The Family Fortune

“Sure,” he said, and slipped into the booth across from me.

“I’m…” And then, of course, I paused. He had applied to the foundation. He’d know my name. “Lindsay Maple.”

“JR,” he said.

“JR what?”

“Just JR,” he said. “Like Cher or Madonna.”

I nodded and sipped my beer. Where to go from here? Now I was stuck with an unattractive squatter who was wearing two different patterns—plaid on top and checks on the bottom. At least if this JR wasn’t my Jack Reilly, there was still hope.

“I see you’re writing,” I said, and pointed to his notebook.

“I’m a writer,” he said.

“What kinds of things do you write?” I asked.

“Stories.”

“You living here for the winter?”

“It’s quiet here.”

“Where do you live?”

“Gingerbread cottages.”

“Amazing, me too,” I said. His teeth, when he smiled, were nicotine-stained, and he pulled out a packet of Nicorette gum. “Look, I have to ask you something. I heard that a guy named Jack Reilly lived near us in the gingerbread houses. Ever heard of him?”

He looked up, pressed his lips together, then smiled.

“I’m Jack Reilly,” he said.

“You said you were JR,” I said.

“JR, Jack Reilly.”

“Oh,” I said.

“And you’re Jane Fortune,” he said. “You make a terrible sleuth if that’s what you were trying to do.”

I blushed.

“How do you know me?” I asked.

“How do you know me?” he answered.

“I’ve been looking for you,” I said. “You submitted a story to the Review.”

“And that’s how I know you. I saw your picture on the Internet.”

“There’s a picture of me on the Internet?”

“Several. I knew you were living a few doors down. I knew who you were when you followed me in here and bought me this drink.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“I thought I’d let you play out your game. Didn’t want to disappoint. Why were you playing it anyway?”

“I thought you might be dangerous.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re squatting in that house.”

He nodded. “It wouldn’t be the first time. I believe that empty out-of-season homes should be used by the people who need them. Doesn’t make me dangerous.”

“But it’s stealing,” I said.

“Depends how you look at it.”

“I look at it as stealing.”

He smiled. I could see how the woman at the Butterfly Museum might have been taken in by him. He had a way of talking that made you feel like you were a precious stone sitting in the palm of his hand.

“I have some of your things,” I said.

“What things?”

“A letter from a nice lady at the Butterfly Museum, a couple of books, and a notebook.”

“My notebook. I’ve been looking everywhere for it.”

“The woman in Lynn gave it to me.”

“She’s a piece of work, isn’t she?” Then he paused and his brows came together. “Why were you there?”

“I told you. I’ve been looking all over for you,” I said.

“Why?”

And then I said it, though it didn’t come out the way I wanted it to: it wasn’t the grand announcement I had planned. Grand announcements didn’t feel right with this Jack Reilly.

“You won the damn contest—you won the fellowship,” I said.

“That’s great,” he said as if it came as no surprise. “But why didn’t you contact me at my post office box?”

“Believe me, if you’d put it on your story I would have. I wouldn’t have spent the winter tracking you all over New England.”

He hit the side of his head with the flat of his hand.

“We artists,” he said as if this were some sort of excuse for being a flake. “You gonna turn me in for squatting?” he asked.

“It’s none of my business, I guess, but I already told my friend Isabelle, and she’s not so forgiving about things like this. She’s a year-round resident, and I think she feels personally responsible for the entire island.”

“I’m screwed,” he said.

“Maybe not. The fellowship doesn’t usually start until June, but there’s no reason why it couldn’t start earlier. It is for the struggling artist.”

“That would be me,” he said.

Jack Reilly packed up his stuff that afternoon and came over to say goodbye. So it hadn’t been love at first sight. The hope I’d been holding broke into shards and I spent the afternoon walking carefully around them to keep from getting cut.

Maybe he wasn’t going to be my next big thing, but that wouldn’t keep him from being the next big thing in literature. I could help him. Wasn’t that my job?

By the time he walked away to the ferry with his battered backpack, I was feeling better. My Jack Reilly fantasy was gone and now I could get on with my life, whatever that meant.

Life on the Vineyard, if I were to admit it, was too quiet for me, and without my fantasy for company, lonely. When I walked down the street I looked with longing at “Help Wanted” signs and tried to picture myself answering phones in an insurance company or slinging scrambled eggs across a counter in a diner. I imagined myself as a bookseller or a salesclerk in a gift shop that sold scrimshaw.

One afternoon I went down to Isabelle’s bakery and asked for a job.

Isabelle wiped her palms against the front of her apron. She had a dusting of flour across her cheek.

“I need a job,” I said.

“You have a job, Jane,” she said.

“What job?”

“The foundation. You have the foundation. You don’t need to work in a bakery.”

“But you’re wrong. I do. I need to get my hands dirty.”

“Maybe you should try to write. You’re so good with words. There would be no Max Wellman without you— and how many others—Jessica Lowe, Marylou Patter, Axel Bonner.”

“They all would have made it without me,” I said.

She shrugged. “We’ll never know for sure, will we, because they had you.”

“Please, I want a job.”

“I think you’ve lost your mind.”

“That’s okay with me. I’m tired of my mind.”

“I can’t pay you much.”

“Don’t pay me at all.”