The Family Fortune

by Laurie Horowitz

  “I’m not sure what you’re asking,” I said.

  “Do you think he’s as crazy about me as I am about him?” She looked up at me with a face so young and free from blemish I couldn’t imagine a world in which any man wouldn’t be crazy about her.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “He kissed me, you know,” she said. “Last night as he was leaving. And it wasn’t just any kiss. It was a real kiss, if you know what I mean.”

  Unfortunately, I did.

  We sat on benches around the edge of the pond to put on our skates. I had thrown mine into the trunk of my car when I left Louisburg Square. Not everyone would think that skates would be necessary to their winter, but I usually skated at least once a week.

  I watched the three couples, the men kneeling to help the women on with their skates. As I leaned over my own, I pictured Jack Reilly at my feet. Jack Reilly would wear his leather jacket, even though it was too cold to wear only leather. His cigarette would hang from his lips and the smoke would drift past my face as he bent over my skates. He’d make Max look conventional. I had to find Jack Reilly, if only to give me something special to announce to the Wellesley College girls after Christmas.

  I finished lacing my skates, flew out onto the ice, and executed a single axel. I twirled, reversed, did crossovers and backward crossovers. I soared in my own little world.

  “Look at Jane,” Heather said as she struck out with a tentative step. “She’s a terrific skater.”

  Lindsay, who was a little more sure on her feet, skated over to me. “I hope when I’m your age, I’ll know half the things you know.” She spoke loudly and tilted her head toward Max.

  “Me too,” Max said.

  “You’re as old as Jane, aren’t you?” Lindsay asked.

  “No one is as old as Jane,” Max said. With that, he took off and skated to the other side of the pond. Lindsay followed him, and when she caught up to him, she slipped her arm through his.

  I took a step, then another. I didn’t know what he meant. No one was as old as me? My mother always said I was born old. Maybe that’s what he meant.

  I started to spin and I spun and twirled in smaller and smaller circles until I got dizzy and crashed on the ice, splayed like an idiot rag doll. The wind was knocked out of me and I couldn’t get up right away. When I looked up, it was Max who was staring down at me.

  “I’m okay,” I said. I must have been blushing right through my clothes. Max took my gloved hand and helped me to my feet. Everyone else who had been skating on the pond, or even sitting on the sidelines, had stopped to look.

  “Okay, show’s over,” Max called out. Max kept my hand in his as if he had forgotten he held it. He wasn’t looking at me. Instead, he was gazing toward the Public Garden, which was frozen over now.

  Max glanced down at our enjoined hands and let go. He turned toward me.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked.

  We were standing so close together I could feel the coolness of his sigh on my cheek. If I hadn’t known better, I might have thought we were just one breath away from a kiss.

  But then Lindsay barreled toward us and, not being too sure on her feet, smacked into Max and he had to hold her to keep her from falling.

  “Is Jane all right?” she asked in a loud voice. Everyone was still staring at me, and though I hated to be the center of attention under any circumstance, it was worse when it originated in an embarrassing fall.

  Max examined me as if he was trying to read something in my face that had not yet been written. “If you’re okay, then.” He skated off with Lindsay and slipped his arm around her waist. She beamed up at him.

  I stood alone in the center of the pond and watched everyone skating around me.

  Chapter 19

  In which gifts are exchanged

  Max came to the Maples’ on Christmas Eve to give gifts. He gave both Lindsay and Heather Burberry scarves. While a cashmere Burberry scarf is certainly a lovely gift, it’s hardly personal. I had expected that he’d give Lindsay a piece of jewelry—maybe not the piece of jewelry, but maybe something sparkly to hang around her neck.

  Max did have something else up his sleeve, the pièce de résistance. He invited the Maple family to go skiing up north. Everyone was going except for Marion and Charles Sr., who were staying home to take care of the children.

  And he hadn’t forgotten me. My present was on the bottom of his pile. He didn’t look me in the eye when he handed it over.

  “Open it, Jane,” Lindsay said. She was stroking her scarf absently.

  I ripped open the wrapping as I’d seen the Maple girls do. No more careful scraping at the tape with a nibbled fingernail.

  Inside the box was a leather journal. The paper was smooth and creamy.

  “It’s from Italy,” Max said. “Do you still keep a journal?”

  I lowered my eyes. I placed my palm on the cover of the book.

  “I do,” I said.

  “Oh, that’s beautiful, Jane,” Lindsay said. “Max, you have such fabulous taste. You really do.” She reached out to take the journal so she could look at it more closely, but I didn’t give it to her. Instead, I pretended I didn’t see that she wanted it.

  And what did I get for Max? I bought him a pair of shoes. I couldn’t think of anything else, but I thought shoes from Brooks Brothers would hark back to that first pair, the pair that brought us together. It was meant as a soft joke, or so I thought. Maybe I meant more by it.

  “You bought him shoes?” Lindsay said when he opened the box. Yes, obviously I had bought him shoes. “How did you even know his size?”

  I looked at Max to see what his reaction would be. Shoes were more personal than scarves. He looked at me and smiled.

  “You didn’t have to do it,” he said.

  “I know,” I said.

  “They’re beautiful shoes,” he said.

  “I’m glad you like them.”

  He reached over, took my hand, and squeezed it. When he received Heather’s gift—gloves—and Lindsay’s—a Tiffany money clip—he kissed them both, Heather on the cheek, and Lindsay softly on the lips.

  “I don’t understand the shoes,” Lindsay said. She seemed disgruntled.

  “It is a bit of an odd choice,” Marion said, “though they are very nice shoes.”

  “Very nice,” Winnie said.

  There comes a time in the course of longing when being with the person becomes more painful than being without them. I didn’t have a plan, didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I had to go somewhere. I didn’t love the idea of packing up my things and heading into the unknown, so I made a plan: I’d go look for Jack Reilly. I was on a quest, and you always have a direction when you are on a quest.

  Up in my room I tried to pack, but Winnie kept taking things from my suitcase and hanging them back up in the closet.

  “Jane, you have to come with us. Everyone’s counting on you.” I hardly thought that everyone was counting on me. In fact, I was pretty sure that at least one person—Lindsay—would be thrilled to get rid of me. I wasn’t obtuse enough not to notice her eyeing me when she thought I wasn’t looking. She seemed to think me some kind of rival, though she was so obviously wrong.

  I might still want Max, based on some fantasy of first love, but I had to be realistic. The best thing I could do was go away. I was a bit worried about leaving Winnie, but she had managed her marriage without me all these years.

  “Stop that, will you,” I said, and grabbed a blouse Winnie had just unfolded. I tried to pull it away from her. “Even if I do come, I still have to pack.”

  “I suppose,” she said, and let go of the shirt. She sat on the bed. “So you might come?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “You are so stubborn sometimes,” Winnie said. I hardly thought so. Too often I was willing to sway to the will of anyone who came within a square mile of me. “But you love to ski.”

  I looked out the window onto the field and the woods
beyond. A light snow covered everything. Winnie was right. I loved to ski. People were so friendly on a mountain. And on a mountain there was nothing wrong with being a “single.” It usually meant you could cut the lift lines. So a mountain was one place where you benefited from being alone.

  “What will you do?” Winnie asked.

  “I’ll think of something.” I didn’t tell her about Jack Reilly—it would have been too much to explain—nor did I tell her I’d already made a reservation at the Inn at Long Last in Vermont, not far from Jack Reilly’s last known address.

  Winnie stood up.

  “I’m sending Max up to ask you himself.” If she thought that I wasn’t going with them just because I hadn’t received an express invitation, she was—half right.

  “Don’t,” I said. “Please, I’m not dressed.” I was wearing a flannel granny gown. I had put it on when I came back from a long and chilling walk.

  “He’ll be right up.” She moved toward the door. “Put on a robe.”

  “No, Winnie,” I almost shouted. I had the helpless feeling of a child unable to avoid punishment. Winnie called to Max from the upstairs landing.

  My robe was worse than my nightgown. It was pink terry cloth with the nap worn at the elbows. I looked around, panicked. How would it look if I slipped into the closet and shut the door behind me? The indignity of being found cowering behind Winnie’s out-of-season coats just about outweighed the potential benefit of hiding. Did I have time to change?

  “Jane?” Max was already in the hall.

  “Yes?” I yelped like an adolescent boy. I tried to sound as put together as I could, to gather my dignity, to act as if it were perfectly all right for him to see me dressed like a pink polar bear.

  Max poked his head into the room as if he were wary about what he might find inside my lair. I wanted to growl at him, but I managed to contain myself.

  “Can I come in?” Max asked.

  If you must, I thought.

  “Of course,” I said.

  He slipped in and stood by the door. I remained near my suitcase and pushed a pair of frayed underpants to the bottom.

  “Everyone wants you to come to Vermont with us,” he said.

  “Does that everyone include you?” I asked. He stepped farther into the room and sat on an armchair in the corner. He picked up a book from the ottoman, examined it, then put it back down. He leaned his arms on his knees and stared down at the carpet.

  “People move on,” he said. He didn’t look up.

  “Of course they do.” I kept my voice light and continued to poke at the things in my suitcase.

  “Have you?” he asked, and raised his head. I looked at him for just a moment. There was a thud against my ribs, so loud and heavy it felt like a small animal had collapsed inside my chest.

  “Of course I have. It’s been fifteen years. What did you think?” I lied.

  “Then we can be friends.” He stood up and came over to where I was standing. He stuck out his hand. My hand, when I extended it toward his, was dry and chapped. I was embarrassed by my own hand.

  Friends. How could it possibly hurt so much after so many years? Why had I never gone after him? Why was I so afraid? Why hadn’t he come after me?

  “I’ll meet you up there,” I said, and turned back to my packing.

  “Fine,” he said. “But just know there’s plenty of room at the ski house.” He seemed disoriented now. He’d done his duty, played the gracious host, and now he was ready to move on.

  I watched him leave the room, then walked over to the door, closed it, and went back to sit on the bed.

  “Letting go is very difficult for me.” I said this out loud, but in a soft voice. Who would hear me? Who would come, sit beside me, and say, “Yes, but, Jane, it’s time.”

  Chapter 20

  The Inn at Long Last

  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 dif
ferent 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.