While they were in the mountains, it snowed and snowed. This would have been lovely if they'd been sitting in some ex-pensive ski lodge with their feet propped next to a fire. Instead they were standing in the Badger Pa.s.s parking lot with hundreds of other families, waiting for the bus to take them down.

It was a long, cold wait, and everyone was unhappy to be do-ing it. An announcement told them one of the buses had stalled and wouldn't arrive at all. This worsened the collective mood. The boys were hungry. Allegra was starving. The boys were cold. Allegra was freezing. They hated skiing, they all said, and why had they been made to come?

When a bus did arrive, almost thirty minutes later, a man and a woman pushed their way into line in front of Sylvia. There was little point to this. None of them was close enough to the front to have a shot at this first bus. But Sylvia had been shoved aside and, in her efforts not to step on Diego, had fallen onto the icy pavement. "Hey," Daniel had said. "That's my wife you just pushed over."

"f.u.c.k you," the man answered.

"What did you say?"

"f.u.c.k your wife," the woman added.

The kids had scarves wound around their necks, covering their mouths. Over these, their eyes were shiny with excitement. There was going to be a fight! Their father was going to start it! The people nearest gave way so that there was empty s.p.a.ce around Daniel and the other man.

"Daniel, don't," said Sylvia. One thing she'd always loved about Daniel was his lack of machismo. The boys she'd grown up with were suchcaballeros. Such cowboys. She'd never found it attractive. Daniel was like her father, self-confident enough to take an insult if one was offered. (On the other hand, she had been pushed and cursed, entirely without provocation. That wasn't right.) "I'll deal with this," Daniel told her. He was wearing ski pants, soft apres-ski boots, and an enormous parka. That was the top layer, but there were many strata beneath. He looked as if he were about to beshot from a cannon. The other man was equally padded, the Michelin man in Patagonia blue. They squared off. Daniel was as angry as Sylvia had ever seen him.

He took a swing, but the ice was so bad he almost went down from his own momentum. He missed the other man's chest by many inches. The other man rushed him and Daniel side-stepped, so the man slid past and crashed into a pile of skis and poles.

Both regained their balance, turned around. "You'll be sorry for that," the man said. He walked toward Daniel, setting each foot onto the ice with care. Daniel took another swing and a miss. His boots slid out from under him; he went down hard. The other man stepped in to hold him there, pin him with a knee, but in his haste slid past again. His wife caught him and propped him upright. Daniel got to his feet, lumbered forward. He took a third swing; it spun him halfway around to face Sylvia.

He was smiling. Fat as a Santa in his big dark parka, there he was, fighting for her honour, but never managing to land a single punch. Windmilling, slipping, falling. Laughing.

Is Anne Elliot really the best heroine Austen ever created?" Daniel asked. "That's what it says here in the afterword."

"She's a little too innately good for my taste," said Allegra. "I prefer Elizabeth Bennet."

"I love them all," Bernadette answered.

"Bernadette," Prudie said. She'd reached that pensive, senti-mental state of drunkenness that everyone watching so enjoys. "You've done so many things and read so many books. Do you still believe in happy endings?"

"Oh my Lord, yes." Bernadette's hands were pressed against each other like a book, like a prayer. "I guess I would. I've had about a hundred of them."

On the deck behind her was a gla.s.s door, and behind the door a dark room. Sylvia was not a happy-ending sort of person her-self. In books, yes, they were lovely. But in life everyone has the same ending, and the only question is who will get to it first. She took a drink of peach margarita and looked at Daniel, who was looking back, and didn't look away.

What if you had a happy ending and didn't notice? Sylvia made a mental note. Don't miss the happy ending.

Above Daniel's head, one leaf, and only one leaf, ticked about on the walnut tree. How exacting, how precise the breeze! It smelled of the river, a green smell in a brown month. She took a deep breath.

"Sometimes a white cat is just a white cat," Bernadette said.

November

Epilogue.

The Jane Austen book club did meet one more time. In No-vember we gathered at the Crepe Bistro to have lunch and take turns looking at the pictures from Bernadette's Costa Rican trip on her laptop. It was too bad she'd done no editing. Every time she saw something breathtaking, she took two or three identical shots. There were also two photos of headless people, and one in which you saw nothing but two red spots, which Bernadette said were jaguar eyes, and we couldn't prove they weren't. They were very far apart, though.

She told us how one day the tour bus had broken down in front of a plantation named The Scarlet Macaw. The owner of the plantation, the courtly Senor Obando, had insisted the group all stay there until a new bus could arrive. In the fourteen hours that took, they hiked around the plantation. Bernadette saw a bare-necked umbrella bird, a torrent tyrannulet, a rufous mot-mot, a harpy eagle (a cause for considerable celebration), a stripe-breasted this, and a red-footed that.

Senor Obando was a great enthusiast, had enormous energy for a man his age. He was determined to get his plantation on the ecotour circuit, and not for himself, but for the birders. It was his dream, he said.

Surely there was no plantation anywhere with better birds or better trails. They could see for themselves how good the accommodations were, how varied the feathered denizens.

He and Bernadette sat on the veranda, drank something minty, and talked about everything under the sun. His relatives in San Jose-sadly infirm. They wrote often, but he rarely saw them. Books-"I'm afraid we don't have the same taste in nov-els," Bernadette said-and music. The relative merits of Lerner and Loewe versus Rodgers and Hammerstein. Senor Obando knew the songs from a dozen Broadway musicals. They sang "How Are Things in Gloccamora?" and "I Loved You Once in Silence, "

and "A c.o.c.keyed Optimist." He encouraged Berna-dette to talk more; he said listening to her would improve his English. A week later Bernadette had added Senor Obando to her Life List.

She was married again. She showed us a ring set with a large aquamarine. 'I really think this is the one,"

she said. "I love a man with a vision."

She'd come back to see the kids, the grandkids, the great- grandkids, and to pack up her apartment.

She was grabbing her coat and getting her hat. Just forward her mail to The Scarlet Macaw. We were happy for her, of course, and lucky Senor Obando, but we were a little sad, too. Costa Rica is far away.

Grigg said that he, in particular, missed our meetings. Grigg and Jocelyn were just back from the World Fantasy Convention in Minneapolis. It was a serious convention, Jocelyn said. For se-rious readers.

She'd liked everyone she'd met, and seen nothing of which to disapprove. Grigg said that she hadn't been looking too closely.

In fact, he'd thought her awkward and uncomfortable, sur-rounded by so many people she didn't know.

It didn't worry us. Give her time to relax, give her time to see what was needed, and Jocelyn would have the whole community in order. The match-making alone could occupy her for years.

"We could read someone else," Grigg suggested. "Patrick O'Brian? Some of his books are very Austenish. More than you'd expect."

"I'm a big fan of boats," Prudie told Grigg. "Ask anyone. Her tone was polite, at best.

Grigg never had quite gotten it. If we'd started with Patrick O'Brian, we could have then gone on to Austen. We couldn't possibly go the other direction.

We'd let Austen into our lives, and now we were all either married or dating. Could O'Brian have done this? How? When we needed to cook aboard ship, play a musical instrument, travel to Spain dressed like a bear, Patrick O'Brian would be our man. Till then, we'd just wait. In three or four years it would be time to read Austen again.

Sylvia and Daniel had stayed at Jocelyn's to watch the kennel while Jocelyn was at World Fantasy.

Afterward, Daniel moved back home. Sylvia told us she picked up some useful marital tips from Sahara and the matriarchal Ridgebacks. She says that she's happy, but she's still Sylvia. Who can really tell?

We see a lot less of Allegra these days. She moved back to San Francisco and back with Corinne.

None of us expects this to last. Daniel told Sylvia the things Corinne had done, and Sylvia told Jocelyn, and now we all sort of know. It's hard to like Corinne much now; it's hard to have a good feeling about the relationship. You have to believe in fundamental reform. You have to trust Al-legra. You remind yourself that no one can push Allegra around.

There's a whole story involving Samantha Yep, but Allegra says she's never telling it, not to us, not to Corinne. It's a good story, that's why. She has no intention of finding it inThe New Yorker some day.

We all ordered a gla.s.s of Crepe Bistro's excellent hard cider and toasted Bernadette's marriage. Sylvia brought out the Ask Austen, not to ask a question, just to give the last word to the right person.

South or north, I know a black cloud when I see it.

Except that Austen wouldn't want us to end things that way.

A single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable. Better. A good sentiment. Not so true, though, as other things she said. We're sure you can think of exceptions.

The mere habit of learning to love is the thing.

There.

In honour of Bernadette, with best wishes for her future health and happiness, Austen repeats herself:

The mere habit of learning to love is the thing.

-JANE AUSTEN,1775-1817.

Reader's Guide

Jane Austen is weirdly capable of keeping everybody busy. The moralists, the Eros-and-Agape people, the Marx-ists, the Freudians, the Jungians, the semioticians, the deconstructors-all find an adventure playground in six samey novels about middle-cla.s.s provincials. And for every generation of critics, and readers, her fiction effortlessly renews itself.

-MARTIN AMIS, "JANE S WORLD,The New Yorker The Novels

Emmawas written between January 1814 and March 1815, published in 1815. The t.i.tle character, Emma Woodhouse, is queen of her little community. She is lovely and wealthy. She has no mother; her fussy, fragile father imposes no curbs on either her behaviour or her self-satisfaction. Everyone else in the village is deferentially lower in social standing. Only Mr. Knightley, an old family friend, ever suggests sheneeds improvement.

Emma has a taste for matchmaking. When she meets pretty Harriet Smith, "the natural daughter of somebody," Emma takes her up as both a friend and a cause. Under Emma's direction, Harriet refuses a proposal from a local farmer, Robert Martin, so that Emma can engineer one from Mr. Elton, the vicar.

Unluck-ily, Mr. Elton misunderstands the intrigues and believes Emma is interested in him for herself. He cannot be lowered to consider Harriet Smith.

Things are further shaken by the return to the village by Jane Fairfax, niece to the garrulous Miss Bates; and by a visit from Frank Churchill, stepson of Emma's ex-governess. He and Jane are secretly engaged, but as no one knows this,it has no impact on the matchmaking frenzy.

The couples are eventually sorted out, if not according to Emma's plan, at least to her satisfaction.

Uninterested in mar-riage at the book's beginning, she happily engages herself to Mr. Knightley before its end.

Sense and Sensibilitywas written in the late 1 790s, but much revised before publication in 1811. It is primarily the story of two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. The death of their father has left them, with their mother and younger sister, fi-nancially pressed. Both women fall in love, each in her own characteristic way-Marianne is extravagant and public with her emotions, Elinor restrained and decorous.

The object of Elinor's interest is Edward Ferrars, brother to f.a.n.n.y Dashwood, her odious, stingy sister-in-law. Elinor learns that Edward has been for some time secretly, unhappily, and in-extricably engaged to a young woman named Lucy Steele. She learns this from Lucy, who, aware of Elinor's interest though pretending not to be, chooses Elinor as her special confidante.

Marianne hopes to marry John Willoughby, the book's only s.e.xy man. He deserts her for a financially advantageous match. The surprise and disappointment of this sends Marianne into a dangerous decline.

When Lucy Steele jilts Edward for his brother Robert, Ed-ward is finally free to marry Elinor. Edward seems quite dull, but is at least her own choice. Marianne marries Colonel Bran-don, the dull man Elinor and her mother have picked out for her.

Mansfield Parkwas written between 1811 and 1813, and pub-lished in 1814. It marks Austen's return to novel writing after an interruption of more than a decade.

Ten-year-old f.a.n.n.y Price is taken from her impoverished home to the estate of her wealthy aunt and uncle Bertram. There she is tormented by her aunt Norris, disliked by her cousins Tom, Maria, and Julia, and befriended only by her cousin Ed-mund. Her position is less than a daughter, more like a servant.

Years pa.s.s. f.a.n.n.y grows up shrinking and sickly (though very pretty).

While Uncle Bertram is away on business, Henry and Mary Crawford come to stay at the nearby parsonage. The Crawfords, brother and sister, are lively and charming. Both Maria and Julia are taken with Henry. Edmund is equally smitten with Mary.

Amateur theatricals are planned, then cancelled by Uncle Ber-tram's return. But the rehearsals havealready encouraged several damaging flirtations. Maria, humiliated by Henry's lack of real interest, marries Mr. Rushworth, a wealthy buffoon.

Henry then falls in love with shy f.a.n.n.y. She refuses the ad-vantageous match and, as punishment, is sent back to her par-ents. Henry pursues her for a time, then has an affair with Maria that results in her disgrace. Edmund's eyes are opened by Mary's casual response to this.

Tom, the eldest Bertram cousin, nearly dies of vice and dissi-pation; f.a.n.n.y is fetched back to Mansfield Park to help nurse him. At the end of the book Edmund and f.a.n.n.y marry. They seem well suited to each other, though not, as Kingsley Amis has pointed out, the sort of people you would like to have over for dinner.

Northanger Abbeywas written in the late 1 790s, but published only posthumously. It is the story of a deliberately ordinary hero-ine named Catherine Morland. The book is divided into two parts. In the first, Catherine travels with family friends, the Al-lens, to Bath. There she meets two brother-sister pairs-John and Isabella Thorpe, and Henry and Eleanor Tilney. Her own brother, James, joins them and becomes engaged to Isabella. Catherine is attracted to Henry, a clergyman with witty and un-orthodox manners.

General Tilney, father to Henry and Eleanor, invites Cather-ine to visit them at home; this visit makes up the second half of the book. The General is at once solicitous and overbearing. Un-der the spell of the gothic novel she has been reading, Catherine imagines he has murdered his wife. Henry discovers this and sets her humiliatingly straight.

Catherine receives a letter from James telling her that Isabella has ended their engagement. General Tilney, upon returning from London, has Catherine thrown out, to make her own way home. It is eventually understood that Catherine and James had been mistaken for people of great wealth, but the situation has been clarified.

Henry is so outraged by his father's behaviour that he follows immediately after Catherine and proposes marriage. They can-not proceed without his father's permission, but this is finally given in the happy madness of Eleanor's marriage to a viscount.

Pride and Prejudicewas originally ent.i.tledFirst Impressions.It was written between 1796 and 1797, and heavily revised before its publication in 1813. It is the most famous of the novels. Austen herself characterizedit as "rather too light and bright, and spark-ling," suggesting it needed some "solemn specious nonsense" for contrast. In an inversion of the cla.s.sic Cinderella fairy tale, when the hero, Fitzwilliam Darcy, first sees the heroine, Eliza-beth Bennet, at a ball, he refuses to dance with her.