Jane Austen in Scarsdale

by Paula Marantz Cohen

  “Your family thinks I’m beneath you.” “It’s my decision.”

  “Your family thinks so and you agree.”

  Anne shrugged.

  “Your family are fools,” he said. “Except maybe your grandmother, and she’s living in another world. She’d come around if you took a stand. It’s not really that at all. It’s that you haven’t got the courage to love me. You’re afraid to trust yourself.”

  She did not respond, which seemed to anger him more. “You’re a coward!” His voice had grown loud, and the guard near the door looked at them severely.

  “Maybe I am.” Anne shrugged.

  “Then I feel sorry for you!”

  “Good. Feel sorry for me. If it will make you feel better.”

  “Unfortunately,” he said softly, “it doesn’t make me feel better.” For a moment, she met his eyes, where she recognized as much pain as anger. And then, he turned abruptly and walked away.

  “You made the best decision you could at the time,” Winnie pronounced, pulling Anne from her reverie. “There’s no point dwelling on it.”

  But instead of nodding and changing the subject as she usually did when Winnie took this tone, Anne felt herself stiffen. She was not about to cry this time.

  “No,” Anne said in a steely tone. “It was not the best decision at the time. It was based on stupid prejudices and a false sense of superiority.”

  Winnie looked taken aback. “But you were so young,” she countered, her voice grown suddenly plaintive.

  “I was young, but I knew who he was and that I loved him. I shouldn’t have allowed you to persuade me to give him up.”

  “You’re blaming me!” Winnie’s face seemed to crumple, and for the first time in her recollection, Anne saw tears forming in her grandmother’s eyes.

  “No, I’m really blaming myself for not having the strength to oppose you. I’ve tried to teach the kids who come to my office to listen to their parents up to a point—and then to listen to themselves. I didn’t do that, and I regret it.”

  “Regret is a useless emotion,” murmured Winnie.

  “It’s a sad emotion, but it’s not a useless one,” said Anne resolutely. “You have to regret—even mourn—your mistakes if you’re ever going to move on. I made a mistake when I gave up Ben Cutler, and I regret it. Which doesn’t mean I can’t go on living.”

  “You deserve a wonderful life,” Winnie said quietly.

  Anne was silent a moment, looking at her grandmother’s proud, worn face. Her anger had subsided, but something subtle had changed in the aftermath of this gust of emotion. She felt oddly alone, even bereft—and yet also strangely exhilarated. “That’s not true,” she said gently. “I don’t deserve a wonderful life. It’s not some privilege of birth. Whatever life I get, I have to make.”

  She had said what she had wanted to say—what had been bottled up in her for a long time—and having said it, she felt at peace. She bent forward and kissed her grandmother on the forehead. Now, finally, she could forgive Winnie—and herself— and move on.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  WHEN ANNE TOLD MARCY THAT BEN CUTLER WAS IN THE AREA but engaged to be married, she took the same view as Winnie: “So now that you’ve seen him and know that he’s taken, you can finally put him behind you. I read in Psychology Today that women get a new lease on life when they hear their ex is remarried. It sets them free to find someone else for a serious relationship.”

  “I don’t need to be set free,” said Anne testily. “I am free. And I don’t know that I want a serious relationship.”

  “Bullshit,” said Marcy. “You need something more substantial to worry about than where the kids at Fenimore get into college.”

  “You mean like what time my husband is coming home for dinner?”

  “That’s a low blow,” said Marcy. It was true that she often sat, the table set, a low-cal gourmet meal carefully prepared, waiting hours for Rich to get home from work.

  “I’m sorry, but I guess I’m getting back at you for setting that awful lawyer on me the other night.”

  Anne had accepted an invitation to dinner at the Finemans a week earlier, where Harry Furman, the partner from Rich’s firm, had been a surprise guest. A short, balding man with an awkward manner, Harry was dressed in a bright green and orange sweater, which he might have hoped would perform some of the work of socializing for him.

  Things had not begun well when Anne asked him whether he’d be willing to come to Fenimore for Career Day and he flatly refused. Had she known that he had an abiding fear of high school, the result of being taunted for being bad at sports and bungling his locker combination, she might have been more sympathetic. As it was, she assumed his refusal hinged on not getting a tax write-off for this brand of pro bono work.

  During the meal, he stared at her in beagle-like fashion, as though expecting her to draw him out, but peeved, she turned her back on him and proceeded to talk to Marcy about Trevor Hopgood.

  As Felicia reported, Marcy had had a change of heart about Trevor. After only a week of listening to his mumbled comments in class, she had found a number of favorable points to include in a reference letter.

  “I gave Trevor a second look and revised my opinion; maybe you should do the same with Harry Furman,” Marcy reasoned now. “Harry liked you. I’m sure he’ll ask you out.”

  “He didn’t like me,” said Anne. “We barely spoke more than ten words. Besides, he must be fifty. He’s too old for me.”

  “So maybe you like the poetry fellow better?”

  “Peter Jacobson?” Peter had called a few days earlier, asking her to dinner as a follow-up to their mortuary sculpture date, a lugubrious outing in which he had stood for a long time before a plaster representation of death in the form of a young woman in a helmet. Anne had backed off from dinner and instead agreed to meet for lunch, where they could discuss the agenda for Poetry Day a few weeks hence.

  “He’s too young for me,” she responded now.

  “Either they’re too old or too young, but whatever they are, you reject them. Two men, both good prospects,” said Marcy, scraping the cream cheese off her bagel. “I keep telling you: you’re just too picky.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  DESPITE SALLY SOLOMON’S “INSTINCTS” THAT THE SCARSDALE house would be sold soon, it had a new occupant. Anne’s cousin, Rachel Kramer, had been evicted from her apartment in the seedier precincts of downtown Manhattan for not paying her rent. The sinus commercial, which had never aired, had not provided her with sufficient income, and the soap opera tryout had not panned out. Owing to an excess of sick days, she had been fired from her waitressing job, leaving her nothing to live on.

  When Rachel called to explain her dilemma, it occurred to Anne that the situation might be turned to everyone’s advantage. Only a few days before, Winnie had fallen and sprained her ankle. Anne, who had been working on college recommendation letters in the library, had heard a clatter and found her grandmother sprawled on the kitchen floor, looking more embarrassed than hurt. “Don’t say it,” said Winnie. “I wanted to start marinating the flank steak, and I placed too much confidence in my old friend, the cane. I should have used the walker, but you know how I feel about it. And now, you see, I’ve been punished for my vanity.”

  Anne bit her tongue, wanting to scold Winnie for creating yet another complication—and expense, since it would now be necessary to hire a day nurse while Anne was at school and to delay the closing on the house, assuming that it sold soon, until Winnie was mobile enough to climb stairs.

  Winnie had finally agreed that she would move into Anne’s Murray Hill apartment once the house was sold, under the assumption that she could eventually shame Elihu into contributing something toward a larger apartment. “He’ll have three million from the sale, and he wouldn’t want it to get around that his daughter was sleeping on an IKEA futon,” she reasoned.

  But these arrangements lay in the future. For now, Rachel was delighted to help take care of Winn
ie in exchange for room and board.

  “It’s great to live with your grandmother for a while,” Rachel said with relief. “It gives me time to rest; I’ve been feeling really tired lately.” The missed days that had gotten her fired from her waitressing job had not been a sign of irresponsibility; she really hadn’t been feeling well. Anne remembered her cousin’s pallor at her father’s party and asked if she’d seen a doctor.

  “No, I just think I’m run-down—you know, auditions during the day and waitressing at night. If I get some rest and eat better, I’ll be fine.” Her diet, she confessed, had consisted largely of Krispy Kremes and French fries.

  “No wonder the poor girl is ill,” clucked Winnie. “She’s poisoning herself with junk food! I’ll make sure she eats properly, and we can watch General Hospital together. It’s not Tolstoy, but it has its moments. And who knows, I might eventually get her to read a book.”

  With Rachel installed in the Scarsdale house, Anne could also move back to her apartment. She was eager to return to the city, to be in her own place, and to get ready for Winnie’s eventual occupancy. But difficulties immediately sprung up.

  When she called Carlotta to announce her intention to move back, there was silence on the other end of the phone. “I’m sort of settled here,” Carlotta finally said. “There’s even hot water sometimes.”

  “That’s great news,” said Anne. “But my cousin Rachel is staying with my grandmother. So I’d like my apartment back.”

  “Well,” said Carlotta in a ruminative tone, “I don’t know.”

  “What don’t you know?” asked Anne sharply.

  “I don’t know if it’s feasible for me to move right now. I’ll have to start looking around.”

  “Please do,” said Anne. “I’ll give you three weeks—that’s a week beyond standard notice.”

  “Hmm,” said Carlotta, “I don’t think that will be enough time.”

  “How much time do you need?” asked Anne, trying to keep her temper.

  “It’s hard to say,” said Carlotta coolly. “I might not want to leave at all. As you may know, occupancy is three-quarters of possession.”

  “I also know that my name is on the lease,” said Anne between clenched teeth.

  “My friend from Paul, Weiss said that sometimes that doesn’t matter,” said Carlotta.

  “Listen,” said Anne evenly. “I don’t want this to get ugly. I’m telling you that I intend to be back in my apartment by the beginning of next month. If you’re not out of there by then, I will be forced to take legal action. You may know someone at Paul, Weiss, but I know my share of excellent lawyers. And with my name on the lease, you haven’t got a leg to stand on.”

  Anne hung up the phone, shaking. It occurred to her to speak to her sister, but she realized that Allegra would refuse to get involved—it was her standard position on everything. As for speaking to her father, there was no telling what was going on between him and Carlotta. Only a few days ago, while riding a bus down Fifth Avenue, Anne had been shocked to look out the window and see Carlotta and her father gazing together into the window of Tiffany’s. Carlotta was wearing a chinchilla wrap, which seemed to be constructed out of the tails of a thousand dead animals—no doubt another find from a runway remnant sale. She had her arm tucked complacently inside Elihu Ehrlich’s, who was wearing a Burberry trench coat with a matching scarf and hat. Seeing them together, gazing with rapt intimacy at a priceless bauble against the turquoise backdrop of the Tiffany’s window, struck a hollow note in Anne’s heart. Though she knew that her father didn’t have a dime left to his name, there was still the hereditary asset of the Ehrlichs’ New York apartment, and there was no telling how much further Carlotta might plunge the family into debt.

  Anne imagined Carlotta as a huge boa constrictor, swallowing not just her father and the Ehrlichs’ Manhattan real estate (it was conceivable that the woman might procreate simply in order to acquire it) but also Anne’s sunny one-bedroom. The image made her shudder. She had a key to her apartment, of course, and could always change the locks—but then it occurred to her that Carlotta might be in the process of changing them on her end. Anne decided to check about this as soon as she could. Meanwhile, she realized, she ought to make good on her threat to Carlotta and consult a lawyer.

  Perhaps it would be worth her while to go out with Harry Furman after all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  ONE MORNING, SOON AFTER FELICIA AND TREVOR’S VISIT, ANNE was sitting at her desk reviewing senior grade-point averages. This was not a simple task. Gone were the days when all you needed to know was that A’s were worth 4.0, B’s 3.0, and C’s 2.0. Now, not only had pluses and minuses made an appearance, but there were the added weights given to honors and AP courses as schools struggled to situate students in an ever-expanding context of worth. Rumor had it that there actually existed a student at an elite prep school like Exeter or Andover—or it might have been a competitive public high school like Stuyvesant or Bronx Science—who had pushed the envelope and achieved a GPA of 5.3. Many swore they knew someone who knew someone whose cousin had done it—the equivalent to breaking the sound barrier, the three-minute mile, and the record for holding one’s breath underwater. To achieve a mere 4.0 was, in the context of such dazzling feats, a decidedly lackluster achievement.

  Anne knew that as head of guidance she was accountable for proper GPA calculation. The famous miscalculation of a few years back, in which an honors course had not been duly weighted and a student’s final GPA was mistakenly reduced by a fraction of a point, had served as a red light. This egregious error had taken place under the watch of the former head of guidance, a dour older woman, who wore tweed suits, had ramrod posture, and was named Miss Prickett (she had insisted upon the

  But the GPA incident did not allow for any such simple remedy. It was not the students who had sinned but the administration, and no amount of sackcloth and ashes on the part of the guidance department was going to appease parents who believed that their children’s future had been irreparably compromised. If one student’s grades had been miscalculated, who was to say that the whole lot wasn’t tainted? A mad cow—like panic took hold of the school as parents furiously checked and double-checked their children’s GPAs. Miss over the more politically correct Ms. as a sign that she was not open to newfangled ideas). Miss Prickett had weathered many a storm during her tenure, most notably a scandal involving the lacrosse team, when fifteen girls had gotten drunk at the regional meet and trashed an entire floor of hotel rooms in a Marriott in Ossining. But the GPA miscalculation was of another order of magnitude entirely. In the case of the lacrosse incident, Miss Prickett had required that the team do intensive community service (i.e., making cards for the area nursing home, using glitter paint and calligraphy pens—“really fun,” said Jodi Fields, then freshman-class vice president, who had recruited many non-offending students to take part).

  The incident had not only ended the career of the hapless guidance counselor responsible for the student’s transcript (he was now operating heavy machinery in White Plains); it had also been Prickett’s Waterloo. She had folded her tents—or rather, hung up her tweed blazer—and opted for early retirement. At the time, Anne had been at Fenimore for five years and had already distinguished herself by showing uncommon bravery in the face of parental pressure and an innate gift for manipulating Vince. She was thus seen as Prickett’s natural and inevitable successor.

  As a result, it now fell to her to check not only her own calculations but those of the two other counselors under her watch. After doing this, she then passed the results on to Vince, who, to his credit, was known to stay up till all hours, popping No-Doz and antacids in rapid succession while checking and rechecking the weighted figures, so that, in the baseball parlance he favored for this endeavor, “we pitch a perfect game.”

  On this particular day, Anne was in the throes of reviewing Skyler Landow’s average, wading through the thicket of weighted and double-weighted grades. Skyler
was a math genius, enrolled in a nonlinear algebra course at NYU that met three evenings a week as well as Saturday morning—a double-weighted course that was also a double-credit course. The calculation of Skyler’s GPA, in short, could make anyone but a high-level mathematician’s head spin (perhaps, Anne thought, only Skyler himself was truly qualified to calculate it).

  She had paused to determine whether the NYU course needed to be calculated first as a double-weighted course or first as a double-credit course—a question that itself indicated her abysmal abilities in math—when she heard a commotion in the outer office.

  Suddenly, Jeffrey Hopgood, his face red, his hair disheveled and tie askew, burst into the room. Cindy had tried unsuccessfully to keep him from coming into the office without being announced but he had ignored her, and his visage appeared so menacing that Cindy stood by the door, mouthing the question: “Should I call someone?”

  “It’s OK,” said Anne. Perhaps naively, she felt confident that she could bring Jeffrey Hopgood under control. “Just leave the door open,” she added hastily.

  Meanwhile, Jeffrey Hopgood was standing in front of her desk, his hands gripping its edges, glaring down at her. He did not look friendly. He did not, truth be told, look quite human.

  “Would you like to take a seat?” asked Anne in her calmest guidance counselor voice.

  “No,” seethed Hopgood. “I don’t want to take a seat. I want you to tell me what you’ve done to my son!”

  “Mr. Hopgood,” said Anne, “please calm down. I’ve done nothing at all to your son.”

  “Don’t give me that!” Hopgood growled. “You know what you’ve done. You’ve turned him into a conniving little shit. He was always a little shit—but he wasn’t conniving. That’s your doing!”

  “Mr. Hopgood,” reasoned Anne, “I think you do your son a disservice. He has a mind of his own.”

  “Like hell he does! He never had a mind of his own before. What business has he having one now? I want that little shit to go to Williams, and now he says he won’t go. He’s even threatened to blackmail me. Says he’ll take out loans or something, make me look like a manipulative bastard if I don’t support his decision.” Hopgood paused, perhaps aware that he did look like a manipulative bastard. Then, apparently deciding that he didn’t care, he plunged on: “The little shit wants to go to someplace called Drexel.”