Be honest and poor, by all means—but I shall not envy you; I do not much think I shall even respect you. I have a much greater respect for those that are honest and rich.
—Mansfield Park
Are you joking?” Marianne said as if waiting for the punch line.
“Not one bit,” I said and forced a confident smile. We were seated by the window in Avenue. Brandon shook his head. It was clear by his dour expression that he wasn’t fond of my plan to find a rich husband, either.
“Don’t you need a job?” he asked.
“That’s kind of the point,” I said flatly. “I can’t find a job. I’ve looked. Called everyone I know. Apparently I won’t find a job. Besides, it was Marianne’s idea.”
“What?” Marianne shouted.
“Okay, it was Jennifer’s, but you agreed to it,” I pointed out.
“Hold on, what?” Brandon asked and gave Marianne a scathing look.
“I’ve been assigned a story about making an eligible match,” I explained. “To see if Austen’s strategies still hold up. I’m writing it in the first person.”
“Define ‘eligible,’ ” Brandon commanded.
“Successful, confident, worldly,” I rattled off, intentionally avoiding the word “billionaire.” “I’m going to be forty. If not now, when? This is my last chance to marry well.”
Marianne and Brandon stared at me in silence. I didn’t know where to look or what to do, so I began to fiddle with the cocktail napkin on the table. But twisting it around my fingers didn’t calm me. Instead, as I watched the white paper scrunch and tear, I was struck by how prominent the veins in my hands had become, my knuckles looked bigger, the skin more lined. They say a woman’s hands are the first to go.
“The sooner you stop believing your life is a Jane Austen novel, the better,” Marianne stated bluntly.
I ripped the napkin in half and sat on my hands.
“The older women in her books don’t fare so well. You have to be one and fucking twenty to have a happy ending. Not one and forty,” she continued on her tirade. “You’re not Elizabeth Bennet, you’re her mother.”
Ouch. The pregnancy hormones sure kept her moody.
“I agree with Marianne. You’ve read one too many novels, watched one too many movies, my love,” Brandon cooed at me as though I were an infant. “You’re upset about your grandmother and you’re out of work. It’s natural to feel mixed up about your life, what it all means.”
“You’re having a midlife crisis,” added Marianne.
“I’m not having a midlife crisis,” I retorted.
“It’s classic,” Marianne disagreed. “Only instead of a convertible sports car you want the man who can buy you one. It’s a phase.”
“And you can’t just dump your life and take off,” Brandon insisted. “Especially now, your family needs you.”
“I didn’t dump my life,” I answered grimly. “My life dumped me. And I’m not talking about leaving now. The article isn’t due until the end of March. By then …” My voice trailed off, thinking that my grandmother would be gone long before spring.
“You’ve avoided marriage this long,” Marianne continued. “If you’re going to be married, why not marry for love and be happy?”
“Who says I can’t fall in love with a rich man?” I asked, but Marianne just screwed up her nose.
“I’ll see you next week at your birthday,” Marianne answered with a forced smile and gathered her things to leave. Clearly she was angry.
I pointed to her stomach in an attempt to lighten the mood. “With that?”
“He’s not due for two more weeks,” she reminded me. Marianne was a control freak. No kid of hers would arrive before she allowed it to.