Jane Austen in Boca

by Paula Marantz Cohen

  She had also become aware of surprising moments of humanity that went against the grain of Stan’s general demeanor. He clearly liked and admired May and spoke to her with genuine warmth, even animation. And then there was the time when she had received a call from Norman on the day before May’s birthday.

  “We came up with just the thing in the way of a gift,” announced Norman proudly. “I’m not even going to tell you what it is, because you might give it away in a moment of weakness. It was really Stan’s idea, to give credit where it’s due, and he’s supplying the materials, so to speak. But I’m doing my share. Boy, it’s a doozy of a present, if I may say so, but we need you to do some legwork for us.”

  Flo said she would be delighted. “My guess is that it’s one of those elaborate gag gifts. Do you want me to bring May to a certain spot in the Florida Everglades so she can see an airplane writing her name in the sky?”

  “No,” said Norman slowly, “though that’s a good idea, too, come to think of it. I must say that I have some very creative-minded friends.”

  “If it’s not skywriting, then I’m out of ideas.” Flo laughed. “Now, what do you want me to do?”

  “Here’s the way it works.” Norman’s voice took on a conspiratorial tone. “We need you to drive May to Stan’s house tomorrow morning. Make it around ten—no, ten-fifteen, to play it safe. I want to be sure everything is ready. We’ll be there waiting with the surprise. I’ll e-mail you the directions. Every traffic light. Don’t worry. I wouldn’t want you to get lost.”

  “No need to give every traffic light,” Flo reassured him. “I can read a map.”

  “No, no, I want to be sure you have the directions just right. I’ll e-mail you.” Norman was of the school that believed women needed minute directions to go anywhere. “Meanwhile, not a word to May. Don’t even tell her where you’re going. It makes for more drama.”

  “You can count on me,” said Flo. “I’ll be as quiet as the grave.”

  The next morning, Flo bustled May into her car with the prospect of a surprise planned by Norman Grafstein. May was in a tizzy. Where could they be going? What should she wear? Should she bring a change of clothes or a bathing suit—or maybe a baking dish or a pie plate? Flo said not to worry, that she wouldn’t have to do anything but be surprised. This appeared to be something that May would be able to do very well.

  The trip to Stan’s house was relatively simple, though Norman had sent Flo three pages of directions. In less than half an hour they had pulled up to a modest, neatly kept ranch house. It was painted a light green and had white shutters. There was a brick walk leading from the front door and a white picket fence around the yard.

  “It looks like Stan Jacobs is trying to make South Florida look like New England,” noted Flo. “The poor man thinks he’s something out of a Nathanial Hawthorne novel—one of those grim, obsessed characters trudging through the Boston snow.”

  “I think the house is charming,” said May, dismissing the entire arc of the metaphor.

  They knocked, but with no answer, turned the knob and walked inside. There was a small foyer with a polished wood floor and a worn Oriental rug. To the right was a modestly furnished living room and, to the left, what would have been a den had been turned into a combination library and study, though really it seemed more like a warehouse for books. They were everywhere, as Norman had once said. The shelves along the walls were entirely filled, and there were stacks on the floor. In the center of the room was a large partners’ desk with a lamp and a blotter, but it, too, was partially covered with books and magazines. May seemed horrified at the clutter, but Flo secretly found the room very inviting. They walked through it, with difficulty, into the kitchen, again a neat, modestly furnished space with a small table and chairs, behind which was a door leading to the backyard.

  “Girls, is that you?” It was Norman’s voice coming from outside. “We’re back here. Come on out!”

  May and Flo opened the door and faced a yard, perhaps three quarters of an acre in size. Half the space was beautifully cultivated with flowers and plants, as well as with a small vegetable garden, neatly hedged. The other half of the space contained nothing but a stretch of turned-over soil. Stuck in the center of this portion of the yard was a large stick with a sign affixed to the top that read (in computerized Gothic print surrounded by an assortment of clip-art renderings of daisies, roses, and daffodils): MAY’S GARDEN.

  “What’s this?” said May, looking stunned.

  “It’s your birthday present!” announced Norman. He was standing in the center of the empty area, and reached over to push the sign more securely into the soil. Stan was off to the side of the yard, trying to appear innocuous. “As I told Flo, it was Stan’s idea,” Norman continued gleefuly, “but I did all the hard labor. Making the sign, turning over the topsoil. And you know how I don’t like to get my hands dirty.” It was true. Norman’s nails were always impeccably manicured, and the thought of him with his hands in the dirt made Flo smile.

  “But I don’t understand,” said May. “There’s nothing planted here.”

  “That’s the point,” declared Norman. “It’s your space. Plant what you please. You can come here whenever you like. Stan says so: open invitation.” He looked over at his friend, who nodded and smiled at May. “And since I wouldn’t want to impose upon Flo, the driving’s on me. Either I’ll come to get you or—and this, I must say, was my own brainstorm—I’ve opened an account for you at Golden Cabs. They’re on call to take you, and you’re not to think twice. I made money to spend it on things like this. If you make a fuss, it’ll spoil it for me, so promise you’ll jump into a cab anytime you feel like planting a shrub or whatever it is you and Stan are so crazy about.”

  Tears were running down May’s cheeks as she walked over to Norman and put her arms around him. “It’s the best birthday present I ever had,” she exclaimed softly. Then, not forgetting Stan, who’d put his head down so as not to intrude on their intimacy, she dragged Norman over to him and took both of their hands. “Such friends,” she murmured. “Thank you both.” Flo turned away from this too-heartwarming scene and went inside.

  “I suppose I need to put some of these in order.” Stan had entered the room where Flo had been browsing for some time among the heaps of books. She was on her knees now, looking at the bindings.

  “I’ll agree, it’s not neat,” said Flo, “but it certainly is plentiful.”

  “I get carried away when it comes to books. I buy too many.”

  “I’m not going to criticize you there,” said Flo. “I’ve always felt you could never have too many books. It’s like the feeling I have about those twenty-four-hour diners. I like to know they’re there, in case I get hungry at three in the morning. With books, it’s the same: I like to know that I’ll have something to read at three in the morning.”

  “As you see, I have plenty to read at three in the morning, which is when, in fact, I often find myself here. I suffer from chronic insomnia.” Flo looked sharply at Stan, as if to say, The fruits of a bad conscience, but was diverted from her speculation on this point by the sight of a particularly tattered volume. “My God—Carlyle’s French Revolution. I haven’t seen that one on somebody’s shelf for a long time.”

  “As you can see, it’s not on the shelf,” noted Stan.

  Flo was bending over another stack. “Wait—is this Hazlitt, Table Talk? I used to read that to get to bed at night when I was in college. There’s one essay in here, ‘On the Disadvantages of Intellectual Superiority.’ I remember being amused—and humbled. That was a period when I thought I knew things.”

  “I haven’t read it,” said Stan, “but it sounds like it’s worth looking into. Maybe at three in the morning.”

  Flo stood up and began examining the shelves. “How many editions of Jane Austen do you have?”

  “Some were my wife’s.” Stan’s voice grew muffled. “Together we must have about half a dozen. It’s like having multiple Torahs in the a
rk. You don’t need so many, but it’s nice to have them there, just in case.”

  “Here’s a pretty volume.” Flo had turned to the desk and picked up a small book with a worn leather cover inlaid with a silver pattern. She opened it. “It looks like love poetry: Christina Rosetti, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elizabeth Barrett Browning …” She was thumbing briskly through when Stan leaned forward and swiftly took the volume from her hand. “That one’s not for browsing,” he said softly, and left the room.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  LILA MARCUS (THE NAME WOULD TAKE SOME GETTING USED TO, she conceded) returned from Italy with twenty rolls of film, which, when developed, she compiled into a comprehensive album of her trip. Flo helped with the labels, and even put together some short histories of the three cities, which Lila, with sacramental care, pasted on the opening page of each section.

  “So much beauty,” she sighed, looking through the album wistfully. “I can’t tell you how it affected me.”

  Seeing her friend’s response, Flo admitted to May that Lila had gained something from her marriage to Hy Marcus. “She would never have had the chance to go otherwise, I realize that,” Flo acknowledged. “I suppose Italy compensates to some extent for marrying a fool.”

  Lila and Hy had settled into their new three-bedroom condominium, and Lila had renewed her old routine with her friends. Hy seemed more than content to let her do what she liked so long as she was available to sit with him at dinner. Lila confided to May and Flo that the other aspect of marriage (“sex,” she whispered distastefully), had fortunately ceased to be an issue. Hy had attempted it a few times but had been unsuccessful. This, she intimated, was just as well. Such things had never appealed to her particularly, and Hy was not likely to change her mind on the subject. Flo, for her part, breathed a sigh of relief. If Lila had been obliged to accommodate Hy Marcus in that department, as she had initially feared, then even Italy might have been small compensation. She was glad that she no longer had to envision her friend as a septuagenarian prostitute.

  One day over brunch, however, Lila looked worried. “I want to strangle that Bob Dole,” she said.

  “Dole?” Flo asked. “You’re behind in your elections. I’m afraid his career is over, though he’ll make sure, in typical male fashion, that his wife’s is, too.”

  “I’m not talking elections,” said Lila with irritation. “I’m talking about that old commercial. It’s the sex pill he used to push. Viagra. Hy says he wants to try some.”

  “My God!” groaned Flo. “Heaven preserve us!”

  “Preserve me!” corrected Lila grimly.

  “I’m told they gain the stamina of twenty-year-olds,” said May, who could at times exhibit a certain disingenuous malignity.

  “Oh my God,” groaned Flo, “all you need is a twenty-year-old Hy Marcus.”

  Lila looked stricken. “It might not work.”

  “A ninety percent success rate,” said Flo. “It’s documented.”

  “He is your husband,” proffered May.

  Lila and Flo just looked at her.

  “What will you do?” asked Flo.

  “What can I do? I’ll live one day at a time and hope for the best. But one thing I can tell you. I know now why I never voted for that Bob Dole.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  THE SOUND OF THE AMBULANCE SIREN IS A FAMILIAR ONE TO Boca Festa residents. There are nights when the sound is a continuous grating whine; others when it erupts in a counterpoint chorus, with the lights of the ambulances, like grotesque fireflies, flitting this way and that across the club grounds. No sooner has an elderly insomniac finally fallen into a fitful slumber than the siren blasts him awake again, and there goes not only another night’s sleep but another bridge partner.

  It stands to reason that in a community of fifteen hundred, in which the average age is seventy-three, illness and death would be frequent visitors. The response to these visitations, however, varies considerably on the part of residents. Some maintain an unruffled detachment—an attitude helped if one lived for some period in New York City, where sirens are as common as crickets in the country, or if one has the option of turning down a hearing aid for an undisturbed night’s sleep. But the ability to ignore death is less of an auditory and more of a conceptual feat. After all, death is constantly referred to in the newspapers and on TV, and everyone knows that as the product of a lineage, the people who came before one have died. In Boca Festa, the only difference is that the parameters in which death happens have shrunk. The reported incidents are closer to home and affect people one is more likely to know. Still, the premise is the same. So long as it is not oneself who is dead, then it remains possible to put the topic out of one’s mind.

  Yet if a willed inattention to the arrival of the Grim Reaper is favored by some residents of Boca Festa, others, far from ignoring the fact, are hyperaware and hypervigilant. This group can pick up the sound of an ambulance from miles away and are likely to speculate on who it is coming for. “Mrs. Schatz in pod eight didn’t look too well yesterday,” one might say, or “Call Sam and see if he hasn’t keeled over.” Those who react this way are not necessarily morbid personalities. They simply want to keep tabs on what’s going on. If anything, they feel that by being alert as their friends and neighbors drop around them, they may succeed at catching themselves should they be inclined to drop, too.

  Both unawareness and hypervigilance with respect to death are possible in the context of Boca Festa. Just as the club buffet table offers dishes to suit all palates, so does the community support numerous viewpoints on the subject. Since the fragility of human life is everywhere on display in the form of walkers, hearing aids, and an abundance of wrinkles, one can think about mortality all the time, if one is so inclined. By the same token, a certain smooth, airbrushed quality characterizes club life, making it possible to ignore death just as completely if that happens to be one’s preference. It helps that there are always new residents to replace the old. Friendships are severed—Mrs. Schatz no longer inhabits pod 8—but Mr. Cohen, who owned a shoe store in Queens where you remember once buying a pair of sandals, moves into her apartment and is an excellent companion.

  Flo Kliman was of a philosophical turn of mind, and had thought about the fact of death at some length. She had lost many people in her life—her parents, her brother and sister, her husband, and more friends than she could count—and though sometimes she would fall into a musing, wistful state, a kind of dreamy sadness in thinking about the many people whom she loved who had died, her tendency by and large was not to dwell on them. Doing so depressed her, not only in making her miss these people whom she could not see again but also in reminding her that she, too, would die someday, probably sooner rather than later. She had concluded that no one could live with the sense of mortality constantly in mind, and that it was necessary to forget oneself, as much as possible, in living. Flo liked to quote Voltaire’s remark that “we are all condemned to death, but with a sort of indefinite reprieve,” and, in more serious moods, to refer to Hamlet’s famous declaration: “If it be not now, yet it will come, if it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now, if it be not now, yet it will come.” She had quoted this to Lila once, who, irritated at what she took to be Flo’s pretentious side, had given a succinct translation without knowing it. “Hamlet, shamlet, we’re all going to die sometime, so we might as well accept it.”

  Flo was a confirmed atheist, and she had no patience with the way some of her friends, no more pious than she was, gingerly skirted the issue, calling themselves agnostics. The euphemisms for death—references to “passing away,” “passing over,” “having gone to a better place,” and so forth, also favored among Boca Festa residents—struck her as annoying efforts to evade or prettify what she saw as a simple passage from being to nothingness. When confronted with death, her tendency in general was to laugh. “It’s not death in itself I find funny,” she explained to May and Lila, who often took her to task for her at
titude, “but the circumstances around it.” She had taken pleasure, for example, in hearing that Clara Zucker had kicked the bucket while leaning over the Chanel counter in Bloomingdale’s. And she had delighted in the irony that Yael Levy, who had suffered from emphysema for years, succumbed after exposure to smoke at a barbecue. Life, Flo thought, was absurd, and death was likely to reflect this. She had once told May that she had come up with a spin-off of Clue, the popular murder-mystery board game. “In my game,” said Flo, “we deduce who died through knowledge of the pod number and the activity in which the individual was occupied at the time of death: cards, golf, shopping, eating, and so forth.” May said she found nothing funny about Flo’s idea.

  If Flo Kliman had looked for a tale of death fitted to her particular taste in humor, she could not have done better than that of Hy Marcus. She learned about it on a Friday morning. She had arranged to meet May and Norman in the clubhouse lounge at eleven, where Amy and her friends were scheduled to continue their filming. Separate interviews with May and Norman had already been done, in which each had given personal background on themselves and described how they felt about each other. Amy had a gift for drawing out her subjects. She took a gossipy, confiding tone that Flo said made her sound like a young Barbara Walters, albeit with a pierced nose. Flo was looking forward to seeing Amy draw Norman and May out further, and to watching the coy responses of the couple, who were enjoying their time on camera as it paralleled their developing feelings for each other.