Laurie Horowitz - The Family Fortune

Dolores turned her head with a sharp tweak and looked at Teddy. Who was this Veronica Buffington? Was she a rival?

“I’m going to write her another note,” Teddy said.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” I asked. I had nothing against the Buffingtons. I liked them, but I hated to see Teddy humiliate himself just for an invitation.

“It can’t hurt. When Michael was alive, they had the best parties. All the really interesting people were there. We wouldn’t want to be left out this summer. Jane, you never did know the value of the right friends.”

Dolores looked up again. She might have realized that there was nothing especially “right” about her when it came to the scale on which my father measured friends. She might have managed to turn his head with flattery, but that was nothing compared with a Veronica Buffington.

“Why don’t you just call her?” Dolores asked. I think she thought that by offering a suggestion she could retain some control.

“No. I know what I’ll do. I’ll write her a downright obsequious note,” Teddy said. “Jane, where is that paper?”

We kept a stack of cream cards in a secretary behind the sofa in the living room. I went to get them and brought several back to the kitchen.

While Teddy was writing, Miranda came downstairs, still in her bathrobe.

“What are you doing, Daddy?” she asked.

“I’m writing to Veronica Buffington. She’s coming back to the island.”

“Will she have that insipid Glenda-the-Good-Witch with her?” Miranda asked.

“They’re both coming.”

“You’d think they wouldn’t want to do everything together. Glenda’s at least thirty-five. Why doesn’t she want a life of her own?”

Several weeks later, the four of us, Miranda, Dolores, Teddy, and I, were having lunch at a restaurant that claimed to serve the best fried clams on the island. We were seated at a table with a view of the harbor. It was a warm June day and we had just entered the summer season.

“The Buffingtons’ party is next Friday night and we’re all invited,” Teddy said. He pulled out the invitation with a flourish. Apparently he had just received it that morning.

“I can’t go,” I said.

“Why not?” he asked.

“I’m having dinner with Isabelle,” I said. “We get together every Friday night.” It had become our ritual.

“If you have dinner with her every Friday, then you don’t have to go on this particular Friday. I’m sure she’ll understand,” Teddy said.

“The Buffingtons will have other parties.”

“Jane, I can’t believe you’d give up the first good party of the season for something you do every week. Besides, how could the baker be anywhere near as interesting as the people who will be at the Buffingtons’?”

Dolores looked into her clam chowder. Though she’d managed to amuse Miranda and Teddy for months, she couldn’t claim to be as “interesting” as the kind of people you’d find at the Buffingtons’. Dolores had never painted a picture, played a concerto, or danced with the Boston Ballet. These were the type of luminaries you might find at a Buffington party. I’m sure the only reason they invited us is that we were somewhat related to them.

I picked up a fried clam and popped it into my mouth.

“I’m going to dinner with Isabelle,” I said.

“I never could understand you, Jane,” Teddy said.

“No, you never could.” I smiled and lifted my face toward the ocean breeze.

Teddy had a spot of tartar sauce on his chin and Dolores reached over with her thumb and wiped it off.

“Daddy,” Miranda said, “you’re not usually such a mess.”

Dolores came to his defense. “It was just a small spot of tartar sauce.”

“Yes, but it was on his face, and perhaps he should be the one to wipe it off, don’t you think?”

Dolores reddened, but instead of looking down like she usually did, she looked straight at Miranda with an expression of defiance.

“Girls, girls,” Teddy said. “It was only a spot of tartar sauce. Let’s not blow it all out of proportion.”

At eleven o’clock in the morning on the day of the Buffingtons’ party, I watched from an upstairs window as Guy Callow strolled up our front walk carrying a bouquet of flowers so large it concealed his head.

Miranda answered the door.

“Hello, Guy,” she said. She used her bored, aristocratic voice, but there was a hint of the flirt in it. “You should have told us you were coming. I would have dressed.” She was wearing a bikini with a sarong draped around her waist.

I couldn’t very well stay upstairs, so I went down and hovered outside the sunroom where my father was reading the paper. When Miranda led Guy into the room, Teddy stood and held out his hand. “Come on in, son,” he said. “Good to see you. What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

Whatever rift had kept them apart all these years had apparently been repaired in that one meeting up in Boston.

Guy was still holding the enormous but unlovely bouquet, which made shaking hands with my father awkward.

“Sit down, Guy. Bethany will get you some coffee.” Bethany, for some reason I could barely fathom, was always happy to do my father’s bidding. Of course, she was getting paid for it, but she was so agreeable you’d think Teddy Fortune was the most likable man she’d ever met. I could imagine her, at night, discussing our foibles with her family, not in a malicious way, but as if we were an anthropology project.

I slipped into the room as Bethany was leaving to go back to the kitchen. She winked at me and mouthed the word hunk.

“Hello, Jane,” Guy said. He pushed the flowers at Miranda. I was glad to see that he knew what was correct. He’d have to pay homage to my sister before he was going to get any attention from me.

“Thank you,” Miranda said.

Miranda handed the flowers to me. “Jane, if you are going in to help Bethany, can you put these in water?” She perched on a wicker chair. “Sit down, Guy,” she said.

Guy looked at me. It was that look, that look of admiration, but now it was also the presumptuous look of a shared secret. In the sunlight, Guy’s blue eyes had a violet ring around the irises. His hair was shorter than when I’d last seen him. His white tennis sweater showed off his tan.

I took the broom of foliage into the kitchen to look for a vase. Bigger is not always better. I finally found a large glass vase hidden behind some bottles of olive oil in the pantry.

The flowers looked top-heavy, but it was the best I could do. I took a tray from a low cabinet and set out the willow-pattern cups and saucers, creamer and sugar bowl.

“Thanks, Jane,” Bethany said, “I can do that.”

We both leaned against the kitchen counter and waited for the water to boil.

“You are not like the rest of your family,” Bethany said.

“I’m not?”

“They think that the world was made to revolve around them. You’re not like that.”

“Oh, don’t be so sure,” I said.

She shook her head. While we were making the coffee in the French press, Guy came into the kitchen. He gave Bethany an appraising glance. His eyes took a short vacation in the cleft between her breasts. He was so accustomed to that type of looking he probably didn’t realize he was doing it.

“Can I help?” he asked. He came toward me and stood too close. Bethany backed away a little, looked at him, then at me, finished plunging the coffee, picked up the tray, and took it into the sunroom. She didn’t come back. She must have decided to make the beds.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay with everything,” Guy said.

“I don’t know what everything is,” I said. I turned and poked at the flowers, trying to make the arrangement more aesthetically pleasing. “Look, I’m sorry about it.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Guy said. His hands met mine on the vase. He smiled at me with those violet-rimmed eyes. The kitchen was sunny and warm. Other than the hideous bouquet and perhaps the wolfish look at Bethany, he hadn’t done anything that was so unpleasant it couldn’t be forgiven. I stifled the feeling that he wasn’t all he appeared to be. I gave him what I hoped was an unself-conscious smile and removed my hands from the vase. I took the chance that he would continue to hold it and not let it crash to the floor: his grip on the vase was firm.

“You look beautiful, Jane,” he said.

“Don’t say that. It makes me feel ridiculous.”

“Beautiful women are never ridiculous.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. They are often ridiculous.”

Guy looked like he might have reached out to me then had he not been encumbered by the mammoth vase. I walked toward the sunroom and there was nothing he could do but follow.

It was a beautiful day, breezy and not too hot. Someone had opened the windows and the silk curtains blew against the panes.

“We were just saying that you should come to the Buffingtons tonight, Guy. I’m sure I could get you an invitation,” Teddy said.

Teddy had barely procured an invitation for himself and his two cohorts. Was he now going to call Veronica and ask if he could bring another guest?

“Actually,” Guy said, “Glenda invited me.”

Miranda sat up straight and turned to Guy.

“You know Glenda?” she asked.

“I met her a few years ago at a cancer benefit.”

“Really. What do you think of her?” Miranda leaned forward. This pose showed off what minimal cleavage she could muster.

“She’s a little quiet for my taste,” Guy said.