From bestselling author Cathleen Schine comes Fin & Lady, a wise, clever story of New York in the '60s. It's 1964. Eleven-year-old Fin and his glamorous, worldly, older half sister, Lady, have just been orphaned, and Lady, whom Fin hasn't seen in six years, is now his legal guardian and his only hope. That means Fin is uprooted from a small dairy farm in rural Connecticut to Greenwich Village, smack in the middle of the swinging '60s. He soon learns that Lady-giddy, careless, urgent, and obsessed with being free-is as much his responsibility as he is hers. So begins Fin & Lady , the lively, spirited new novel by Cathleen Schine, the author of the bestselling The Three Weissmanns of Westport . Fin and Lady lead their lives against the background of the '60s, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War-Lady pursued by ardent, dogged suitors, Fin determined to protect his impulsive sister from them and from herself. From a writer The New York Times has praised as "sparkling, crisp, clever, deft, hilarious, and deeply affecting," Fin & Lady is a comic, romantic love story: the story of a brother and sister who must form their own unconventional family in increasingly unconventional times. “Full of invention, wit, and wisdom that can bear comparison to Austen's own.” ― The New York Review of Books on The Three Weissmanns of Westport “A clever, frothy novel . . . Schine playfully probes the lies, self-deceptions, and honorable hearts of her characters.” ― The New YorkerThe Three Weissmanns of Westport Cathleen Schine is the author of The Grammarians , The Three Weissmanns of Westport , and The Love Letter , among other novels. She has contributed to the New Yorker , the New York Review of Books , the New York Times Magazine , and the New York Times Book Review . She lives in Los Angeles. Fin & Lady By Cathleen Schine Farrar, Straus and Giroux Copyright © 2013 Cathleen Schine All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-374-15490-5 Contents Title Page, Copyright Notice, Dedication, "Let's go home", "Does Lady need defending?", "Isn't it terrific?", "Sextillions of infidels", The Promised Land, "Just like the Bible", Spumoni, Friends, Spies, "All because the ITL[Times]ITL has no funnies", "Never tell a child what he can learn for himself", Little Wars, "Boys don't have babies", "If you don't push it, what's the point?", The Three Musketeers, "Bad wine and grass", The Italian Word for Hedgehog, April Fools' Day, The ITL[Odyssey]ITL, Enchanted, "Girl", "I'll give you a tour", That Baby, "Where has everyone got to?", Epilogue, Acknowledgments, Also by Cathleen Schine, A Note About the Author, Copyright, CHAPTER 1 "Let's go home" Fin's funeral suit was a year old, worn three times, already too small. He knew his mother was sick. He knew she went to the hospital to get treatments. He saw the dark blue lines and dots on her chest. "My tattoos," she said. She sang "Popeye the Sailor Man" and raised her skinny arms as if to flex her Popeye muscles, to make him laugh. He knew she was sick. He knew people died. But he never thought she would die. Not his mother. Not really. Lady came to the funeral, an unmistakably foreign presence in the bare, white Congregational church: she wore large sunglasses and wept audibly. Fin's neighbors, the Pounds, who raised big, thick Morgan horses, had been looking after Fin since his mother was taken to the hospital. "I'm sure your mother knew what she was doing," Mr. Pound said doubtfully when he saw Lady Hadley approach, her arms open wide, a lighted cigarette dangling from her lips. "I don't think she had much choice, dear," Mrs. Pound whispered to him. "There was no one else, was there?" "I like Lady," Fin said loyally. But she was terrifying, coming at him like some mad bird with a squawk of " Fratello mio! It's all so dreadful!" Lady put her arms around him and held him close. She was all he had, as Mrs. Pound had pointed out. All he had. He barely knew her. Unfamiliar arms. A stranger's cheek, wet with tears leaking from beneath her dark glasses. He wanted to cry, too, for so many reasons that they seemed to cancel one another out. He stood there like a statue, nauseated and faint. The other mourners stared at Lady. Why wouldn't they? She stood out. She vibrated, almost, in that quiet church. She was beautiful. Fin liked her hair, which was long. He liked her teeth. She thought they were too big, but she was wrong. She was like a horse. Not one of the Pounds' heavy Morgan horses with short sturdy necks and thick clomping legs. She was like a racehorse. Jittery. Majestic. Her long neck and long legs — and her face, too. She had a horsey face, in a beautiful way. And bangs, like a forelock. He'd told her that, the last time he'd seen her. He had been five. "You look like a horse," he'd said. "Charming," said Lady. "Me and Eleanor Roosevelt." He had not meant that at all. Eleanor Roosevelt, whose picture he'd s