Jane Austen in Scarsdale

by Paula Marantz Cohen

  “Hire them both,” declared Pauline.

  Ben smiled. “Maybe we can arrange a gig for the two of you—romantic sojourns in the Lake Country written by a young man in love. You could add a trip to Dublin during the Joyce festival to update the section on Bloomsday. After that, I wouldn’t mind using you here for some writing—maybe even some poetry for the guides. It would be a nice marketing element: ‘Cutler’s Guides to Culture with Original Poetry by Peter Jacobson, Winner of the Pitzer Prize.’” Anne was amused that Ben’s revised view of Peter’s poetry now went so far as a willingness to publish it. He may have read her thoughts, because he turned quickly to Kirsten. “What do you think, Kirsten?”

  Kirsten said she thought this was an excellent idea. “And if you go to England,” she added, “you could take a detour to Copenhagen. It’s not that cold and the food is very good, no matter what Pauline says.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Kirsten gets homesick,” said Ben.

  “You’re going to have to roll me out of here like a barrel!” Pauline announced suddenly. “This stuffing is too delish! I can’t believe I made it. Of course, it’s Winnie’s recipe and she told me what to do.”

  Winnie said there were many more recipes, just as good, that she would teach her.

  “If you teach me how to cook, I’ll blow up like a balloon!” exclaimed Pauline.

  “My dear,” said Winnie, “it’s all a matter of ingredients and proper portions. I’ll teach you how to cook and eat so that you don’t blow up like a balloon. In fact, I promise you’ll lose weight.”

  “Now that would be a miracle!” said Pauline. Then, turning to Anne: “But your grandmother does work miracles. She’s helped us all so much.”

  “She’s the genie in the house,” said Kirsten seriously.

  “No, my dears,” said Winnie, “I’m just an old woman who’s finally learned something. God knows, it took me long enough.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  IN THE DAYS AFTER THANKSGIVING ANNE FOUND HERSELF IN A state of nervous excitement. Though she had initially denied it, she now began to think there might be signs that Ben still had feelings for her. She remembered his apparent jealousy when he thought she was with Peter, then his sudden change of tone when he discovered she was not. And there was the way he looked at her at Thanksgiving—that penetrating gaze she remembered from before. On top of all this was his remark about Kirsten: “She gets homesick.”

  If these signs meant anything, wasn’t it imperative that she let him know how deeply she regretted giving him up thirteen years ago? She had been malleable and passive once; she was determined not to be so again. Sitting at her desk on the Monday after Thanksgiving, during a lull in student appointments, she picked up the phone and recklessly dialed the Scarsdale number.

  When Pauline answered, Anne began speaking quickly. “I just wanted to see if you have any last-minute questions about the early admissions process.” As she spoke, she remembered that Ben had dropped off Jonathan’s Columbia application the week before. “I realize that you’ve already turned in the application,” she backtracked, “but sometimes people think of things later, and some parents get confused by the financial-aid forms. Not”—she amended hastily—“that you need to worry about that.” She knew she was barely making sense, but Pauline was mercifully oblivious.

  “Thanks a bunch, honey, but it’s not my area,” responded Pauline airily “Bennie takes care of all the school-related stuff. He’s the brain, you know.”

  “Well, can I talk to the brain?” asked Anne, amused, despite her confusion, at this characterization of Ben Cutler’s intellect.

  “Oh, but he’s out,” proffered Pauline. “He and Kirsten are spending a few days in the mountains. Not the Catskills, where we went when we were kids; it’s one of those classy spots where there’s nothing to do. But it’s a darling place—I saw the brochure. There’s a big front porch where you can snuggle, and cozy little bedrooms with feather beds—not that I expect they’ll be sleeping much,” she insinuated in her cheerfully vulgar way.

  Anne held the phone away from her ear for a moment and caught her breath.

  “Are you still there, dear?” called out Pauline.

  “Yes, I’m here,” said Anne, her voice tight. The image of Ben and Kirsten snuggling together at a romantic bed-and-breakfast wiped everything else from her mind.

  “It’s so good for a couple to get away,” Pauline rattled on. “Maybe if Jonathan’s father and I had done that . . . But then, he never held down a job, so taking time off wasn’t really the problem.” She sighed at the recollection, then returned to the subject. “But Ben and Kirsten deserve a nice vacation. They work so hard and they’re so in love. I’m sure they’ll take their honeymoon in Copenhagen, where Kirsten’s family will be on top of them, so they might as well take advantage now, if you know what I mean.”

  Anne felt a wave of anger at Pauline for destroying her hopes, but she quickly regained perspective. If anything, she was grateful for this guileless chatter. It would have been far worse had she gotten Ben on the phone, and he had had to set her straight. By the time she hung up, she had resolved never to let wishful thinking override her good judgment again.

  She had always resisted Marcy’s advice about finding a husband because she assumed that you didn’t look for love; it just happened. But now, for the first time, she saw things differently. She had told Winnie that a wonderful life was not a privilege of birth; you had to go out and make it. Well, what was she waiting for?

  She took out a pencil and a yellow pad and proceeded to write:

  Single female, 34, seeks male soul mate.

  There. That was a beginning. But what next? Obviously, if she was going to advertise for a soul mate, she had to describe his qualities. She looked at her watch. It was getting late. You didn’t describe the qualities of a soul mate off the top of your head; it was something that took time and thought to get right.

  Anne put the pad into her drawer, locked it along with the student transcripts in her desk, and gathered her things to go home. Ben Cutler was behind her, she knew that now. But somewhere out there was the person who was right for her. She would consult Marcy, and together they would figure out the qualities he should have. Once this was done, he was bound to recognize himself and make an appearance.

  It would be a short step, she told herself, from having her soul mate on paper to having him in the flesh.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  As MID-DECEMBER APPROACHED, ANNE BEGAN TO GET CALLS FROM her contacts at various schools informing her of their verdicts. She learned, for example, that Felicia Desiderio had been admitted to Georgetown. “We were impressed by her sincerity and industriousness,” said the admissions officer; “her essay lent credence to her many supporting letters.” And that Dana Mosser had gotten into Wesleyan. “That letter from the Pulitzer Prize winner, what’s-his-name, really clinched it,” said the admissions officer, a not very culturally savvy young man. “We look for that sort of extra piece to the puzzle. Her math scores sucked, but the famous author put her over the top, not to mention your point that she’d be making big bucks writing for The New Yorker someday and that the school would benefit by huge alumni donations. Just kidding . . .” Anne saw no point in correcting the reference to the Pulitzer as he shifted gears. “We did not, I’m afraid, accept the other candidate, Jodi Fields, who, despite her involvement in numerous extracurricular activities, did not seem quite up to Wesleyan standards. There was the letter from her social worker about her struggle with ADD, but it wasn’t fully documented and we didn’t quite know what to make of it. I’m sure Ms. Fields will do very well elsewhere.”

  A not surprising disappointment was Jonathan Cutler, who was deferred from Columbia. “There’s no reason to give up hope,” the admissions officer explained encouragingly. “There were a number of very strong early decision applicants in the humanities this year—one who published a novel that’s been optioned for Tom Cruise, another who
completed a translation of Catcher in the Rye into Chinese. Then you have your conventional editors of the school paper and literary magazine who also have perfect grades in math and science. It’s no reflection on your candidate; he seemed a dedicated and interesting young man. But you have to understand that we get bushels of dedicated and interesting, so when someone has a passionate love of literature, a devotion to Habitat for Humanity, and 2400 SATs, we can’t very well turn them down in favor of someone who just doesn’t show that range.”

  Anne felt that the whole process was tainted by the necessity for “range”—often a facsimile of range created by the likes of Fink and Fisk—but she understood the reasoning. Jonathan was a narrow student and not as competitive as those with wider, more dramatically impressive credentials.

  She called his home, intending to relay the news immediately, but when no one answered, she left a message asking for Pauline or Ben to call her back.

  She had expected a phone call, so she jumped when, on looking up an hour later, she saw Ben standing at the door. Her first thought was to ask him how his romantic sojourn in the mountains had been—but instead she looked at him with as clinical an expression as she could muster.

  His face was slightly flushed—no doubt the result of the mountain air. “Your secretary wasn’t at her desk, so I took the liberty of walking in,” he explained. “I got the message you called. Pauline’s out with Kirsten and your grandmother looking for curtains.” He spoke hurriedly and there was a note of tension in his voice.

  “Curtains are important,” said Anne lightly. “Winnie says they’re the eyelids of the house.”

  He nodded and seemed to relax a bit. “Your grandmother has a way of expressing herself Our lives are much more interesting for knowing her.”

  Anne thanked him—it was another instance, she thought, of his being polite—and decided to get to the point. “The reason I called,” she explained crisply, “was to relay the rather unfortunate news that Jonathan’s been deferred from Columbia. I have to say that I’m not entirely surprised. His grades in math and science are lower than they like. This doesn’t mean he won’t be accepted in the spring—we can follow up with some additional letters, and he can retake some of the SAT IIs. But obviously, you need to have some backup options.”

  Ben’s expression changed. She could tell that he was disappointed and thrown off by her coolly professional manner.

  “Believe me, there are many good schools that would be right for Jonathan,” she assured him, her voice softening slightly. “I still feel that someplace smaller and less urban would give him a better sense of belonging.”

  “I see,” said Ben, who didn’t appear to be paying much attention.

  “I compiled a list of some good liberal arts schools that he could consider. Check the Web sites. You could take a long weekend and visit—it’s not too late. And if you settle on one or two, I could make some calls. I have a reputation, you know, so some of the admissions people will listen to me.”

  “Not at Columbia, apparently.”

  “There’s only so much I can do,” said Anne, peeved by what she took to be an accusation.

  “Your family used to have leverage there.”

  It was true that Winnie had once been friends with some members of Columbia’s Board of Trustees, but that was another time. “We had money then,” Anne responded simply.

  “I have money,” noted Ben somewhat sourly. “Maybe I should endow a chair or fund a program.”

  “I suppose you could,” observed Anne, “though the cost of that sort of thing is greater than you may think. Some schools put out a list of funding opportunities—you can do anything from name the medical school to pay for a plaque on a bathroom stall—though even that can run a cool thousand or so. But assuming that you’re financially up to it, is that really the way you want Jonathan to get into college? My suggestion is that you consider other schools.”

  Ben said nothing, but took the list she had drawn up and put it in his pocket. “Thanks for taking the trouble,” he said.

  “No trouble. It’s my job.” She paused, realizing that she sounded flip, and added, “I’ve been meaning to thank you for Thanksgiving.”

  “Our pleasure,” he responded stiffly.

  “It means a lot to me to see Winnie so happy.”

  “Yeah,” said Ben, as though suddenly irritated, “I know what your grandmother means to you. Thanks for the leads.” He patted his pocket. “I’ll speak to Jonathan and Pauline. And maybe I’ll consider an endowment.” The shadow of a smile crossed his face. “I could underwrite the Cutler Cultural Center at Columbia. If nothing else, I like the alliteration.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  MARCY WAS ECSTATIC WHEN SHE HEARD THAT ANNE WANTED TO run a singles ad.

  “You could do J-Date—which obviously limits the pool, ethnically speaking. Or Match.com, which opens it maybe a little too wide. Or The New York Review of Books, which could mean a lot of pretentious assholes. Or New York magazine, which might be a little too hip.” She contemplated the limitations of each of these options for a moment and then concluded: “As I see it, we write the ad and send it to all of them. Cosmo says it’s good to cast a wide net.” She took out a piece of paper. “OK, let’s get started. How should we describe you?”

  “I thought the idea was to describe the man,” protested Anne. “You know, my soul mate.”

  “Oh no,” corrected Marcy. “You need to sell yourself. You have to seem so desirable that all the good men want to date you. Then you sift through and find the soul mate.”

  “Hmm,” said Anne, considering the enormity of such a sifting process, but letting Marcy continue.

  “OK,” said Marcy. “ ‘Single, high-powered professional woman—’”

  “But I’m a high-school guidance counselor,” protested Anne. “So?”

  “It’s not exactly what people think of as a high-powered professional woman.”

  “Listen, a high-powered professional woman is in the eye of the beholder. Besides, you have to make out that you’re hot stuff or who’s going to pay attention?”

  “But they’ll eventually find out I’m a high-school guidance counselor.”

  “And they’ll see that you’re hot stuff. So: ‘High-powered professional woman, thirty-one—’ “ “I’m thirty-four,” corrected Anne.

  “Everyone says they’re five years younger, at least. I’m letting you get away with thirty-one because I know you’re on the conservative side and would probably not mind an older man.”

  Anne let this pass.

  “ ‘Exotic beauty.’”

  “Exotic beauty?”

  “That’s a code phrase for Jewish.”

  “ ‘Sensuous—’ ”

  “I really don’t think—”

  “It means that you like sex but aren’t promiscuous; code for not having any sexually transmitted diseases.” Anne couldn’t quarrel with that. “ ‘Cerebral.’” “Cerebral!”

  “You have to say cerebral. If you say smart, it doesn’t sound sexy. Then: ‘Loves good music, fine wine, and romantic dinners in Parisian bistros.’”

  “I do?”

  “Of course you do. Who doesn’t?”

  “I don’t think you’re really communicating who I am.”

  “The point,” said Marcy irritably, “is not to communicate who you are. It’s to get men to contact you. Once they get in the door, you can be who you are. It’s just like the kids applying to college. Once they’re admitted, they can be themselves, but they don’t have a snowball’s chance if they’re not packaged properly You’ve said so yourself”

  “Well, I’m not applying to college,” said Anne huffily “I’m trying to find my soul mate. I’m not going to run an ad that makes me sound like Mata Hari.”

  Marcy put up her hands. “Have it your way.”

  “I will,” said Anne resolutely. “I’m going to write an accurate ad that describes what I’m looking for. It may take me some time to compile an accurate list
of attributes, but I’m convinced that once I do, my soul mate will recognize himself and answer.”

  “Go ahead.” Marcy shrugged. “But I’m warning you: You can describe your soul mate all you want, but you’re going to end up with a lot of overweight fifty-year-olds going through messy divorces who want to take carriage rides in Central Park. That’s the standard fare, and if you don’t go with exotic, sensuous, and cerebral, that’s all you’re going to get.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  EVENTUALLY, ALL THE EARLY NOTIFICATION LETTERS HAD BEEN RECEIVED and everyone knew the fate of everyone else. Besides the positive verdicts from Georgetown and Wesleyan that Anne had learned from her contacts, there was one early acceptance to Yale (Ilene Gupta), one to Harvard (Aaron Finkelstein), and one to MIT (Skyler Landow). There were also two to the University of Pennsylvania (Hilary Steinberg was deferred, allowing her to apply to Duke), and one, respectively, to Stanford (Chelsea Beemer, who’d given the coach the thumbs-up a month earlier), Smith (Aurora Mendelsohn, who would eventually learn to roar, acquire a Mohawk, and become a tough-as-nails labor negotiator); Brandeis (Albert Odoms, where he would be a regular at Shabbat dinners); Lehigh (Tim Dougherty—“diligent and nice” had obviously paid off); Cornell (Lyle Peterson who, his voluminous research aside, had opted for the institution where his father was on the faculty of the medical school); Williams (not Trevor Hopgood); and Flemington (a white student, who had been sold on the novelty of the minority experience). Trevor had heard favorably from Drexel, his first choice, and Felicia had already worked out their visiting schedule for every other weekend, except when she had papers due. Toby Tucker was admitted to F&M with a scholarship (as the admissions officer had confided, under deep cover, that he would), and Paul Wasser, to Molson, Anne having effectively “negotiated” on his behalf