Jane Austen in Scarsdale

by Paula Marantz Cohen

  “Drexel has an excellent co-op program and a Music Industry Major, which appeals to Trevor.”

  “A Music Industry Major! What in hell is a Music Industry Major? Since when does Trevor want to go into the music industry? All he ever wants to do is put those plugs in his ears and tune his mother and me out. Williams would at least give him a chance to carry on a family tradition. Who are you to get in the way of family tradition?”

  “I’m not trying to get in the way of family tradition,” said Anne. “I just listened to Trevor and pointed him in a direction that seemed to suit his interests. It was his idea to pursue a career in the music industry.”

  “I don’t believe you!” said Jeffrey Hopgood, his eyes narrowing. “Trevor never came up with an idea in his life. You told him what to do—you did it to spite me. I know your kind. You don’t like men because we get in the way of your hoity-toity feminist ideas.” Hopgood had clearly moved into another phase of response that tapped into deeper wells of resentment.

  “Mr. Hopgood, please sit down! I really don’t know what you’re talking about!” She felt herself backing up slightly as Hopgood leaned further forward and eyed the Blue Ribbon School of Excellence paperweight on her desk.

  “You don’t know what I’m talking about?!” seethed Hop-good. “Well, I’ll tell you what I’m talking about! I’ll have you dragged into court for this; I’ll get you fired; I’ll show you what happens when you interfere in private family business; I’ll—”

  “Calm down,” said a voice that seemed to come out of nowhere. It was Ben Cutler’s voice. He had entered the room quietly, assessed the situation, and assumed control.

  Ben did not look at Anne but walked around to face Jeffrey Hopgood. The two men stared at each other a moment, then Hopgood, as if suddenly deflated, slumped into the chair behind him.

  “I want you to take a few deep breaths,” said Ben, his voice quiet but firm. “You’re obviously angry and you’re taking it out on Ms. Ehrlich. You need to go home and think things over, and then, once you get a grip on things, you need to apologize for your behavior.” He brought his face close to Jeffrey Hopgood’s and looked him sternly in the eye. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  For a moment, Jeffrey Hopgood sat as if shell-shocked; then, he nodded his head.

  “Now go home,” ordered Ben.

  Hopgood took a breath and rose slowly from the chair. He now appeared more confused than angry, and a look of embarrassment and possibly contrition passed over his features.

  “No need to speak now,” counseled Ben. “You’re too worked up. Go home, think it over, talk to your wife. Then come back when you’re ready to give that apology.”

  Hopgood turned and walked out the door. And Anne stood behind her desk facing Ben Cutler.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “ISUPPOSE YOU SAVED MY LIFE.”

  Ben laughed. “I doubt it would have come to that. But he was worked up. You always had a way of doing that to people. In any case, it was lucky I dropped by when I did . . . I wanted to talk something over with you.”

  Anne looked at him. She suddenly realized that, for the first time since she had seen him again, they were alone together. She studied his face—it was the same face, with its strong, familiar planes, and she realized that she wished she could trace them with her hand as she once had done. Their eyes met for a moment, and she knew there was a shared, unspoken remembrance of each other’s touch. Then, he cleared his throat and spoke quickly. “It’s about your house,” he said. “I mentioned that I knew it was on the market. Well, I’ve been thinking it over, and, to be brief about it, I’d like to buy it. That is—unless you object.”

  Anne looked stunned.

  “I know it seems like an odd thing to do,” Ben hurried on. “At first I rejected the idea. I thought you’d be offended, given our—past history and so forth.” He hesitated a moment, then continued. “But the more I thought about it, the more I felt it might be a good solution for”—he paused again in order to come up with the right phrase—“all concerned.” He waited, giving her a chance to say something. When she didn’t, he continued: “Pauline and Jonathan have been looking for a place in the area, and I’ve been on the lookout for office space in the city, where the rents, as you can imagine, are sky high. Then it occurred to me that I might have my office here in Westchester, which would be convenient for a number of reasons. I remember your house was spacious, with plenty of rooms—I’m thinking that one wing could serve as office space. The old-world charm would fit well with the nature of the guides.” He stopped abruptly as though sensing he had been giving information that she would have no reason to care about. He now continued with more deliberation. “Pauline has come to depend on me, as you may have sensed. And Kirsten”—he cleared his throat again—“seems to like the area. As it happens, she also likes old houses and has a knack for renovation. . . .”

  Anne felt suddenly as though someone had shaken her awake. She had almost lost herself in the vague idea that Ben wanted to buy the house for reasons that had something to do with her. But with the mention of Kirsten, she was brought back to reality. This was a business transaction, nothing more. She struggled to master her emotions and looked at him, her gaze direct and unflinching. “It’s a wonderful place to raise children,” she said quietly.

  But Ben appeared not to hear and continued hurriedly: “So I thought we could combine office space with living space, which Sally—you know, the Realtor—says wouldn’t pose problems with the zoning board. She seems to know all the ins and outs. She told us you’re looking to sell as soon as possible.” He stopped again, perhaps worried that he was giving the impression that he was doing her a favor, and shifted course: “Not that you wouldn’t get a lot of interest, given the charm of the place. And of course, if you object . . .”

  “I don’t object,” said Anne evenly. “It’s flattering that you would want to live there.” Her voice, she realized, sounded cold, and he looked away again for a moment as if stung. When he looked back she could tell that there was something more he wanted to say.

  “Sally told me about your grandmother’s fall and the need to put off the closing. From my experience, a sprained ankle in an elderly person can take quite a long time to heal.”

  “I’m sure the delay won’t be too long,” Anne said hastily.

  “The fact is”—Ben spoke slowly now, laying out the argument carefully, so as to be sure she would follow his reasoning— “our lease on the condo is up at the end of this month and I have a slew of contractors that I’d like to get started on the renovations. Pauline is, as you can imagine, eager to have her own place—and Kirsten too wants to settle down. So it occurred to me that perhaps we could close earlier and your grandmother could stay on with us until she felt better. She could take as long as she needs; the place is certainly big enough. It might be the best solution.” He looked at her, his face impassive; whatever emotion he might be feeling was impossible to read.

  Anne felt slightly dizzy. Ben Cutler was offering to house Winnie Mazur? The idea of having her grandmother live wdth the man whom she had persuaded her granddaughter to give up seemed too incredible to take in.

  “Think it over and speak to your grandmother,” said Ben, his eyes still on her face, “and I’ll speak to her myself. Obviously, if you still want to delay the closing, there won’t be a problem.” His voice now took on an undertone of gentleness. “I have no rancor, you know. There was a time I did, but I don’t anymore. In some sense, I feel grateful to you and your grandmother. I don’t know if I’d have achieved what I did if you hadn’t thrown me over.”

  Anne tried but failed to detect a note of irony in this speech. “Not that there’s anything wrong with working in a travel agency,” she said softly.

  “No,” said Ben, a look of amusement crossing his face, “not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  ANNE COULD NOT HAVE SAID HOW LONG SHE SAT AT HER DESK withou
t moving after Ben left, but at some point Cindy buzzed to say that Peter Jacobson was waiting to take her to lunch. She had forgotten all about their lunch date; the events of the morning had thrown everything else into the background. She now tried to get her bearings as she went into the outer office to greet him.

  Peter was seated in one of the guidance rocking chairs, rocking mournfully, while Cindy eyed him with interest.

  “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again,” he said as Anne came in. “You look really good.”

  Anne could only assume that he found her slight dishevel-ment and glazed expression appealing—perhaps they complemented his depressed state. Cindy, meanwhile, looked at her with renewed respect; Peter was extremely handsome.

  As they were about to leave the office, the phone rang, and Cindy signaled for them to wait. “Your grandmother’s on the other line.” She addressed Anne in her best Valley girl lilt. “She, like, really wants to talk to you.”

  Anne took the receiver. “What is it, Gram?” she said. “I’m just about to walk out the door.”

  “I hate to bother you at work like this, dear, but I wish you’d stop by right away.” Winnie’s voice, usually calm and matter-of-fact, contained a note of real alarm.

  “What is it? Are you all right?” Anne suddenly felt herself jolted out of the vague disorientation she had been feeling after her encounter with Ben into a state of real anxiety. She imagined that her grandmother was having chest pain or the onset of another stroke.

  But Winnie hurried to correct her. “No, no. It’s not me; it’s Rachel. You know she’s been draggy since she moved in, but today it’s much worse. I think she needs a doctor, and she absolutely refuses to let me call an ambulance. Your father is off God knows where and I can’t go upstairs to the medicine cabinet in this wheelchair. So I had no choice but to call you. Of course, it’s probably nothing. Maybe she ate something that disagreed with her—though I can’t imagine what; I fed her a nice brisket and carrots last night.”

  Anne knew that Winnie was not one to overreact to illness. For her to call at school like this, Rachel must indeed be in a bad way. “I’ll be right over,” she said.

  When she told Peter that she had to go immediately to Scarsdale to check on Rachel, he insisted on accompanying her. “I remember your cousin from your sister’s party, so it’s not like I’m a complete stranger. And don’t forget that I’m used to illness. I actually feel comfortable around it. It’s morbid, I know, but I’d rather be at a sickbed than a party.”

  Anne did not argue and had Peter follow her to her grandmother’s house in his car. They found Winnie in her wheelchair in the kitchen, making Rachel a cup of tea. Though Winnie still could not walk, she had grown adept at wheeling herself from the small maid’s room behind the library, where she had been sleeping since the accident, to the kitchen, where she managed to continue to cook what she called “a proper meal” for her poorly nourished charge. Anne took a moment to register the irony that the eighty-seven-year-old was ministering to the twenty-six-year-old assigned to be her caretaker.

  “She says she’s not hungry,” said Winnie, after Anne had introduced Peter, “but maybe she can drink something. I’ve never seen her like this. She was tired before, but now she can’t move.” “Where is she?” asked Anne.

  “In the living room on the couch. I’ve called the doctor; he says to bring her to the emergency room if it seems serious.”

  Anne and Peter went into the living room where they found Rachel sprawled on the sofa, whimpering softly.

  “What’s wrong, dear?” asked Anne.

  “Everything hurts,” moaned Rachel.

  “Everything?”

  “My whole body. I can’t move.” “Dull ache or sharp pain?” asked Peter.

  “Dull but sharp,” moaned Rachel. “I feel like I sprained every muscle in my body.” As she spoke, her eyes nickered appraisingly over Peter. Sick as she was, she was not so sick as to be insensible to a good-looking man.

  “But why such a sudden onset?” Anne queried Peter, as though he were a consulting physician.

  He turned to Rachel. “Did you eat or drink anything last night that might have caused a reaction?”

  “No,” groaned Rachel. “I ate dinner with Winnie—one of her nice Jewish meals, and a Diet Coke before I went to bed. She doesn’t like me drinking diet soda, so I keep it in my room. That’s it. But I’ve been feeling kind of low for a while: tired with aches and pains, sometimes pretty bad, but never as bad as this.” She started to cry.

  Peter had sat down on the side of the sofa and took her hand. “Just relax,” he said. “Pain is a very subjective thing.”

  “No it’s not,” wailed Rachel.

  “OK, maybe it’s not,” agreed Peter, “but you can relax into it. I used to help a loved one, who was very sick, deal with pain. Sometimes, I’d read her poetry—that seemed to have a palliative effect.”

  Rachel furrowed her brow, and Peter quickly clarified: “It made her feel better.”

  Rachel smiled weakly “You could read me poetry, if you think it would make me feel better.”

  He nodded and took a battered anthology of verse from his pocket. “My tried and true companion,” he noted, opened it and began to read:

  Because I could not stop for Death—

  He kindly stopped for me—

  The Carriage held hut just Ourselves—

  And Immortality . . .

  Rachel groaned and Peter stopped reading: “Emily Dickinson may not be the best choice under the circumstances,” he acknowledged, thumbing through the anthology and embarking again:

  Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

  That sends the frozen ground-swell under it,

  And spills the upper boulders in the sun

  And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

  Rachel appeared more satisfied with Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall.” She half-closed her eyes, lulled by the cadence of the verse.

  “Have you had any other symptoms?” interrupted Anne. Her cousin looked even more pale and worn than at her father’s birthday party, and the extreme lethargy and apparent pain were disturbing symptoms.

  “I had a rash a few weeks ago,” said Rachel. “I was using some new moisturizer, and I figured that caused it. But I can’t think of anything else. Oh God,” she moaned, “everything hurts.” She turned to Peter: “Keep reading.”

  Peter continued his reading of “Mending Wall.”

  Winnie had wheeled into the room with a cup of tea, which Rachel waved away “I think we need to take her to the hospital,” Anne told her grandmother. “I’m supposed to be giving career placement tests during fifth period, but I’ll call the office and tell them to have the students reschedule.”

  “Don’t do that,” interjected Peter, who had managed to follow this conversation even as he was reading Frost’s poem. “I’ll take her to the hospital.”

  “You don’t have to go to any trouble,” said Rachel, looking up at him gratefully.

  “It’s no trouble at all,” Peter assured her. “I’ll drive you to the hospital, and read to you while you wait to see a doctor. Your cousin can give her tests and meet us there when she’s done.”

  Anne saw no point in arguing with this. Whatever was wrong with Rachel, Peter (with or without poetry) was better medicine than anything she could offer.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “LYME DISEASE. ADVANCED CASE,” REPORTED PETER, WHEN ANNE arrived at the hospital after fifth period. He was sitting in the visitor’s lounge while Rachel was having additional blood work done. “The doctor says they want to take more tests for a conclusive diagnosis, but the symptoms look pretty classic. She’ll need time to recuperate.”

  “But how could she have advanced Lyme disease?” asked Anne. “Up until a week ago, she lived in downtown Manhattan.”

  “She thinks that it might have happened during the photo shoot for the sinus commercial. They filmed it in some meadow in upstate New Yor
k. She had to stand around for hours in the middle of a field, rubbing the bridge of her nose. The rash came soon afterward. Of course, it wouldn’t have been a problem if she’d caught it sooner.”

  “But why didn’t she?”

  “I think she was so run-down that it didn’t register. She was going to all those auditions during the day and waitressing at night—she thought it was normal to feel tired. And there was no one to look after her.”

  Anne realized that this was true. Although Allegra had boasted of taking her cousin under her wing, this had consisted entirely of getting her auditions for Off-Off Broadway plays. Had Rachel not come to stay with Winnie, God knows what would have happened. Anne had visions of the girl lying help less for weeks in her studio apartment in the Bowery, too feeble to lift herself from the couch.

  “They said they’ll need to keep her in the hospital for a week or so,” said Peter. “I hope she’ll let me come by and read while she’s here. She’s not too familiar with literature, but she’s a very receptive person.”

  Anne wanted to say that Rachel was certainly receptive to him, but a nurse appeared at this moment and motioned to them to follow her. She ushered them into a room where Rachel was sitting up in bed, looking weak but calm. She had received something for the pain, and her face brightened as they entered. Anne hugged her.

  “I wish my mother were here,” she said suddenly.

  “Would you like me to call her?” asked Anne.

  “Would you? I’d be so grateful. I haven’t spoken to her enough this year. I really shouldn’t have built that wall.” She looked over at Peter. “I liked the poem you read about building a wall,” she said. “I can’t tell whether it’s saying walls are good or walls are bad—I guess sometimes they’re good and sometimes they’re bad.”