leave a message for Karen, press one." I powered off the phone as excess adrenaline wandered my arteries asking what happened.
"I should have said something to let you know I was here," he said, rising. "But I thought you were one of the inspectors who've been in and out this morning." Tall and serious, dressed in a priest's white collar and black shirt, he was such a perfect gothic specimen I expected him to speak Bronte. Immediately, I recognized the man I'd seen in the dark church, serving at the altar, and in the company of Randolph at the orientation meeting. "Lots of activity up here today." He smiled. The way he closed his laptop with both hands made me think of a coffin lid. "Willis Somerford." He stepped around the table and offered his hand as if this were all completely normal. I told myself that if he was one of the restless spirits in this attic, I wouldn't feel anything when we touched. But his handshake felt firm and warm, his face looked gentle.
"I'm sorry to bother you," I said. "I'm Lily Berry." The area near the window had been cleared for the table where his work-in-progress lay open. His black suit jacket hung over the back of a wooden chair, papers peeked out of several manila files, and a stack of books layered mountainlike, suggesting an ascent into ideas. "This must be your office," I said, imagining him writing sermons on Paul's letters, or an impenetrable book of theology.
He glanced at his desk and then watched me as he spoke, the way Martin observed pedestrian women from his driver's seat, appraising from behind as he got closer and then, after passing, observing their faces in his rearview mirror. Martin's conversation always lacked focus until he'd driven beyond range. Willis squinted at me. "Weren't you in St. James's Church the other night? Did you see me? It was dark."
"Yes, I saw you there," I said, "and at the orientation meeting and the church in town."
"Ah, then we've met," he said.
An open book lay facedown on his desk, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Books stacked on the floor reminded me of the six I'd maintained in my office cubicle, although Willis appeared to read more widely: The Backpacker's Manual, 1000 Places to Visit Before You Die, and Getting Started in Sailboat Racing. The orange electric cord hanging outside the house belonged to him. Entering through a crack in the window, it snaked over the plank seat and onto the floor, powering his laptop.
"I gather you're with the festival," he said, gesturing to my costume. Again, he looked at me intensely, like a man too much alone. In a world full of choices I failed to inspire much interest; but apparently, in a lonely attic, dressed as Mary Crawford, I commanded attention.
"Yes, but I'm afraid I've made a mistake coming here," I said.
"Actually, you've only gone as far as the third floor, not too far from where you started."
"No, I don't mean here," I said, gesturing to the attic. "I mean England." My toe dug into accumulated dirt and I warned myself to stop, change direction. "You must be a priest," I said, recalling Mary Crawford's insensitive line I'd butchered an hour ago.
"Not yet," he said. "I'm a deacon in the Anglican church."
"So you will be a priest?" I sniffed.
He smiled and broke eye contact. "That's a very good question," he said, turning and walking behind his desk. "You're not the first to ask," he added, digging in his pocket. "But you came up here to be alone." He handed me a tissue. "I'm intrigued." I wiped my nose as gracefully as possible while he gallantly diverted his gaze out the window.
"Where to start," I said, stalling, not wanting him to think less of me for being fired by Magda. He gestured to the plank window seat and pulled the chair from his desk to face me as I sat. He waited so patiently, a technique learned in priest classes, no doubt. The longer he waited, the more I felt compelled to answer his question. After all, Karen had suggested I speak with clergy. Willis planted both feet on the floor and propped his elbows on his knees.
"Do you know Magda?" I asked.
"No."
"She's the assistant director, and she has it in for me."
"Pity." He shook his head, not without irony. "Did she say why?"
"Because I like Fanny Price."
"Who is?"
"The protagonist in Mansfield Park."
"Ah, I thought the name sounded familiar."
Gathering courage, I told him a sanitized version of how, covering for Bets, I'd messed up on the blocking. He listened as intently as he observed. "Do you know what I told myself before I came here?" I asked.
"What?"
"That Texas didn't get me."
"Really. Not get you." He smiled as if he knew better.
"I was so certain England would get me. That Literature Live would get me; that we would all only connect." An odd look crossed Willis's face, reminding me that Forster's only connect did not mean, as I had mistakenly believed, relating to others with greater gusto. "But the truth is"—I dug myself in deeper—"I can only only connect with people who are dead or fictional, and can only be happy in places that exist in an author's head. My best friend is—" I gestured to where My Jane Austen would be if she were there listening as I felt she was, but stopped myself and turned back to him.
"I'm sorry?" he said.
"It's nothing." I crossed my legs; wild horses could not force me to tell him about My Jane Austen.
"So," he said, "you're a reader." Then Willis shrugged and looked sideways at me. "Ever consider ditching all this and living in a novel?"
I blinked. He might be pulling my leg, hard to tell. I considered this attic full of junk, murky light struggling through the dirty window, this conversation with a handsome Bronte icon in a house reeking of Jane Austen, and him getting it. It seemed increasingly less likely I was conscious. Perhaps I was dead, this was heaven, and murder should be added to Magda's crimes against me. "Yes," I said, leaning forward.
He smiled at me. "Life in a novel would be so much easier than this constant necessity to sort things out for oneself, don't you think?"
Whereas my life had been going from left to right in a general clockwise motion up until that moment, everything suddenly came to an abrupt stop—and resumed a fraction of a second later in the completely opposite direction—with a marked increase in tempo. As if I had crossed the prime meridian or the Continental Divide, suddenly there was a new way for everything to be. Looking into his eyes, I said, "When I was ten I wanted to be the Witch of Blackbird Pond."
"A witch." His eyes lingered on my face, and for a second, not only did we share The Look, but I really felt like a witch. No one else had ever come close to understanding such thoughts. Not Martin, not my friend Lisa, certainly not Karen, not even my mother; no one but My Jane Austen. I felt so comfortable with this man, as if we were resuming a conversation we'd been having in a previous life. He appeared to feel the same energy.
"But then authors would be God," he said.
"Ah." I sat up straight. "In that case, I could live my literature the way religious people live their faith." I flinched inwardly as I said "religious people" Mary Crawford came so naturally when I wasn't on stage.
"Interesting," he said, with emphasis that made me feel brilliant. Willis folded his hands behind his head and propped his feet on my bench. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, Bets's cell phone, incarcerated in my JASNA bag, began to ring. Willis's mouth froze open, his next word unsaid.
"I'm so sorry," I said, rummaging for the phone. Bets had annoyingly left a lot of her stuff in my bag. I found the phone and turned off the power. "My roommate's phone," I said, slipping it back in the bag, wondering if the caller was Karen. Willis looked different when I returned my attention to him. His body remained in the chair opposite but his face was somewhere else, seeing something I couldn't see.
His feet hit the floor as he looked at his watch. "I'll have to excuse myself." Those were not the words he had been planning to say before the phone interrupted. "I've got to run," he said, standing, thrusting arms into his jacket.
I held my ground, watching his face, hoping to grab him by the eyes, but he did not look at me. Instead, he pushed his laptop and some papers into a case. He slung the strap over his shoulder and paused for a moment, drumming fingers on the table, apparently trying to remember what he needed to take.
"A pleasure meeting you," he said to his desk.
"Are you associated with the festival?" I asked. I'd just met my other half; I didn't want it to end. Would I ever see him again? Stumbling upon him in the attic would only work once.
"No," he said, followed by a pause during which his eyes glazed, giving the impression he couldn't think and talk simultaneously. He stuffed pink message papers from a drawer into his pocket. "I'm not with the festival." He looked at me, finally. "Enjoy your time here," he said, smiling politely.
"I'm sure I will," I said, following him out, hoping to continue talking as we walked. But our interview had ended, perhaps forever. I stepped over damp cardboard and tripped down the uneven steps trying to keep up, but Willis walked so fast I lost him after the second floor.