Anything Goes

quite particular about good food. And there’s nothing she loves better than cooking for a lot of people. I josh her that she must have been a cook for an army in some previous lifetime.”
    Robert had, for the duration of the tour, been whistling a rather frantic tune that resembled a fractured version of “The Flight of the Bumble Bee.“ He now stopped abruptly and cleared his throat.
    “Lil, old girl, hadn’t we better talk this over a bit before we commit to details?”
    Mr. Prinney answered for her. “By all means. No financial decision should be made in haste, no matter how advantageous it might look.“
    “And are we to understand that this arrangement must include both of us?“ Robert asked.
    “Oh, yes. Mr. Horatio Brewster was very clear on that point. I believe that unpleasant noise outside must be your taxicab returning.“ He hustled them out of the kitchen, through a dining room with the most awful wallpaper Lily had ever seen and into the nearly pitch dark front hall. Opening the door, he said, “You young people go back to your home and let me know your decision within the week, if you would.“
    “I don’t think it will take that lo—”
    Robert interrupted Lily’s remark. “What will happen to this place if we decline to accept it?”
    “Robert! Are you mad?”
    Both men ignored her outburst. “Your cousin, Claude Cooke, will inherit but could not sell the property. Should he turn it down, the house and grounds will become an animal orphanage. Mr. Horatio Brewster was fond of cats and dogs, but, alas, he was highly allergic,“ Mr. Prinney explained. “Funds will be set aside to maintain it and the rest of the holdings will go to various charities.“
    “And not a penny for us,“ Robert said.
    “I’m afraid not.”
    The taxicab driver honked his horn again.
    As Lily and Robert climbed into the vehicle, Mr. Prinney said, “I look forward to your telegram telling me when to expect you.”
    Brother and sister hardly exchanged a word all the way home.
    Robert whistled recent show tunes. Many of his ‘dear old biddies’ were enamored of the musicals and he had a good ear for a tune he’d heard only once.
    Lily stared out the train window at the river as it moved along, ancient and untroubled, beside the railroad tracks. She knew Robert didn’t like this idea. She also knew they had to move to Honeysuckle Cottage. How was she going to resolve this without making him unhappy? Robert was a thoroughly cheerful person and that was too rare a trait, especially in these difficult days, to risk spoiling. Countless times she’d fallen into utter despair and Robert had pulled her out with a willing hand, a bad joke and a sincere smile.
    She owed him a lot. She owed him his continued happiness.
     
    When they got to the city, Robert donned his tux, examining his appearance critically in the pier glass Lily had insisted on bringing along from the family’s Park Avenue apartment. It was the one item of furniture she knew her mother would have risen from her grave, shrieking, to save from the hands of strangers.
    “It’s getting a little shiny at the elbows, isn’t it?“ he asked. “Good thing I’m not.“
    “Let me sponge it a bit to bring up the nap. You have a job tonight? You didn’t say.“
    “Not really, but one of the waiters at Sardi’s might like to take the night off. It’s hectic but fun on Saturday night.”
    When he’d gone, Lily sat down by the window and turned the squeaky electric fan on and got out a small ledger book in which she recorded their income and expenses. There was really no good reason to keep track of the dismal figures, but it had become something of an obsession.
    She flipped to the first page. Eight hundred dollars. That was all that had been left of her father’s enormous fortune. He’d mortgaged all their homes to the hilt and borrowed besides to invest heavily in the stock market on margin. When the market collapsed and he committed suicide, the homes had all been sold for much less than they were worth because there were relatively few people left who could afford them. The probate judge had let Lily and Robert have their own clothes, family pictures and personal items and, at Lily’s tearful insistence, the pier mirror. The judge had ordered the estate’s attorney to sell everything else. The furniture, the pianos, even the kitchen pots and pans and the as yet unused cemetery plots the family owned were sold. When it was all done, the