Caroline's Daughters

by Alice Adams

  “Listen, Jill, there’s been more and more in the paper about this silly Buck Fister. Christ, what a name. Of course it turns out that he was into more than a little dealing too. But no more about any of his friends. Not even Mr. Roland Gallo.” Fiona has managed not to stumble over that name. “And definitely nothing about you. He’s refusing to talk about his friends, the paper says.”

  Their connection weakens, some odd noise comes on the line, as though waves were attacking the wires, and salt. “—not the problem,” is what Jill then seems to say.

  “Sweetie, you’re really being sort of dumb, I can’t help saying that. You obviously need some kind of help, as they say. Look, you could come here and stay with me. Stay here. God knows I’ve got lots of room, and I swear I wouldn’t tell Caroline, or anyone.”

  “Thanks, that’s good of you, it really is. And watch out, I just might show up.”

  Was there a catch in Jill’s voice? In any case she sounds terrible, to her sister Fiona.

  And Jill is indeed being dumb. It was dumb to have left town at all; Fiona assumes that she is out of town. Just because her name was in Buck Fister’s notebook. It amounts to a semi-confession, as though Jill were actually saying, Yes, it’s true. I did a few tricks for Buck, that’s how I knew him.

  Because Fiona knows that Jill would think it was funny, far out, off the wall, the very idea of fucking for money, with some strange guy. Some john. It would really turn her on. Fiona knows her sister. But at least Jill could make a better pretense, at least she could stick around and pretend she hasn’t done anything, barely knew that Buck Fister.

  Would she, Fiona, do it? Suppose Buck Fister had come to her instead, with some sort of proposition? Say, a thousand a night. Fiona has given this some thought, and decided that on the whole very likely not. It just wouldn’t turn her on, the way it would Jill, and that is pretty much what it came down to. And, then, these days she’d be too frightened, not only of AIDS but of all the really violent nuts around, the fanatics of one sort or another. A john could turn out to be some big-shot religious fundamentalist, the way things are going.

  She is fairly sure that she is right about Jill, though; always she has had this sort of gut knowledge of this particular sister, her closest sister.

  And she wonders how many people, if any, could work that out, about Jill: could, or would, Caroline?

  No. Caroline would not. Hustling, sex for money, is simply something that no daughter of hers would ever do, would be Caroline’s reaction. Nor, for that matter, anyone else whom Caroline would ever know.

  And where the hell is Jill anyway? Fiona now wonders. Could she be off travelling with Roland? Fiona does not seriously entertain this thought; on the other hand, R.G. does seem to have a certain penchant for her sisters. For her whole family: he once even said that he thought Caroline was very attractive. “I really dig your mother,” is what he said.

  And why is Sage still in New York? Not that Fiona really cares, but it is a puzzle, it can’t still be all that trouble with her arm.

  And where is Noel?

  Fiona has an uneasy sense of all the world around her flying apart, familiar signposts vanishing. Nothing making sense.

  It is very frightening.

  “Actually Death Valley is pretty boring. Unless you’re absolutely gone on sand.” Roland laughs. “But the hotel is really nice. Nice pool, a pool with a view of sand. And the palm trees are nice.”

  “It sounds like a movie set. Thirties gangsters. Molls.”

  “Baby, you’ve got gangsters on the brain.” He coughs. “The food is great, of course you don’t really care about food, I know. It’s just not my idea of where to come on a vacation.”

  “Then why—?”

  “Business, really. A client heard this place might come up for sale, and he wanted me to check it out. But guess what? It’s not for sale. Nice place, though.”

  “What is your idea of a great vacation?”

  “I thought I told you. Place name of Mondello, just outside Palermo. You see? I’m just your basic Sicilian. But I thought I told you about Mondello.”

  “No.”

  “Well, someday, sweetheart, as the song says. Well, I guess I’ll head out to the pool. It looks good from here.”

  After saying goodby to Fiona, telling her that he’ll be back in S.F. soon, that they must see each other—Roland, who is not in Death Valley but in Las Vegas, now puts down the phone. He is in a very large room, a suite actually, high up in Caesar’s Palace. During this rest between phone calls (he is bracing himself for the next two, to which he does not look forward) he contemplates the view, which does not include a swimming pool but does in fact look out to the desert. Sand, used by the Army for artillery testing. Nuclear tests. Not many rabbits running around through that sage any more, Roland noted on his drive in from the airport.

  I must be slipping out, Alzheimer’s here I come, is what Roland is thinking now. Mother of God, it was that other chick I told about Mondello, out in that sunset motel that she liked so much. Jesus. I ought to have my head examined. He works his shoulders up and down, in a shedding-of-trouble gesture, then stiffens his posture, then dials.

  “Hey, Bucks. Good. Well, listen, fella, see that you keep it that way. Buttoned tight. No, of course I didn’t know about that. I did not know. I just thought a house, maybe a couple of houses. Out in Seacliff. High-class. Not under-age Asians, for Christ’s sake. And not anything super-fancy like girls—like someone’s daughters. Jesus. Man, you’re all over the place. Yes, I am angry, because you weren’t straight with me. You even suggested helping me out in a certain direction, putting a word in, you said. Yes, you did, I remember. And there was her name in your fucking book. Listen, man, I’m giving you fair warning.”

  Hanging up, Roland is breathing too heavily. Hyperventilating, probably. Sitting still, he enforces calm, measuring his breath.

  And then he dials again, this time to Philadelphia, to one of his cousins. “Of course I know him,” says Roland. “We have lunch. Had lunch, I should say. But he has lunch with a lot of people. So do I. I don’t think he talks a lot, he’s not supposed to. Hell, he doesn’t know very much. Yes. No. Well, I don’t exactly love the idea. Whatever you say, you’re the expert. But I want to be out of town.”

  Hanging up, Roland frowns, then does his shoulder maneuvers, and then takes some deep breaths again. And again.

  He wonders what Caroline’s reactions will be, if anything happens. He wonders if he will ever see her again.

  Fiona, who took her call from Roland in her bedroom, the penthouse, at its conclusion lies back on her super-king silk-strewn bed, quite exhausted. Although she had no wine at lunch (two bottles of Perrier) she feels that it wore her out, somehow, that encounter with bald Mr. Owl-Eyes. And then the call from Roland, which was strange, and entirely unsatisfactory, she would like not to think about it, but is inwardly muttering, Rotten dago prick.

  The weather outside, all that endless sky full of weather, is problematic, indecisive: a huge sweep of the clearest, purest blue, and an almost equal area of dark clouds, just over Oakland, resting there with no apparent menace. And there seems to be no wind, no action in the trees across the way, the tall eucalyptus and pines, nor in her careful plantings, the delicately flowering bushes on her sundeck. Plants that she can never remember the name of, that are tended by Stevie. “If I didn’t you’d kill them,” is Stevie’s explanation for his perseverance in this task.

  For this reason Stevie has a key to Fiona’s suite, as she sometimes thinks of it, and she often forgets that he must pass through her rooms fairly often. But there is never a trace of his passage, except for the thriving, obviously well-tended plants, all green and glossy, never a dead leaf or tiny stray volunteer weed in their large, ornately garlanded (Italian) terra-cotta pots.

  Today, however, Fiona notices a folded section of that morning’s Chronicle on the low round table that is next to the sundeck door. Getting up from her bed very quickly, Fiona se
es that it is the food section, taken up mostly by photographs of the restaurant in which she just had lunch, and that the caption is BEST PLACE IN TOWN, SAY CRITICS.

  It is quite a long piece, using most of the words most familiar to Fiona: Fresh, innovative, visual appeal, presentation, unusual spectrum, vigorous approach. As well as: Firmly textured, subtle use of. Delicious, enticing, seductive, exotic. Writer David Argent is quoted, “The greatest food adventure since peanut butter.”

  Reading all that in a rush, and then reading it again, taking everything in, Fiona experiences a rush of the most sickening disgust, and on several levels: disgust at the general asininity of food talk now, as well as at this particular local restaurant critic, whom she knows, and who, perhaps a year ago, wrote an almost identical piece about Fiona’s. Disgust at David Argent, who never misses a chance to appear in print. That whore, thinks Fiona.

  But worst of all, the deepest and most nauseating chagrin is at herself for caring.

  And, mingled somehow with all that raging contempt, that general and quite particularized anger, is quite another set of emotional sensations, some of which are distinctly physical and all of which have to do with missing Roland Gallo, in very specific ways.

  She would even like to scream and break things, to kick in those big clay pots and throw dirt around.

  But someone would hear her, someone would come up to see whatever was wrong. Stevie, probably.

  And at that thought, the thought of Stevie, a new impulse prompts Fiona to pick up the intercom next to her bed and to call downstairs. Where, at last, she connects with Stevie.

  “Stevie, I really need to talk to you. Could you come up for a minute?” This request has a perfectly normal sound; making it, Fiona has kept her voice level. It is only unusual in that never, never has she summoned Stevie or anyone up to her penthouse. No one, ever.

  Stevie takes his time getting up there, of course. And at his knock Fiona simply calls out, “Come in,” and remains where she is, propped up among the pile of pale silk pillows on her bed. Her shoes, green lizard, are down on the floor, and her feet in their sheer green hose thrust forward. But when Stevie comes in she retracts her feet, pushing them modestly under the coverlet. She is not sure why, some vague sense of disapproval that she always feels from Stevie. He is such a puritan, really, like all those Sixties people. Movement people. Like Sage.

  He is as always immaculate in his starched blue work clothes, loose on his overweight tall body. Even his jeans are sharply creased, a contrast to his scraggly red-blond beard, his long thin hair. He says, “You summoned?”

  Does Stevie dislike her? Curiously, this has never really occurred to Fiona before—but, then, she has not experienced much negative emotion in her life. Attractive and energetic, Fiona has forged ahead, and has not often stopped to consider her effect. And so for someone very close to her, someone important in her life—for such a person as Stevie to dislike her would be novel. Interesting, even. She tries it out. “Are you mad at me, Stevie?” she asks him.

  Stevie frowns, and then simply stares at her for a minute. “You didn’t get me to come all the way up here for a ludicrous, irrelevant question like that, now, did you?”

  “Actually not. But sit down. Pull up a chair.”

  “Why? Do I have to?” He is smiling but not very nicely, Fiona feels.

  “Christ, Stevie, I don’t care. I just wondered about the piece you left up here. That so-called restaurant review.”

  “I wanted to be sure you saw it. Obviously. That simple. I’ve had this feeling that your attention has as you might say wandered of late.”

  Of course he is absolutely right. Her attention has indeed been wandering, wandering off and all around Roland Gallo, for months now; that is the simple, observable truth. “That’s not true,” says Fiona nevertheless. “I’ve had a lot of things on my mind, but one of the main things is how we’re doing here. Always.”

  “Whatever you say, boss lady.”

  “You’re not worried?”

  “Not really. Or not enough to make me look for a new investment.”

  Stevie’s early investment in Fiona’s amounted to a few thousand, his savings, some little stash that he got when his father died and his brothers sold the house in Seattle. This was when Fiona was starting out and suddenly needed whatever he had; he was working for her even then, doing odd jobs, flowers, like that—she tends to forget the details of that transaction, only that she was surprised that Stevie had any money at all. But occasionally Stevie reminds her that he is to some extent a partner in her business. That her business is to some extent their business.

  She asks him, “Suppose we just sold out?”

  Stevie for a moment simply stares; he always seems to be staring out through a tangle of pale-red lashes, like a bird. Fiona wonders if she has succeeded in shocking him, if only a little.

  Then he smiles, and Fiona realizes two things: one, that Stevie is not shocked or surprised at all; and two, that his smile is not at all friendly.

  He says, “I understand, I guess. This is your way of telling me that the person from Bonny Fairchild suggested a major sum, is that right?”

  “Well, yes, but how—?”

  “I keep up. Your book is an open book, so to speak.” And, again, that not-nice smile.

  Seized with a powerful need to get something from Stevie, an urge to arouse him in some undefined way, Fiona blindly attempts, “I could take you off to Italy, how about that? Early retirement for us both.” She had meant this as a sort of joke, of course she had, but as she says it Fiona thinks, Why not? Me and Stevie, why not? Early on she had wondered if Stevie could be gay, but then he had a big romance with one of the waitresses, a dropout from Mills, who confided to Fiona that Stevie was “really something else, sack-wise.” And Sage had once explained Stevie in the sort of psychobabble she sometimes uses: “He’s basically nuts about women—and very accepting of the feminine in himself.”

  He is not, though, accepting of Fiona. He laughs in an unpleasant way, he says, “That might be your idea of a good time, but not mine. No way.” And he turns and quickly leaves the room.

  As Fiona thinks several things: one, she has never seen Stevie quite so unpleasant before; and two, this is her first experience of being disliked (she thinks).

  Twenty-three

  “Hi, Jill. My name is, uh, John. I guess you don’t remember me, it’s been quite a while—” “Who the hell are you? Who gave you my number?”

  “Well, actually Buck—”

  “You’re crazy! I don’t know any Buck! I’m not Jill—” She slams down the receiver so hard that the instrument falls to the floor, then she grasps at the kitchen counter where she was sitting when the phone rang. She holds the cold white marble as hard as she can, but still she is trembling, violently, she cannot control this seizure, these chills. All her veins feel swollen with cold, her forehead could explode. Oh, how dare that John call? She could really kill Buck, the vile, the sleazy betrayer.

  Still cold, Jill stands trembling in her kitchen, and then runs into her bathroom, where she vomits into the toilet. Then crawls into bed. To cry.

  That terrible episode was a few weeks ago—two weeks? three? Jill is deliberately losing track of time. Of everything she can. Losing track.

  She has now left town, and is staying in a quickly rented house in Stinson Beach—not in Sea Drift, she hates Sea Drift, all those expensive design-controlled houses jammed together. She is in a house just past the slummy part of Stinson, the calles, dead-ends where seedy old hippies live (the sort of people Sage might know, shabby old Sixties radicals), or just plain poor people. Jill’s house is right between all that mess and Sea Drift. Belonging to neither.

  A wonderful house: if she were not feeling so crazy, so persecuted (still), she could be happy in this house, Jill thinks.

  It is not on the beach but somewhat back from it, in an area of wild grass, and sand. The roof slants sharply upward, the rear wall is two stories high, a huge-
paned window that gives a view of hills, mostly green, deeply crevassed and scattered with trees. Just below the hills is a wide lagoon, a quiet dark stretch of water surrounded by dark, high rushes, from which large strange birds emerge, to flap across the surface, or else to soar up, suddenly skyward, and out to sea.

  Jill spends a great deal of time simply gazing out at that view, at those shadowed, gently sloping hills, at the peaceful lagoon, at flights of seabirds. In that way she absorbs some peace, she believes; a slightly different rhythm enters her blood.

  She has told her office that this is a leave of absence, not bothering to ascertain whether or not that leave was granted. She only let fall a few resonant, relevant buzz words; she mentioned overload, super-stress and a possibility of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

  She has not called in.

  She makes indeed very few phone calls—and Jill has thought of the extreme contrast in that way between now and then: her record, she thinks, was the day or, rather, the hour in which she made forty calls, forty calls in an hour. This is hard for her to believe but she kept score, that day, a running score on her notepad.

  Anyway, these days very few calls. A few to her mother, Caroline, just to say that she is okay. She really likes Caroline, even if they are so different, even if Caroline can be a considerable pain. Even if Caroline is her mother.

  And a few to Fiona, about whom she has feelings vaguely similar to those that she harbors for her mother. She is attached to Fiona despite rather than because of their being sisters; Fiona is more like a friend, a somewhat combative, somewhat rivalrous, basically affectionate friend.

  And sometimes she calls Noel. He always threatens to come out to see her, but so far he has not. Mainly, Jill understands, because Sage is still in New York.

  Jill knows a lot about this odd paralysis that seems to afflict married men when their wives are out of town. The guy, no matter how habitually he strays, is then seemingly pinioned to his house, his home. Even when there are no practical considerations like small children, or pets. The best way to keep husbands at home is to leave them there, has been Jill’s longtime deduction, now once more proven by Noel.