The Family Fortune

car.

After a few wrong turns, I found number 3 Briar Patch Lane. A big step up from the Lynn apartment, it was a neat saltbox with a wraparound porch. It even had a picket fence, but it wasn’t white. Someone had painted it black. Was this stab at irony the work of Jack Reilly? I opened the gate and went up the icy front walk. Failure to put down rock salt in winter—in my opinion—is a sign of neglect. The mailbox hung crooked beside the door, and when I stepped onto the porch one of the floorboards came loose.

I hoped that Jack Reilly wasn’t anything like this house. Though it was pleasing enough on the outside, on closer examination it was in serious need of repair.

After I rang the bell, I heard steps padding toward the door. Unfortunately, those steps were followed by barking. I waited. It wasn’t as if knocking on a stranger’s door was easy for me. I admired Hope Bliss for going into investigation. I could never do it. I felt nervous and out of place standing out there in the cold. But my desire to find Jack Reilly was strong enough to outweigh even my natural reticence. I waited a few more minutes, but no one came, so I wrote a note and slipped it under the screen door. I could have used the crooked mailbox, but I wanted to be sure that whoever came home saw my note first thing.

I stumbled back down the walk, got into my car, turned the heater up high, and drove back to the Inn at Long Last. It was late afternoon and I was supposed to join Max and the Maples in time for dinner.

My car wasn’t the best car for the roads of Vermont, and when I finally found the house Max had rented, I had trouble maneuvering up the snowy driveway. I finally parked on the street and trekked up what seemed like a quarter mile to the door. I stopped for a moment on the landing, then knocked.

Max and Lindsay answered the door together. They were wearing sweaters and jeans. They weren’t exactly matching, but they might as well have been. Max’s arm was draped over Lindsay’s shoulder.

It made me want to take the snowmobile I saw in the side yard and drive it onto a lake that hadn’t quite frozen over. I could fall into the ice and disappear, never to be heard from again.

“It’s so good to be here,” I said, and hugged them both.

“Look at this house. Isn’t it awesome?” Lindsay said. “Isn’t Max incredible?” Her eyes shone with that look some women get when they believe they are looking at something that will someday be theirs. Max didn’t own this particular house, but if he married Lindsay, this type of experience would be hers for the asking.

“Hardly incredible,” Max said. He tweaked her ear, which I thought a strange thing for a lover to do. He had never tweaked my ear.

Max’s friends the Franklins, and a man introduced as Basil Funk, arrived only minutes after I did. Duke Franklin had been Max’s mentor. Duke was an extremely popular mystery novelist. His most famous series character, Gideon Thackeray, had been alive longer than I had. Duke was so prolific that he often wrote under several different names. He was rich and had been happy until a year ago, when his daughter, Cynthia, had been jogging along a road near their house and was mowed down by a drunk driver.

Cynthia had been engaged to Basil, a struggling artist. They had been living together on Duke’s impressive estate—I’d seen a spread on it in Architectural Digest. Basil was so lost when Cynthia died that he had remained in the guesthouse on the edge of the property ever since.

I followed Max into a sunken living room, where he poured drinks from a fully stocked bar.

“How is Inga working out?” Duke said in a low voice.

Inga?

Max looked toward the kitchen. “She seems fine.”

“She’s an excellent cook. We hire her for all our parties,” Nora Franklin said. Nora had an air of distraction about her, and she stared into her glass of wine as if she might find something in it. Basil was not exactly gregarious, either. He sat beside me on what could be loosely termed a love seat and stared dolefully into the fire.

“Mr. Franklin,” Heather said, “I’ve read every one of your books. All twenty-six of the Thackeray novels. I can never wait for the next one.”

“I’ll have to write faster,” Duke said. “And call me Duke.”

Winnie, who was sitting with Charlie in a love seat near the fire, looked up as if she’d like to say something, but having nothing to add, sipped her cider.

Basil turned toward me.

“I always read the Euphemia Review,” he said. “I think it’s becoming one of the leading literary reviews in the country, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Why not put some art in it?” he asked.

I had thought about that. Five-color pages with high-end production value would double the cost of the magazine.

“I don’t have a background in art,” I said. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.” I had to remember that I had no special background in literature either, but I had a passion for it, and so far that had made up for any other deficiency. “I don’t trust my artistic judgment,” I said, and took a sip of red wine.

“You could get someone to help you,” Basil said. He put his hand on my leg and leaned toward me. He was closer than I liked strangers to be.

“I could,” I said, “but I always thought I’d do better if I concentrated on one thing.”

“That’s interesting,” Winnie said.

“What is?” I asked.

“I never imagined you gave it so much thought. It’s like the family foundation is a profession or something.”

“You’ve given grants to artists before,” Basil said, ignoring Winnie.

“Usually for memorials and things like that. We gave a grant to Muriel Spiking, who did an AIDS memorial for the median strip on Commonwealth Avenue.”

“Muriel Spiking’s a hack,” Basil said.

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. Even if he didn’t like her work, it was rather impolitic of him to say so when he knew I had given her a grant.

“Bronze boxes. That’s all she does. Bronze boxes of every shape and size. Bronze boxes. Bronze boxes.”

“You see, then, why I don’t often give grants to artists. I don’t trust my taste.”

“Jane, your taste has always been impeccable,” Max said.

Lindsay gave him a quizzical look. I glanced at him and he smiled at me. Friends. We were friends now.

Basil took his hand from my leg and put it back on his own. He began to tap his fingers as if an imaginary piano had suddenly appeared on his knee.

“A person of intelligence, such as yourself, can always learn discernment,” he said. “I’d like to show you some of my work.”

“And I’d like to see it,” I said. Basil Funk amused me. I didn’t know why exactly. Perhaps I needed to be fawned over. He wasn’t bad-looking, except for his hair, which was cut in a monkish style and hung in fringes just above his eyebrows.

“Tomorrow night when you all come to dinner,” he said.

“I’ll look forward to it,” I said. He reached out and took my hand. I saw that Max was looking at us. I was too warm and it wasn’t from the fire. I got up to get another glass of wine. I offered drinks to the party and everyone accepted, so I spent a few minutes filling orders. Max came over to help me.

“You look flushed,” he said. He touched my cheek with the back of his hand.

“I’m a little warm,” I said.

I could profess my intention to be “just friends” with Max from now until the end of days, but that wouldn’t keep my temperature from rising when he was near.

“Basil seems to like you,” Max said.

I glanced over my shoulder to see if Basil could hear us. He was staring into the fire with a inconsolable look.

“Don’t be silly,” I said.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Jane,” Max said.

“Let’s make a deal. I won’t sell myself short if you don’t try to sell me off.”