Two giant brown bags were set in front of us and Charlie paid with a credit card. We each hauled a bag back to the car. Charlie opened the door for me and waited until I got in. I put my bag on the floor. As Charlie set the other one on my lap, he looked at me—a moment too long.
Maybe I’d figure something out. Perhaps with a series of small shifts, I could turn Winnie into someone else. Not likely. Could I make her a little less selfish? Even less likely.
But Charlie had married her. He must have seen something in her. Though the flush of new love might be over, something else must have come along to sustain them. If not, life would simply be a series of meals, chores, and petty aggravations. True, I didn’t have much experience with marriage, but what I’d seen of it with my own parents had not been especially inspiring.
Charlie was quiet on the ride home.
“Food smells good,” I said.
“They have really good food there,” Charlie said. “I just wish they delivered it out to our house, but we’re a bit off the beaten path.”
“That’s what’s nice about it,” I said.
“It’s an inconvenience, though,” he said. “Still, I wouldn’t live anywhere else.”
Charlie was a man who would always be happy to live in his parents’ backyard.
“It’s worse when it’s Jorie’s day off,” Charlie said. “Things get done when Jorie is here. You think maybe Winnie is depressed?”
“About what?” I asked.
“I don’t know. She has everything a woman could want. A nice house. A couple of good kids and I’m not so bad.”
“She wants a kiln,” I said. He laughed and shook his head. “You’re a great husband, Charlie. I’m sure she just isn’t feeling well.”
“She’s never feeling well. I have married the greatest hypochondriac who ever lived.” He smiled, then laughed again. It wasn’t exactly a happy laugh.
When we got home, the table was set and ready for us, as if Winnie knew just how far to push Charlie without pushing him over the edge. The boys were in their pajamas and sitting in front of the television in the family room watching a cartoon about a big yellow sponge.
It was the picture of domestic happiness.
Chapter 13
Jane closes the office for the holidays
On Tuesday morning, I drove into the city from the suburbs to close the office for the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Tad was leaving to spend time with his family in Colorado.
Jack Reilly’s story was sitting on my desk, even though everything else had been tucked away by Tad’s organized hand. I fingered the pages.
“Jane,” Tad asked, “what are you really looking for? Is it Jack Reilly or is it something else?”
“Jack Reilly, of course,” I said. “What’s so hard to understand about that?”
“I think you’re looking for something else,” Tad said. I tapped my nails on the desk.
“You did a nice job of cleaning up the place,” I said. “The office has never looked so good.” Tad ignored me.
“You’re looking for the feeling you had when you were just starting out, when you thought the world was full of possibility.”
“I still think the world is full of possibility,” I said. I could feel my whole body tense, from my teeth to my toes. He was right. There was something I still wanted, some level of success, some public acknowledgment. Even me, with my shy ways. I wanted a new discovery and, ideally, a new love.
Max might show up at the Maples’ for Thanksgiving and I needed him to think that I had done something important with my life. In my head, I knew that I had. I had evidence of it. But in my heart, I felt unimportant, unpolished, and somehow lacking. A woman who doesn’t leave home until it is absolutely forced upon her could hardly have something to offer a man who catapulted early into a world of fame and glamour.
“Well, we can’t find Jack Reilly,” Tad said.
“You can find anyone these days.”
“Maybe you should hire someone,” Tad said.
“Like who?”
“I don’t know. A private detective.”
“A private detective? That sounds so silly. It sounds like something you’d do if you were a character on TV.”
“People do it. If they didn’t, there wouldn’t be all these names in the yellow pages.” He took the telephone book from the table behind his desk. He’d marked a page with a Post-it. He opened the book and put it in front of me. “I checked it out,” he said. His smile was shy, as if he wasn’t sure how I would take this. He ran his forefinger over the listings. “This is my favorite,” he said. “Hope Bliss Investigations.”
There couldn’t be too many people with that name. Could this be my childhood friend? We had fallen out of touch years ago, though I couldn’t remember why.
Maybe Hope Bliss was a sign.
“Let’s think about it over the holidays,” I said, ever the girl to grab the bull by the horns. This was something I really wanted and still I held back. Maybe I just had to drag it out a little longer, let the fantasy linger. Besides, I planned to go up to Vermont during the holidays to check out the address that was tucked in my wallet. Wouldn’t it be more fun to come face-to-face with Jack Reilly and offer him the fellowship than to let someone else find him?
I pulled an envelope out of my canvas tote and gave it to Tad. Inside was a very large check, a Christmas present.
“We could call now,” Tad pressed, without opening the envelope.
“Let’s wait. Maybe he’ll turn up.”
“Not likely.”
I shrugged. “Come on. We’re finished. Get out of here. Start your vacation.”
“Are you sure?” He held the envelope but still didn’t open it.
“Absolutely.”
“Well, I guess I won’t see you, then, until after Christmas.” He reached under his desk and pulled out a box. It was wrapped in Christmas paper and had a lopsided bow perched at the corner. “I wrapped it myself,” he said.
I smiled. “You didn’t have to get me a present.”
“I know.”
I looked at it.
“Aren’t you going to open it?”
“Now?”
“Of course now,” he said.
I picked at the tape with what was left of my chewed fingernails.
“Rip it,” he said. I looked up. “Come on. I know you can do it.”
I made a special point of shredding the wrapping paper with gusto. I opened the box and separated the tissue paper. Inside was a brown leather tote. The leather was so buttery I could have used it as a pillow.
“This is elegant,” I said, which was the highest praise I knew how to give any type of clothing or accessory.
“My mother helped me pick it out when she came to visit,” he said. “We thought it was perfect for you.”
I stood up and put it on my shoulder. “I wish we had a mirror.” I thought for a second. “Wait, I do have one.” I dug around in my old bag and found a small compact with a cracked mirror. I opened it and tried to hold it away from me so I could see myself holding Tad’s present. It didn’t work. In the end, I held the bag to my face and rested my cheek on the soft leather. “I’m overwhelmed.”
“It’s only a bag,” he said, but he looked pleased.
He was wrong. It was so much more than a bag. It was a gesture. I felt a little teary but turned away so Tad wouldn’t see it. I think he knew, though, because he smiled and kissed me on the cheek.
When he walked out the door, I realized I’d miss him. Funny that it never occurred to me to miss Teddy, Miranda, or even Priscilla.
Winnie’s mother-in-law, Marion, came over to the house that afternoon. She bustled over with a basket of homemade cookies like an ancient Red Riding Hood. While she was there, Winnie let the boys eat all the cookies, except for the few we managed to hold back for the adults. Trey spilled a bottle of cranberry juice on the kitchen floor and Theo kept walking through the room like a soldier, saying, “I want a s
cooter for Christmas. I want a scooter for Christmas.”
When Winnie went in to clean up the juice, which I was afraid she wouldn’t do—she sat in the family room sipping tea long after we heard the crash—Marion turned toward me. “The children are wild animals. She doesn’t discipline them at all.”
It was at this moment that Theo came in shouting, “I want a scooter. I want a scooter.”
“Theo, get over here, young man,” his grandmother said. He came toward her with a look of expectation, but she grabbed him by the front of his collar and pulled him toward her with a rough fist. “Stop it. Stop it right now. We heard you. Do you understand? Go up to your room—now.” He reached for the last cookie, but Marion slapped his hand. “You’ve had enough.”
Theo went upstairs. He wasn’t as upset as I would have been at his age. He seemed accustomed to Marion and took her in stride.
“They are wild animals,” Marion said again, but she was smiling. “Your sister is horrible with them.”
I didn’t know what to say to this, because while it was so obviously true, it wasn’t up to me to pound more nails into my sister’s domestic coffin. I took the last cookie without offering it to Marion—something I would not normally do.
After that whole scene, I could understand why Marion didn’t come often. To make it worse, for the whole time Marion was there, Winnie insisted on keeping the television on. The TV was enormous and dominated the family room.
“I can’t turn off Dr. Phil,” Winnie said when I reached for the remote control. “I look forward to hearing him every day. He is the true voice of common sense. The world would be much better off if everyone listened to Dr. Phil.”
Marion turned to me and rolled her eyes. Marion was apparently no fan of Dr. Phil.
I didn’t know much about Dr. Phil, but if Winnie would listen to anyone—even to Dr. Phil—it couldn’t hurt.
Chapter 14
Thanksgiving at the big house
When I came downstairs dressed for Thanksgiving dinner, Winnie looked at me and said, “Thanksgiving, Jane. Not a wake.” I suppose Winnie could have used a little more tact, but that wouldn’t have been Winnie.
I already felt awkward. When I went through the clothes in my suitcases, I couldn’t find anything flattering. I had the green suit, but I didn’t think it was appropriate. I knew how I wanted to look, or had some vision of it. With the possibility of seeing Max again, I wanted to look self-assured. I should have worn the suit. If anyone could make clothes that would instill instant confidence, they’d make a fortune. Isn’t that what clothes are really about? I chose a black dress since, as everyone knows, you can wear black almost anywhere. I think the problem was that it was old and shapeless and my stockings were opaque. I usually wore tights, because they were more comfortable and so thick they hardly ever ran. My shoes were flat and sensible, which would have been fine on an ordinary day, but at the moment I was wishing for a bit of a heel. My wardrobe was a consequence of my own indifference. Once I met a woman who joined a Cuban religion, and when she became a priestess, she had to decide on one color to wear for the rest of her life. She chose white. I thought this was a wonderful plan, so simple. Black was my spiritual choice.
“Fashion magazines have just passed you by, haven’t they, Jane?” Winnie asked. She didn’t mean to insult me; she meant to improve me. Still, I didn’t know how she became such an authority, she of the powder blue jogging suit. This afternoon the jogging suit had been replaced by a paisley skirt and a matching sweater set with pearls. Her shoes were flat, but more like ballet slippers than the Doc Martens I was wearing. The pearls made her look very lady-of-the-manor. She wore matching earrings. It wasn’t that she looked good; it was that she looked right.
Charlie came downstairs in chinos and a sweater. He was balding a bit at the crown and not especially handsome, but he appeared solid and reliable and there is something attractive about that. You could find Charlie’s type in bars all over Boston lifting a beer and rooting for the home team. Max hadn’t been like that. He had the kind of good looks other men were wary of. Bentley had even mentioned it and Bentley himself was urbane and polished in his own drunken way. Bentley loved referring to Max as “Hubbell,” Robert Redford’s character in The Way We Were. “In a way he was like the country he lived in, everything came too easily to him,” Bentley would say.
“The man was living in a basement,” I reminded him.
“Oh, Jane, I never thought you were so lacking in imagination.”
“And in the movie Robert Redford was the living, breathing ideal of what the country had to offer, and it was Barbra Streisand, the Jewish one, who had to struggle.”
“She could have stopped struggling anytime,” Bentley said. “She just insisted on unhappiness. Some people do.”
“Maybe a scarf,” Winnie said. I hardly thought a scarf was going to turn me from plain Jane into a new, more extraordinary version of myself.
Winnie disappeared for a few minutes and when she came back she had a blue velvet scarf, still in its original package. When she hung it around my neck, I had to admit that it was an improvement.
Winnie stepped back and looked at me. “I’m very good at this,” she said. “I should start a business.”
Before we left for the big house (which is what Winnie called the senior Maples’ five-bedroom farmhouse), I rushed back to my room. It was at the back of the house and had a view of the field between the two houses. The smell of manure didn’t bother me. I liked it. It was mixed with the smell of hay, and fallen leaves, wood-burning fires, and autumn. My room in Winnie’s house was white and blue, the furniture was Shaker style and simple. It was a calm room, with a desk, a large shabby chair, and a generous ottoman where I liked to put my books, my journal, my glasses, and the stories I was reading.
I sat at the desk and picked up the phone to call Bentley to wish him a happy Thanksgiving. He didn’t pick up so I left a message. It occurred to me to call Teddy and Miranda. They weren’t there either, and when I spoke to their machine I pretended that it was both of us, Winnie and I, who had thought to call them. Priscilla was at her sister’s and I had misplaced the number.
The five of us, Winnie, Charlie, the two boys, and I, walked across the field. The older Maples had placed a walkway of fieldstones between the houses, because without them there were times when you would find yourself ankle deep in mud. I remembered those muddy March days from my years at Wellesley when there was nothing you could do but slog through it. We called it “the ubiquitous mud.” That reminded me that I was scheduled to speak at Wellesley after New Year’s. It was over a month away and I was already nervous, but that was nothing compared with the way I felt about the possibility of seeing Max again.
Winnie insisted on carrying all five pies, and when they were piled into her arms they reached the tip of her nose.
“I don’t want your mother to think we are coming empty-handed,” she said.
“We aren’t coming empty-handed,” Charlie said. “What does it matter who carries them?”
“You know your mother. I don’t want her to think I’m being lazy.”
“My mother would never think that,” Charlie said. Lights were on in every window in the house. It was a chilly afternoon and the sun had given up trying to make an impression.
Marion Maple came to the door and opened it wide.
“Come in, come in. We’re all starving,” she said.
“But this is what time you told us to come, Marion,” Winnie said.
“Yes, dear, of course.” Marion kissed Winnie on the forehead. Marion had a substantial body, generous in all areas. She wore an ankle-length velvet skirt. She reminded me of a jolly Mrs. Claus. Marion turned to me. “You’re looking especially well, Jane.” She had to say it, though I knew it wasn’t true. I was looking the same as I always looked—unadorned.
“Thank you,” I said.
Lindsay and Heather came rushing toward us from the recesses of the house. They scooped up the
ir nephews and smothered them with kisses that the boys suffered without complaint, though when they were finally left alone, I saw Theo wipe his cheek with the back of his hand.
“Jane, we’re so glad you’ve come,” Lindsay said. “Have you met any famous authors lately?” I often met famous authors. Sometimes I published them in the Review, but I had no recent stories to tell. “I’ve been writing fiction at school,” Lindsay said. “Experimental stuff really.”
I wasn’t fond of “experimental stuff.”
“That’s wonderful, Lindsay,” I said. Heather and Lindsay were both wearing short plaid skirts that made them look like they were fresh from the lacrosse field.
“Lindsay can’t wait,” Heather said.
“For what?” I asked. Charlie handed me a cup of mulled cider.
“Didn’t Charlie tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“That Max Wellman, the famous author, might come for dessert. You know, he wrote that book Duet for One that they made into a movie.”
“I only said might,” Charlie said. “He’s in the city and might not feel like driving out.”
“I hear he’s absolutely knock-down, drop-dead gorgeous,” Heather said.
“I’m the one with an interest in writing,” Lindsay reminded her.
“I’m talking about an interest in men,” Heather said.
“Isn’t he a little old for you girls?” I asked. They were only in their early twenties and Max was my age.
“What’s a few years when a man is gorgeous and successful?” Lindsay asked. “I think a man that age is looking for someone young and energetic.”
And fertile, I thought.
“Lindsay, you haven’t even met the man and you’re ready to marry him,” Marion said, laughing. She had two red circles on her cheeks from sitting too close to the fire.
Marion was able to sit because she had hired a woman named Gabriella to make and serve the meal. We were all so used to having help. Sometimes I wondered if it wouldn’t be better for us to do it ourselves. I wouldn’t have minded having a job to do. I needed something to distract me. Lindsay’s argument seemed so obviously true: why wouldn’t Max, having exhausted every supermodel in New York, come back looking for the right girl with whom to start a family, and why wouldn’t he look for someone young?
The Family Fortune Page 9