The Family Fortune (16 page)

Lindsay remained in a coma for three days. In that time, the senior Maples came up and traded places with the junior Maples, and Winnie and Charlie returned home to the children. Winnie was not too pleased at being sent away. She wanted to remain where the action was—even if the action was merely sitting around in a hospital waiting room.

I checked out of the Inn at Long Last and into the Moon Dairy Motor Inn across from the hospital. I tried to be there for Max, but it's hard to be there for someone who walks around like a bombed-out shell. He was a zombie, and all I could think was
that his love for Lindsay had blindsided him, that she had become more to him than he imagined.

When Lindsay woke up, she was foggy and confused. She didn't recognize Max. For some reason, she recognized Basil. She didn't know the Franklins or Heather. She knew Charles Sr. but not Marion. She didn't know me.

The doctors said that Lindsay's recovery would take time, that she'd have to remain in the hospital for several weeks, and even after that, she shouldn't travel unless we wanted to medevac her.

“Head injuries are unpredictable,” the doctor said. “The patient can experience a complete personality change.”

When he said that, Marion, despite her heft, put her head between her knees and started to hyperventilate.

 

There was no reason for me to delay my return to Massachusetts any longer. I drove back to Dover, packed my things, and went to stay with Priscilla, who had returned to Boston after Christmas. Winnie offered me a home with her for as long as I wanted it, but I was restless. I couldn't remain the unmarried aunt in my sister's house forever. I wasn't sure how Priscilla's condominium would be so much better, but I didn't plan to stay there long. I had to make some arrangements of my own.

I found a parking spot on the street near Priscilla's building—no easy task—and dragged one suitcase up the stairs and into her sunny second-floor apartment.

Priscilla met me at the door.

“Set the bag in the hall,” she said. “You can deal with it later.”

I put the bag down and followed her into the living room, where I sank into a deep armchair.

“What an ordeal,” she said. “Was it very bad?” Priscilla picked up her knitting and turned down the Mozart CD she had been listening to. I looked around at her impeccable apartment, everything in its place. No wonder she had never married again. Everything was exactly as she
wanted it. Maybe I could get used to this kind of small and comfortable life, but I wasn't willing to resign myself to it just yet.

I smelled coffee and went into the kitchen to get a cup and brought one back for Priscilla. Her cups were bone china, strong but delicate. I longed for a good hefty mug like the ones in Max's chalet.

“Tell me everything,” she said again.

“Being with Max again was hard.”

“You did the right thing all those years ago.”

“How can you say that? How can you look at the reality of my life and say that? I am alone. I haven't had sex in—I don't know—I stopped counting, but it's probably been about nine years. How can you say I did the right thing?”

“It's just that you never learned about men,” she said. “That's all it is.” She took a neat sip of her coffee.

I sipped mine. Priscilla made bad coffee. I didn't want to fight with her. I wanted to fall into the safety of our comfortable routine. Looking at her with her chignon, her smooth and beautifully made-up face, her clothes—all from Talbots—I realized there was no going back. I wasn't even sure I liked Priscilla anymore. Her absolute conviction that she was right never wavered. She was an ice queen, never allowing herself to be touched by anything. Maybe that's what she had wanted for me, but now I was sure that it wasn't what I wanted for myself.

“I'm seeing someone,” Priscilla said. She looked a little like a teenager with a secret.

“Oh?” I said. I had always feigned interest in her parade of paramours, but I wasn't in the mood to do it now.

“I met him at a self-defense course.” She put down her cup and saucer on a side table and punched out her arm as if she were about to take down an assailant. She looked ridiculous. “He was the teacher.”

“Why are you taking a self-defense course?” I asked.

“Got my purse snatched. Walking down Charles Street. Can you imagine? This city isn't what it once was. He's coming over tonight. I can't wait for you to meet him.”

 

Jason, Priscilla's self-defense instructor, had a baby face. According to Priscilla, he was twenty-seven. Priscilla, however, was sixty-two, and although I didn't want to let the age difference bother me, it did. Jason wore all black—black T-shirt, black leather jacket, black jeans. He looked a little like I had imagined Jack Reilly might look, only younger. Jason's stomach rippled in a six-pack under his tight T-shirt and I offered him a drink, all the time wondering why a six-pack was still a priority for Priscilla, who had lost hers—if she had ever had one—eons ago.

Though Priscilla had said she had wanted me to meet the karate kid, I felt very much in the way and decided to take a walk, even though it was very cold and windy outside.

“Oh, don't go,” Priscilla said. She was snuggled into Jason so securely, she was almost glued to him. But the good single guest never stays when she knows she is in the way, and I was “the good single guest.”

I walked around the neighborhood and past my own house. The lights were on inside and I wanted to ring the doorbell, but people didn't just stop by anymore for a visit. It was rude not to call first, especially since I didn't know the Goldmans well.

The light came on in the front hall, and against my better judgment, I started up the walk and rang the bell. I don't think I'd ever rung the bell to that house before. I didn't really know what I was doing there, but there I was.

Emma answered the door.

“Jane, how lovely of you to stop by. Come on in.” I followed her into the sitting room. There was a fire in the fireplace. It looked like she had just vacated my favorite chair, because a book and a pair of reading glasses were perched on a table beside it. “Sit, sit,” Emma said. She leaned toward me. “What can I get you?” For a moment, it didn't occur to me that she was offering me something as simple as a drink. I had the briefest fantasy that she was offering me something more—a different life perhaps.

“What are you drinking?” I asked.

“Just tea,” she said.

“That will be fine for me too,” I said.

She went into the kitchen and I sat there waiting to be served in my own house. A new sensation. She brought back a tray with tea and some fancy chocolate cookies.

We sat for a moment and sipped our tea. I stared into the fire, but Emma was looking at me.

“Where's Joe?” I asked.

“He had to fly back to California for a few days on business,” she said.

“You must miss him,” I said.

“I don't mind having time to myself.” She smiled.

“Have you heard from Max?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“How is he?”

“He's confused. You know, he's a man, so he doesn't share all that much with me. He feels so responsible for Lindsay's accident.”

“He wasn't, you know.”

“Oh, I know that and you know that, but maybe if he worries about that, he doesn't have to worry about other things.”

“Like what?”

“Like that he might have gotten himself in too deep with Lindsay. She's a nice girl. She's not the kind of girl he's been playing around with in New York. He set out just to play and he got stuck.”

“He told me he wanted to marry her,” I said.

“We'll see about that,” Emma said. “You hurt him badly, Jane, you know. It took him a long time to get over you.”

I was surprised that she was being so candid.

“You said he didn't share his feelings with you.”

“He was different when he was younger. He used to tell me everything,” she said.

“So you know about us,” I said. She nodded. “He blamed me.” She nodded again. “Well, he had a right to.”

She sipped her tea, then looked up at me.

“I'm certainly glad you came to visit,” she said. “Oh, by the way, a man came by here looking for you a few days ago. I sent him to Priscilla. Did she tell you?”

 

Priscilla and—I supposed—Jason were already asleep when I got home.

In the morning, they were eating pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream in the kitchen.

“Where did you go last night?” Priscilla asked. “I was worried about you.”

“Did someone come by here looking for me a couple of days ago?”

“Oh yes,” Pris said. “I forgot. Someone did come by. I wasn't here, but he left a note. Now, where did I put it?”

Priscilla, in a silk peignoir that made her look a little bit like Auntie Mame in the musical, wafted out of the kitchen.

I looked at Jason. He looked back at me. We didn't say anything to each other. He took a huge bite of his pancakes and stared at me as he chewed. I couldn't tell whether his look was one of mischief or disdain and whether it was directed at me or Priscilla. And I didn't want to know.

Priscilla came back with a thick cream envelope and handed it to me.

“It's from a man. I can tell from the writing.”

I took a knife and slit the envelope open. Inside was a note from Guy Callow. He was staying at the Four Seasons and he wanted to see me.

“Well,” Priscilla said.

“Well, what?”

“Who's it from?”

“Guy Callow.”

“Miranda's Guy Callow?” Pris asked.

“The very same.”

“What on earth does he want?”

“Strange as it may seem, he wants to see me.”

“But that makes no sense.”

“Of course it doesn't.” I turned to walk away. Priscilla came after me. She grabbed onto the cloth of my shirt with her right hand and I shook her off. “Please don't grab at me, Priscilla.”

She pulled her hand away and looked at it as if she wasn't sure how it had sprung up on the end of her wrist.

“I'm sorry, but I have to know what this is all about,” she said.

“No you don't.”

I disappeared into the guest room and closed the door. I called the Four Seasons and asked for Guy, but he had just checked out.

“I don't know if you remember me,” I said when Hope Bliss answered the phone.

“Of course I do, Jane. Why wouldn't I remember you?” You could hardly tell a person that you thought yourself unmemorable, so I shrugged, a useless gesture since I was on the phone.

“I saw your name in the yellow pages and I'm looking for an investigator to help me find someone.”

I explained my quest for Jack Reilly and she said it seemed like a simple enough problem for a professional investigator. I told her what I had done to find him so far, and she said that no matter how far off the grid someone seemed to be, they were still
somewhere, you could always find them, and these days with computers it usually didn't take too long.

Before we hung up she asked if I'd like to get together, and it occurred to me only then that this was the second reason for my call. I wanted to see Hope, to reconnect with someone from my past.

We met at Durgin Park in Faneuil Hall Marketplace. It wasn't far from Hope's office in the North End. We didn't choose the restaurant only for the convenient location, but because, for us, it was nostalgic. When we were in school, our class was taken there on a field trip every year. I remembered watching bins of garbage being pulled past the window on pulleys. It was one of those places where rude waitresses in hair-nets were a form of entertainment. I never found impropriety or impolite behavior particularly entertaining, but then I've grown up to be as straight as an architect's ruler, and sometimes just as exciting. Hope told me that she went to Durgin Park at least once a week. She thought the place was hilarious.

I recognized Hope Bliss immediately. If anything, she was fatter than the last time I'd seen her. She probably weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds, but she was one of those women who, despite, or maybe because of, their weight, dressed meticulously. She walked with a light tread, as if she didn't know she could tip the scale on a longshoreman. She broke into a smile when she saw me and I tried to remember why we had fallen out of touch. She rushed toward me and gave me an enveloping hug.

We were seated upstairs and placed our orders with a recalcitrant waitress. She made it clear that she was doing us a favor by deigning to wait on us. Hope thought it was boisterously entertaining. I, on the other hand, like waitstaff to be somewhat deferential.

“It makes the whole dining experience more tranquil,” I said.

“Tranquillity is overrated,” Hope said. I didn't think so. For years I'd been seeking tranquillity like an obsessive lover, tracking it, stalking it, forcing it to live with me long after our relationship was over.

Hope had been a private investigator for ten years. She had been a lawyer first, in a small suburban firm, and she found herself doing the in
vestigative work not only for herself but for the other lawyers as well. She liked moving behind the scenes and hated going to court because she didn't like the way people looked at her. Weight on a woman was no advantage in a courtroom, she explained.

“A fat P.I. can get away with a lot,” she said. “Especially a woman. People generally think fat people are benign.”

The food came and Hope dug into her Yankee pot roast. I had a clam chowder that was so thick I was in danger of instant cardiac arrest.

Hope's mother was now living with Hope.

“My dad divorced her, not that I blame him. Unfortunately, he didn't leave her well provided for. By the time they divorced, she had brought him so low he was barely making any money. She made her own bed, as they say. Unfortunately, I have to lie in it with her. The irony is that as soon as he got free of her harping he met a nice woman, married her, and together they started an online dating service for dog breeders, and with all the merchandise tie-ins and advertising they're doing very well.”

“Who's getting fixed up, the dogs or the people?”

“The people, for now, but we'll see. So my mother lives with me and I take care of her financially. My father helps a little. And guess what she has to do for me? One thing. She is not allowed to say or do anything about my weight. One word and she's out the door. It's like divine retribution. Do you remember what she was like?”

“I do,” I said. When we were young, her mother never missed an opportunity to harp about Hope's weight. Hope's choice of afternoon snack was severely monitored. And even with all the nagging and all the policing, Hope kept getting fatter.

Hope chewed on a large piece of meat.

“Eating slowly is very important,” she said between chews. “I have all kinds of health problems because of my weight, but I don't let that stop me. I'm a ballroom dancer, a gourmet chef, and I'm taking Hebrew in a continuing education course. I'm also studying Kabbalah.”

How would she have time to look for Jack Reilly?

“I know all about you,” Hope said. “I Googled you.”

“You what?”

“I looked you up on the Internet. Do you know that you are mentioned on no less than one hundred and thirty-two sites?”

“That's impossible.”

“It's true.” She choked on a piece of meat and started to cough. She wasn't shy about it, but instead coughed as if the food were caught somewhere between her knees instead of in her throat. Hope drank her water and then sucked down all of mine.

“Well,” she said. “I'm going to find your Jack Reilly.” I liked the way that sounded. My Jack Reilly. “And probably sooner than you think.”

I gave her my friend Isabelle's address on Martha's Vineyard. I had decided to leave as soon as possible. All I had to do was give my speech at Wellesley and I could go.

There was no way I was going to spend the winter with Priscilla and the karate kid.

I considered Palm Beach, but after one phone call with Miranda and Teddy I gave up that plan. They were thoroughly ensconced, doing the rounds, a party almost every night. Miranda said that Dolores was invaluable. I'm sure Miranda counted on her to do the things I always did—to make the coffee in the morning, to take care of the laundry, see to the food shopping.

They obviously didn't need me, so I called Isabelle on the island. She told me to come right out, that she knew someone who had been looking for a tenant for one of the gingerbread cottages in Oak Bluffs. It would be perfect for me.

I paid the bill and Hope and I walked out onto the street.

“I'm so glad you called me, Jane.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, anything.” She picked at her back teeth with a toothpick.

“How did we lose touch?”

“I don't know exactly. I guess it was when we went to different high schools. Also, my mother liked you, and at the time, that was a good reason for me to avoid you.”

I didn't remember Hope Bliss avoiding me. It wasn't like she had so many friends that she could afford to avoid one. She was fat and eccentric and it took a person who could see past that to befriend her.

“Do you think I've changed?” I asked Hope.

“Not at all. What about me?”

“You've become impressive.” That appeared to please Hope, since when we were children she could in no way have been called impressive. She spent her childhood in a constant battle with her weight and her mother.

Though Hope was still fat, she somehow seemed to have won the battle with both.