Free Jane Austen in Boca by Paula Marantz Cohen Page B

say a few words to your son? He’s dying to talk to you. Alan! Alan!”
    Alan lumbered to the phone. He always felt that his own conversation with his mother, which circulated through a number of standard questions and answers, was particularly leaden and superfluous after Carol’s spirited exchanges.
    “Hi, Mom. How’re things going?”
    His mother’s voice was surprisingly animated, more surprisingly in having weathered conversation with Carol. “I’m fine, Alan. I’m feeling well, knock wood. How are the children?”
    “The children are fine. Adam has his school play next week.” There was an awkward pause. “We’re having a cold snap here, so you’re lucky to be where you are. Business is the same. Carol’s been redecorating the den.” He could think of nothing more to say and, impetuously, decided to break from the expected pattern of signing off. “I hear you’ve been seeing quite a bit of Norman Grafstein,” he offered shyly.
    “Yes …” His mother’s voice sounded pleased. “He’s a very nice man. We talk a lot about you and Mark. Mark’s living in Scotch Plains, you know, not far from you. And Norman’s niece lives in Morristown—the name is Schecter, I think; she belongs to B’nai Or … I told Carol.” She paused. “He’s a nice man,” she repeated.
    Alan, who had initially resisted his wife’s plan of introducing his mother to Norman Grafstein, heard the animation in hervoice and realized, once again, that Carol had been right. The thought of his mother’s happiness cheered him, and his own voice became, if not exactly animated, warmer in tone.
    “I like him, too,” he said. “I’m glad for you.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    “F LO’S IN LOVE!” ANNOUNCED L ILA AS SHE AND F LO JOINED M AY at the clubhouse one day.
    The idea of Flo in love struck May as unlikely, and, given Lila’s penchant for the dramatic, she merely looked over at Flo to have the statement refuted. Flo rolled her eyes but, to May’s surprise, also seemed to color slightly.
    “She’ll deny it,” continued Lila, “but I saw it myself She was actually flirting.”
    “Lila, calm down,” said Flo with irritation. “Just because I respond politely to a man who speaks to me with civility and intelligence doesn’t mean that I’m flirting.”
    “There, what did I tell you!” said Lila triumphantly. “She’s saying something nice about a man instead of tearing him to pieces. She must be in love.”
    May, not altogether in disagreement with Lila on this, turned to Flo expectantly. “Please,” she said, “fill me in.”
    Flo waved her hand as though the idea of describing such things was beneath her, but Lila eagerly took up the challenge. There was nothing she liked more than telling a juicy story.
    “Well,” she began now, buttering a roll as she started in, “I had stopped to pick Flo up on the way here, and just as we were getting into the car, she realized she’d left her watch at the pod pool this morning. I said she could always get it later, but she said no, she’d rather now, since some
alter cocker
might swipe it and send it as a present to his grandchild. Typical Flo, thinking that way—though I’ll admit that if we hadn’t gone to get thewatch, she might never have met him.
That
”—Lila’s voice took on an emphatic tone—”is what they call fate.” She paused at this point to take a bite from the roll and order a diet Pepsi from the waiter behind her.
    “So,” she continued, wiping her mouth carefully, as though preparing it to embark on the next lap of her saga, “we walked down to the pool to get it, and ran into Rudy Salzburg talking a blue streak to another man. You know how Rudy likes to take prospective buyers around the place, show the highlights, and get the rich ones to fork over something for the landscaping fund? Well, there he was with a very handsome gentleman.”
    Flo snorted. “You think anyone in pants is a handsome gentleman.”
    “This was a handsome