Read Jane Austen in Boca for Free Online Page A

impossibility. I am never going to get to know someone who rides a horse.”
    “Flo, you’re terrible,” laughed May.
    At this moment, Norman Grafstein and another man entered the room, and Carol, abandoning the widowers near the TV, rushed to meet them.
    “Norman, so glad you could make it.” Carol placed her two hands over Norman’s one. “Just a few friends. Come, I want you to meet May.” The two men were dragged to May and Flo.
    Norman Grafstein, who had the rare gift of enjoying himselfin all company, approached May with characteristic expansiveness: “May Newman, you haven’t changed a bit. As pretty as ever.”
    May blushed. She remembered Norman Grafstein as a vocal presence at PTA meetings, where she and her husband always sat toward the back and never participated. How could he remember her? But he did, and seemed genuinely glad to see her.
    May introduced Flo.
    “Another South Orange fugitive?” asked Norman.
    “No,” explained May, “Flo’s from Newark by way of Chicago. We met through Lila.” She pointed to their friend who was sitting across the room and listening, with the patience of Job, to the relentlessly voluble Hy Marcus. Hy appeared to have mastered the technique of certain gifted trumpeters and trombonists who can play on and on without seeming to pause for breath.
    “Yes,” added Flo, “we three ‘hang out’ together, as they say You may have noted that you never see fewer than three widows together in Boca. We travel in packs, like teenage girls. It’s an adaptive behavior, since we outlive you men three to one.”
    Norman laughed, then turned to introduce his friend, who had been standing silently by his side, apparently not amused by Flo’s wit: “Oh, this is my friend Stan Jacobs.” Norman placed his hand on the other man’s shoulder as though he were bringing a large, possibly dangerous dog to heel. “Stan has the dubious honor of being my
machuten
—his daughter married my son. We play tennis every Sunday and I can sometimes beat him, but he always ends by making me feel like his intellectual inferior. I dragged him along to buck up his spirits. He had that hang-dog widower’s look, and I thought he needed to go to a party.”
    Stan Jacobs was a large man with a mop of white hair and a picturesquely lined face. He ducked his head in greeting.
    “Stan’s an odd bird,” continued Norman. “He actually lived down here before he retired.”
    “Really?” said Flo. “Does Boca have a Jewish population under sixty?”
    “My wife wasn’t Jewish,” said Stan curtly “She was a Boca native. I moved here to be near her.”
    “Well, there you are. I knew my statistics couldn’t be wrong,” said Flo triumphantly. “The lure of a non-Jewish woman is a wholly unforeseen element. It throws off the whole system.”
    Stan was silent, but Norman chimed in good-humoredly, “Are you saying Stan’s a glitch in the system?”
    “Absolutely. I can tell he’s not a businessman or a lawyer or an accountant. He probably doesn’t even have grandchildren living in New Jersey.”
    “You’ve got it!” laughed Norman. “Except for the grand children—we share one and he lives in Scotch Plains. But you’re right about the job description. Stan’s an English professor, of all goddamn things. He teaches literature at Florida Atlantic.”
    “Only one course a year now,” said Stan stiffly. “I’m what they call
emeritus.
I teach an elective in the spring to keep me out of trouble.”
    “An English professor is unforeseen enough for my taste,” said Flo.
    “What do you teach?” asked May.
    “Oh, a range—all of equal indifference to my students, I’m afraid. Mostly eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature: poetry, prose. This spring I’ll be teaching a course on Jane Austen.”
    “ ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,’ “ recited Flo crisply
    “Are you an Austen fan?” Stan