Jessica Harper Uncanceled

Sorry I haven’t blogged for ages. I’d love to say I’ve been busy solving crimes or uncovering corruption, but mostly I’ve been ping-ponging between Savannah and England, standing in supermarkets and wondering what on earth to call a biscuit.

I now divide my life between Savannah and the county of Kent in England, which sounds glamorous until you realize it mostly involves arguing with myself about food, language, and which side of the road I’m meant to be on.

In Savannah, a biscuit is a fluffy, buttery miracle that comes with gravy and shortens your lifespan in a way that feels worth it. In England, a biscuit is something you dunk in tea until it collapses like a poorly run startup. I made the mistake of asking for biscuits and gravy in a café in Canterbury and the girl behind the counter blinked at me like I’d requested a side of motor oil.

“I can do you a scone?” she offered.

“Is it… drowning in sausage?” I asked.

She blinked again.

Anyway, this is my life now. I split my time between Savannah and a village near Faversham, where people say things like “lovely bit of weather” about a day that would qualify as a natural disaster back home. I’ve developed what my husband calls “accent drift,” which means I now say “y’all” with a hint of apology.

The real problem is linguistic contamination. I bring Britishisms back to Georgia like a cultural virus.

Last month I told someone at the office, “I’m just going to pop out for a takeaway.”

He stared at me. “Pop where? And what are you taking away?”

“Food,” I said. “From a place that sells food.”

“You mean takeout.”

“I do not,” I said, doubling down like an idiot.

I’ve also started saying “queue,” which sounds refined until you have to spell it. Four vowels, one consonant, and absolutely no justification. I told a group of colleagues to “form an orderly queue” for the staff meeting donuts, and one of them said, “Jess, we are six people in a room. This is not the Hunger Games.”

Meanwhile, Kent has not escaped unscathed. I asked a plumber if he could “fix the faucet,” and he looked at me like I’d asked him to repair a spacecraft.

“The what?”

“The faucet.”

“The tap,” he said, slowly.

“Yes. That. The… tap faucet.”

He didn’t charge extra, but I feel like he wanted to.

Driving is worse. In Savannah, I get in the car and everything is where it should be, including my dignity. In Kent, I sit on the wrong side of the car, reach for the gearstick with my right hand, and instead slap the door like I’m trying to escape.

The first time I tried to use a roundabout, I whispered a small prayer and just committed to whichever lane felt emotionally correct.

A friend came to visit and lasted forty-eight hours.

“I nearly died six times,” she said, clutching a teacup like it was medicinal. “And everyone here is… polite.”

“That’s good,” I said.

“No, it’s unsettling,” she said. “They’re judging me, I can feel it.”

They probably were. She asked a waiter in Whitstable if the fish was “locally sourced or just vibes.”

But the biggest casualty of my transatlantic lifestyle has been my book.

Jessica Harper and the Mascara Murders was supposed to be finished months ago. Instead, it’s been delayed by jet lag, cultural confusion, and one very long argument with myself about whether a British character would realistically say “parking lot” or “car park” in a moment of high drama.

For the record, they would not say parking lot. They would say car park, probably while apologizing.

The book, when it finally emerges from its transatlantic holding pattern, involves a beauty product that may or may not be quietly ruining lives, a suspiciously enthusiastic sales network, and a death that happens just after someone applies a sample that was definitely not approved by any regulatory body I can name.

There’s also a scene involving a car that catches fire, which I have now rewritten three times because in England it’s a “car park fire” and in America it’s a “parking lot fire,” and apparently I can no longer make simple decisions.

My husband says I should just pick one place and stick with it.

“But then how would I confuse everyone equally?” I asked.

He had no answer.

The truth is, I like living in both places. Savannah gives me heat, noise, and people who will tell you exactly what they think. Kent gives me hedgerows, understatement, and a quiet sense that everyone is coping heroically with minor inconvenience.

I just need to stop telling British people I’m going to “fix dinner” (they think something is broken) and stop telling Americans I’m “quite tired” (they think I’m fine, when I am in fact one step from collapse).

If nothing else, this whole experience has made me a better writer. Or at least a more confused one.

And if Mascara Murders ends up being slightly delayed because I was busy learning that a “rubber” is not what I thought it was, then I think we can all agree that’s a sacrifice worth making.