Jane Austen in Boca (29 page)

A meeting was held, and the provost put his foot down. It was determined that no more than fifty seniors be allowed to audit each semester, with no more than two in any given class. (“How much trouble could two of them cause?” the provost is quoted to have said, a naive conclusion that some attributed to his being a Presbyterian.) This was the policy communicated to Norman Grafstein when he called to inquire about enrolling in Stan Jacobs’s class for the spring term.

May and Lila had been badgering him about the course for over a month now, and though Flo had been silent on the subject, Norman had assumed that she, too, was eager to take part. Stan had been noncommittal, but Norman suspected that his friend was secretly pleased by the idea of doing whatever it was he did in front of his friends. Norman himself was no reader, and Jane Austen, as he proclaimed several times to May and Flo, was Greek to him, but he wasn’t one to close the door on a challenge. If his friend and
machuten
Stan Jacobs said that Jane Austen was hot stuff, then by God he was going to give it the old college try. It would be especially appealing having May making the attempt with him. May seemed to have the ability to enjoy almost everything. Limited in experience and education though she was, her mind had an openness and generosity of spirit that, in a quieter and gentler way, matched his own.

The news that Florida Atlantic had closed its doors to them
was therefore a disappointment. Norman was told by the dean’s secretary that the quota had been filled two weeks earlier, and that there was no possibility of further auditing by seniors during spring term. They might, if they chose, put themselves on the waiting list for fall; that term had already filled its quota as well, but the waiting list was shorter. Norman had tried to explain that his friend Stan Jacobs wouldn’t be teaching then, but the secretary wouldn’t budge. That was the policy, period, she said.

He brought the news to his friends at dinner that night in the Boca Festa dining room, and May was instantly the most vocal in her response. “Quotas!” she declared huffily. “I thought they went out in the 1960s! It’s disgraceful to think they won’t let us in when we’re willing to pay money just like everyone else.”

“It’s a matter of a few rotten apples spoiling things for everyone,” explained Norman. “At least that’s what the secretary told me.

“But: that’s discrimination,” proclaimed Lila, taking up the cudgel from May. “It’s a case of age discrimination, pure and simple. We can sue. Hy’s daughter is a lawyer and can maybe help us out.”

“Carol told me about a sit-in they had at Adam’s school,” added May. “The mothers were against selling soda in the cafeteria. They would have won, only the children held a demonstration, too, in favor, and the mothers caved in. We could try something like that.”

“May the firebrand,” said Flo. “You’ll storm the president’s office. But I’m afraid you’d be dusting and straightening up in no time.”

“Flo, this is serious. They can’t keep us from taking the course.”

“It’s a private university,” explained Flo, who knew about these things from her days at the University of Chicago. “They can keep out whomever they want—within reason.”

“But it’s not within reason,” declared May. “And it’s Stan’s class. He has the right to let us in.”

“He’s an employee of the university,” Flo responded. “He can’t very well make his own rules. If he admits us, he could get in trouble and lose his position.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want that,” said May in a more subdued tone. “I suppose we just have to accept it—and be sure to sign up early for next spring,” she added, sighing.

At that moment, Stan Jacobs, a pile of papers in one hand, entered the dining room and walked briskly toward them.

“We were just talking about our unfortunate fate at the hands of your employers,” said Norman.

“I heard,” said Stan. He leaned over and kissed May on the cheek, nodded to Lila, and then turned to Flo. He seemed unsure how to greet her. They hadn’t met face-to-face since the encounter at the pod pool. For a moment, she thought he was going to reach over and shake her hand, but he eventually nodded instead. “I’m appalled,” he continued, “though I admit I understand the principle involved. Our people can be quite disruptive. I once had a woman from Boca Lago quarrel with me for twenty minutes, claiming that William Wordsworth was Jewish and had written a treatise on fairy tales. She said that her daughter, who was working on a degree in comparative literature, had said so. She wouldn’t let it go, so I finally called the daughter. She’d been talking about Bruno Bettelheim. The woman refused to apologize; she said William Wordsworth and Bruno Bettelheim sounded a lot alike, and that it was a natural mistake. A good deal of class time was wasted, as you can imagine.”

May suggested that they might try instituting an interview process to weed out the troublemakers.

“That,” laughed Norman, “would be sure to create more trouble. Can you imagine your friend Pixie Solomon handling a rejection notice?”

“Dorothy Meltzer was just telling me,” added Lila, “that when her son was rejected from MIT, she drove all the way to Boston and gave the admissions officer what-for.”

“It wouldn’t be pretty,” agreed Stan. “The university is trying in its way to do the right thing by limiting the number of seniors in classes. I’m just sorry that you can’t take my course this term. I know you were counting on it”—he looked affectionately at May—”and it would have made me teach better”—he looked at Flo. “Anyway, after I talked to the dean, who said there’d be no exceptions to the rule, I came up with an alternative. I wanted to get your reaction before I did anything. If you’re agreeable, I’ll speak to the activities committee and the club president and get these things put up.” He laid the papers he’d been holding on the table. They read, in a nice graphic presentation that had obviously taken him some time to produce on his Macintosh: “ ‘Jane Austen and Her Adaptors,’ a course offered by Stan Jacobs, Professor Emeritus, Florida Atlantic University, open to all Boca Festa members, admission gratis.” This was followed by a paragraph in smaller print: “The class will engage in a close reading of Jane Austen’s most famous novel,
Pride and Prejudice.
We will discuss how Austen’s romantic, domestic plotline has been adapted to bestselling novels, television soap operas, films, and facets of our daily lives. All interested are welcome. Please contact Stan Jacobs at (561) 456-9355 for more information.”

Lila clapped her hands, and May leaned over and kissed Stan on the cheek. Norman said he was flattered that his friend would teach a course geared specifically to them. Flo remained silent. She felt touched and chastened. She recalled the vituperative force of her reaction the other day. It occurred to her that for someone like Stan Jacobs, an expression of affection of the kind he had attempted was understandably difficult and awkward. No doubt he would never want to approach her that way again. Still, the course was a gesture of reconciliation and friendship.
She smiled, catching his sideways glance as he picked up the flyers.

“I look forward to taking the class,” she said. “But didn’t Austen have some Jewish blood? Something about missing a good potato knish while her family was vacationing in Bath?”

W
ORD OF
S
TAN
J
ACOBS’S COURSE SPREAD QUICKLY, AND INTEREST
turned out to be greater than expected. The idea of having a genuine professor, not (as was more usual in the case of Boca Festa cultural events) an amateur enthusiast, leading the discussion was part of the draw. So was the fact that Stan was related by marriage to Norman Grafstein, who was generally known to be linked to May Newman, a club member. This gave added romantic spice and connected the course in an appealing personal way to the club. Finally, most people had seen the Greer Garson/ Laurence Olivier film version of
Pride and Prejudice,
and therefore were either inclined to want to read the book or were convinced that having seen the film, reading the book would be unnecessary.

The course had originally been planned for the small lounge off the card room, which held about ten comfortably. But with an enrollment closing on twenty, it was moved to the Fairways pod 9 clubhouse, near Lila and Flo’s apartments, where there was still a stock of folding chairs in the cabana near the pod pool, left over from the Levinsons’ fiftieth-anniversary reaffirmation-of-vows ceremony. For the course, the chairs were arranged in front of a small table where Stan would sit—he had nixed the idea of a lectern as too formal—and Lila and May had set up a refreshment table in the back. May had made her chocolate truffles and Lila her “surprise” punch (orange juice, ginger ale, lemon sherbet; the surprise: a dash of Manischewitz wine). Rudy Salzburg, who had seen marketing possibilities attached to
launching Boca Festa as a cultural center for the area (the Paris of Southeast Florida), had worked out a deal with the local bookstore and arranged to stock discounted copies of
Pride and Prejudice
in the pro shop in a prominent display alongside the Bollé sunglasses and Vuitton tennis bags.

Everyone arrived at the first class with a copy of the book in hand, though how many had actually opened it remained a question. Lila and May had both dutifully read through
chapter 23
, as assigned, and had found the reading easier than expected.

“Once you get used to the Old English,” noted Lila, “it reads very fast.”

May said with her usual astuteness that the tone of the book put her in mind of Flo. “I didn’t know they were sarcastic back then,” she commented, “but I guess being sarcastic isn’t necessarily modern.” Flo told her to raise the point with Stan in class—it had possibilities for interesting discussion.

Norman had read a page or two but said he would wait to be inspired by Stan’s lecture. Of the group, only Flo had read the book before. Reading it again, she was struck by certain resonances with her own case that she preferred not to think upon too deeply.

Stan began the class by giving some social background on the period and some details about Jane Austen’s life.

“In Austen’s time, middle-class women had almost no opportunity for a paid occupation,” he explained. “They were dependent for their support on fathers, brothers, or husbands. Property was inherited through the male line, and the home in which a woman grew up often had to be turned over lock, stock, and barrel to the closest male blood relation when her father died. So you see why having five girls was such a problem for the Bennets,” he continued. “When Mr. Bennet died, all the property, down to the furniture, would automatically pass to their distant cousin, Mr. Collins.”

When he described these circumstances to his undergraduates,
Stan was used to getting a reaction of astonishment and sympathy for the women of the period. Here, however, the situation produced less shock and more identification.

“It reminds me of how my mother felt when Grandpa Abe left the bakery to his cousin Leo, who didn’t know white from rye,” said Gert Kaufman. “The business went down the drain in six months.”

“When I married Saul, I had to move out of a nice house and into a dump,” offered Fran Levy in a mild non sequitur. Stan discovered that, generally speaking, the group held to a very loose line of reasoning, but that, if he concentrated, there was always a logical filament connecting one comment to the next.

“I had four sisters, too,” noted Pixie Solomon. “My mother didn’t stop
shvitzing
until we all were married. I feel for that Mrs. Bennet.”

“What do you think Jane Austen thought about her?” Stan interceded hopefully, though he could feel the class getting away from him.

“What are you talking about?” asked Pixie Solomon in an offended tone. She was clearly not ready to take a metaperspective on the action. “What has she got to do with it? I say that woman Bennet had her work cut out for her, marrying five daughters and with a husband always hiding away in the den.”

“Herb was like that with the children,” noted Dorothy Meltzer, whose deeply tanned visage was decorated with several Band-Aids marking the removal of the latest basal-cell skin cancer. She wore these as proudly as a German officer sported his saber scars. “He went into the den with a sandwich whenever Melissa and I would start screaming. Even now, when there’s noise, he can’t digest.”

Several women nodded. They, too, had known men to hide in the den with a sandwich. Mrs. Bennet had their sympathy.

“But don’t you think that Jane Austen wants us to see her as
a very silly woman whose values are mixed up?” urged Stan, trying to steer the conversation in a direction more in keeping with the book’s aim and tone. “What, for example, do you make of this description of her on page three?” Everyone dutifully picked up her copy of the book to follow along. Stan read the passage slowly, to make sure that they grasped the full force of Austen’s satire on the subject of Mrs. Bennet: “ ‘She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.’ “ Stan looked at the group inquiringly.

“That’s a nasty description,” said Pixie. “That Jane Austen doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“She didn’t marry or have children, did she?” queried Dorothy Meltzer. “So how would she know what it’s like to have five daughters that need to get settled if you’re going to have any peace of mind? I can’t tell you what I went through waiting for my Sheila to find someone.”

“And now it’s waiting for the grandchildren,” proffered Lily Posner. “I lie awake at night wondering what they’re doing. Every time I call, they’re out to dinner. Why aren’t they home
shtupping?
Janet is thirty-six years old. They say the eggs start turning into raisins by the time they’re thirty-five.”

“Don’t worry,” said Dorothy reassuringly “My Sheila had a healthy boy at thirty-seven, a difficult pregnancy, yes, half the time in bed, but everything turned out fine, knock wood.”

“I think it was very nice of the cousin—what was his name? Cutler?—to offer to marry one of the girls,” offered Lila.