by Alice Adams
But as she says that to her husband, Liza is also thinking, Why must I always be so flattering—to Saul and to all men, really? No wonder I used to be such a popular girl. Why can’t I just say, Go get a haircut, you asshole? You really need one.
And she answers herself, Because I’m Caroline’s daughter, among other reasons. Impeccable English-New England Caroline.
But anyway, she thinks, I could write a story about a woman who sits in the park with her children, and one by one her former lovers all come by, a great line of them, all telling her how great she looks these days.
Or, maybe no lovers come at all? But entirely other people, whom she did not expect to see?
Sixteen
I do not understand women. Do not, do not, do not.” Saying this, ruefully, less than half-ironically, Roland makes an elaborate, Italianate gesture with his smooth white well-manicured hands, and he smiles at his lunch companion. Again, Buck Fister. And again they are in their favorite corner banquette at the Big Four, atop Nob Hill, but not yet where they would like to be: at the P.U. Club, across the street.
“Do not understand them,” Roland repeats, to Buck’s sympathetic, answering smile. “They change, every mother-loving one of them changes. And me, I am so incredibly, monumentally stupid that I never, never, never see it coming. Each time I think, Ah, a new woman, with this one all will be different. And each time it’s the same damn thing all over again.”
“Sweetbreads,” Buck murmurs, just lifting his head from the menu. “In that case,” he says to Roland, “maybe you have to change? Find some whole new breed of lady?”
“Holy Mother, what do you think I’ve been trying to do? All kinds! Holy mother-of-pearl, years of all kinds of women, that’s the whole point. It’s always the very same woman. Of course marrying them is the worst mistake of all, but everyone knows that. You ever been married, Bucko?”
“No.” Buck raises thin eyebrows, which gives him a look of smiling, although his mouth does not smile. “You thought sisters would be different?” he asks. “From each other?”
“Oh well, sisters. Half-sisters, actually. And a long time passed, quite a few other ladies in between. But that was not exactly intentional. Crazy me, I fell in love with them both. The mother, though, that’s the one I really—but she’s so old. Funny about women’s aging, isn’t it? Fair Caroline and I must be in point of fact of a similar age, but I would never—What I mean is, well, she’d have even less luck with a younger man, I’d imagine. Whereas I, with younger women, well, it’s hardly a problem. I wonder if older women find this unfair.”
“Very likely they do. Feminists, women seem to find almost everything unfair these days. I think I will have the sweetbreads, they’re very good here.”
“It’s all very sad, I sometimes think,” sighs Roland, looking far more satisfied than sad. “The fate of women is very sad,” he vaguely repeats.
“You could do a campaign speech on that,” observes Buck.
“I guess I have to make up my mind.” But it is clear from Roland’s tone (at least it is clear to Buck) that he has already made up his mind. Affirmatively.
Which Buck has grasped sometime before: of course Roland will run for mayor, his whole career has been headed in that direction. “You’ll need some advice,” he tells his friend. “What I mean is, advice that you take.”
Roland looks both tolerant and inquiring.
“You’ve got to back off certain things,” Buck tells him. “It’s that simple. And you know what things. No more Sage or Fiona, or Beverly or Beatrice or Beedy—who was that girl with the really silly name?”
Roland laughs, very pleased. “Where’d you ever get that list?”
“I know things. But from now on you only fuck Joanne, right?”
“Jesus. Just plain Joanne.” Roland’s laugh is short, derisive, rather ugly. “Well, of course I know that,” he says. “It’s just a question of when do I start. Or, rather, when do I stop.”
“You know perfectly well when to stop,” Buck tells him. “Like now.” And then, “Spinach salad, that’s what I really come here for,” he tells the waiter. “Yes. More Perrier.”
“Me too. Everything the same,” Roland orders, impatiently.
“About Joanne. She does not look like a happy woman. I saw her last week out at lunch, and she looked, well—”
“Drunk, probably. She drinks too much. She’s got a real problem.”
“You’ve got a problem. Joanne looks unhappy, and you need a happy-looking wife. Look at Nancy. Tell Joanne to look like her. To look up to you a lot and smile.”
“Holy Mother, do you know what she’d say? Saints, I can hear her. ‘But Ronnie loves Nancy.’ Some shit like that.”
“It may be shit but look what it does for his image. His image is fabulous, and yours could use some work. Make Joanne happy. Buy her a present or something. Today.”
“Now, there’s an original thought. But okay, I will. I might as well.” Gloomily Roland forks into his salad, just spearing a dark-green oily leaf, as he thinks: I hate spinach, why do I always have it here? To make Buck feel good? Why am I spending my life making people feel good?
“On the other hand,” Buck tells him, “there might be a reward for virtue. I might know of something, uh, interesting for you. Something, uh, novel.”
“Come on, Buck. I don’t use whores. And God knows I’m not interested in boys, you know that. I’m really a very simple guy.”
Buck scowls, Roland has never seen such a scowl. “No one uses any of those words,” Buck says. “Never. This is just a nice house, a private home, you might say. In a very nice part of the Mission. Perfectly safe.”
“You’re out of your mother-loving mind. A home in the Mission. Jesus H.”
“Well, a considerable number of our friends in the Department don’t seem to find it such a weird idea. It’s very nice. Some very nice, very nice young people. Young women. Uh, girls.”
“Under-age Asians, I’ll bet. I’ve heard about that. Cops are so stupid, I’ve always said so.”
“What you mean is you’re not ready to give up your latest McAndrew.”
Roland grins, widely. A tooth-flashing, self-stroking Sicilian grin. “Say, how about being my manager, in secret of course?”
Buck’s smile is a little lopsided. Somewhat furtive, the smile of a man unused to smiling. “Fine,” he says. “That’s just about what I had in mind.”
It is somewhat later, over their sweetbreads, that Roland remarks, “If I am in truth going to run, and you’re going to help, I suppose we should talk about issues?”
“There are no issues. This is the Eighties, remember?”
“Italians can be very, very treacherous.” It is Stevie who says this to Fiona—speaking not of Roland Gallo but about some nursery wholesalers, a family some miles south of San Francisco, in an area of broad flat sunny well-irrigated acres, next to the coast. Presumably, Stevie does not know about Roland, though the smile accompanying his remark about Italians might suggest that in fact he does know.
What has happened is that the two young women, the florists, who every morning delivered the flowers to Fiona’s, so early, so fresh—these two young women, black Lois and small blonde Bonnie, once lovers, now have broken up, ended not only their relationship but their working partnership, their business, with Lois gone off to Mexico and Bonnie back to Louisiana, where she came from.
And so, mildly desperate, Fiona and Stevie have undertaken this Monday drive (Fiona’s is closed on Mondays), down to seek out new suppliers. The Silvestris were last and most appealing on their list, but also very expensive. The Silvestri specialty is lilies, wildly various, glamorously hued and fashioned lilies. Fiona’s favorite was a giant but most delicately petalled pink, each petal improbably but beautifully edged in a pale apple green. Whereas Stevie took to an almost cocoa-brown variety, streaked with gold. All lovely, really lovely, and rare. “No one else on the coast can match our breeds,” Julio Silvestri told Fiona, with a grin th
at reminded her strongly of Roland—but, then, almost everything these days reminds her of Roland. Fiona is very much in love.
However, as Stevie makes his possibly pointed remark about the treachery of Italians, Fiona thinks, You’re goddam right, and I’d just better watch out, I know that. “I know,” she tells Stevie. “We’d better ask around. About flowers.”
As they drive northward, the land rises; to their left are smooth grassy bluffs, overlooking the glass-smooth gold-blue October-afternoon sea. There is such an extraordinary shimmer on the water, such a haze of gold far out at the horizon—it is all so amazing that Fiona, who is driving (her blue Ferrari), asks, “Mind if we pull over? I never get to see the ocean.”
“San Franciscans don’t, have you noticed? It’s the bay we all look at. I think the sea frightens people. They might jump.”
Swinging dangerously across the highway, Fiona finds a small road, where she parks the car, and they both get out—to walk silently across the bleached, cropped grass. To stand looking down and out at the sea.
Just below them is a narrow uninviting beach of coarse yellow gravel, no sand, and the bluff is red, eroded, deeply creviced: there is no way down. And the glistening stretch of water is changing even now, the gold darkening, like wet silk, with long purple shadows.
Italians are treacherous, and none so treacherous as Roland Gallo is with women, is what Fiona is thinking. And no matter what he says, why should I be any different from the rest, finally? The only thing that would make me different would be if I dumped him first. But—
But, as she thinks this, perfectly rationally and constructively, Fiona is assailed by a wave of erotic longing, a literal long flash of heat across her thighs (and she wonders: is that what so-called hot flashes are? older women remembering sex? she will have to ask Caroline). At that moment the desire, the pure lust for Roland is so strong that Fiona’s knees weaken, almost buckling, as in a very specific way she thinks of him, of what he specifically does—repeatedly, repeatedly, in the same way every time, and each time is new for her, all her flesh becomes new, all melted, all liquid gold.
Unthinkingly she reaches for Stevie’s arm, and just as automatically he moves away.
“Sorry—”
“Oh, sorry—”
Recovering first, Fiona remarks, “The sunset is gorgeous, though, isn’t it.”
“Sure is. Worth the trip, as they say in the Michelin guide.”
“Oh, right.”
Fiona is thinking, I really can’t dump Roland yet. Or, not quite yet. Or, maybe I can?
She asks Stevie, “You been to Europe recently?”
“Not for a while,” he ambiguously tells her. And then, “But I’m getting a real lust for Italy again. Maybe Sicily.”
“Why on earth Sicily?”
“Because I’ve never been there.”
He doesn’t like me at all, Fiona suddenly thinks, and this new thought or perception bothers her not at all, not at that moment.
They turn back to the car and start off for home.
“My own darling, my adored, I count the minutes until I see you, but tonight there is an emergency. Political. A meeting. I will call, or call again, despite my hatred for this cold machine. Distorting your voice—”
“Roland, love, I couldn’t be sorrier, but something’s come up with my stepfather. He’s not doing so well, we’re all gathering around.”
“My angel, the gods are against us. This afternoon has become impossible. I am devastated.”
“Darling Roland, I know it’s unromantic as hell but I’ve got this filthy cold. No, I absolutely cannot see you. Out of the question. I can’t even go to the hospital to see Ralph.”
Considering the high general intelligence, and the highly developed sexual intuitiveness of both Fiona and Roland Gallo, it is probably surprising that this exchange should continue beyond three or four messages, but continue it does—perhaps in part because both people are too vain to imagine the secretly subversive intentions of the other. It continues for weeks, and then months, with infrequent intervals of time actually spent together. Seized hours of the most marvellous intensity, as always.
Indeed, as they frequently say to each other, they are most perfectly matched, in a sensual way, thin blonde young Fiona McAndrew and aging, dark Sicilian Roland Gallo.
They are also agreed on late afternoon as being the perfect time for love. Hours that are especially beautiful, that sunny October and then on into a November of drought, in Fiona’s penthouse. Late sunlight brilliant blazing copper in all the windows across the bay, dazzling Berkeley, Oakland, San Leandro.
Dazzling copper sunlight on all Fiona’s taut white skin, and on Roland’s graying chest.
This pattern could have continued, those postponing messages on answering machines, repetitive and for the most part silly, those far rarer intervals of love—all that could have gone on indefinitely. It needed some shock to end it, a violent shock that was ultimately provided.
Seventeen
Although she eats so little, Jill cares a lot about food—more, actually, than Fiona does. Her favorite mode of intake consists of tiny bites, from a lot of creamy, rich, highly seasoned dishes. Watching her, anyone might think that she was eating quite a lot, although a look at her plate would inform the observer otherwise.
Her favorite meal is breakfast. And recently a new restaurant has opened in the financial district that serves marvellous breakfasts—Louisiana food: hush puppies, beignets and all manner of wonderful warm Southern breads. Not to mention the delicious breakfast casseroles of shrimp or crabmeat or oysters, or all three, in a creamy rich béarnaise.
Jill is there at the counter at Maxine’s, eating (or, rather, tasting) crabmeat in béchamel, with hot buttered cornbread, when she hears the news of the stock market crash, that bad October Monday morning.
One of the things that Jill has so far liked about this restaurant is that no one else, no one she knows, that is, has thought of breakfast there. Who could handle all that rich food first thing in the morning? is the general view, among people who happily eat lunch or dinner at Maxine’s. But Jill of course can and does handle it, she is enjoying her breakfast, when her peripheral vision catches a guy she does not like at all. He likes her even less, and for the stupid tired old reason that she turned him down: one night when they were simply having a boring conversation in a bar on Union Street (Jill thought that is what they were doing), he used that tired old Seventies line, My place or yours?—and he meant it, the stupid jerk, he even got ugly about it, later on, and he badmouthed her all over town. Jack, she thinks his name is. A thin monochrome guy with a strange very unattractive lipless mouth, and darting pale humorless eyes.
And now he comes up to her, of all people, this Jack, to tell her, “Well, eat up, kid, this meal may be your last. The market’s down fifty-seven points so far, and going fast.”
“Very funny, what else is new?” But Jill is somehow sure that this is not a joke. Jack is not a joker, his awfulness is in another style.
“Lucky for me,” he now tells her. “I mostly got out last week. Just a hunch I had.”
“Well, hooray for you.” Jill is not the only person to find Jack especially hateful that day.
At least he does not sit down beside her, he goes on down the counter to accost another non-friend (probably) with his good news. With his Times and his Journal rolled and tucked under his arm, his Burberry arm.
Jill very rapidly calculates that she could lose about 750 thou. Not exactly a million but goddam close. And close to all she has, not counting the paltry fixed assets, like the equity in her condo, the time-share place in Tucson. Her car, stuff like that.
For once she is quite unable to finish eating.
By noon Jill has found that her calculation was amazingly accurate, as she might have known it would be. She has always excelled at lightning arithmetic with large figures.
She is supposed to have lunch today with Buck, of all people. And one of the things tha
t Jill instantly thought, in one of those clusters of automatic reactions, undifferentiated, that arrive in the wake of disasters—she thought, Now I can be a real hooker, fulltime. I’ll have to. I’ll get in touch with Margo St. James. Join COYOTE.
Another thing that she thinks, seated there at her wide impressive desk in the Transamerica Pyramid, with its golden, spectacular view of the bay—she thinks, I’m sick, I’ve never thrown up before and now I have to.
Which she does, hunched over a bowl in the lavish restroom. Violent, repeated spasms, over and over, until nothing comes up but the nastiest, bitterest bile.
Could anyone do this on purpose? she wonders. Do it often? I’d a thousand times rather be fat, be fatter than anyone, thinks Jill.
After calling to break the date with Buck (easy enough: his secretary sounded as though she expected the call, as though this were a day on which anything could happen, and probably would), Jill’s next rather curious impulse is to go home. To go, that is, to see Caroline. And Ralph; she thinks he’s home from the hospital, isn’t sure.
Caroline’s house as always smells faintly of roses, and today it smells too of some lemony furniture wax that Caroline likes to use when she waxes, which is not often. “But it’s so therapeutic,” Caroline has said. “I should do more, all that scrubbing and rubbing.”
If she, Jill, now told Caroline, I’ve lost almost all my money, would Caroline suggest some brisk furniture polishing, as therapy? Or making chicken-soup stock, as she is also now engaged in doing: the house smells too of that rich, highly personal broth of Caroline’s, her special mix.
So far Jill has only said, “I was having a lousy day. I thought I’d come by.”
“Well, darling, I’m so glad you did. And actually me too, all this with Ralph is just so worrying. He’s back in Presbyterian, you know.”
Caroline does look distracted, her normally smooth face is strained, and for the first time Jill notices that her mother has lost some weight, which is curiously unbecoming; both Caroline’s face and her body look older, a little tense, without those extra pounds.