Free Jane Austen in Boca by Paula Marantz Cohen Page A

back to the clubhouse in search of a
New York Times
and a cold beer.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
    A LAN N EWMAN COULD HEAR HIS WIFE ON THE TELEPHONE WITH his mother in the other room. When Carol spoke on the phone, she always yelled, so it was no problem picking up the conversation. He had once asked her, while she was in the throes of a high-volume conversation with one of her friends, to “please speak in a normal voice,” and she had replied tersely, her hand spread over the mouthpiece, “This
is
my normal voice.” He had not seen fit to raise the subject again.
    He could hear her now, excitedly pumping his mother for details: “How many dates? Three?” Carol’s voice grew even louder. Norman Grafstein had been her idea. She had done all the legwork. To see the thing coming to fruition this way, and to have it happen at a distance, was a stupendous feat—better even than getting Wendy Wasserstein as the keynote speaker for the Hadassah luncheon last year. Alan sensed that Carol’s pleasure would only have been increased had the whole thing been more arduous and taken place in some even more remote locale—had she set up, say, a trappist monk with a nice Jewish girl in the outer reaches of Mongolia.
    “Have you had him to dinner yet?” Carol had entered into phase two: planning the capture. “You must have him to dinner, May. You cook so well, you’re a natural in the kitchen. The way you bustle around—wear the pink apron with the macrame—it’ll make him realize what he’s been missing.”
    There was a silence for a moment. May was obviouslyexplaining her disinterest in catching Norman Grafstein in the way Carol had in mind.
    “Don’t be silly!” Carol’s voice grew irritable—and louder, if that was possible. “Of course you want him to pop the question. You want to live alone in that little condo for the good years you have left when you could be gallivanting around the best Boca club, jetting to Europe twice a year, and taking weekends in New York? I know Norman Grafstein’s type. Men like that know how to live. Don’t give me that you don’t want a commitment. What woman doesn’t want a commitment? And don’t give me friends. Your friends are there for you because they don’t have a man of their own. You let Norman slip through your fingers and, believe me, one of them will snatch him up before you can blink an eye.”
    Listening to Carol’s authoritative pronouncements made Alan feel vaguely uneasy. Clearly he had been snapped up and must therefore have appeared to his wife to be hot property. This came as news to him. It made him wonder if he had assessed his own worth properly and possibly sold himself short. The thought, however—a momentary twitch of vanity—passed quickly Carol’s notion of value was so rarefied that no one, short of one of her equally yenta-ish friends, would have been privy to his qualities. Since he saw no advantage in having one of them over her (indeed, within her circle, Carol was acknowledged to be the best), the notion that he was worth more than he thought quickly dissipated. If anything, Carol had produced the value-added effect. By choosing him, she had greatly enhanced his resale worth. Were she ever to leave him, she would be able to say in good conscience that he would thereafter be advantageously viewed as Carol’s ex.
    It was strange for Alan to hear Carol speak to his mother about catching a husband. May, married at nineteen to the most dour of men, was unlikely to have an interest in the commodityaspects of marriage. And yet the conversation did not appear to be flagging.
    “Lila Katz?” he heard his wife scream. “She’s dating that
vantz,
Hy Marcus? Well, she could do worse. Give her my congratulations. You take Norman with you to the wedding. And make him dinner tomorrow night. Something substantial. Use lots of butter—worry about his cholesterol after you’re married. I’m going to be expecting both of you up here for Passover. You want to