Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict Read Online Free PDF Page B

like my car?”
    “Car.” I am, in truth, curious. And so I settle into the forward-facing seat, which is far more comfortable than a carriage; Wes sits beside me. Paula and Anna sit in the front, entering by a different set of doors. Instead of their seat facing ours, as in a carriage, they, too, face forward. Paula inserts the object she used to open the door into a slot next to a wheel-like thing that is level with her chest, and the car makes a fast whirring noise. She turns the wheel, and the car begins to move!
    It is as fast as a fast-moving carriage, and without horses! But then it is much faster than a carriage, and the street is full of other cars in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, all moving faster and faster until ours speeds onto a vast stretch of road divided by painted lines into equally spaced sections full of these strange machines, all racing as if the devil were in pursuit, and I realize that I have grabbed on to Wes’s arm with one hand and am gripping a handle protruding from my door with another.
    “Wait—no—too fast, I—”
    “Are you all right?” Wes says.
    “Please—do slow down.” I can barely get the words out. I am beginning to gasp for breath—all these cars speeding down this endless road, racing one another, emitting blasts like a ship’s horn; a large black squarish monster of a machine roars past Paula’s car and slips in front of her, and we nearly crash into its rear—this is hell, this is hell, I know this is hell, how did I end up in hell; cannot get enough air, cannot breathe.
    “She’s hyperventilating,” says Wes.
    Paula meets my eyes via a mirror that is above the inside wheel. “You want me to pull over, darling? Are you going to be sick?”
    “Courtney?” Wes says.
    I cannot answer just yet; I force myself to slow my breathing until I am able to take in a long, deep breath. “Of course I am not going to be sick. I may be frightened out of my senses, but I am not one of those fainting misses who needs to be physicked every minute.”
    Anna turns round and leans over the back of her seat. “You’re perfectly safe, sweetheart. I promise you.” She looks sharply at Paula. “Would you stop with the Indy 500 lane changes? And a little less pressure on the gas pedal, okay?”
    Paula bridles. “For God’s sake, I’m only doing forty-five. I couldn’t do more in this traffic if I wanted to.”
    Wes simply pats my hand and gives me a reassuring nod. Behind him I get a glimpse of a white car that is next to ours; inside it is a party of young children. They see me watching them and wave and smile. One of them, a boy of about six, pulls his mouth into a grotesque grin with both hands while a younger boy of perhaps four years jostles him and giggles.
    I feel my own mouth lift in a smile, and I realize that I have relaxed my grip on both Wes’s arm and the door handle. The sensation in my stomach is no longer a sickening lurch—the cars on either side of us and the trees and houses become a blur—and I surrender to the speed, the colors, the refreshing wind on my face, for somehow the glass next to me has lowered partway. If this is heaven, then I am traveling with the angels, and what indeed is there to fear?
    “Car”—what an apt name for such a mythical equipage! “Car,” a word which summons Shakespeare and Spenser and verses on Phoebus’s “fiery carre.”
    We race past shops, houses, and buildings which are as varied in color and shape as the human beings who stream in and out of their doorways. Some of the buildings are so tall and have so much glazing that the window tax alone must be beyond reckoning. The many structures we pass are in various states of dilapidation or elegance: some smoke-scarred and ragged, others sleek and shining. No uniformity of style at all.
    Here and there the brickwork and lintels are reminiscent of a London town house, but most of the facades are either devoid of ornamentation or else adorned in a manner that I