The Jane Austen Marriage Manual (16 page)

“Bingo is still spending money you don’t have,” I pointed out.

She didn’t answer me. Instead, her chin dropped and she stared down at her lap and played with the knot on the sarong.

“It’s okay, Mom,” I said, struggling to use the term instead of the usual “Iris.” “We’ll figure it out. Ann and I both have plans.”

“I’ve been helping Ann with the sauce,” Iris said, shifting her mood instantly. “We have all the samples ready for Chicago. I’ve always wanted see the Windy City.”

“Oh, are you going?” I asked a bit surprised. The sauces were always a project for Ann and Nana. Iris had never shown interest until now.

“I needed the help,” Ann explained, having reentered the room from the kitchen where she was preparing dinner. She didn’t meet my eyes. I felt bad. She had asked for my help but I had said no to chase men in Palm Beach, for what good it did the family.

When we sat down at last for dinner, the conversation returned to the usual source of obsession for our mother. The lottery.

“It’s fifty million this week,” she said, beaming.

“You still playing?” I asked even though I knew the answer.

“Yes, of course,” she said and brightened. “It’s frustrating how they’ve changed it. I used to play five lines for five dollars; now to play five lines it’s sixteen dollars. So I only play two lines for five dollars.”

I tried to listen but my mind wandered and I was thankful when dinner was over and I was officially released. I got dressed and went for a walk so I could call Marianne. Since I’d been home we’d only exchanged text messages. I was anxious to hear her voice and have a sympathetic ear. But I should have known better; Thomas had taken over her life and his first Christmas was an occasion not to be disrupted by my crisis.

“Merry Christmas!” I strained to sound upbeat.

“How did it go? Are you married?” Marianne answered happily. It was nice to hear someone sound sincerely happy.

“No,” I answered, sounding sincerely unhappy.

“Engaged?”

“No.”

“Going steady?”

“No.”

“Don’t tell me you’re a mistress.”

“No such luck.”

“Suntanned?”

“I’m a former acting beauty editor,” I teased. “Of course I’m not tanned.”

“Please tell me at the very least you’ve got a story!” She laughed.

“Plenty!” I laughed back.

Marianne’s voice was a tonic to me and I felt a small chip of my dark mood fall away as we spoke. She went on at length about how difficult the transition was between running the magazine and new motherhood. She was exhausted. There were all these new baby pressures she hadn’t anticipated. I gave her a pep talk, even though I knew nothing about what she was going through, but it reassured her just the same. I was dying to tell her all about Scott but Thomas had other plans.

“So, how are you really?” Marianne asked. As I began to tell her the truth, that my mission had failed miserably, Thomas wailed with such hysteria that it was impossible to squeeze in a full word, never mind a sentence.

“He’s having a fit,” she said at last, giving up on adult conversation. “Are we still on tomorrow with Brandon?”

“As far as I know,” I said, pleased she wasn’t canceling. I decided to risk new mother ire by asking if Thomas was coming, too. In truth, I hoped he would stay at home; if he were to join our merry group, all cute bundle in his stroller, inevitably he’d steal the show.

“Frank is taking him,” she cooed to Thomas, not to me. “That way we can talk.”

“Great,” I said, then quickly added, “Of course I want to see him. He must have really grown.”

“He has. You can see him after our tea,” she said.

Whaaaaa!

“I’d better go, he’s really losing it now.”

The shrieks reached a fevered pitch as Marianne hung up.

I shoved my hands in my pockets. It was icy cold; maybe my blood had thinned after Florida. I walked back to Ann’s feeling more lonely
than I’d ever felt before. My grandmother was gone, my mother showed no sign of recovering from the habit that had lost us the family home, and now a gurgling baby had hijacked my best friend. Being away hadn’t made me miss my life here, or what was left of it; instead, it had cemented the fact that I needed a new life. But I was running out of time and money. My backup friend had also vanished. I had text messaged Fawn a few times over the holiday but she never answered. I began to fear that I’d been dumped. After all, she had her real society friends, her real mansions, and her real millions to keep her warm at night. The possibility that I was just an amusement to her had slowly begun to sink in and the thought depressed me. Then there was my continuing obsession with Scott Madewell. If only he had gotten to know me. If only I had gotten within three feet of him. He would feel the same connection I felt and we’d be off. I was convinced that if he gave me half a chance he’d realize that Tatiana was just a sexy, young thing with a sultry accent and big breasts. I wondered what they were doing for Christmas, if they were together or if he had packed her off to Slovenia.

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?

W
hen 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.