Jane Austen and…Baseball?

After several Pride and Prejudice variations in which I had Caroline Bingley meet various unfortunate fates—I found myself humming along to "Sweet Caroline" as played during Red Sox games at Fenway (WOAH WOAH WOAH!), and it struck me: What if Caroline wasn't always reaching out for something that could never be hers? What if her story, like the song that has serenaded countless eighth innings in Boston, was about the possibility of genuine warmth and joy?

In my previous works, Caroline has been banished, married off to a series of increasingly unsuitable men, and in one particularly spiteful moment, relegated to keeping house for a parsimonious cattle farmer. "Good times never seemed so good" (SO GOOD! SO GOOD!) for Miss Bingley in any of my stories.

But as I watched 37,000 people sway together, arms raised, singing about reaching out and touching hands, I wondered if Caroline's desperate need to touch the hem of the upper echelons of society might hide a deeper yearning for real connection. Perhaps, when spring turned to summer (warm, touching warm), our Miss Bingley might discover that true happiness comes not from calculating every social interaction, but from allowing genuine feeling to guide one's heart.

And so, in this variation, I offer a different Caroline—one who might, after some missteps and machinations, discover that good times really can be good, sweet times can be sweet, and that reaching out doesn't always mean grasping for status.

WOAH WOAH WOAH!

(And if you don't understand these musical interjections, I invite you to join me at Fenway some warm summer evening in the middle of the eighth inning. Throw your hands up and sway! SO GOOD! SO GOOD!)

https://youtu.be/jF__vAm_qRM?si=I1eJIRP3nmfNngVi On April 20, 2013, in the emotional first game back at Fenway Park after the Boston Marathon bombings, Diamond came out to the diamond to play his song live.