Five Fortunes (49 page)

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Authors: Beth Gutcheon

“We usually stop at maiming,” Carter said.

“It’s just Black Wednesday,” said Rae.

“You’ve got to mainline this bran stuff.” Carter was mixing another spoonful into her vegetable broth.

Eloise Strouse, chewing a slice of watermelon, came over to join them. She was wearing a silver-thong leotard.

“Look at you,” said Carter. “I call that showing off.”

“I bought it at the boutique,” said Eloise. “Is it too much?”

“You look terrific.”

“Did anyone see the news this morning, the pictures of Jacksonville?”

Heads turned to Eloise.
See
the news? Everyone knew that the one TV in the place had been off this morning. Eloise blushed.

“I just have this tiny Watchman. I’ve always watched the news at breakfast…”

“I don’t know when I’ve been so shocked,” said Rae, reaching for a radish.

“What do you know that we don’t know?” Carter asked.

“First they had days and days of rain, and then the hurricane. The hurricane blew all this garbage into the storm drains; they say it’s the worst flooding in thirty years. Now the sewers are full of snakes.

They’re coming up out of the toilets…”

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Five Fortunes / 395

“Don’t even talk to me about snakes,” said Glenna. She got up and went off to change for Water Exercise.

“It makes me so sad,” said Eloise. “I used to love Jacksonville.”

“Did you?” Rae asked, although she well remembered Albie telling her so. Carter and Jill were pushing their feet into their sandals and getting ready to go for herbal wraps. Eloise sat down at the foot of Rae’s chaise longue.

“My grandparents lived there. Mama used to take Bert and me to visit them every winter.”

“Tell me what it was like.”

As the others drifted off to their classes or treatments, Rae and Eloise sat in the sun. Rae was wearing a sequined baseball cap, and she made Eloise put on sunblock. Eloise told about memories of her grandparents’ house, of being taken to Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum, of picnics and outings with her uncles and cousins.

“Are you in touch with your cousins there?”

“Some. I keep looking at the pictures, thinking I’m going to see their houses up to the windows in water.”

“I have an idea,” said Rae. “Let’s go to my room; I have something to tell you.”

A
my and Laurie arrived Wednesday evening.

“I have never been more tired in my life,” Laurie said.

“Honey, I’ve seen tired. Tired was you, a year ago,” said Rae.

“My father wants to know when you’re coming back for your shooting lessons.”

“Why, I didn’t know I’d been invited.”

“You have.”

“I think I just might be able to work that in,” said Rae. “I’ll see if James can give me any time off.”

Amy couldn’t get enough of Jill. “Look at you, you’re so svelte, you’re so…what on earth are you doing for clothes? You must need new everything.”

“I’m fine, Mom. Dad even took me shopping one day.”

“He didn’t.”

“Yes, he did. Dagmar told him he wasn’t giving me enough of a clothing allowance, he should go with me sometime to see how much things really cost. We spent a whole Saturday morning at Bloomingdale’s.”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Dagmar says being a single parent is bringing out the best in him.”

“Hmm,” said Amy.

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Five Fortunes / 397

Friday morning Rae and Carter took a class in Rollerblading.

“We sped around and around the tennis court,” said Rae. “I was the best.”

“You were not,” said Carter.

“
We
learned the macarena,” said Amy. “You should have seen Eloise.”

“Please don’t sing it though.
Please
.”

“Did anyone hear the radio this morning?” asked Carol, stirring pepper flakes into her potassium broth. “They had an interview with the mayor of Jacksonville. Some anonymous woman is giving a thousand dollars to every family in the whole town whose home was flooded. It’s for real, there’s fifteen million on deposit already.

She was in tears, the mayor.”

“How absolutely cool,” said Glenna.

“Do you think they’ll ever tell who it was?” asked Carol.

“Time for my herbal wrap,” said Eloise.

Rae and Eloise sat together at dinner that night. “I like your hair like that,” Carol Haines said across the table to Eloise. “I do too,”

said Rae. “You look like your father.”

Laurie was missing from the dining room that night; she had been on a juice fast all day and was skipping dinner to have an extra massage and go to bed early. Her room was full of faxes from Walter and from Lynn Urbanski about scheduling in the coming week.

The campaign office was swamped with requests for interviews, letters of congratulation, urgent messages from realtors in Washington, D.C. Back in Boise, Walter was editing them as strictly as he dared. There was one message of welcome he thought Laurie would especially want to see, from the shyest and smartest member of the President’s cabinet. There was also a letter from Walter waiting in Amy’s room. It had arrived sealed, delivered by FedEx rather than sent by fax.

At Carter’s table, Margaret from Duluth was arranging a blind date for her New York brother with a peppy redheaded architect.

“You look exactly like his first girlfriend, the one he
should
have married. He’s straight, he’s sweet, he’s smart. What’s not to like?”

398 / Beth Gutcheon

“He’s been divorced for five minutes.”

“Oh, yes, well, he’s completely insane at the moment, but that will pass.” The redhead obediently handed over her phone number.

Louise from Los Angeles, who owned several national magazines, was taking an interest in a young journalist she’d made friends with in Water Aerobics. A physician from Toronto was telling another one from Detroit about Doctors Without Borders, and a starving playwright who’d been sent to Fat Chance by her grandmother was telling a very funny story to a woman she did not yet know was a film producer.

About the Author

BETH GUTCHEON is the critically acclaimed author of
Leeway Cottage,
More Than You Know, Five Fortunes, Saying Grace, Domestic Pleasures,
Still Missing
, and
The New Girls
. She has written several film scripts, including the Academy Award—nominated
The Children of Theatre
Street
. She lives in New York City.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

Also by Beth Gutcheon

Leeway Cottage

More Than You Know

Saying Grace

Domestic Pleasures

Still Missing

The New Girls

Copyright

FIVE FORTUNES. Copyright © 1998 by Beth Gutcheon. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader March 2009

ISBN 978-0-06-190993-1

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