Page 10 of The Austen Escape
He said little after that and we hung up, both lost in thought. Dad probably headed to the garage, his sanctuary. I grabbed my keys, headed for my clean car and for BookPeople on Lamar.
After riffling through the entire Austen selection, I chose its only copy of all Austen’s novels in one volume. It was huge and heavy and smelled like leather. The woman at checkout turned it over and over in her hands.
“You can get these for free on an e-reader. They’re in the public domain.”
“I know and I probably will, but I love books. The weight. The smell. The bigger the better. It’s a shame Encyclopedia Britannica doesn’t print all those encyclopedias anymore. Weren’t those the best?”
The woman sighed the equivalent of aWhateverand rang the sale.
I patted the book’s dark green cover as if to soothe any hurt feelings. I’d gone over the top with the whole Encyclopedia Britannica thing, but books—heavy books—meant something to me, and atwell over a thousand pages, this one was larger and heavier than my meatiest college textbook. I already loved it.
My mom had always insisted on paper, and because she couldn’t do much but read, people gave her books. She loved them all—and the heavier, the better. She said they felt like blankets resting on her lap. Our house growing up was filled with electrical wires, brothers, and books. So purchasing a large book in her honor was only right.
I spent the rest of the afternoon and well into the early hours of Monday morning reading. Mom had first introduced me to Jane Austen in the seventh grade. She wasn’t well that year and we spent much of our time together with me reading aloud.Pride and Prejudicewas first,Emmanext. But eventually I had my own reading to do for English classes, so my indoctrination into Austen’s remaining novels was postponed.
The Austen I remembered was not the Austen I encountered now.ThatAusten was staid and challenging. And I’m sure my slow pace and mispronunciations must have driven my mother crazy—words likereverieandsupercilious. She never mentioned it, though, or let her smile waver—Austen and I were her delights.
Mom’s devotion to those novels made sense to me now. Jane Austen understood people, and she was funny. Being an engineer, analytic and literal, I knew I was probably still missing nuances and subtleties and most of her brilliance, but what I caught was captivating.
She wrote with such precision that a single phrase evoked an emotional response. She elicited laughter, warmth, and even a sense of awe. Across two hundred years, I recognized her characters in the here and now. She wrote about people I knew.
Northanger Abbeystruck me most forcibly. I found someonethere so clearly drawn that I recognized words, phrases, even mannerisms. I finally put the book down at three o’clock Monday morning. I needed sleep. I would need a fresher mind to tackle all I’d found there.
I’d found Isabel.
On Monday morning, I stopped just inside WATT’s front door. Karen was hovering outside my cubicle. Her frosted hair, cut precisely to the chin, shifted back and forth as she scanned the office.
Three hours of sleep were not sufficient for this... I pulled my bag tighter on my shoulder. I could feel the instant she spotted me.
“Mary? A moment.”
Rather than point me toward my cubicle or into a conference room, she walked straight past me and pushed out the door back to the parking lot. On her way past she offered the tiniest of smiles. She was playing with me. Giving me what I wanted—almost. I steeled my expression and followed.
Karen pointed a few feet away to a small gravel area, landscaped with cacti and other native plants, and stepped right into the gravel. “Nothing is private in that building. How anybody gets anything done is beyond me.” She shifted around to secure firm footing before looking to me. We stood eye to chin. I slouched to compensate.
“I looked for you Friday, but you were gone.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure how to answer her. I wasn’t an hourly employee, and I hadn’t left until after six.
“I’m re-tasking you to battery improvements and the hearing device Benson is testing. It shows great promise. Ask him for his notes.”
“It’s his design. Shouldn’t he—”
She cut me off with a wave of her hand. “He can stay lead if necessary, but at this point, I’d like to put him on some new ideas I’ve got. I’ve assigned each engineer a physicist and would like you to streamline development along those lines... Is there a problem?” Her tone held a corrosive note.
“We’ve never worked that way.”
“WATT is too large now to work any other way. We need to eliminate inefficiencies and cross dialogue.”
I opened my mouth to ask what that meant, then closed it. I suspected I wouldn’t understand the answer. “I’ll talk to Benson today.”
“Good. Put all your designs for Golightly—is that what you called it?—on the shared server and let it be. We’re done with it. Not a penny more, but if someone can glean insights from the time and resources you’ve spent, all the better. I hate to call it a complete loss.”
“It’s not a loss at all. Already ideas have come from the work. And Golightly has incredible potential.”
“Not enough, Mary. We’re entering the fourth quarter and we’ve got some quick improvements and advances to get out the door. Margins are solid on the battery line, and we can push a couple new iterations. I’m encouraging you to use your days and company resources wisely.”
“I understand.”
