The Family Fortune (2 page)

The next morning Priscilla was the first to arrive for brunch. She arrived at ten o'clock on the dot. She was always on time and always brought her knitting with her. If there were an Olympic event for nonstop knitting, Priscilla would definitely place. She sat in her favorite camelback chair and pulled out her current project.

When Dolores trailed her father into the sitting room before breakfast, Priscilla started to steam like a teapot. Dolores Mudd was Littleton's errant daughter who had recently returned to Boston after an unsuccessful adventure in Hollywood. Miranda found something riveting about Dolores, and that summer Mi
randa had anointed Dolores her new best friend. It felt like Dolores spent more time at our house than at her own. Dolores served as Miranda's lady-in-waiting and peppered her with compliments. “You look just like Grace Kelly,” she said. Miranda does not look like Grace Kelly. Okay, maybe she does—a very skinny one.

Dolores was a worn twenty-seven and her hair had been bleached so many times it looked like it might crack off her head. She had a crooked front tooth that was more endearing than unattractive. It made her look vulnerable, and a little softness was just what she needed. She wore black jeans and spiked heels. The heels were unnecessary for a casual family brunch. Who on earth was she hoping to impress? And what would those shoes do to our hardwoods? I'm sure they weren't friends of Chinese carpets either.

I thought Miranda's fascination with Dolores was peculiar. Miranda herself had a fine-wine kind of beauty, while Dolores was more like Boone's Farm fermented apple beverage. Maybe Miranda was fascinated by Dolores's presumed unconventionality. Dolores had followed her dream to California, even if it only resulted in a messy divorce and a small part in a sitcom called
Life Itself,
which was canceled after six episodes. Neither Miranda nor I had had the gumption to follow our dreams. As far as I knew, Miranda didn't even have a dream, unless it was marrying a suitable CEO.

Dolores was wearing a pink mohair sweater. It showcased her artificially enhanced breasts. She wasn't shy about her implants. The first time I met her, she took my hand, placed it on her right breast, and said, “Feel this. It's hard as a rock.”

“I'd rather not,” I said. I pulled my hand away, but not before noticing that Dolores's breast was indeed as dense as petrified wood.

“Jane is not very experimental,” Miranda apologized for me. Perhaps not, but I wasn't interested in touching another woman's breast, even in the interest of science.

“And they'll never sag, not even when I'm a hundred,” Dolores said.

“That's lucky,” I said, but I couldn't really see how a shriveled old
woman sporting the sprightly breasts of a sixteen-year-old cheerleader was a good thing. It seemed to me that all the parts of your body should age together as some kind of unified whole.

On the way into the dining room, Priscilla pulled me into an alcove in the hallway near the front door. She kept her voice low, more of a hiss than a whisper.

“I don't understand the attraction Miranda has for that girl,” Priscilla said.

“Dolores glitters, I guess,” I said. It was the best explanation I could come up with. And it was true in its way. At the very least, Dolores sparkled, whether it was her hair clips, her bracelets, her dangling rhinestone earrings, or a combination of these that rendered the effect, I don't know, but something about her was arresting.

“Like costume jewelry,” Pris said. “She doesn't fool me with that bottled tan and bleached hair. Dolores Mudd is completely ordinary, if you ask me.” No one did ask her, but that never stopped Priscilla from offering an opinion.

“And it's so inappropriate,” she said, “her being here, today of all days.” I still didn't know what Pris meant by that, since Dolores had joined her father for every monthly brunch since she'd returned home in May. “She was definitely not invited, I can assure you.”

Dolores had made a lame excuse when she arrived—something about needing to catch a ride with her father into the city because she was going to a concert on the Esplanade that afternoon—but I didn't believe her. She was as fascinated with us as Miranda was with her. I feared that it might also have something to do with Teddy, a good catch for someone like Dolores, despite the difference in age. My father is almost irresistible to women, and that's hard to admit, especially when I haven't made a dent in the social landscape for years.

“Remember Guy Callow?” Pris asked. She was still holding me in the alcove with a hand hooked into my elbow.

“You can't blame Miranda for that. It was so long ago.”

“Just an example of Miranda's bad judgment when it comes to
friends.” Priscilla didn't want to miss yet one more opportunity to offer a negative opinion.

Guy Callow was a short-lived boyfriend of Miranda's, the son of some of Teddy's out-of-town friends. The summer Guy took the Massachusetts bar exam, Teddy offered our house as a base of operations. I met Guy briefly but went out to the Vineyard to open our summer house. Teddy and Miranda waited a couple of weeks to make sure Guy had everything necessary to fortify him for the exam—which, apparently, included Miranda. After Teddy left for the Vineyard, Miranda stayed behind. Guy was supposed to come out to the island with her, but a month later she came out alone. She was not happy. She spent hours sitting in the sunroom staring at nothing in particular.

“You want to talk about it?” I asked once.

“Nothing really to say,” she said. “He thinks I'm spoiled, and if he thinks that, then he doesn't know me at all. I'm hardly spoiled.” She fingered her three tennis bracelets. They sparkled in the sun.

“Do you think I'm spoiled, Jane?”

She had never asked me a question like that before. A better sister would have given a more honest answer.

“He shouldn't have said it,” I said. “We were all very kind to him, very hospitable. Whatever he thought, he would have been better off keeping it to himself.”

Miranda stared at me and tapped her fingers on the arm of the chair. Perhaps she realized I had given no answer, but she was as morose as I'd ever seen her and I couldn't hurt her more. I lived by that old rule, “First, do no harm.” Miranda's malaise lasted five days, but after that, she went back to her tennis games and parties.

Three years later, we heard from Guy's parents that he had married a Dutch supermodel named Ooh-Lala. When Miranda heard about this she walked down to Saks and bought a Louis Vuitton train case. When she came back from the store, her mood was much improved. The purchase of an expensive piece of luggage, apparently, cured her of any residual feelings she had for Guy Callow. I couldn't understand how a designer
bag could so easily repair a broken heart. I was a different animal. I could remain inconsolable for years.

I finally extricated myself from Priscilla and went into the kitchen, where our housekeeper, Astrid, was cutting mushrooms for a frittata. Her black hair was wrapped around a serving spoon. Tendrils fell forward and she periodically wiped at them with the back of her wrist. Astrid was around my age, but she always acted like an older sister. She must have thought I needed one, despite the obvious fact of Miranda.

“The king is ready,” I said.

“Well, I'm not,” she said. She chopped with ferocity. Astrid joined our family on the heels of my mother's death. We always had cooks and housekeepers, but compared with Astrid they had all the emotional depth of a kitchen appliance. Astrid floated up our walk one winter, swinging her hips like a Brazilian Mary Poppins, and I don't know what I would have done without her.

I picked a mushroom from the cutting board, slipping my fingers around her moving knife.

“I cut your fingers off,” she warned.

“Not on purpose, I hope.” I popped the mushroom into my mouth. “Need help?”

“You take the coffee out.” She nodded toward the Limoges coffee service.

“Astrid?”

“Yes?”

“Do you know what's going on here today? What this brunch is all about?” She looked at me. She knew. “Tell me,” I said.

“Ouch,” she said. I looked at her hand. She had sliced into her finger. The cut was bleeding into the mushrooms. “Damn,” she said. “Toss those, will you, Jane? The ones with the blood.” She went over to the sink to run some cold water over her hand, then wrapped her finger in a paper towel.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Take the coffee out,” she said.

“Astrid?”

“Please, Jane, take the coffee out.”

I lifted the heavy coffee urn, balancing it with one hand on its base, and carried it into the dining room, where the entire party was now seated.

“About time,” Teddy said. “Where on earth is Astrid?”

“She cut her finger.”

“That was clumsy of her.”

My father liked to think that one person—Astrid—could handle every chore in our house. It was as if he never noticed me picking up after him, folding his clothes, putting Miranda's shoes away, throwing in a load of laundry, dusting a room. The illusion of “help” was especially important to him when we had company. We were a family with a full-time servant, and for Teddy, the show was more important than the service itself.

“She's finishing the frittata,” I added. This was his favorite of all Astrid's dishes and I knew that this would appease him.

“I
do
love Astrid's frittatas,” he said.

I poured coffee for Dolores. Although she hadn't been invited, she was still a guest. Priscilla, who sat across from her, was a guest also, and older, so proper etiquette would indicate that she should be served first, but Priscilla was as good as family.

Whatever was going to happen that morning, I wanted them to get it over with. Maybe Teddy was sick. Whatever it was, I wanted to know. If something had happened to my sister Winnie or to one of her boys, someone would have told me before this. There would be no need for Littleton, no buildup.

Astrid came in with the frittata. She had a bandage on her finger. I followed her back into the kitchen to help her with the biscuits, bacon, and fruit.

“You're not going to tell me anything, are you?” I asked.

She gave me a bowl of berries.

“Not my place,” she said. Astrid, who came to us speaking very little English, was now fluent, but she still retained a mild accent. She shouldered me gently to let me know I should head back into the dining room.

“That never stopped you before,” I said.

“Well, it's stopping me now.”

Between us, we put everything on the table. Astrid didn't stay to serve. That was my job. Or, if Miranda was so inclined, she could play lady of the house.

When I sat down, Dolores was talking.

“I was in Starbucks,” she said, “in West Hollywood.” She talked as if we should all have a clear picture of the West Hollywood Starbucks. Our picture had only as much clarity as it could get from all Starbucks being just alike. “And you would not believe who I saw.” She paused. When no one responded, she continued. “It was none other than Tootie from
The Facts of Life
.” She ended with a flourish.

“That's nice,” Teddy said. He gave her a twisted smile. I knew that he had no idea that
The Facts of Life
was a dead sitcom from the 1980s. Even if he knew, he wouldn't have cared. He was not impressed by celebrity. He was much more interested in having an old Boston name and the old Boston money that went with it.

“Oh,” Miranda said with feigned interest and less enthusiasm. We were not a television-watching family. My mother had seen to that. When we were children, she had orchestrated our spare time like a symphony. Miranda had been a tennis champion. Winnie had won ribbons for dressage, and I was told I could have been an Olympic skater if I had given the time to it. My mother thought it unnatural for a child to focus too much on one thing, so I became a very good skater, but nothing more.

Miranda made up for her childhood television deficiency by becoming addicted in college to a soap opera called
All My Children
. My assistant, Tad, was named after a character in
All My Children,
and though I'd never seen it, I thought the idea of naming your child after a soap opera character delightfully silly. My little sister Winnie, a housewife in the suburbs, has also made up for the dearth of television, and now she compares almost everything in life to an episode of
Seinfeld
.

“And I saw, if you can believe it, Sally Struthers in Ralph's. That's a
supermarket,” Dolores said. She was trying for more traction, but the ground she was treading was just too slippery.

“Who?” Priscilla said.

“You know. From
All in the Family
.”

“I don't know,” Pris said, “and I'd rather not know. Dolores dear, whatever happened to your husband, Mr. Mudd?”

The silence in the room took on a shape of its own. Dolores tucked a fugitive hair behind her left ear and summoned all her dignity.

“We had a falling-out,” she said.

“So I assumed,” Priscilla said. She took a sip of coffee. Priscilla had the posture of someone who never dropped fine china.

“They just didn't get along.” Littleton stepped into the ring to defend his daughter, but compared with Pris, he was a mere featherweight.

“If you must know,” Dolores said, “my husband, Howard Mudd, was gay.” She sank her chin toward her pert breasts in a gesture that was calculated to inspire pity.

“Before or after you married him, dear?” Priscilla lowered her voice and made it soft and inviting.

My father shot Pris a glance meant to let her know that she'd gone far enough. No one was allowed to be rude to guests at his table.

After the meal, we took our remaining coffee back into the sitting room.