When Kathleen Met Joe

She assumed I already had heard the sad news, so It took me about 5 seconds to realize why she had sent the article to me today---but, as I read it, I was not at all surprised to learn that Nora Ephron had left all these many clues to her mortal illness hidden in her 2010 publication---and the reason I was not surprised is the same reason why I was not at all surprised to then see "Pride and Prejudice" in the list of things Nora Ephron would miss.

Like all other Janeites who've seen You've Got Mail, one of my many favorite scenes in the film is when Kathleen arrives for her fateful first meeting  with her longtime email friend.

Of course, the email friend who shows up is actually Joe Fox, in real life her mortal corporate enemy, and when he realizes who she is while she has no clue who _he_ is, he does little credit to his character by deciding to have some unwholesome totally one-sided fun at her expense, by concealing his true identity. As he lingers around, revealing (to the viewer) a sadistic streak, he ribs her about the copy of Pride & Prejudice which she has brought along as part of her "costume", and which, it is clear, he has read in advance of their rencontre.

Well, I saw You've Got Mail in the movie theater when it came out in 1998, but it was only in 2006, several years after I began my own quest to unravel the mysteries of Jane Austen's shadow stories, and I noted the thread in the Janeites group which mentioned P&P as a source for You've Got Mail, that it began to dawn on me that Nora Ephron might have had a literary trick or three of her own up her sleeve as well, beyond the obvious, in putting P&P in Kathleen's hands in that restaurant.