by Alice Adams
In 1980, with her share of the Molly Blair money, Fiona bought what was then a very nondescript building. At first she simply rented out some rooms to friends, while she herself and her current lover would sleep in the attic. And then she and one of her friends, having simultaneously lost their downtown receptionist jobs, decided to start serving lunches and dinners in one of the downstairs rooms. She (the friend) loved cooking and had high ambitions in that direction, seeing herself as the newest Alice Waters. Mostly other friends came at first, and some interested locals. The ambitious cook, though, turned out to be possessed of impressive skill and imagination—and Fiona, through a lover in the wholesale grocery business, was well connected with growers in Half Moon Bay and all the way up to Napa.
And word got out. Someone wrote a review, and what came to be known as Fiona’s was launched.
Fiona remodelled, she hired more people, she vastly expanded her menu, wisely never letting it get out of hand. Nothing more elaborate than she could cope with. The first cook, the friend, left to start up her own place in Beverly Hills, which did not do so well, but by then Fiona had found someone even better, a bona fide graduate of Chez Panisse.
These days the downstairs is a cluster of smallish, private-seeming rooms, and the basement is a state-of-the-art kitchen. And the attic is Fiona’s penthouse, with a sundeck and sauna, hot tub, tiny kitchen and enormous red-tiled bathroom. Hugh bedroom, endless closets.
And those views.
But now in the penthouse there are almost never visiting lovers, any more than downstairs there are live-in friends. Sometimes Fiona feels this lack acutely, both of lovers and of friends. At other times she is simply too busy to notice.
In the hour succeeding her conversation with her sister, Fiona does the following things: aerobics, ten minutes, and isometric facial exercises, five. A shower, blow-drying hair. Doing her face and hands and feet. Two phone calls to New York—one to the editor of a magazine that wants to do a spread on Fiona’s; Fiona wants her own favorite photographer, and this conversation ends in a standstill. And, second call, to a woman in Nova Scotia who grows chanterelles, and freezes them.
Then, in clean jeans and a red silk T-shirt, long hair tied back, Fiona goes downstairs to the kitchen, where the produce is being delivered, along with the flowers. And both are being checked over by Stevie, an apprentice chef, an all-around help (and, a fact that Fiona tends to forget, an investor in her business).
“Foxgloves!” is Fiona’s shouted greeting to Stevie. “Give me a break!”
“But imposing. And scrutinize that purple. The depths.” Stevie, a tall, heavy, long-haired blond young man (not so young, actually: he and Sage were Sixties radicals together, another fact that Fiona tends to forget)—Stevie sometimes talks in this campy way, Fiona has no idea why. He could be gay but she doesn’t really think so; if he were he wouldn’t talk like that, probably. Although it is clear that a couple of waiters have big crushes on Stevie.
And as usual he is right about the flowers, they look great. The purple is deep.
“Shit, you’re right,” Fiona tells him as with the slightest smile Stevie turns and walks off between the crates of baby lettuce, from Sonoma.
What a shapely ass, Fiona thinks. Well, how about Stevie?
And then she forgets about Stevie, and on the whole forgets sex for the rest of the day.
She eats some yogurt and granola, she drinks two cups of herbal tea.
In the restaurant area she confers with the bookkeeper, then checks the day’s menu, and the evening’s reservations.
Roland Gallo. Two, at 9.
For several reasons Fiona has been highly aware of this particular entry, this reservation. First, of course, she noticed because of Sage’s awful old love affair, of which all her family eventually became aware; they all, in one way or another, have followed the career of Roland Gallo with more than passing interest.
Additionally, for Fiona, the very making of the reservation was odd: she took the call herself, for the very simple and stupid reason that she was passing the phone when it rang and inexplicably, inexcusably, no one else was near it (“Can’t someone answer the fucking phone?”). And so, of course, in the voice of some underling, not “Fiona,” Fiona answered the phone. And she had a very strange, strong sense that the person on the other end, the person billing himself as Roland Gallo’s assistant, was in fact Roland Gallo himself—or else maybe a complete impostor: it is possible that no one will show, that happens, and you can’t ask “Roland Gallo” to reconfirm. In any case it was a very odd exchange, enough to make Fiona seriously wonder for at least a full minute what will happen at 9 tonight. If anything.
The rest of the reservations are more or less routine, the usual mix of people whom Fiona knows or whose names she recognizes. Quite a few regulars, including some hard-core patrons who are there a couple of times a week. (This is a pattern that Fiona knows from experience won’t last: the group will move on almost in a body to whatever is trendiest next, and go there twice a week. Fiona is perfectly prepared for these predictable defections, she tells herself.)
As always, there are several people on the list whom Fiona has never heard of, although it always pays to check very carefully, just in case she should have heard of them. Some hot New York playwright, for instance, whose fame has not yet travelled across the Rockies. But the truly unknown have usually reserved a long time in advance; right there is a tipoff to their lack of fame.
Fiona’s office is strictly speaking not that at all. Her big desk and most of her files are up in the penthouse, in fact in her bedroom, discreetly hidden. However, the smallest downstairs dining room, the one requested for most private dinners (the one that Roland Gallo has requested for tonight), this pretty pink-toile room is preferred by Fiona herself and by her staff as Fiona’s office, and it is there that she receives certain business callers, has certain appointments.
This afternoon there are two such: the first with her lawyer, the second with a young woman who wants an interview, Fiona has forgotten for what, and she can’t for the moment find wherever she wrote it down.
Actually the young man who arrives very promptly at 2 is not Fiona’s lawyer but an associate from that law office. The young man is lean and tan, obviously a tennis-playing type, in his new Wilkes suit and with his too-new Mark Cross brief case (not much imagination working there). He wants to talk about a new restaurant that just started up in Petaluma, and it is called Fiona’s. Of all the unlikely names to find duplicated in Petaluma, as the lawyer remarks.
He goes on about this at some length. Petaluma Fiona’s is also in an old house, several stories divided into small rooms. Kitchen in the basement. He quotes some specialties from both menus—similar use of goat cheese, radicchio, chanterelles, monkfish and yellow peppers. Pausing, he laughs. “And that Fiona is even a tall thin blonde with very long hair.”
“Unlike any other thirty-three-year-old women in northern California,” Fiona cannot resist saying. “In the middle Eighties.”
Only slightly abashed, the young man then delivers his punchline, or, rather, his punch paragraph. It is fairly long.
There was such a case quite recently, he tells Fiona. A restaurant opened up down in San Bruno, called The Nob Hill. (“Pretty funny right off, don’t you think? The Nob Hill, in San Bruno?”) Named of course after the one and only San Francisco restaurant, The Nob Hill. Well, those guys apologized all over the place, offered to change the name, et cetera. But Roland Gallo would not let them off the hook, he kept right after them, and he came up with a very high five-figure settlement.
“Hey, why not six?” asks Fiona.
“Well, even R.G.’s got his limits, I guess.”
There is a pause, during which Fiona is staring out the window as though coming to a decision. This small room faces east, and its eastern wall is all glass, a French door leading out to a miniature herb garden, and so what Fiona sees beyond the garden is the shining dark slate of the San Francisco Bay, boats, t
ankers and big white container ships—and the shining windows of Oakland. She could buy a boat, Fiona thinks, a nice big boat but still small enough for exploring, up the secret inlets of the bay and far up into the delta. Christ, she could live on her boat. She does not have to do all this stuff that she does.
“Would you believe,” she then says to the young apprentice lawyer, who is smiling expectantly in her direction, “that I don’t give a flying fuck what that dago pig Roland Gallo does?” Fiona had no idea that she was going to say that.
After an instant he recovers. “May I quote you on that?”
“You do and I’ll sue, I’ll have you out looking for work.” And she adds, “And tell Stanley to stop hustling me, okay?” Stanley being the main lawyer, who wishes that Fiona would lead a more active legal life.
“You must be the thousandth person to ask me that question. I’m thin because I’m thin. I do not suffer from anorexia or bulimia—is that what you wanted to ask me? I am simply a very thin person. My two younger sisters are even thinner than I am. I eat quite a lot, in fact I eat all day. I love my own food very much. Obviously I would not spend my entire day doing what I do if I didn’t like food, would I.
“But no, if that’s what you want to hear, I do not have any special tricks for maintaining thin. I don’t have a trainer or anything like that. I don’t go to a gym or an exercise class, I don’t have time.
“I eat quite sensibly and I walk a lot. I don’t eat junk, not ever. I like wine but I’m not a big drinker. I only eat and drink what’s extremely good, which is what I get here. And if you want my secret there it is, eat only the best.”
The interviewer, who is quite as thin and stylish and even as blonde as Fiona herself, just sits there for a minute, in the pretty bleached-and-carved French chair that is so very good with all the toile. She sits there, in her smart brown linen clothes, her dark patterned hose and excellent shoes, she sits as though unable to believe what she has heard.
She smiles, and in a perfectly natural voice she says to Fiona, “Well, Ms. McAndrew, thank you very much.” And in a deliberate way she gets her things together, gets up and walks out. Saunters out, actually.
Very strange, but on the whole Fiona feels better. So good, when you finally get to say what has been on your mind. So good for you; at least in theory.
Later that afternoon, taking a long walk around her neighborhood, Fiona notes and considers its changing character: Some small new shops, nothing spectacular, nothing that anyone would term a smart boutique, just some nice little stores. And a couple of newish restaurants, on more or less the same order (Fiona already knew about these restaurants, of course; she keeps track). Nothing that anyone in her right mind would call a threat to Fiona’s. But still, Fiona views these small changes as harbingers of much larger future change. Potrero could become another Union Street, and look what’s happening out on Sacramento Street, and even on Clement, not to mention the Oriental rape of North Beach. It is simply a question of the time frame involved, Fiona concludes, and she will have to try to figure out just how much time Potrero Hill has left. Like a doctor with a very old patient.
Which reminds her that she has not seen or talked to her own father, to Jim McAndrew, for quite a while.
And then she wonders: Could Jill possibly be so down on Sage because Sage is and always has been so very (so curiously) close to Jim? Is Jill jealous of Sage, because of Jim? Fiona doubts it, Jill is silly but not that silly, nor that hung up on her father.
Fiona is actually present during most of the dinner hours at Fiona’s, on almost every night, five days out of the six they are open (the dark night is Monday). She manages, though, to make her presence there as unobtrusive as possible; it is not clear to anyone, not even to Fiona herself, just how this is achieved. For starters, she dresses quietly, usually in black or dark brown, with good safe jewelry. She looks very much like one of her own customers, and she is often mistaken for such, or for a hired hostess, by those who don’t know her. Which is part of her intention.
And she moves about in a certain way. Never too fast, or too purposefully. She appears to wander, she could be just some woman in search of the ladies’ room.
Because of the restaurant’s reputation, and perhaps even more because of the worshipful regard in which food and wine, and food- and winesmanship are held in the Eighties, many of Fiona’s customers seem to feel it necessary to make it clear that they too are highly knowledgeable in these areas. They’ve been boning up, they too know almost all about vintages and regions, about oils and lettuces, baby eels and special Wyoming cheese and Oregon pomegranates.
What these experts do not know is the contempt in which their semi-invisible hostess holds both them and all their information.
Watching one such couple tonight, as they ponder the wine list and get into a big discussion—“Won’t a Beaujolais be a little ebullient with the salmon, or will it? I’ve heard the ’85 is fairly docile”—Fiona would like to say to them, Have you dumb schmucks ever tried reading anything? Ever thought of brushing up on your Bach? And have you ever looked, really looked, at a non-balletic Degas?
But she obviously cannot say any of that to these people, to this feeble-chinned young man with his Talbot-catalogue girlfriend. For one thing, she has already sounded off enough for one day. And for another, she could be wrong: these two could both be full professors at Stanford, or Berkeley. For all she knows.
Roland Gallo’s silly wife is sitting there crying her eyes out—more literally, she is crying her makeup off—in their private dining room, the room that earlier served as Fiona’s study. Walking slowly past their door, Fiona looks in, then tries to pretend not to see, as she is all along pretending not to be Fiona.
She has never actually met Roland Gallo. Would he know her? Probably, somehow. There have been pictures of her, along with articles. Just as she would know him, anywhere.
It is now a little past II, and the two Gallos have finished off three bottles of wine: a split of Dom Pérignon, a full bottle of white burgundy, a Montrachet. They are now both sniffing from big snifters of brandy, which is enough to make anyone cry, probably, after all that wine.
Once past their doorway—but not before her eyes met those of Roland Gallo, for one split second—Fiona quickens her pace. What flashy eyes that man has. So dark, and bright. Alive.
In another, larger room a dinner party for ten is still going on. And in another, empty tables are being cleared, as two good-looking middle-aged women continue their conversation, oblivious to the busboy. They look very happy, and very successful: Fiona wonders, should she have recognized them? In any case, too late now.
Fiona continues to the bar, a small dark-panelled room, with the requisite black leather chairs, the abundance of chrome and glass. Two young busboys whom Fiona understands to be in love are clearing up, one polishing glasses while the other attends to the chrome. They are both very small and dark—really sweet, thinks Fiona.
She is suddenly exhausted, and why? This was no different from any other day, or evening. Sliding into a chair, she slips her feet from their high black sandals, and closes her eyes.
“Well, this is the first piece of luck I’ve had all day.” Roland Gallo (of course) has said this, he has sneaked in and sat down on the chair next to hers. And as Fiona opens her eyes quite wide, feigning surprise, at the same time she admits to herself that she knew he would follow her in there. Of course he would.
She says, “Please go away, I’m very tired. I’m resting.” But she doesn’t close her eyes again.
He must at some time have been extremely good-looking, even too handsome; God knows he is very attractive, still—and he clearly knows this, although he is perfectly, shiningly bald. But his high white brow, strong nose and fine mouth are impressive, and especially those eyes, deepset and wide apart, and so dark, so extremely, flashingly dark.
Right now he is fairly drunk, but still controlled. “I just want to know one thing,” he says to Fiona, with a smal
l twist of a smile that involves just the corners of his mouth. “Can you tell me why I didn’t marry your sister instead of Miss Dumb Blonde Twat?”
“That’s disgusting,” Fiona tells him. “Disgusting. Your wife. I think you’re too drunk to drive,” Fiona tells him, although this is probably not the literal truth; he will get home all right, he is the kind who always will, and if he gets a ticket he can fix it.
“I’m sure you’re right, but I’m going to drive home anyway.” He smiles again, as he stands up. “Well, Miss McAndrew, I thank you for an exceptionally lovely evening.”
“Oh, get lost,” Fiona tells him.
Roland Gallo laughs, and then he bows, just managing the gesture. “I’ll see you very soon,” is his exit line.
After which, for the very first time that day, Fiona smiles.
Five
“How much money do you have, anyway?” the voice on the phone asks Jill.
And Jill, who is lying in bed, begins to laugh into the phone, at this serious, outrageous question. Still laughing, she holds the receiver away from her mouth for a moment, looking out into the darkened corners of her bedroom, as though at least some answer might be out there. It is almost midnight. A window across the room, her most westward window, is a few inches open; from down on the bay she can hear the faint short barks of the sea lions, and the longer, louder foghorns’ moan.
She brings the receiver back to her mouth. “That depends on what day it is,” she says into the phone.
“You mean you’re richer on Wednesdays than on Thursdays?”
“No, stupid. The market. Don’t you have any real money at all?”
“No, I’m very poor, I keep telling you. That’s why I like rich girls.” A pause, and then he says, “Now tell me what you have on.”
“Well.” Jill, who is naked, hesitates. “It’s quite a fabulous gown, actually. Very pale pink silk. All pleated, these thousands of tiny pleats, and some very tiny rosebuds—”