“True.” Georgiana cocked her head to the side. “But I can’t control that right now. I can only control what I do with my life.”
“So, while we’re on the topic of big life changes, Sasha and I have something to share as well.” Cord glanced at Sasha and she nodded. “We would like to offer to move out of Pineapple Street and have Darley and Malcolm move in.”
Darley put her glass down in surprise. They all turned to face her, watching as her hands flew to her cheeks. “Really?” She looked around like maybe it was a joke.
“Yes,” Sasha said with a smile. “I mean, it’s up to you, Chip and Tilda, but there are four of you and only three of us.”
“Oh my gosh, thank you! Seriously? Malcolm, if we moved in, we could ask your parents to live with us, if they wanted,” said Darley.
“I’d love that,” he said, nodding.
“Of course, that’s absolutely fine with us,” agreed Tilda. “The house is yours. You can do just anything you want with it. But as I mentioned to Sasha, you really do want to leave the drapes in the parlor. Those windows are enormous,” she said seriously.
“Where are you going to go?” Georgiana asked Cord and Sasha.
“We don’t know yet,” Sasha said. “We’re going to look around.”
“There are those old tunnels under the former Jehovah’s Witnesses’ buildings,” Cord mused. “We could live in those tunnels, right, Sasha? Like mole people? We’d bring the baby up to see the sun on special occasions, like his birthday?”
“Shut up,” Sasha snickered, and poked him under the table.
* * *
—
After dinner they moved to the parlor, where Chip poured them sharp little glasses of cognac and they toasted his birthday. They toasted the new baby. They toasted Malcolm’s new job. And they toasted Sasha’s great success hosting her first Sailor’s Delight theme dinner. It was only as the family made their way down the steps of the limestone and off into the evening that a candle on the dining-room table tipped and caught a bit of fishing net, the blaze climbing across the room in a web of fire.
Epilogue
Curtis McCoy opened his mailbox to find it overflowing with glossy holiday catalogs. Didn’t people know millennials only bought things from Instagram ads? He carried them up to his apartment and sifted through the pile, dropping them one by one into the recycling. Buried halfway through the stack was a thick, creamy envelope, return address Orange Street. The Stocktons. He slipped his finger into the seam, gently pulling out a Christmas card. On the front was a professional photo of the Stockton family, clearly taken in the summer. The garden was in full bloom and yet they all wore coordinating shades of red and green tartan. Chip and Tilda were seated in the center, Chip in a wool blazer, Tilda in pearls, her hands folded demurely on her knee. Their children crowded around them, sweating in velvet and tweed, the grandchildren at their feet like beloved pets. Malcolm and Sasha flanked the wings, Sasha’s pregnancy not yet visible beneath her blouse. Curtis let his eyes linger on Georgiana before he flipped the card open to read the letter.
Dear Friends:
Merry Christmas from our clan to yours! We hope this finds you in fine fettle. We have many blessings to count this holiday season: My tennis partner, Frannie Ford, and I took home the Brooklyn Heights Casino Over-Sixty Women’s Championship for the third year in a row! We look forward to facing many of those same worthy competitors down at the Jupiter Island Club at New Year’s. Chip will be playing in the croquet tournament if any challengers care to step forward!
Malcolm and Darley are thriving, Malcolm having joined Emirates Airline and Darley diving back into the workforce with a new job at a hedge fund. It will surely be absolute bedlam managing two careers along with the care of their children, but Chip and I have always selflessly given of our time to our precious grandchildren. Meanwhile, Cord and his lovely bride, Sasha, （baby number one due this spring!） have bought an unusual property down in Red Hook, a ten-minute drive from Brooklyn Heights. We have yet to meet any of the denizens of that particular neighborhood, but we hear it’s quite en vogue among artists and so we look forward to their regaling us with stories from their bohemian lifestyle! And lastly, Georgiana has decided to explore a career as a philanthropist. She is preparing for a trip to Benin, and I’m frantic arranging her goodbye dinner—an Out of Africa–themed evening inspired by the scene where Robert Redford goes to Meryl Streep’s house and she has those lovely pink calla lilies as a centerpiece. I have secured pith helmets for us to wear at cocktail hour!
We do want to extend our thanks to all of you who reached out in the wake of the fire last month at Pineapple Street. The good news is that the repairs are now complete, and Darley and her family have moved in and made the place their own. The toile wallpaper in the dining room was marred by the fire, but Darley has replaced it with a beautiful botanical print, one with lovely small oranges. The Louis XVI dining table was a total loss, sadly, but we found an adequate substitute at Scully & Scully. The greater tragedy was the loss of the Chippendale camelback sofa that had graced the governor’s mansion when I lived there as a girl. But we soldier on!
Season’s wishes from the fruit streets,
Mr. and Mrs. Charles Edward Colt Stockton
Curtis snickered to himself. Now that he and Georgiana were officially dating, he’d been spending quite a bit of time with the Stocktons, and the camelback sofa had been discussed at many a brunch on Orange Street. Curtis flipped the card over, where Georgiana had scribbled him a personal note.
Hey babe, Don’t think you’re getting out of the goodbye dinner, Mom has already ordered you a helmet. Xx
Acknowledgments
I wrote half this novel in my apartment on Pineapple Street at five in the morning while the neighborhood slept, or perched on the closed toilet lid as my kids played for hours in the bath, the cleanest little prunes in Brooklyn Heights. I wrote the other half at the dining room table of my in-laws’ house in Connecticut as my husband conducted Zoom school and learned kindergarten math all over again. I’m grateful to my family: Carol Williams and Ken Jackson, Dan Jackson, Roger and Fa Liddell, for taking us in, feeding us salty oat cookies, hunting hermit crabs, and reading bedtime stories.
This novel was partially inspired by Zo? Beery’s fantastic article in The New York Times, “The Rich Kids Who Want to Tear Down Capitalism.” I also drew from Kate Cooper’s reviews of Melania the Younger and Melania in The Times Literary Supplement, Emilia Petrarca’s hilarious “Before We Make Out, Wanna Dismantle Capitalism?” in The Cut, and Abigail Disney’s “I Was Taught From a Young Age to Protect My Dynastic Wealth” in The Atlantic. Thanks to my early readers: Todd Doughty, a true pineapple; Lexy Bloom; Lauren Fox; Sierra Smith; and Ansell Fahrenheit. Thank you to Alli Mooney. To my Knopf family, Maris Dyer, Tiara Sharma, Jordan Pavlin, Reagan Arthur, Maya Mavjee, and Dan Novak, who would be played by Daniel Craig in the movie adaptation, I’m lucky to have you.
It has been a joy to work with Pamela Dorman, Venetia Butterfield, and Nicole Winstanley, who edited this book with care and humor and have shown me incredible friendship. Thank you to the team at Pamela Dorman Books and Viking: Marie Michels, Jeramie Orton, Lindsay Prevette, Kate Stark, Mary Stone, Kristina Fazzalaro, Rebecca Marsh, Irene Yoo, Jane Cavolina, Brian Tart, and Andrea Schulz. Thank you to Madeline McIntosh. I’m grateful to Tom Weldon, Claire Bush, Laura Brooke, Laura O’Connell, Ailah Ahmed, and the group at Hutchinson Heinemann. Thank you, Kristin Cochrane, Bonnie Maitland, Dan French, Emma Ingram, Meredith Pal, and the entire team at Penguin Canada. I’m grateful to Inés Vergara, Hedda Sanders, Alix Leveugle, Quezia Cleto, Cristina Marino, and Anna Falavena. Thank you, Jenny Meyer, Heidi Gall, Brooke Erlich, Erik Feig, and Emily Wissink. Thank you to DJ Kim, and the entire genius force at The Book Group. Brettne Bloom is an astonishment, and her friendship over twenty years is a gift that only grows.