The Family Fortune

“That’s wonderful, Lindsay,” I said. Heather and Lindsay were both wearing short plaid skirts that made them look like they were fresh from the lacrosse field.

“Lindsay can’t wait,” Heather said.

“For what?” I asked. Charlie handed me a cup of mulled cider.

“Didn’t Charlie tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“That Max Wellman, the famous author, might come for dessert. You know, he wrote that book Duet for One that they made into a movie.”

“I only said might,” Charlie said. “He’s in the city and might not feel like driving out.”

“I hear he’s absolutely knock-down, drop-dead gorgeous,” Heather said.

“I’m the one with an interest in writing,” Lindsay reminded her.

“I’m talking about an interest in men,” Heather said.

“Isn’t he a little old for you girls?” I asked. They were only in their early twenties and Max was my age.

“What’s a few years when a man is gorgeous and successful?” Lindsay asked. “I think a man that age is looking for someone young and energetic.”

And fertile, I thought.

“Lindsay, you haven’t even met the man and you’re ready to marry him,” Marion said, laughing. She had two red circles on her cheeks from sitting too close to the fire.

Marion was able to sit because she had hired a woman named Gabriella to make and serve the meal. We were all so used to having help. Sometimes I wondered if it wouldn’t be better for us to do it ourselves. I wouldn’t have minded having a job to do. I needed something to distract me. Lindsay’s argument seemed so obviously true: why wouldn’t Max, having exhausted every supermodel in New York, come back looking for the right girl with whom to start a family, and why wouldn’t he look for someone young?

Both Lindsay and Heather were good choices. They were the sisters of an old friend and came from a welcoming sort of family. Lindsay and Heather were both very pretty in the way that youth has of being pretty— unself-conscious, lithe, athletic. They were both lacrosse stars at Wheaton. Maybe Lindsay was the more attractive one, with her straight red hair and green eyes, but Heather had plenty to recommend her. She was a little shorter than Lindsay and her hair was dark and curly. Her eyes were blue with a green tinge and she had a warmth about her. In that way, she reminded me of Marion, and maybe Heather would someday attain her girth, but for now both girls were just as lovely as any man could wish for.

The wine flowed at dinner and I helped myself every time it was offered. By the time we gathered around the fire in the living room I was teetering on the edge of being drunk. It started to snow lightly and we were the picture of a happy family on Thanksgiving. The television was on in the corner so we could watch the football games, but other than that, we looked like a family might have looked before television was invented. We fell into the soft chairs and sofas. I stared at the fire. The snow probably meant that Max wouldn’t be coming, so I settled down to what I thought would be a dull but predictable evening.

I felt displaced and melancholy, but as the “extra” woman soon learns, these feelings must be kept to herself. What she turns on the world has to be a false and happy face. A social face. It’s what everyone expects, and after a while it becomes what she expects from herself. The role of the single woman when attaching herself to another person’s family is to be cheerful and helpful. The idea is to get yourself invited again so you can be just as miserable as you were the last time you were there.

The Maples were open and hospitable and everything a family should be, but I didn’t have much in common with them. They weren’t a bookish group, despite Lindsay’s literary pretensions. And I, for better or worse, always felt most at home in a book. This might have been a social weakness, but it was also my greatest strength. It gave me my purpose. Without my feeling for words, I would have no center. When I started the Euphemia Review, I was fairly sure I had no genius of my own, but the irony was that I did have a genius—I had a genius for nurturing genius.

It was important to have a purpose. Winnie had her husband and children, and as soon as you have children, you can stop looking for a purpose in life. Your purpose is always there, running around, messing up diapers, needing food, education, toys, and experience. Children are a built-in purpose. Maybe that’s why so many people have them.

Heather and Lindsay were talking about a girl who was leaving school to get married.

“She’s only been there two years,” Heather said.

“Hasn’t even picked a major yet,” Lindsay said.

“I don’t think I’d do that. Not for any man.”

“I don’t know,” Lindsay said. “I think I’m going to be a writer, and a writer works mainly from experience, isn’t that true, Jane?”

“An education never hurts,” I said. God, I felt old. I would have liked to agree with her. I would have liked to be silly and frivolous, but I knew few writers—though there were some—who hadn’t had good educations.

“Hear, hear!” Marion said, lifting her glass. “Thank God for Jane and her good common sense.”

It should have made me feel proud, I suppose, to be known for my “good common sense,” but it didn’t. It was like being known for your “good sensible shoes” when you hankered after stilettos.

I got up and went into the kitchen where I found some dark rum on the counter and poured it into my hot cider. Gabriella was counting measures of coffee into the coffeemaker.

“Hello, Gabriella. How are you?” I asked. I knew her from other family parties. She was a fixture at the Maples’ house, though she didn’t live there. She had her own family in a working-class town a few miles away. I wondered what they were doing for Thanksgiving.

“There is more rum in the back cabinet,” she said, “for when you run out.” It was as if she knew I’d need more than the dregs of that bottle.

“Do you need some help with dessert?” I asked. “I could pile cups on a tray or fold the napkins.”

Gabriella turned from the counter and put her hand on her hip. She smiled. In my muddled state, I had the brief fantasy that only Gabriella understood me, that I’d be okay so long as I stayed in the kitchen.

“Are you a little drunk, Jane?” Gabriella asked.

“Not as drunk as I intend to be,” I said. I twisted one foot up against the other like a little kid caught doing something naughty.

“You’d better go back and sit down.” I left the warmth and brightness of the kitchen and returned to the living room.

“Anyway, I suppose he won’t come now,” Heather was saying when I slumped back into my chair.

Charlie looked up from the television. “If not this time, there’ll be another,” he said. “I’m going to sell him a house. He’ll be around.”

“He may be famous,” Marion said, “but is he a nice person? Don’t you think that’s the real question?”

“I’m sure he’s nice enough,” Lindsay said. “Writers don’t always have to be nice. They’re artists.”

The snow continued to fall. Just as I was settling down to my fourth spiked cider and comfortable with the idea that Max wasn’t coming, the doorbell rang.

“It’s him,” Lindsay said. She jumped from her seat.

“Calm down,” Charlie said.

“Really, girls. He’s just a man,” Charles Sr. said without looking up from the television.

“Well, it’s not like we have celebrities showing up on our doorstep every day of the week,” Marion said. She adjusted her bulk so that she was sitting straight on the edge of her chair. The girls looked like racehorses ready to burst through the starting gate. Charlie put out a restraining hand and went to the front hall.

There was the noise of greeting. A coat must be removed. A bottle of expensive wine must be handed over.

And then, there he was.

He was introduced to everyone.

I was last.

“Yes, Jane and I have met,” he said. He extended his hand. “Hello, Jane.” We might as well have been acquaintances who had bumped into each other once at a literary function.