Free The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler Page B

poetry. You know that.”
    â€œYou love your sort of poetry,” Corinne said. “Poems about trees. That’s not what Lynne will be reading.” Corinne never actually said that Allegra could go, but Allegra did, since she was now anxious to prove that she could behave, in addition to getting some glimpse of Corinne’s other life. Corinne’s real life, as she sometimes thought. The life she wasn’t to be any part of.
    Good Vibrations had set up fifty chairs, of which seven were taken. Inflatable crotches hung on the walls behind the podium in various stages of openness, like butterflies. There were cabinets in which corsets and strap-ons had been scattered together. Lynne was charmingly nervous. She read, but she also talked about the issues, personal and artistic, that her poetry raised forher. She’d just finished a piece in which a woman’s breast spoke in several stanzas about its past admirers. The poem had a formal structure, and Lynne confessed that she wondered whether this was really the way to go. She begged her audience to regard it as a work in progress.
    Even the breast spoke in a poetry-reading voice, with that lilt at the end of each line, like Pound or Eliot or whoever it was who had started the unfortunate custom. The audience clapped at the hot parts, and Allegra was careful to clap, too, although what she found hot was apparently different from what others found hot. Afterward she went with Corinne to congratulate Lynne. She said how much she’d enjoyed the evening, as blameless a statement as anyone could make, but Corinne shot her a sharp look. She could see that her presence was making Corinne unhappy. She had forced her way in, when she’d known Corinne didn’t want her. Allegra excused herself to use the bathroom. She took her time, washing her face, combing her hair, and all on purpose so that Corinne could talk to Lynne without Allegra there to hear.
    That weekend Sylvia and Jocelyn came down for a dog show at the Cow Palace and Allegra met them for lunch. Corinne had been invited, but the words were suddenly flowing, she’d said, she couldn’t risk stopping. Jocelyn was in a very good mood. Thembe had taken Best of Breed, the judge noting his great reach and drive, as well as his beautiful topline. He would compete in Hounds in the afternoon. Plus, Jocelyn had in her pockets the cards of several promising studs. The future looked bright. The Cow Palace was thunderous and odorous. They took their lunches to the picnic tables so as not to eat in front of the dogs.
    It was a great relief to Allegra to be able finally to tell someone about the poetry reading. She remembered particularly choice lines; Sylvia laughed so hard she spit her sandwich into her lap.Afterward Allegra was contrite. “I wish Corinne would let me in a bit,” she said. “She’s afraid to be laughed at. As if I’d laugh at her. ”
    â€œI once broke up with a boy because he wrote me an awful poem,” Jocelyn said. “ ‘Your twin eyes.’ Don’t most people have twin eyes? All but an unfortunate few? You think it shouldn’t matter. You think how nice the sentiment is and how much work went into it. But the next time he goes to kiss you, all you can think is ‘Your twin eyes.’ ”
    â€œI’m sure Corinne’s a wonderful writer,” Sylvia said. “Isn’t she?”
    And Allegra said yes! She was! Wonderful! In fact, Corinne had yet to show Allegra a word. The books she liked to read were all really good books, though.
    â€œThe thing is,” said Allegra, and in Jocelyn’s experience, good things rarely followed those words, “if she had to choose between writing and me, I know she’d choose writing. Should I mind that? I shouldn’t mind that. I’m just sort of an all-out person, myself.”
    â€œThe thing is,” Sylvia answered, “she doesn’t have to choose. So