by Kim Izzo
No matter who was where, the fact of the matter was I missed my new life, my fake Florida life as Lady Katharine Billington Shaw. I even missed Orietta and her bright orange spray tan.
My cell rang the next day as I drove down to Avenue to have tea with Brandon and Marianne. It was a Florida number.
“Hello?”
“Kate?” the woman’s voice whispered.
“Yes.”
All I heard were sobs.
“He … he … he left.” It was the drawling out of “left” that made me recognize Fawn’s voice and she was as hysterical as Thomas.
“What? When?”
“Today. He said he didn’t want to ruin my Christmas!” She began to bawl full tilt. I now had the reason why she hadn’t returned my text messages.
“But didn’t you know he was leaving?” I dared to ask and suddenly wished I hadn’t.
“How can you say that at a time like this?” she wailed. “He dropped her and asked me to forgive him.”
I listened to Fawn explain what happened. The gist of it was this: Fawn’s husband number three got dumped by his college sophomore and came crawling back to his wife. But as Christmas approached, said sophomore decided she missed her sugar daddy and had shown up at his office when she knew he’d be there alone, wearing a Santa hat, belt, boots, and not much else. That did the trick and now Fawn was alone again.
“So, what are you going to do now?” I asked as I parked my car at Avenue.
“That’s why I’m calling,” she said, her crying subsided. “Can you meet me in St. Moritz?”
My mind raced wildly for a minute. St. Moritz? Was that France? Italy? Think. Think. Got it. “I haven’t been to Switzerland in years,” I lied. I’d never been to Switzerland.
“Great, come with me, the season is just starting,” she gushed. I could tell that the thought of gallivanting in a luxury ski town had cheered her. “I’m leaving tomorrow. I’ll e-mail you my flight and hotel itinerary. And you should know, Scott will be there, too. See you soonest.”
She hung up before I could ask any details. Scott was going to be there? What about Tatiana? I had failed to capture his heart in Palm Beach but a second chance to win him was irresistible. A last-minute flight to Switzerland wouldn’t be cheap. I only had thirty-five hundred dollars left and hardly any room on my Visa. Haute had been paying me for the blog but it was barely pocket money. I thought about asking Jennifer for an advance on my Austen story but she’d want to see a draft and I’d been too depressed to write. Florida had cost me more than I had planned. I had spent a small fortune on entertaining Bernardo. But if I could get the ticket for less than thirty-five hundred, I could go. I’d be flat broke, but I’d be with Scott again. He had all the charm, elegance, and goodness I wanted in a husband, and the sizeable fortune to make Austen proud.
“Are you serious?” Marianne snapped half in exasperation, half in shocked disbelief. “You just got home! Isn’t it time to stop this charade?”
“Or at least find some part-time work so you can think things through,” added Brandon less angrily.
“Why go halfway ‘round the world to chase after this Scott man? He’s got a girlfriend so I highly doubt he’ll be falling in love and whisking you off your feet anytime soon, then,” Marianne added pointedly.
I had given them all the details of my Florida trip, including meeting Scott and how I believed there was some real romantic potential between us. Then I came clean with Fawn’s invitation to St. Moritz, thinking it would make complete sense. Yet somehow, despite my telling them that there would be no stopping Fawn and me, neither Marianne nor Brandon thought that spending my last dime on a plane ticket would result in a fairy-tale ending. Truth was, I couldn’t argue the point; spending my final dime on another jaunt in search of a rich man seemed reckless even to me, even with a specific target, even if it meant love and happily ever after. Still, I wasn’t ready to give in. Not yet. Scott would be there, which meant I had to be there, too.
“Are there any contracts available at Haute or any of the other magazines?” I asked haughtily.
“Have you finished your story for Jennifer?” Marianne asked, avoiding answering my question.
“That’s another reason to go to Switzerland,” I said triumphantly. “I can’t possibly finish the story without this trip.”
“Bullshit,” Marianne snapped. “We’re a fashion magazine, not a travel magazine. You can get all you need here in New York.”
“My offer to get you some PA work on a commercial still stands,” Brandon suggested mildly.
I rolled my eyes, which was the wrong move.
“What, are you too good to work for a living?” It was his turn to snap at me. “Jesus Christ, Kate! You can’t go on like this. You’ve had your adventure, it’s time to—”
He stopped midsentence. “Time to?” I egged him on, knowing full well what came next.
“It’s time to grow up.”
“And do what?” I shot back. “Work at Walmart? Temp?”
“If need be,” he said with a straight face.
I looked to Marianne for help but she nodded in agreement. “Times are tough, Kate. You can’t spend your last dime chasing after men who don’t want you. The article won’t pay enough to cover your expenses. Fawn is rich and she can afford to fly around entertaining herself to forget about her troubles. You can’t. You have to face your troubles head on, here, at home. I know you’re grieving. Let yourself be sad; don’t just take off thinking that if you run far enough and fast enough you won’t have to cope.”
That did it.
“I’m sorry if my pathetic life has been a burden to you both,” I said defensively.
“Don’t be crazy,” Brandon said desperately. “You’re never a burden.”
I swear I saw Marianne give him a look that said I was in fact very much a burden.
“You’re not acting like yourself, Kate,” she said, clearly upset. “This desperate, mercenary woman you’ve become isn’t my best friend. I want the old Kate back.”
Her words stung but I was defiant. “I’m still the old Kate, I’m just using my head for the first time in my life.”
Marianne shook her head.
“But look at what you’re saying. You’ve whipped through more than half of what was left of your life savings to chase rich men.” Brandon threw his hand in the air for added punctuation. “You passed yourself off as aristocracy, though I admit we had a hand in that.”
Spoken out loud, my life did have a whiff of the ridiculous, but what was the alternative?
“It’s not ideal,” Marianne said soothingly, taking my silence for acquiescence. “But stick it out with Ann and your mom and something will turn up. Finish the article. Your adventures in Florida will make excellent copy. And I’m sure there’s more freelance at Haute.”
On my way back to Ann’s I stopped at a convenience store for milk. Maybe it was the fluorescent lights or the half-empty shelves of processed food but there was something about the atmosphere that depressed me. I marched to the refrigerated section and grabbed the milk, anxious to leave, but once at the checkout I hesitated. Everywhere were huge signs for the new lottery my mother had told me about in agonizing detail. I wondered what my chances of winning would be if I bought thirty-five hundred dollars’ worth of tickets? “You can’t win if you don’t have a ticket,” my grandmother’s voice echoed in my mind.
“Just the milk?” the cashier, a large, brown-skinned man in a yellow shirt asked. He was reading a newspaper and didn’t even look at me.
I could do it—spend all my money on the lottery—or, I could just get one ticket. It only takes one. It could be mine. If I won the lottery my troubles would be over. I probably had more chance of winning the lottery than getting Scott to marry me. I grabbed a pencil and began to fill out the little circles beside the numbers. I filled in 4, 7, 40, 11, 19, and then the pencil broke. As a rule, I don’t believe in signs, unless the sign points in the direction I want to take.
“Just the milk …” I finally answered.
I quickly scanned the confection counter and grabbed a milk chocolate bar. “And this.”
He rang it in. On my way to Ann’s I ate the chocolate slowly, letting it melt on my tongue until, impatient, I bit down and chewed it. I had to get in the mood; after all, I was going to Switzerland. What better way to prepare than eating Swiss milk chocolate?
21.
Private Parts
As far as fortune goes it is an eligible match.
—Pride and Prejudice
When I was fifteen years old my grandmother told me the truth about my grandfather. Before her confession, all I knew was that they had been married during the Great Depression, my mother was born, and then sometime after World War II, their marriage became unbearable. They separated in the early 1950s, never laying eyes on each other again until years later, in the 1970s, when they finally decided to divorce. When the divorce papers arrived I was six, Ann was twelve. I’d be lying if I said I had any recollection whatsoever of the event. All I remember was that sometime afterward a strange man took my grandmother out on a date. Quite a few dates. What I do recall is being upset because I was left with Iris. What does a child know of rekindled romance? Or romance of any kind? My grandmother was gone entire weekends and I had to make do watching hockey on television with my mother and Ann.
Before my seventh birthday, Ann and I were told that we were moving with my grandmother into a house to live with her and this stranger so that my mother could have more time to herself to get over my father. The stranger turned out to be our grandfather. Apparently, though it made no sense to me, after the divorce was final, he called my grandmother. Turns out he was still in love with her. Always had been. He’d made mistakes, or so he said, and he wanted to make it up to her. They got back together. And we went with them.
My grandfather, Edward Shaw, was a short and stocky man with a potbelly that hung over his belt. He had thinning gray hair and green eyes; his nose was crooked as if it had been broken and not set properly. But what I remember most were his hands. He had giant hands that looked like they were several sizes too big for him and that could rip apart an apple and yet be delicate enough to tie a necktie. He wore a suit and a hat every day and was the sort of gentleman people called dapper.
He drove a big car; a baby blue Cadillac convertible with white leather seats and a giant steering wheel to match. Whenever we drove home at night with the top down I would lie across the backseat and stare up at the stars, an eight-track of Frank Sinatra, “Old Blue Eyes,” Grandpa would call him, playing on the stereo.
Edward ran a business importing televisions, stereos, and eventually VCRs. He was a successful man by all accounts; the Cadillac, the house, and car he bought for my grandmother stood as testaments to his business acumen. When I was nine I had my own color television in my bedroom, much to the envy of my friends and the dismay of my other relatives. I adapted quickly to this new world order. Edward was especially pleased the first time I reached out to take his hand, my tiny paw swallowed whole by his giant palm.
But as I got older I noticed things. Like that Edward and my grandmother had separate bedrooms. And they argued. The arguments sometimes were so loud, and they were so mean to each other, that I would walk outside and sit on the curb of our driveway until they were finished. I barely remember what they fought over except once, on their anniversary. Edward had sent my grandmother a dozen long-stem roses. I’ll never forget the excitement when she received the long pink cardboard box from the deliveryman. She cut open the ribbon and dove fists first into the pink tissue. But her expression changed from excited anticipation to shock, her face flushed. Inside the box were a dozen silk red roses. Artificial flowers weren’t what my grandmother had expected. She seemed embarrassed. My grandfather thought it was a good thing; they’d last forever. My grandmother didn’t think it was so good; fake flowers were an insult.
“Gee, thanks,” she’d said, her voice shaking with hurt and disappointment.
“I thought you’d like them, Alice,” Edward said, equally offended that his artificial roses hadn’t been a hit. Then he took her out to dinner in a very fancy restaurant.
The fancy dinner lightened the mood that night but the fights continued and worsened, year after year, right up until two weeks before my fifteenth birthday when my grandfather had a heart attack and died. He was seventy-two.
It was a month or so after the funeral when she told me, although I’m not sure she would have if I hadn’t asked one simple question.
“Do you miss him?”
She paused a long while before answering me. “I miss him,” she said at last, “but not as much as I should.”
Her words struck me as cruel. He had taken good care of us and he loved her and I told her as much.
“I didn’t get back together with Edward because of love,” she admitted, not caring or even noticing my reaction. “I never had much money in my life. I was tired of just getting by. You don’t know how tough it was to raise Iris alone. We never had money for anything. So when Edward called after the divorce and told me how well he’d done with his business, I thought I deserved a piece of it. After all, we had been married. Your grandfather was a success. He could buy us a house, a car, which he did, and his money could make sure you and Ann got an education. I was determined things would be different for you.”
We were silent for a time. I didn’t know what to say, I loved my grandfather, but Nana’s confession made it seem that our life with him was a lie.
“So, you were with him just for the money?” I said, as though I needed to confirm what was glaringly obvious.
“You could say that, but it sounds so awful when you do,” she said, softening. “Of course I cared for him, too. But he was also a pain in the ass.” She smiled, hoping I’d understand. I didn’t. “He was my last chance to have some security.”
We never spoke of it again and I never told Iris or Ann what Nana had said. But my grandmother’s plan hadn’t worked out as she’d hoped. In the end there was no great inheritance, Edward’s business was heavily in debt, and after the company was sold off and bills were paid my grandmother had a few thousand plus the house and her car, which we hid in a neighbor’s garage to avoid the debt collectors seeing it. As it was, they later confiscated his baby blue Cadillac. They towed it away one morning as I left for school; it was hooked up to the tow truck before I had a chance to take out the Sinatra tape. I cried all the way to class.
“Do you ever wonder why the women in our family are so unlucky with men?” I asked Ann as she watched me pack for Switzerland. “Our grandparents, Mom and Dad, me and you, and …”
“I ask myself the same question over and over.” She laughed. “I never have an answer.”
“At least you’ve been married,” I pointed out. “No one will ever call you a spinster.”
“People don’t use that word anymore, do they?” she asked doubtfully.
“Only to be mean,” I said. “Besides, it’s better to be alone and a spinster than in an unhappy marriage.” I thought back to how my grandmother’s master plan hadn’t brought her the windfall she’d counted on. I vowed to have more financial certainty in my choice of husband. There was no way I would make the same mistake. “In fact, there’s no reason to get married at our age except for money.”
“Money isn’t the be all, end all,” she answered flatly.
“Next thing you’ll be telling me it doesn’t buy happiness, either,” I answered, trying to make light of the situation. I had finished packing, taking cold weather clothes, boots, and scarves and, of course, my Chanel dress.
“It doesn’t,” she insisted. “You’re not happy.”
“I’m not rich,” I huffed. “Money may not buy happiness, but it buys a hell of a lot of distraction from unhappiness.”
“Money couldn’t have saved Nana,” Ann pointed out, unfairly.
“No, it couldn’t,” I said slowly, refusing to
meet her gaze.
“Kate, I don’t like what’s happened to you since we lost the house,” she said earnestly. “You’re obsessed with money and finding a man who has money. Writing a story about it is one thing, but you’re trying to do it. It’s not like you.”
“Maybe I’ve been wrong all these years, trying to find love and only love,” I countered. “What do I have to show for it? Heartbreak and a deadbeat ex-boyfriend who can’t, or won’t, pay me back. No strong shoulder to cry on when I lose my job or lose my grandmother. Men and women should marry for more than love and passion; we need each other to survive in this world, just like in Austen’s. So you’re wrong, Ann. This is me. I’ve just woken up, is all. And I love you and I love Mom and I want to make sure none of us is ever without a home or money ever again.”
I dragged my suitcases out to the front door of her apartment where an airline limousine was idling. Ann followed me out.
“Good luck in Chicago,” I said and meant it.
“I wish you were coming with me,” Ann said flatly. I knew I’d disappointed her. But Chicago was her dream, not mine. Mine was in Switzerland, or so I hoped.
“You’ll do fine with Iris,” I said encouragingly. “Maybe this will do the trick for her, too.”