The Family Fortune

“That’s impossible.”

“It’s true.” She choked on a piece of meat and started to cough. She wasn’t shy about it, but instead coughed as if the food were caught somewhere between her knees instead of in her throat. Hope drank her water and then sucked down all of mine.

“Well,” she said. “I’m going to find your Jack Reilly.” I liked the way that sounded. My Jack Reilly. “And probably sooner than you think.”

I gave her my friend Isabelle’s address on Martha’s Vineyard. I had decided to leave as soon as possible. All I had to do was give my speech at Wellesley and I could go.

There was no way I was going to spend the winter with Priscilla and the karate kid.

I considered Palm Beach, but after one phone call with Miranda and Teddy I gave up that plan. They were thoroughly ensconced, doing the rounds, a party almost every night. Miranda said that Dolores was invaluable. I’m sure Miranda counted on her to do the things I always did—to make the coffee in the morning, to take care of the laundry, see to the food shopping.

They obviously didn’t need me, so I called Isabelle on the island. She told me to come right out, that she knew someone who had been looking for a tenant for one of the gingerbread cottages in Oak Bluffs. It would be perfect for me.

I paid the bill and Hope and I walked out onto the street.

“I’m so glad you called me, Jane.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, anything.” She picked at her back teeth with a toothpick.

“How did we lose touch?”

“I don’t know exactly. I guess it was when we went to different high schools. Also, my mother liked you, and at the time, that was a good reason for me to avoid you.”

I didn’t remember Hope Bliss avoiding me. It wasn’t like she had so many friends that she could afford to avoid one. She was fat and eccentric and it took a person who could see past that to befriend her.

“Do you think I’ve changed?” I asked Hope.

“Not at all. What about me?”

“You’ve become impressive.” That appeared to please Hope, since when we were children she could in no way have been called impressive. She spent her childhood in a constant battle with her weight and her mother.

Though Hope was still fat, she somehow seemed to have won the battle with both.

Chapter 26 Men in briefs

The evening of my speech, I met the dean of the Wellesley College English Department, Lydia McKay, in her office and together we walked across the frozen campus. Dean Lydia was young, in her forties, and she hadn’t been at Wellesley when I was there.

I thought Dean Lydia was taking me to an ordinary classroom in one of the Gothic-style buildings I had loved so much when I was a student. Instead, she led me to one of the large auditoriums on campus that were meant to accommodate an audience of several hundred. These types of lectures were rare here (or at least they had been in my time). I was daunted by the size of the room and asked Lydia if this was the only room she could get. Wouldn’t a smaller one be more appropriate?

She scratched the side of her nose, pushed up her glasses, and looked at me as if I were a puzzle she couldn’t quite figure out.

“Appropriate, Jane? I don’t know what you mean.”

“I just think this room is a little big, but that’s okay, we can have everyone sit up front so it won’t seem so cavernous.”

“But I chose this room because I think we’re going to need all of these seats. We announced your talk in the Boston Globe.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. The idea of several hundred people showing up on a Thursday night in late January to see me was not only frightening but also preposterous.

I was wearing my green suit and I’d gone to Mr. Marco so he could trim and tint my hair. My index cards were in my left pocket and I must have looked like someone competent, but I felt like a puddle.

“Anyway,” Dean McKay said, “I wanted you to see the venue. We’re early so we can grab a cup of coffee in the student union.”

We walked back across campus. I poured myself a decaf from one of the huge urns I remembered so well from the all-nighters of my college days. The dean waved me past the cashier and wouldn’t let me pay.

As we walked to the only open table we could find at that hour, girls called out to “Dean Lydia.” A girl with tortoiseshell glasses and blue-tipped hair approached us. She had a stack of Euphemia Reviews in her arms.

“Miss Fortune, I’m a huge fan of yours. You’re one of the reasons I came to Wellesley. I’d like to be an editor someday. Could you sign these?”

“Jane, this is Sarah Mulcaster,” Dean Lydia said, “your biggest fan.” I smiled at her. “Sarah, Miss Fortune will be signing after her talk. You can speak to her then.”

“Signing?” I asked.

“Some people want you to sign the Review,” she said. “So we’ve set up a table in the lobby.”

“But I didn’t write any of the work in the Review. I really shouldn’t sign it.”

“Why not? It’s your Review.”

“And Evan Bentley’s.”

“Yes, of course,” she said.

When we entered the hall it was almost full and people were still pouring in. I was appalled. I thought I was going to be speaking to a group of about twenty-five girls, not to men and women from God-only-knows- where.

My pile of index cards felt weightless and I had to touch them to make sure they were still in my pocket. Was there a way I could get out of this—feign sickness—or maybe death?

Just as I was beginning to feel like I might vomit (thereby making feigning sickness unnecessary), I looked up and saw Tad sitting in the front row. He smiled and waved. I jumped off the stage to greet him.

“I can’t believe you came,” I said.

“Wouldn’t have missed it,” he said. “Even for a hockey game, which, I might add, I had tickets to. You look very nice.”

“That’s high praise coming from you,” I said.

“You ready?”

“For this? I don’t think so. I thought I’d be in a little classroom talking to a few girls.”

“Oh, Jane, you just don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“All these girls want to be like you.”

“I doubt that very much. Little girls say that they want to be princesses, nurses, sometimes doctors and lawyers, but they hardly ever say that ‘when I grow up I want to be a desiccated old maid.’”

“That’s only because they don’t know what desiccated means.”

Dean Lydia beckoned to me and I got back onto the stage by way of the stairs. She indicated a chair for me to sit on while I was being introduced, and as I was about to sit down, I was both surprised and delighted to see Bentley and Melody come through the door. It warmed my heart to think that they would show up just for me. They must have seen the notice in the Globe.

Finally, Dean Lydia went to the podium. She tapped the microphone, unable to get it to work at first. Wasn’t this always the case? It took a student well versed in audiovisual equipment to mount the stage and press the right