The Family Fortune by Laurie Horowitz

Dolores, then looked at me.
    â€œDaddy, Dolores has to come,” Miranda said.
    â€œCertainly, if she wants to.” He gave Dolores a benign smile, but the smile Dolores turned on him was anything but benign. Her smile was both ingratiating and insinuating. It was obvious that, despite her Hollywood experience, Dolores was a better actress than anyone gave her credit for.

C hapter 10
Escaping the Goldmans
    The day the Goldmans came to see the house, Priscilla and I went to a lecture on Elizabeth Barrett Browning at the Boston Public Library. On any other day I might have been perfectly happy to listen to a bespectacled academic, but on that Saturday morning I couldn’t get the Goldmans out of my mind. If they took the house, it was inevitable that soon Max would be standing in the same spot where I had stood just that morning, gazing out of the same window.
    By the time the question-and-answer period began, I felt sick.
    I looked over at Priscilla. Her attention was concentrated on the librarian type at the podium, as if there had never been a moreriveting subject than Browning. The hall felt stuffy, even though the floor-to-ceiling windows were wide open. I was amazed at how many spinsters you could pack into one room. I had attended many lectures with Priscilla and was rarely restless, but after listening to the speaker drone on for over an hour, I had to escape. We were in the middle of a row (Pris always insisted on sitting in the center) so I had to “excuse me” past at least eight frumpy women who were annoyed at being disturbed. Priscilla looked at me with concern, but she didn’t follow me out.
    In the hall I went to the watercooler, leaned over, and took a long drink.
    That summer fifteen years ago, Max and I had been sitting on the seawall in late August and the sun was setting all pink and orange over the Boston skyline. Max handed me a brown paper bag and in the bag was his manuscript. He was finished.
    â€œI’m moving to California and I want you to go with me,” he said.
    I didn’t even have to think about it. It was one of the only times I can remember that I immediately knew what I wanted.
    The next morning I took the commuter boat to Boston so I could tell Priscilla. I’d tell my father later, but first I wanted to test the news on Priscilla. Teddy would follow her lead. I found Priscilla in her breakfast nook, nursing a cup of coffee and reading the Boston Globe .
    â€œHello, dear. You’ve been making yourself scarce. Pour yourself a coffee and sit down so we can have a chat,” she said. That summer Priscilla had spent most of her time in Kennebunkport, presumably with some man, and she had just come back so there was no reason I would have seen her.
    â€œHow is everything? And why haven’t I seen you more? Tell me about your experiment in literature.”
    I wasn’t thrilled by her patronizing tone.
    â€œIt’s going very well,” I said. “The first recipient of the fellowship has finished his book.” I tasted my coffee.
    â€œI hope he can find a publisher. That would be a real feather in your cap,” Priscilla said.
    â€œAnd in his.”
    â€œIt would be good for the foundation.”
    I paused, not knowing how to approach the subject of Max. I took another sip of coffee and blurted it out.
    â€œMax has asked me to go to California with him,” I said.
    I wanted Priscilla to act as my mother’s emissary, to take all she knew about my mother, put it in a blender, and come out with the essence of what my mother would have said.
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous. We don’t even know this boy,” Priscilla said.
    â€œYou can meet him,” I said.
    â€œI’m afraid you’re escaping your grief,” she said.
    â€œYou’re wrong,” I said. I had never told Priscilla she was wrong before, but this was the first time I felt manipulated, as if maybe she didn’t have my best interests