Jane Austen in Boca

by Paula Marantz Cohen

  The Valentine’s Day event was always a subject of intense speculation. The menu for the affair was widely discussed. Filet mignon was a given. Morris Kornfled had decreed it—he was one of that generation of men who were fond of pronouncing that “nothing beats a good steak and baked potato.” But there were always at least three more main dishes, not to mention the endless number of side dishes, salad combinations, and famous desserts. The presentation was as eagerly awaited as the food. Who could predict what the club president, in consultation with the assistant manager (a woman who had once served as a store decorator at Neiman Marcus), would come up with in the way of positioning tables, designing centerpieces, and coordinating tablecloths, napkins, plates, and cutlery?

  With the approach of the event, May had confided to Flo that she had asked Norman Grafstein and he had enthusiastically agreed to attend. Norman had called May soon after Flo’s encounter with him at the Y, and they had gone to the movies and dinner several times since. Their last date had been a very fancy dinner-movie combination at Boca’s famed Muvico complex, which featured a gourmet restaurant alongside a deluxe movie theater that charged fifteen dollars a ticket (after the senior discount). For the ticket price you got seats like armchairs and all the free popcorn you could eat. May had reported the extravagant evening to her friends.

  “What’s so special about free popcorn when we can make it in the microwave at home?” asked Flo.

  But Lila, attuned to the pleasures that her lack of money denied her, explained succinctly: “It’s the whole package. You go; you feel like a queen.”

  May admitted that she had certainly felt like one, though it was more the presence of Norman Grafstein by her side than the plush carpeting and chairs to be credited for that.

  “With Norman, we have enough for a table—almost,” said Lila now as she mulled over arrangements for the Valentine’s Day dance. “There’s Hy and myself, May and Norman, and you,” said Lila, motioning toward Flo. “I assume Mel will be coming? Did you ask him?” Lila knew that Flo was capable of forgetting to do this.

  “Yes,” said Flo, “I asked him, and he’s coming.”

  “Good,” said Lila, as though pleased to see that everything was as it should be. Then, triumphantly: “Do you realize that this is the first time that we’ll all have dates for the Valentine’s Day dance?”

  “With that accomplished, we might as well die now,” commented Flo drily.

  “Norman said that he’d like to bring along Stan Jacobs,” added May in a tentative voice. It suddenly appeared to her that this might throw off the symmetry of the group. Plus, she knew Flo’s feelings about Stan.

  “Absolutely not,” said Flo, “he’s been awful to Mel, and they hate each other.”

  “Well, I’ll tell Stan that Mel will be there. Maybe he won’t want to come,” said May meekly. “But I can’t very well disinvite him, can I?” She seemed genuinely upset.

  “It’s inappropriate,” added Flo with surprising vehemence. “It makes for an extra man.”

  “And since when are we against an extra man?” said Lila. “I’d say it’s a nice change of pace.”

  “It’s true,” said May, gaining some confidence and taking a new tack. “Since when are you into couples, Flo?”

  “You’re right there,” Flo acknowledged grudgingly “I’m not saying it’s because we all have to have dates. I’m just saying that it will make things uncomfortable.”

  “And since when are you against uncomfortable?” May prodded again. “You always like to stir things up.” Then, moving to a more heartfelt argument: “You’re much too hard on Stan. I know Mel doesn’t like him, but I’m sure he’s mistaken. He’s really a very nice man. Norman told me how he suffered during his wife’s illness, and how devastated he was by her death last year. It’s been difficult for him.”

  “And not for us all?” snapped Flo.

  “We all handle loss differently,” persisted May, “and for men, what with their difficulty expressing emotion, it must be much harder.”

  “May, I’ll say it again: We have to give you mean lessons.”

  “I just want you to be tolerant,” said May. “Besides, Stan’s a knowledgeable man; you can talk to him about books. And maybe you could play peacemaker between him and Mel.”

  May had a point, thought Flo. Perhaps this was a way to get to the root of the matter. She had an interest in Mel, she admitted to herself, but she wasn’t in love with him—yet. It would be interesting to see the two men interact and judge for herself. And there was the additional incentive, as May mentioned, of talking books with Stan. The idea of having two literate men around her for the evening seemed like a veritable feast to her starved intellect. Perhaps they would do battle over the chance to converse with her. Where other women might have fantasies involving push-up bras and stiletto heels, Flo’s involved good conversations about books. She let herself go: She’d have them discuss the latest Philip Roth she was reading. Time had certainly brought about a change in her fellow Jews’ response to this once-despised author—he had received a standing ovation last month when he spoke at Boca West. Flo was probably alone among her peers in thinking Portnoy’s Complaint a very funny book, the high point of Roth’s career, but she was eager to hear what the English professor Stan Jacobs and the cosmopolitan Mel Shirmer had to say on the subject.

  “Let him come,” she conceded, shrugging, “but I won’t promise to be civil.”

  “You may not be civil”—May smiled, in another one of her flashes of spontaneous insight—”but you’ll be smart, and with a man like Stan Jacobs, smart is better.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “I WONDER WHAT CHEF HAS UP HIS SLEEVE FOR THE VALENTINE’S

  Day dinner?” Lila raised the question at lunch the next day. She had returned to the table with her plate heaped with salad. (“No club has fresher greens,” Hy Marcus liked to boast, “or a better variety of fixings.”) But the existence of the food before her had obviously not suppressed her interest in food at some prospective date.

  “It’s supposed to be a secret,” said May, who was highly cognizant of club rules and regulations.

  “All the more reason to want to know,” said Flo. “Last year, as I recall, Pixie Solomon got into the kitchen, found the list of ingredients, and pieced together the menu. It made quite a scandal.”

  “One thing about Pixie,” said Lila, “she has initiative.”

  Mel arrived at the table at this point, and everyone shifted so that he could pull a chair in next to Flo. “Are we talking about the upcoming dance?” asked Mel. “I hear it’s the social event of the season. But I feel like Cinderella without a gown. May, Flo tells me you’re a wizard with the needle and wouldn’t mind letting my tux out under the arms. I don’t have the build I had when I was thirty-five—that’s when I first bought that monkey suit, and it’s held up pretty well, I must say, given some hard wear and tear in between.”

  May said she’d be delighted to let out Mel’s tux.

  “I’ll bring it over tomorrow, if you’ll allow me,” continued Mel cheerfully. “I don’t mind saying that I’m looking forward to getting out my dancing shoes and twirling this lovely lady on the dance floor.” He looked over at Flo, who lowered her eyes. She hadn’t danced for almost ten years. Eddie had been a good dancer, but the first stroke had put an end to the dancing. The second stroke had put an end to him.

  “Speaking of the dance,” said May, clearing her throat and taking a leap that went against her timid nature, “I wanted to let you know, since I’m responsible, that Stan Jacobs will be attending. I know you two don’t get along,” she added hurriedly, glancing at Mel, “but I’m sure you can clear things up with a nice talk.” She looked plaintively over at Flo. “I told Norman last night to let Stan know that Mel would be there, thinking he might not want to come. But Norman called this morning to say that Stan didn’t seem to care. Maybe,” she said hopefully, “he wants to bury the hatchet.”

  Flo noticed that durin
g this speech, Mel’s face had lost its smile. Now he appeared to regain his composure and said lightly, “Why should I mind if Stan Jacobs chooses to inflict himself on me? I’ll have the loveliest lady on my arm, and it wouldn’t bother me if the devil himself sat at our table.” Then he leaned over and kissed Flo on the cheek.

  Lila gave Hy a look, and Hy twirled his finger in the air. “L’amour, l’amour,” he said, and dug into his salad.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  FOR THE VALENTINE’S DAY DINNER-DANCE, THE ACTIVITIES COMmittee of Boca Festa had gone all out. The dining room had been festooned in swathes of red velveteen drapery, and luminescent red and pink plastic hearts hung from the chandeliers, themselves newly installed when the clubhouse had a face-lift a few months earlier. They now cast a romantic luster on the freshly painted faux-marble pink walls. The tablecloths were red embroidered with gold sequins, producing the illusion that each table was actually in the shape of a giant heart. The buffet table was awash in roses and baby’s breath.

  The three women had taken pains to look their best for the occasion, each according to her taste. May wore a pink chiffon sheath, empire style with a high neck that she had been assured by the saleswoman was both elegant and slimming. Her hair had been swept back by Lila’s stylist into an elaborate twist—she usually wore it clipped up more casually—and she put on the amethyst-and-diamond earrings and brooch that had been Ir ving’s one gift of fine jewelry in commemoration of their fiftieth wedding anniversary, their last, for he had had a heart attack six months later and survived only a month beyond that. The gift, which she sensed had not been without the involvement of her daughter-in-law, had struck her at the time as too extravagant. Tonight, however, the purple stones went well with the pink dress, though most becoming was her expression of luminous happiness, which, Flo thought, gave her friend the appearance of an aging madonna.

  Lila had always been more glitzy than her two friends, and she had for this occasion a kind of nervous enthusiasm that was reflected in her choice of attire. She wore a red dress plunging immodestly low—or so Flo thought, since breasts, beyond the age of forty-five, she took to be assets best kept under cover. Flo was distinctly in the minority among her peers in Boca Raton, however, where cleavage was as common as Bermuda shorts and often worn with them. Lila’s unusually extensive cleavage on this evening might have been explained by the hefty gold necklace that dominated her throat and upper chest—and that her friends, who knew one another’s wardrobes by heart, had never seen before.

  “It’s amazing!” said May, gazing at the large knucklelike links that looked heavy and were therefore likely to be real.

  Lila patted her chest complacently. “Just some baubles,” she said, laughing, “that happened to come my way”

  “Lila is being mysterious,” said Flo. “Tell me, Lila, did you rob a bank, or did your long-lost grandfather leave you some money?”

  Lila laughed. “It’s from Hy,” she said, looking at both women somewhat accusingly, as though expecting them to say something and warning them against it. “It’s a token of his affection.”

  May kissed her; Flo said nothing. Lila’s involvement with Hy Marcus struck her as distasteful, and yet she also couldn’t help feeling that her reaction was an injustice toward her friend, and maybe even toward Hy. After all, she had never had to count pennies like Lila. And what did she know of Hy, besides the few encounters in which he had rattled on about his children, their possessions and accomplishments? A man had the right to be proud, as Lila said, and it was unfair to jump to conclusions based on so little evidence.

  Flo had tried to share her friends’ enthusiasm in preparing for the dance, but she had to admit that the affair had lost some of its luster when Mel called that morning to say that he wouldn’t be able to attend. He was under the weather—more than under the weather: temperature of 102, throbbing headache, nausea, diarrhea, and a hacking cough.

  “I wouldn’t inflict myself on a dog, no less a woman I care a lot about,” he said gallantly between spasms of coughing. “It must be a bug I picked up in the hotel.” Mel had been staying in one of the area motels for the past few weeks as he scouted Boca Festa. “You saw that special on 20/20 on hotels and how they use the same rag to wash the toilet as they do the tele phone—” Mel broke off with another spasm.

  “Don’t speak,” said Flo. “Rest yourself. I could care less about the Valentine’s Day dinner-dance.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Mel. “I wanted to twirl you across the dance floor.”

  “There’ll be other occasions,” said Flo. “Just get well. I wouldn’t want you to pass away before we had a chance to twirl.”

  Mel laughed. “You’re the woman of my dreams, you know,” he said softly. “Good common sense, not a prima donna, fun to talk to.”

  “Quite a résumé you’ve got for me,” laughed Flo. “But remember, I can’t cook or sew.”

  “You can always hire someone to do that. Anyway, I didn’t say you were perfect, just the woman of my dreams—” He was cut short by another fit of coughing.

  “You better get off the phone,” said Flo. “I wouldn’t want you to rupture something talking to the woman of your dreams.”

  “Okay,” said Mel, “but think kindly of me in my misery while you’re at the dance. Think more than kindly, if you can.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  WITH THE PROSPECT OF BEING DATELESS AND, WORSE, FETTERED to Stan Jacobs for the evening, Flo looked at herself in the mirror without much interest. Even so, she had to admit, she looked about as good as her age and natural endowments would permit. She wore, as she always did for Boca Festa events, her long black dress, bought years ago during a trip to New York City when Eddie, who was forever trying to convince her to buy expensive things after he made partner, had pushed her in the door of Martha’s, then the chicest of Madison Avenue boutiques, and insisted that she choose something for the University Ball. It was the year she was being honored, along with about twenty others, for “her service to the intellectual life of the academy.” The prospect of the award had embarrassed her. As a mere librarian, she hardly thought she merited special consideration in an institution in which the likes of Saul Bellow and Allan Bloom had taught the great books for decades. As it turned out, however, the event had been the highlight of her life when Bellow himself had stepped to the podium and personally thanked her for helping him with his research on Mr. Sammler’s Planet. She was at a loss as to what he meant, unless it was the brief conversation they’d had in the library one day about the quality of New York versus Chicago delis. For a novelist, she supposed, that probably did count as research.

  She and Bellow had, over subsequent years, developed a friendship of sorts, since whenever he came into the library he looked for her to chat. He seemed to appreciate her brand of wit, and they had traded quips on such topics as the eccentricities of the Jewish people, the war between the sexes, and the trials of being no longer young. He sometimes sent her an announcement about a new book or a reading he was going to give somewhere in town, always with a scribbled personal note. She had saved these notes, not above the awareness that in time they would come to be worth something. He was, she thought, a good writer (“great” she reserved for Tolstoy and Henry James) but also a fairly typical Jewish man of his generation. She had recently read in the paper about his becoming a father, again, at age eighty (no personal note to her on this accomplishment!). The news made her glad that she no longer risked running into him; she might have ended forever his appreciation of her wit by letting loose on the subject of an eighty-year old man having a baby.

  The black dress from Martha’s still managed to evoke that auspicious moment when she had stood at the podium next to Bellow. And given its durability and its simple stylishness, she acknowledged that it had been worth its exorbitant price. It lay with the sureness of its pedigree, following the lines of her large-boned body without being clingy, which her figure could not have carried off. The neckline, likew
ise, had a stylish diplomacy: It was modest without being Legion of Decency. Best of all, the dress was comfortable, which for Flo was a prerequisite for anything she put in her closet. She liked to feel that, if she had to, she could play tennis in whatever she wore. For shoes, she had on a pair of two-inch Ferragamo heels, bought on sale at Saks two years ago. For jewelry, she wore the diamond studs that her son had given her during one of their periods of truce and the gold chain with the peace-sign pendant that had been a birthday present from Amy. Her hair, she left alone. It was short and, unlike her friends’, aggressively gray. Thirty years ago, finding herself graying at the temples, instead of “going blond” like so many women she knew, she had taken an unusual but characteristic step and gone the other way. With the help of a product called True Gray, she had dyed her whole head that much maligned color and never turned back. Being gray at forty, she liked to say, had made her distinguished before her time. In fact, it softened, in a way ash blond never would have, her rather hard and angular features, and gave a sheen to her hair that made it glow silver. For those discerning enough to tell, it was highly becoming. For Flo, it afforded the satisfaction of going against the grain of her peers, something which, reverse snob that she was (and she admitted this freely to her friends), she enjoyed.

  “I like the novelty of gray in a land of red and gold,” she explained, “and who knows, but it might catch on: like the success they had bringing back corn flakes.”

  Flo usually looked forward to Boca Festa events and, even without Mel’s presence, would have been inclined to have a good time were it not for the prospect of Stan Jacobs being a wet blanket and judging them all. Thinking about him made her angry, and she determined then and there to resist his spoiling her fun—even if it killed her.