The Family Fortune (18 page)

I thought about my sister Miranda and whether I should be doing this at all. She claimed to be over Guy and I believed her, but I felt that people who are really in love never do get over it, not completely.

I unlocked the door of my room and turned on the light.

“Were you in love with Miranda?” I asked Guy.

Guy sat on the four-poster bed.

“You sure know how to deflate a guy,” he said.

I wasn't sure whether he meant physically or mentally. Either way, it probably wasn't a good thing.

“No, I was never in love with her,” he said.

“But you acted like you were.”

“You weren't there. She read too much into it.”

I went into the bathroom and got us both a glass of tepid water from the tap. We sat on the edge of the bed. I looked at Guy's profile. As beautiful as Guy was, there was something about him that did not appeal to me and I couldn't figure out what it was. Who knows what makes people attractive to each other? It could be something as simple as smell. Guy's cologne was strong and sickly sweet.

He put his glass down on a side table, then took mine from my hand and put it down beside his. He pushed my shoulder until I was half lying, half sitting, and he started to unbutton my blouse. If I closed my eyes, I could pretend he was someone else, someone I liked more. I closed my eyes, but when I opened them, he was scrambling out of his pants as if his feet were on fire. He wore jockey shorts and I think men in briefs look a little vulnerable, more boy than man.

His penis was purplish and rather enormous. Max wasn't what you'd call diminutive, but Guy was the stuff of which porn stars are made, not that I've seen many porn stars, or any really—but I could imagine. Then I thought of Miranda again, and if I'd had a penis myself it would have collapsed like an empty balloon. I think maybe it was Guy's unbridled delight in the whole process that made me wince. He was like the character Peter Sellers played in the
Pink Panther
movies. There was something so ridiculous in the poses he struck, something so creepy in the amorous glances he threw my way.

Still, I didn't stop him. It was as if I was fascinated into shock, and it wasn't until he was on top of me and his penis was knocking about in an attempt to find the right door that I decided I'd had enough.

I pushed him away. This, at first, had no impact. The mini-brain is so far from the large one that the ears can't easily send it signals. I understood this with a sort of clinical patience.

“What's the matter?” he asked. His voice was husky, almost a second voice, like a science fiction character with an alien living inside him.

“I want to stop,” I said. We learned this at Wellesley in our Health and Feminism class. “I want to stop” were magic words, known the world over to mean that if you continue, you do so at the peril of a criminal record.

Guy stalked into the bathroom, closed the door, and in a minute came out with a towel wrapped around his waist. He hadn't lost his tumescence and his penis entered the room before he did.

I had put on my bathrobe, a new one, not the pink terry cloth. This one was black silk, and I don't know why I bought it if not for a moment like this—whatever this moment was. This wasn't going to be a moment of passion. It was more like a moment of passion denied, and you hardly needed black silk for that.

“I'm embarrassed,” I said. “Completely embarrassed.” And I was, partly because I was ridiculous enough to let this begin and then stop it—what thirty-eight-year-old did that? And the other more compelling reason for my shame was that he had seen me naked. Except for a few extra pounds, I wasn't any more or less lumpy than your average thirty-eight-year-old. It wasn't my body I was ashamed of, it was that I'd allowed him to come so close. The problem was that I didn't want anyone, any man at all, to get that close to me unless I loved him. That was the embarrassing thing. I was a complete failure at promiscuity. It didn't matter how drunk I was or how attractive Guy was. At that moment, I was constitutionally incapable of having sex with someone I didn't love. Only hours ago I hadn't even wanted him to hug me, and now here we were.

I tried to explain it to him—to somehow paint myself out of the picture of prude extraordinaire and into something more along the lines of a woman of great discrimination and dignity. This was made harder by the fact that we had already rubbed around naked.

“You think it's too fast?” he asked. He sat beside me on the bed and massaged my neck. It felt so good I almost reconsidered, but then I thought about the next morning—waking up with him, drinking coffee with him, trying to pretend we were more to each other than we were just
because we'd performed a biological function in the night. It was better to stop now. What I didn't know then was that Guy's plans were long term, and his desires, as far as I was concerned, weren't going to be satisfied by a hasty night of sex. “I like you, Jane. I think you're smart, attractive, talented…and tonight I found out you were funny.”

“You think this is funny?” I asked. He laughed as if I'd just delivered a punch line.

“Not this. Not us, right now. You were funny at the college. You're full of all kinds of wonderful things, and the problem is, you don't seem to know it.”

That was a problem, and because I knew he had read me correctly, my heart flipped over. There is something enticing about a man who professes to know you better than you know yourself.

I had to get away.

 

When I told Priscilla that I'd be leaving for the Vineyard the next day, she tried to talk me out of it.

“Why would you do that? The Vineyard is horrible in winter. I thought you'd stay here until at least May. I was looking forward to it.”

She seemed to have forgotten that in the five nights I had been staying with her, she'd been occupied with Jason for four of them.

Still, it's hard to remain angry with someone who likes you well enough to want you to stay with them for four months. Someone who is willing to provide you with a safe haven is as good as family (and in the case of mine, better).

“It's silly. You don't need to go to the Vineyard so early. Let me show you my new outfit,” Priscilla said. She was trying to distract me, but she knew me well enough to know that clothes were a bad way to get my attention.

I used to like how Priscilla dressed, but I saw her now with a different eye. Her obsession with Talbots looked less like good taste and more like a lack of imagination.

“Very nice,” I said about the outfit, “but I'm still going to the Vineyard.”

“I'll see less of Jason. Would that work?”

“I need my own home, even if it's a little box in the wind.”

“You'll be very alone there, Greta Garbo, that's for sure.”

“There's my friend Isabelle. I've already called her.”

“Who?”

“Isabelle from college. The one with the long wavy hair.”

“Didn't she leave before graduation?”

“Yes.”

“Because she was pregnant.”

“You do remember,” I said. Priscilla's lack of memory was a ruse. Everyone remembered Isabelle. It was because she had been so promising. She came from a first-generation Portuguese family in Bridgewater. Her father had a bakery and made the best sourdough bread in Massachusetts, but they didn't have much money. Still, Isabelle had won a full scholarship to Wellesley, then, right before graduation, she got pregnant, left school, moved to the Vineyard, and opened her own bakery.

Jimmy, Isabelle's son, was almost seventeen now. He was looking at colleges himself. I saw them often when I was on the island and I suppose you could say that next to Priscilla, Isabelle was my closest friend. I often wished I'd asked Isabelle, instead of Priscilla, what I should have done that summer with Max. Isabelle wouldn't have wanted me to move to California, but she never would have tried to keep me here. In the end, I never told her anything about it. It was silly to be so closemouthed. Maybe if I had talked to a friend about it, I would have gotten it out of my system—or maybe I would have had the courage to track Max down and tell him I had changed my mind.

I kept Priscilla and the rest of the family separate from Isabelle. She was the type of person who would be of no consequence to the Fortunes, and they would end up treating her that way even if they weren't aware of it. I didn't want Isabelle to have to deal with that. They knew about her, but they never asked me to invite her over, and I thought that was reason enough not to.

“I don't know why you'd want to go down and shiver in the cold when you could stay here. We can go to museums, lectures, concerts. We can have a wonderful winter,” Priscilla said.

Of course Boston would be cold, too, but in Priscilla's world the winter was one warm fire after another in many different venues. Whether she was visiting a friend, drinking at the Ritz, or rolling with Jason under a down comforter, her winters were sedentary and comfortable. Besides, winter is a wonderful season for a knitter. Wool feels so much better between your fingers when it's cold outside.

All the things Pris offered, the things I had enjoyed all my life, no longer appealed to me. I wanted a windswept shore and my own company. Besides, I needed to get out of town before Guy tracked me down. I didn't want to get into another weird situation. A woman my age should know her own mind, and until I did, I thought it best to stay away from him.

Seeing Max again had opened up old wounds, and like a sick dog who hides under the porch, I wanted to go someplace I could nurse my injuries.

I drove off the ferry into a blustering island wind. My friend Isabelle had faxed me directions to the cottage. It all happened quickly, because the owners of the house were as desperate for the rent as I was to disappear.

Even on a cold gray day, the gingerbread cottages in Oak Bluffs make you think of fairy tales. If your life were a toy, this is where you'd live. The small houses are multicolored—lavender, white, green, orange, yellow, and purple. I drove past
one with heart-shaped cutouts around the trim and another with intricate scrollwork. My house was blue with cathedral windows—a sanctuary. I parked the car, went to the door, and, as instructed, pulled the key out from under a ceramic garden gnome. The house was miniature but complete. I walked through the front room, decorated in wicker and white denim, and into the kitchen at the back. Someone had turned on the heat and filled the refrigerator with groceries. Isabelle.

I spent the afternoon unpacking. Instead of acting with my usual efficiency, I took it slow. I put my clothes into closets and drawers with a dreamy disregard for time. I listened to the radio for company. A commentator was reviewing Max's new book. It wasn't the first review I'd heard, but it was the nastiest. He called the book a “puerile puddle of palaver.” Obviously the critic was in love with the sound of words in his own mouth.

Max had been widely reproached for
Post
because, though Max was known for his humor and social satire, this time he had attacked a serious subject. They said he was obviously trying to write his “important” novel. Thirty-nine is a good age to try to write your “important” novel. This one was about a family on Long Island in the aftermath of 9/11. I could have told him this was a subject that should be avoided, if only because of the slew of stories I received that tried to say something about it and failed. Only time would make that subject somewhat manageable, and there hadn't been enough of it. Maybe there never would be.

The book was selling well, based on Max's reputation alone. There was also some talk of awards, so not everyone agreed that he'd reached over his head.

I took my copy of
Post
from the pile of books I'd brought to the island and put it on my night table.

That evening I met Isabelle and her son Jimmy at the Black Dog for dinner. Isabelle's thick curly hair was tied back with a silver clasp. She didn't look much older than she had on the day she left Wellesley. She had an innocence and an energy about her. Though her life had not been easy,
she always put a positive spin on it. Being bright and resourceful, she had known just what to do with the bakery to attract the wealthy islanders and tourists. Isabelle had been serving cappuccino and espresso long before expensive coffee chains became a blight on the landscape.

“I can't believe you filled the refrigerator,” I said before even saying hello.

“Why not?”

I gave Jimmy a peck on the cheek. Last year when I saw him, he was a boy, but now he had the look of a man. He even held out my chair. I smiled at Isabelle. She gave me a proud-parent smile in return.

“No one in my own family would ever think to do anything like that for me.”

“No offense, Jane, but your family brings new levels of meaning to the term
self
-
centered
.”

I laughed. Jimmy looked at me like he didn't know how having your family insulted could be so funny.

“How are they anyway?” Isabelle asked.

“Teddy and Miranda are in Palm Beach for the winter. Or, as they put it—they are wintering in Palm Beach. The truth is, they spent so much money we had to rent out our house to rebuild our capital.”

“The only reason I'm surprised,” Isabelle said, “is that I was under the impression that there was so much money to begin with, to go through it all would take a real effort.”

“That may be the only real effort they ever made,” I said. “Let's just say that they had few frugal habits.”

We ordered hamburgers and clam chowder.

“We should keep that between ourselves,” I said. “They think they're putting one over on everyone.” I felt foolish even as I said it, but Isabelle knew everything about everyone on the island, and although she never had bad intentions, she could sometimes be indiscreet.

“Who do they think cares?” Isabelle asked.

“Society at large,” I said in an overblown voice.

She laughed. “A family that believes they are living in a Henry James
novel. How picturesque. So, Jane, what brings you here in the dead of winter? Not that we aren't delighted to have you.”

Both Isabelle and Jimmy looked at me with the same expression. Jimmy was a handsome kid, dark hair, olive skin, dark eyes. He had Isabelle's coloring, but otherwise he didn't look much like her. I had wondered, at times, who his father was, but it wasn't the kind of question I'd ever ask, even of a close friend like Isabelle.

“Could you picture me in Palm Beach?” I asked. “Lime green is not exactly my color. I don't play golf. Besides, I'm sure they rented a nice apartment, but still, we'd be on top of each other.”

There was one more important reason, a reason I hadn't even admitted to myself—and that was that they hadn't asked me. Miranda had replaced me with Dolores as easily as she might have replaced a Gucci loafer with a Jack Purcell sneaker.

I had built what little self-concept I had on certain bricks, and one of them was that I was essential to my father and sister. Essential? I wasn't even necessary.

 

In my little gingerbread house I had time to think—too much time. I had never lived alone. I spent time alone, but Miranda and Teddy were always coming and going and just having them in the house changed the quality of the solitude.

Every morning I went to Isabelle's bakery for coffee and muffins. Once a week I received a package from Tad. Even though we had chosen the winner of the fellowship, we still had to fill the
Review
. Mornings, I sat at my desk on the second floor of my little house looking out onto the other cottages, most of which were empty in winter, and read the stories, made the choices, and sent them back. I also took care of other foundation business—wrote checks and personal rejection letters for the stories we wouldn't be using. Several weeks passed this way and I still hadn't heard from Hope Bliss. She said it wasn't going to be difficult to find Jack Reilly. He couldn't be that hard to find.

I grieved for Max as if the loss were new. I don't think I was grieving just for him, but for a past I might have spent better. Was my life going to end like this? The
Review
twice a year, the contest, the business of the foundation? I could do it all with my eyes closed. I wasn't even forty. And stories like Jack Reilly's, the ones that really excited me, were so few and far between. Maybe Basil Funk was right. I should incorporate more art into the foundation's work. Somehow, though, I didn't feel that was the answer.

And while I had made my retreat to the island, what had been happening up in Vermont? My source of information was Winnie, who unfortunately had no idea what really interested me.

Lindsay still wasn't supposed to travel long distances, so she had moved in with the Franklins. Her prognosis was good, though according to Winnie, she seemed a bit odd.

“At least she remembers everyone now. We were really worried there for a while. But I don't understand Max,” Winnie said on the phone. “I would have thought that he wouldn't leave her side, but he only stayed until just after she woke up. Then he left on a book tour. I hope he's not one of those guys who will get a girl's hopes up only to drop her flat.”

“I don't think he's one of those guys,” I said, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Maybe he had gone back to the girl who had called him that night on his cell phone. Who knew what he was thinking? He was a different man from the one I had first fallen in love with.

But I, too, was surprised that Max had left so soon. He might have canceled a few dates of his tour. I had always thought that he was unlikely to leave the woman he loved in a precarious condition.

Charlie lifted up the extension. “Basil's been asking about you,” he said.

Winnie said, “What are you talking about, Charlie? I didn't hear Basil say a thing about Jane.”

“You weren't there,” Charlie said.

“When wasn't I there? I'm always there,” Winnie said.

“Well, you weren't.”

Charlie hung up.

Winnie called every week. She complained of the sniffles during each call and the boys were always misbehaving.

“Anyway, Jane, you're so lucky to be on the island by yourself. No responsibilities. You could have stayed with us for the winter, you know. We liked having you. Charlie and I fight even more when you're not here.”

Considering how much they fought when I was there, this wasn't a good sign.

 

One morning in mid-February I arrived at Isabelle's, as usual, and she said she had a message for me. A Hope Bliss—what kind of name was that—had called her house looking for me. I remembered that I'd given Hope Isabelle's number because at the time I didn't have one.

I ate my cranberry muffin quickly and rushed back to the house to call Hope.

“Did you find him?” I asked as soon as she picked up the phone.

“Are you sure there is only a story involved here?” Hope asked.

“It's a very good story,” I said.

“It was one of the strangest cases I've had lately,” she said. “Sorry it took me so long, but I had to do it the old-fashioned way. I trekked around all over the Boston area from one person to another to find anyone who had known him, or seen him. You want to know where I found him?”

“Of course I do.” What was she talking about—why would I have hired her if I didn't want to know?

“He's been under your nose the whole time.”

“Is he here on the Vineyard?”

“Yes.”

“Where does he live?”

“Oak Bluffs.”

“I'm in Oak Bluffs.”

“I know.”

“He's in a gingerbread cottage four doors down from yours.”

“That's crazy.”

“Isn't it? You want to hear the craziest part?” I didn't say anything so she continued. “He's squatting.”

“What?”

“He found an empty house, got it open, and moved into it. He's squatting.”

“That's not too honest,” I said. I had seen Jack Reilly as an outlaw, even hoped he would be one, but the reality didn't excite me as much as I thought it would. I was basically an honest person and expected other people to be honest. I'd imagined a bad boy, not a parasite.

“Damn straight. It's stealing,” Hope said. “Anyway, that's why he was so hard to find. He has a post office box in Lynn, but other than that it doesn't look like he pays taxes, or has a bank account, or even has a telephone.”

When I told Isabelle about Jack Reilly, she said I should call the police, but I didn't want to get the police involved. What if—and I was beginning to doubt it—Jack Reilly was all I'd dreamed him to be. What if when I opened the door, love hit me like a bucket of water from an upstairs window? Would I want the police shifting around at the bottom of the front walk waiting to drag him away?

It may have been ridiculous to put myself in jeopardy in pursuit of something I couldn't even name, but I was determined to do it because if I didn't, if I let the police go in and haul Jack Reilly away, I'd never know if, despite his antisocial behavior, he was the one.