It would have been nice if she found that her true calling was motherhood. Winnie had suffered from an intermittent postpartum depression since her younger son was born—and he had just turned five.
“A kiln takes up so much room,” I said.
“That’s hardly the point, Jane. My creative impulses should be encouraged. You must be careful or you could just die of boredom out here in the burbs.”
Winnie didn’t exactly live in the suburbs. She lived in a town called Dover—part suburb, part country—and she lived in the more rural section.
“Jane, I feel just awful about the house, don’t you?” Winnie said.
I had been working on getting over my feeling of displacement, but yes, I felt just awful about the house.
“It’s only a house,” I said.
“But it’s our house, the Fortune family house. I hate the idea of strangers living in it.”
“We still own it.”
“For now. If you can trust Dad and Miranda not to drive the family into absolute bankruptcy.”
“I think Littleton has a handle on it.”
“That buffoon. He has never had a handle on anything in his life. The only reason he’s a lawyer is that it runs in his family. He’s an idiot. I don’t know how he made it through law school.”
“Did you ever say anything about this to Dad?”
“Of course not. He thinks I’m thoroughly domestic and lacking all other qualities. He wouldn’t listen to anything I said. And if I didn’t know that before, I certainly do now. He never even included me in the discussion about the house. He acted as if it would make no difference to me at all.”
Winnie was right. We were an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of family. It didn’t occur to anyone to include Winnie in the discussions about the house. She had her own home and, we assumed, her own life.
“He might have listened to you,” I said, but I knew, even as I said it, that this was disingenuous. No one in our family listened to anyone else in our family. I was just trying to make Winnie feel better.
She squinted at me.
“Please, Jane. Sometimes Teddy listens to Priscilla, and that’s only because he knows enough not to always trust himself, thank God. But we have to face facts—Teddy and Miranda are two of the most dismissive people on the planet. Look what they did to you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, but I knew what she meant.
“Who is this Dolores character, anyway?”
“She’s Littleton’s daughter.”
“I know that. But why has she wheedled her way into our family and what does she hope to gain?”
“I think she wants Teddy,” I said. “He’s still a catch, even without as much money. It’s hard for us to see it, because we’re his daughters, but he’s extremely attractive to women.”
Winnie made a gagging sound. “You’re making me sick.”
“It’s true,” I said. I started to laugh, a little too wildly, and wiped the tears from my eyes.
“Miranda is deaf, dumb, and blind if she lets that social climber maneuver her way into our family,” Winnie said.
“You don’t even know her.”
“I’ve heard all about her.”
“From whom?”
“Priscilla called me.”
“Stirring up trouble.”
“Isn’t that what she does best?” Winnie took a sip of tea. She sighed. “The Wheaton girls will be home for Thanksgiving. I wish I were still in school. It’s the only time you get a real vacation.”
The Wheaton girls were Winnie’s sisters-in-law, Lindsay and Heather. Wheaton had been a small prestigious girls’ college until the late eighties, when it had finally gone coed.
When we had almost finished our tea, Winnie’s husband, Charlie, came in with the two boys.
“Finally! I thought you’d never come,” Winnie said. “Did you get the pies?”
“Apple, pumpkin, and mince. Hello, Jane.” I stood up and Charlie scooped me into a hug. His wool sweater was rough against my cheek.
Little Charlie, who was actually Charles Maple III—called Trey—jumped onto my lap.
“Did you bring us a present, Aunt Jane?” he asked.
“Maybe,” I said. He kissed me on the cheek and put his chubby arms around my neck. I closed my eyes and took in the little-boy smell of him. He jumped from my lap and Theodore—Theo—named for Teddy, kissed me on the cheek in a formal way. He was already eight and had recently acquired a little man’s dignity.
“You want some tea, Charlie?” I asked.
“Still hot?” Charlie put his palm on the teapot.
“It couldn’t be,” Winnie said.
“I’ll heat up some water,” I said.
“No. I’ll get it,” Charlie said. “Besides, you’re a guest.”
“She’s hardly a guest,” Winnie said.
“That’s right. Jane is family,” Charlie said.
“Boys, I picked up some of your toys and put them in a basket in the laundry room. Please take the basket upstairs and put the toys away,” I said.
Winnie looked at me as if I might have gone insane, but the boys went off to the laundry room immediately. When they came out, each was holding a side of the basket. Together, they dragged it upstairs. Winnie raised her eyebrows.
“They never do that for me,” she said.
“Element of surprise.”
Winnie shrugged and sighed. “I wish they’d do that for me.”
Charlie came back from the kitchen with a short glass containing an amber liquid.
“That’s not tea,” Winnie said.
“It’s Glenlivet.”
“You’d better put the pies in the freezer or they’ll never last until Thursday,” Winnie said.
“Done,” Charlie said. “Can I get you a drink, Jane?”
“It’s only two o’clock, Charlie. I don’t see why you have to start drinking so early,” Winnie said.
Charlie gave me a look that seemed to say that Winnie was the reason, but then he walked over to her and kissed her on the nose. “Thank you for worrying about me, dear. What would I do without you?”
What I didn’t know about married people could fill the Boston Public Library. Maybe if I kept my eyes open, I’d learn something, though what good it would do me at this point was an open question.
“You’ll never guess who we ran into at lunch,” Charlie said to Winnie.
“Who?” she asked, sounding not the slightest bit interested.
“Max Wellman.”
“Who?”
“You know, my friend Max Wellman.”
Winnie may not have known who Max Wellman was, but I was experiencing hot sweats and heart palpitations, all symptoms of panic. I hoped that’s what it was. Weren’t those also symptoms of menopause? I was only thirty-eight. It had to be panic.
For fifteen years I had managed to get only as close to Max as his clippings, but now he lurked around every corner.
Winnie poured herself more tea, though it had to be lukewarm.
“You must have heard of Max Wellman, Jane,” Charlie said. “He’s a famous author.”
“I have, but I didn’t know you knew him, Charlie.” I tried to keep my voice steady.
“From college. Have you read his books?” Charlie asked.
“All except for the last one.” Every time one of Max’s books came out, I’d run to the bookstore. Then I’d take the book home and devour it. I don’t know what I was looking for. Clues about Max? What sort of clues? With this latest book, Post, I had decided to hold back. Why should I still be rushing to read Max’s books? Maybe I wouldn’t even read this one. But, like an addict, I stalked the bookstores and hovered around the shelves. I opened Post, looked at the author photo, checked the acknowledgments page, but I always put it down again.
“Well, if Jane’s read this Max Wellman’s books, why haven’t I? You know how much I like to read, Charlie. Why haven’t you brought these books home?”
“We have every one
of them upstairs in the study,” he said.
“The least you could do, then, is point them out if he’s someone you know. How do you expect me to better myself out here in the absolute buttocks when you don’t share anything with me and when you won’t buy me a kiln?”
Charlie slumped. “It’s boondocks, not buttocks.”
“You don’t support me artistically,” Winnie complained.
“I support you in every other way.” He raised his voice and drained his glass.
“No need to be like that, especially in front of my sister.”
“Anyway, Max is here in town. He’s staying with his sister in Boston. She and her husband just rented a fantastic house on Beacon Hill for the winter.”
“That’s our house,” I said in a small voice.
“What?” Charlie asked.
“Brainchild, that’s our house. The Fortune family house,” Winnie said. “You know very well that Father rented it out for the winter.”
“I didn’t make the connection.”
“There’s no reason you should,” I said.
“I feel stupid. I’m so sorry, Jane.”
“What about me?” Winnie asked. “I think I deserve an apology, too. It was my house, too. I have been shamed, by association.”
“There is nothing shameful about renting your house out for the winter,” Charlie said.
“You’d think that, wouldn’t you? It is the way you’d think,” Winnie said.
“There’s nothing wrong with the way I think.”
“You just don’t know anything about the history of families.”
“To tell you the truth, I’m more concerned with my family’s present than its history,” he said.
“That’s because you don’t have a history to speak of. Second-generation English is hardly a history.”
“And you came over on the Mayflower,” Charlie said, his voice infused with sarcasm.
We didn’t, but we had as many generations behind us in America as you could without coming over on that particular boat. Still, what did it matter in the twenty-first century?
“Anyway, I invited him for Thanksgiving,” Charlie said.
“Who?” Winnie asked.
“Max.” Charlie seemed exasperated. “Isn’t that who we were just talking about?”
“Without asking me?” Winnie said.
“My parents are the ones having it,” Charlie said.
“Did you ask them?”
“I don’t have to.”
There was a small bit of skin hanging from my thumb and I began to chew on it.
“Don’t do that, Jane. It will get all bloody,” Winnie said. Charlie looked over. I saw myself as he must see me—dour, dry, somber, bookish, and lacking in style.
“Anyway,” Charlie said, “Max isn’t coming. He’s spending Thanksgiving with his sister.” Thank God, I thought. “But he might come over for dessert.”
Something banged hard on the floor upstairs and one of the boys shouted.
“Oh, Charlie, can you see to that?” Winnie asked. She had that fainting-couch look to her, as if any movement was beyond her strength.
“I will,” I said.
“No, Jane, I’ll go,” Charlie said.
He went upstairs.
“I think my husband is getting bored with me,” Winnie said. “I don’t know why. It’s as if everything I ask him to do is an ordeal. We haven’t had sex in a month.”
I didn’t like this kind of heart-to-heart. I wasn’t crazy about heart-to-hearts in general, but I especially hated them when they included the subject of sex. I wasn’t a prude, exactly, I just had never been one of those girls who discussed breasts, periods, and boys. My mother said that I had never really been young, but I had been young, only in a different way.
“I’m sure he loves you,” I said.
“That’s just the easy thing to say. But you’ve never been in a long relationship, and in a long relationship things fade.” She touched her hair. When she was younger it was a more sunny shade of blond. “You know what we need?” she said.
“What?”
“A girls’ day out.”
I couldn’t remember ever having had a girls’ day out with Winnie. I had gone shopping occasionally with Miranda, and that was more of a torture than a pleasure. Miranda was so meticulous about her choices: everything had to be by Leonardo da Vinci, look like it had been painted on by a master craftsman, and elegant without being showy. I once shopped with her for five hours and all she bought was a pair of silk socks and a face cream guaranteed to remove every worry line she ever had.
“Now, if they could only make a cream to remove the worry itself,” I had said.
Miranda looked at me like I was mentally defective. My family never understood my sense of humor. In fact, if you asked them, they’d say I didn’t have one.
“We’ll go on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I’m sure Charlie’s parents won’t mind taking the boys,” Winnie said.
“That’s the busiest shopping day of the year,” I said.
Winnie was undaunted. “Why should I worry about the busiest shopping day of the year? A master shopper never has to worry about the little people.”
“Why don’t I stay home and take care of the boys,” I suggested.
“That wouldn’t be any fun.”
I was flattered that Winnie thought I might be good company on a shopping trip. I’d never given her any reason to think so.
Charlie came downstairs. “The boys are fine,” he said. “Barely. Theo was close to popping Trey’s eye out with one of those plastic mega-monster things, but he’ll survive. I have to go out to the office for the rest of the afternoon. Max is thinking of moving back to this area and I told him I’d pull some listings. He says he’s ready to settle down in a rambling farmhouse. That’s what he said, ‘a rambling farmhouse with a stone wall and a brook and maybe a swing hanging from a tree.’ He thinks he’s ordering from a catalogue. Who knows? Maybe I can pull it off.”
“What will we do for dinner?” Winnie asked.
Charlie looked at Winnie as if she might manage to get off her ever-increasing behind and arrange dinner, but he said, “We’ll figure it out when I get home.”
Charlie put on his coat, pecked Winnie on the cheek, and went out to the car.
“I noticed some laundry when I was in the laundry room. I think I’ll just throw it in so it can be going while we’re sitting here,” I said.
“Thank you, Jane. You’re an angel. That’s such a good idea.” One she might have had herself. “I wonder why Marion hasn’t come over this morning.” Marion Maple was Winnie’s mother-in-law. “I thought she’d at least invite us over for dinner on Wednesday night when the girls get home.”
“I thought we were going there Thursday for Thanksgiving,” I said.
“We are.”
“That means two big meals in a row.”
“No difference to her. We’re family,” Winnie said. “Besides, she has help.”
Chapter 12
Charlie has complaints
Charlie got home at about five, and before he had even taken off his coat, Winnie called out to suggest that we have Chinese take-out for dinner.
Out in the hall, Charlie mumbled something I couldn’t catch. Then I heard, “Chinese food it is. I’ll go out and get it. Jane will go with me.”
“Oh no, Jane, stay with me.” Winnie grabbed my arm as if she had just been thrown off the Titanic and I was the only lifeboat. This was a little much, considering I was only going on a short errand, but as weird as it was, it did give me the sense that I was vital to Winnie’s very existence. Though I knew it wasn’t true, I liked the feeling. I wasn’t accustomed to being vital to anyone.
“I won’t be long,” I said.
Charlie and I got into his Navigator. It was dusky, almost dark, the gloomy hour. The possibility of running into Max again disturbed me. He would certainly be toting some high-fashion girl, and I’d feel dowdy and disregarded.
/> The evening was crisp but not too cold. Some Christmas lights were already up—too early in my opinion. Christmas was beginning to bleed into Thanksgiving more every year, and I refused to shop in any store that put up Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. Time passes quickly enough: there’s no need to hurry it along, especially in the name of commerce.
After we had been driving for about five minutes, Charlie said, “Jane, your sister is driving me insane.”
“Really,” I said. I kept my voice neutral.
“I don’t know what to do about it. It’s both better and worse when you’re around.”
“How do you mean, Charlie?”
“You’re so pleasant, so helpful. You make me see what I could have had. Someone who could help me instead of being so dependent.” I tried to resist the urge to feel flattered but was unsuccessful.
“You should talk to her, Charlie.”
“I’ve tried. I don’t know what to say anymore. She doesn’t discipline the boys. She hardly pays attention to them. My mother is practically bringing them up.”
“It couldn’t be that bad,” I said, but from what I’d seen that morning, it was very likely that bad.
“Couldn’t you talk to her?” he asked.
“I probably shouldn’t.” I was sure that I shouldn’t. Winnie didn’t take criticism with grace.
“I guess not,” he said. “It really is my problem.”
“Look,” I said, “I’ll be with you until Christmas. I’ll do what I can.”
“I know you will, Jane.” He turned toward me and put his hand over mine. “You’re the best.”
His hand did not feel like it was supposed to be on mine: there was something all wrong about it. He was my brother-in-law and he was just expressing himself, but still I wished he would find some other way to do it. I didn’t like to be touched, except when it was socially necessary, and this didn’t feel necessary at all.
A light snow was beginning to fall as we approached the restaurant. Charlie maneuvered into a spot in front of a nearby doughnut shop.
I slipped my hand out from under his and got out of the car.
Inside the restaurant, waiters ran up and down steps that led to different levels. Behind the counter a man was taking phone orders and nodding his head with vigor, as if the person on the other end of the line could see him.
The Family Fortune Page 8
