I frowned. “I don’t have a say in this? Who said I even want to go to a party full of snobby, rich people? I can just watch Downton Abbey for the wealth porn and turn it off when I’m sick of them.”
Matthew leaned on the counter, giving me that knowing look that sometimes made me want to smack him. “It’s either the party or I’m calling Derek to share this ziti with you. How long has it been since the Mets game?”
Now I really did scowl. The last date I’d had was over the summer when Matthew had set me up with his partner from work. Derek Kingston was…fine. Fine looking. Fine conversationalist. But an exciting afternoon to him was watching baseball and letting me make him sandwiches. Honestly, it wasn’t that different from an average day at work.
“Besides,” Matthew continued, “Eric was an English major like you. I happen to know the guy owns two first editions of W. B. Yeats’s poetry.”
I perked up. It was hard to say no to treasures like that.
“You can actually talk about iambic speedometer with him.”
“It’s iambic pentameter,” I corrected him, unable to help myself though I knew he was just jerking my chain. Matthew was a lot more well-read than he let on.
“Whatever. It’s someone else who actually likes all that English crap you’re obsessed with. I thought you’d be down.”
I could see these people now, swanning around in a big brownstone straight out of The Age of Innocence. It would be just like the books I had read in college, except in New York instead of London. Let’s see, would that make me May Welland or Ellen Olenska? Ellen had the affair with a married man, but May was the mother. I was probably closer to May, the picture of innocence, until she married and had her kid. And then dies.
I frowned. Sometimes imagining myself as my favorite characters wasn’t exactly the fresh escape I yearned for.
“Don’t you think it’s kind of weird, the way you want to pimp your sister out all the time?” I teased, trying to change the subject. “Should I come down to Envy? Maybe you can introduce me to some of the other bartenders.”
But Matthew wasn’t biting. “I’m serious. You’re twenty-seven, Frankie. Kid or no kid, you shouldn’t be living like somebody’s spinster aunt.”
I giggled. “But I am someone’s spinster aunt. I’m an unmarried teacher with three nephews and a baby niece. Make me a governess and I’m a Jane Austen character. A regular bluestocking.”
Yes, I liked that direction. Jane Fairfax did slip away with Frank Churchill in Emma, right?
Matthew was smart enough not to answer while I glanced over my shoulder at Sofia, who had snuck back downstairs, parked herself in front of the television, and already pulled up PBS cartoons. Without asking.
Smart girl.
Maybe he wants you gone.
The thought echoed through my mind before I could help it.
The truth was, Sofia and I were more of a burden than ever. Matthew would never say it, but it was true. The older she got, the more expensive her life was. And the meager raises I earned as a schoolteacher didn’t come close to covering the life I wanted to give my daughter.
I smarted. The thing about Jane Austen was that her spinsters always found love, usually in the form of a rich bachelor who falls for the plucky, well-read young woman.
Well. I had never started a relationship for financial support before, and I wasn’t about to start gold digging now. But a party full of rich, influential New Yorkers wasn’t a bad place to look for other connections. People who could help me find a different job outside of teaching. Afford a different apartment outside of Matthew’s generosity.
A different life outside of Brooklyn and P.S. 058.
“All right, big brother,” I relented. “It’s a date. Let’s go to this party and see what’s up.”