The Family Fortune (13 page)

The address I had for Jack Reilly was in southern Vermont, not too far from the house Max had rented in Londonderry. Maybe by the time I showed up I'd have Jack Reilly in tow.

I left Winnie's early the next morning and arrived in Vermont before noon. I checked into the Inn at Long Last on Main Street in Chester. The inn was a large white Colonial, complete with burgundy runners on the stairs, Oriental carpets, Windsor chairs in the lobby, highboys, lowboys, overstuffed sofas, and two working fireplaces. It had the flavor of our house, only nothing in it was authentic; everything was a replica.

As I headed up the stairs behind the bellboy, we passed a man
who looked familiar. He was soap-opera-star handsome with blue black hair, a chiseled jaw, and a cleft chin. He smiled and nodded. I smiled back. The look he gave me was one of admiration. I was not the type of woman who was always thinking that men were looking at her
that way,
but this look was unmistakable. Even I could recognize it.

I left my things in my room and went back outside. I grabbed a cup of coffee at a diner next door and examined my map. By my calculations, Jack Reilly was about twenty minutes away. I wore my green suit. Unfortunately, my camel overcoat had seen better days, but I could always take it off before I got out of the car.

After a few wrong turns, I found number 3 Briar Patch Lane. A big step up from the Lynn apartment, it was a neat saltbox with a wraparound porch. It even had a picket fence, but it wasn't white. Someone had painted it black. Was this stab at irony the work of Jack Reilly? I opened the gate and went up the icy front walk. Failure to put down rock salt in winter—in my opinion—is a sign of neglect. The mailbox hung crooked beside the door, and when I stepped onto the porch one of the floorboards came loose.

I hoped that Jack Reilly wasn't anything like this house. Though it was pleasing enough on the outside, on closer examination it was in serious need of repair.

After I rang the bell, I heard steps padding toward the door. Unfortunately, those steps were followed by barking. I waited. It wasn't as if knocking on a stranger's door was easy for me. I admired Hope Bliss for going into investigation. I could never do it. I felt nervous and out of place standing out there in the cold. But my desire to find Jack Reilly was strong enough to outweigh even my natural reticence. I waited a few more minutes, but no one came, so I wrote a note and slipped it under the screen door. I could have used the crooked mailbox, but I wanted to be sure that whoever came home saw my note first thing.

I stumbled back down the walk, got into my car, turned the heater up high, and drove back to the Inn at Long Last. It was late afternoon and I was supposed to join Max and the Maples in time for dinner.

 

My car wasn't the best car for the roads of Vermont, and when I finally found the house Max had rented, I had trouble maneuvering up the snowy driveway. I finally parked on the street and trekked up what seemed like a quarter mile to the door. I stopped for a moment on the landing, then knocked.

Max and Lindsay answered the door together. They were wearing sweaters and jeans. They weren't exactly matching, but they might as well have been. Max's arm was draped over Lindsay's shoulder.

It made me want to take the snowmobile I saw in the side yard and drive it onto a lake that hadn't quite frozen over. I could fall into the ice and disappear, never to be heard from again.

“It's so good to be here,” I said, and hugged them both.

“Look at this house. Isn't it awesome?” Lindsay said. “Isn't Max incredible?” Her eyes shone with that look some women get when they believe they are looking at something that will someday be theirs. Max didn't own this particular house, but if he married Lindsay, this type of experience would be hers for the asking.

“Hardly incredible,” Max said. He tweaked her ear, which I thought a strange thing for a lover to do. He had never tweaked my ear.

Max's friends the Franklins, and a man introduced as Basil Funk, arrived only minutes after I did. Duke Franklin had been Max's mentor. Duke was an extremely popular mystery novelist. His most famous series character, Gideon Thackeray, had been alive longer than I had. Duke was so prolific that he often wrote under several different names. He was rich and had been happy until a year ago, when his daughter, Cynthia, had been jogging along a road near their house and was mowed down by a drunk driver.

Cynthia had been engaged to Basil, a struggling artist. They had been living together on Duke's impressive estate—I'd seen a spread on it in
Architectural Digest
. Basil was so lost when Cynthia died that he had remained in the guesthouse on the edge of the property ever since.

I followed Max into a sunken living room, where he poured drinks from a fully stocked bar.

“How is Inga working out?” Duke said in a low voice.

Inga?

Max looked toward the kitchen. “She seems fine.”

“She's an excellent cook. We hire her for all our parties,” Nora Franklin said. Nora had an air of distraction about her, and she stared into her glass of wine as if she might find something in it. Basil was not exactly gregarious, either. He sat beside me on what could be loosely termed a love seat and stared dolefully into the fire.

“Mr. Franklin,” Heather said, “I've read every one of your books. All twenty-six of the Thackeray novels. I can never wait for the next one.”

“I'll have to write faster,” Duke said. “And call me Duke.”

Winnie, who was sitting with Charlie in a love seat near the fire, looked up as if she'd like to say something, but having nothing to add, sipped her cider.

Basil turned toward me.

“I always read the
Euphemia Review,
” he said. “I think it's becoming one of the leading literary reviews in the country, and I'm not the only one who thinks so.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Why not put some art in it?” he asked.

I had thought about that. Five-color pages with high-end production value would double the cost of the magazine.

“I don't have a background in art,” I said. “I wouldn't know where to begin.” I had to remember that I had no special background in literature either, but I had a passion for it, and so far that had made up for any other deficiency. “I don't trust my artistic judgment,” I said, and took a sip of red wine.

“You could get someone to help you,” Basil said. He put his hand on my leg and leaned toward me. He was closer than I liked strangers to be.

“I could,” I said, “but I always thought I'd do better if I concentrated on one thing.”

“That's interesting,” Winnie said.

“What is?” I asked.

“I never imagined you gave it so much thought. It's like the family foundation is a profession or something.”

“You've given grants to artists before,” Basil said, ignoring Winnie.

“Usually for memorials and things like that. We gave a grant to Muriel Spiking, who did an AIDS memorial for the median strip on Commonwealth Avenue.”

“Muriel Spiking's a hack,” Basil said.

I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly. Even if he didn't like her work, it was rather impolitic of him to say so when he knew I had given her a grant.

“Bronze boxes. That's all she does. Bronze boxes of every shape and size. Bronze boxes. Bronze boxes.”

“You see, then, why I don't often give grants to artists. I don't trust my taste.”

“Jane, your taste has always been impeccable,” Max said.

Lindsay gave him a quizzical look. I glanced at him and he smiled at me. Friends. We were friends now.

Basil took his hand from my leg and put it back on his own. He began to tap his fingers as if an imaginary piano had suddenly appeared on his knee.

“A person of intelligence, such as yourself, can always learn discernment,” he said. “I'd like to show you some of
my
work.”

“And I'd like to see it,” I said. Basil Funk amused me. I didn't know why exactly. Perhaps I needed to be fawned over. He wasn't bad-looking, except for his hair, which was cut in a monkish style and hung in fringes just above his eyebrows.

“Tomorrow night when you all come to dinner,” he said.

“I'll look forward to it,” I said. He reached out and took my hand. I saw that Max was looking at us. I was too warm and it wasn't from the fire. I got up to get another glass of wine. I offered drinks to the party and everyone accepted, so I spent a few minutes filling orders. Max came over to help me.

“You look flushed,” he said. He touched my cheek with the back of his hand.

“I'm a little warm,” I said.

I could profess my intention to be “just friends” with Max from now until the end of days, but that wouldn't keep my temperature from rising when he was near.

“Basil seems to like you,” Max said.

I glanced over my shoulder to see if Basil could hear us. He was staring into the fire with a inconsolable look.

“Don't be silly,” I said.

“Don't sell yourself short, Jane,” Max said.

“Let's make a deal. I won't sell myself short if you don't try to sell me off.”

Max frowned and chewed at his bottom lip. “Deal,” he said.

We passed the drinks around and Max perched on the arm of Lindsay's chair. He bent his head toward her and said something I couldn't hear, but it made her laugh. For a minute I thought they might be laughing at me. Then Inga called us in to dinner.

While we were eating, Max's cell phone rang. When he answered it, he looked flustered. He excused himself and left the room.

We were all quiet for an awkward moment.

“Pass the spaghetti, please,” Charlie said.

“I'll have the garlic bread,” Duke said.

“This is really delicious. Wonderful, Inga,” I called toward the kitchen. I went in to see if she needed any help—or at least I told myself that's what I was doing. Max was in the kitchen.

“I told you,” he said into the phone, “I won't be back until after New Year's. And please don't call me on this number.” There was a pause while he listened. “Yes, me too.” He looked up at me and put the phone in his pocket.

We looked at each other.

“It doesn't matter to me what you do,” I said in a low voice, “but you should at least be kind to Lindsay.”

He looked toward Inga, grabbed my upper arm, and pulled me toward the mudroom outside the kitchen. “Not that it has anything to do with
you, but if you have to know, it's old business,” he said. “I'm trying to put an end to it.”

“You don't have to explain it to me.”

“I know, but for some reason I feel as if I do.” His words were clipped. “Please don't say anything to Lindsay.”

I looked at the stone floor.

“You must know me better than that—even after all these years,” I said.

He shook his head. “I know. I'm sorry.”

“God,” I said, “I haven't changed that much.”

“You haven't really changed at all,” he said in a quiet voice.

I must have changed in some ways if, when he first saw me, he said he wouldn't have recognized me, but this probably wasn't the time to bring that up.

“Have you changed, Max?” I asked. I had convinced myself that reports about him were exaggerated, but it looked like he had become the type of man who kept bunches of women like weeds in flowerpots.

“Of course I have. Everyone does.”

“You said I hadn't.”

“But don't you see. Most people do. My life is much different now than when you first knew me.”

“Mine isn't so different.”

“I know that.”

“All change is not necessarily a good thing,” I said.

“You talking about something in particular?”

“You must know your reputation.”

“I don't read my own press.”

“Now you're being disingenuous.”

“We should go back.”

I touched his arm. “Max?” He turned toward me.

“Try not to hurt Lindsay.”

“That's interesting coming from you.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“Aren't you the girl who left me a note and crept away like a thief?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Not really a defense. But don't worry, I have no intention of hurting Lindsay. In fact, I'm thinking of marrying her.”

I thought I might not be able to get out of the mudroom before my face melted and revealed my feelings, but I had to, because that was one of the things that defined me. I always behaved properly in every situation (maybe I could have done better when I left Max the note), and to behave properly in this one, I'd have to wear a smile as I followed Max back out to the dining room.

“Don't you think it's a little soon?” I asked. He wouldn't catch my eye.

“I never had any trouble figuring out what I wanted. Time was never an issue with me.”

“But it's only been a couple of weeks.”

“When you know, you know.”

“What if you make a mistake?” I asked.

“Mistakes aren't the end of the world,” he said. “They don't kill you.” Finally he looked at me.

“Do me a favor—one I know I have no right to ask—give it a little more time.”

“Ah, Jane, sensible, practical, levelheaded Jane,” he said.

“You used to like that about me.”

“That was before I knew what the consequences would be.” He turned and left the room.

On the way back to the dining room, I stopped in the kitchen to pick up a bowl of extra meatballs. I didn't know how I was going to make it through the rest of the evening, but I pasted a smile on my face and joined the party.