Caroline's Daughters (20 page)

She must mean Fiona, which would explain quite a lot, now that Liza thinks back to the “family dinner” at Fiona's, and so she asks, “Do you possibly mean Fiona?” This direct approach may shock Joanne into some sort of clarity, Liza believes, or hopes.

But no. “Fiona who? The Fiona of Fiona's?” Conveniently drunk again, Joanne laughs, lightly, messily and unsuccessfully. Her face
then crumples, doll-blue eyes tighten, and she is crying, small sad constricted sobs, small tears trickling through the vestiges of her makeup.

“Mommy, he threw sand at me!” Liza's small daughter just then from the sandbox shrieks, just before knocking her brother over backwards. He too begins to shriek.

So that all Liza can do by way of comfort for poor Joanne is a small pat on the shoulder, as she gets up and heads for the sandbox, to separate her murderous children. As she does so, trying to be a good fair mom, her peripheral vision takes in Joanne hurriedly getting up, her wrecked face hidden in Kleenex. Joanne, leaving J.K.

Liza's next quite unexpected visitant that afternoon in the park is Sage—Sage, with quite another story to tell.

“When I got all this bad news I went over to, uh, Jim's,” Sage says, with almost no preamble. She is perched on the same green slatted bench beside Liza where Joanne sat, overlooking the sandbox where the two small children are now deeply involved in making a municipal garage, or so they say.

Sage smiles, a quick humorless twist of her mouth. “Poor Jim. I was really not in good shape, I mean I was worse than I thought I was. More upset. And he had a bad cold.” Divulging this piece of information, which is to Liza quite unalarming, Sage looks as though she, like Joanne, might weep—and Liza at once understands several related facts.

The first is that Sage, who tends to be indirect, who is never confrontational—Sage in this way is apologizing to Jim for whatever happened between them, apologizing through the medium of Liza, who is supposed to tell her father that Sage is sorry—Sage did not mean to get drunk, did not mean to do whatever reprehensible things she believes that she did.

Liza finds herself not wanting to speculate about whatever scene took place between Sage and Jim. Her father. Odd: usually she is quite given to speculation about such scenes.

It would really be better, Liza believes, if Sage could just say, I threw up. Or, I talked too much. I told Jim stuff that I really
shouldn't have, I told him that Noel is a shit, and probably unfaithful.

Whatever Sage did or said, though, Liza knows that she will keep it to herself, contained within her infinitely complex mind, her series of selves. Liza has sometimes imagined this much-loved, subtle and difficult sister as a series of rooms, leading into each other but all quite separate, discrete as to decor, to mood.

“Are you able to get any work done these days?” Liza now gently asks.

“Not much. You know, I'm pretty discouraged. I'd counted on the New York thing too much. I just feel—and then Noel—” Sage gestures her feeling of helplessness, spreading her hands before her, in feeble self-defense.

“But Sage.”

“I know.” Again, the twist of a smile. “I know. I'll go to New York in January, nothing so different. It could be better, even. I could have finished something new by then. I never did really get at that group of women I meant to do. It doesn't matter about now, really, I keep telling myself. I'm being very childish, I know I am.”

Liza smiles. “As who is not.”

“Anyway, that same night, after I got home from Jim's, Noel came in really late, and I made this terrible scene with him. Honestly, Liza, what's happening to me?”

“Maybe making a few scenes would be good for you. Everyone gets upset. It's not so awful to let it show, I don't think.”

“You mean, good for me to let it out for a change? Liza, you're such a wise kid. Not to mention really kind.” As she says this Sage's narrow gold eyes fill.

As Liza thinks, I really cannot stand all this weeping. Honestly, everyone seems to be in tears. When what I really came to the park for was some sexy encounters. Honestly.

“What's so funny about your stupid older sister?” Sage has asked, responding to Liza's smile. But her tears have gone, as suddenly as they came into her eyes.

“Oh, nothing,” Liza tells her. “Just sometimes I remember coming here to J.K. when I was sort of a kid, you know, high-school stuff. Afternoons in the Sixties. All those guys.”

Sage smiles again. But even now, relatively cheered, she has a
damaged look. Earlier, as she came toward Liza, Liza took note of her lagging walk, her especially tattered black turtleneck.

“Those must have been really good times,” Sage says, wistfully, probably enviously. “But now you have good Saul. Even better.”

“Oh yes. Better.”

“God, some afternoon,” says Liza that night after dinner to Saul. A rare civilized interval during which neither of them is actually doing anything else as they speak. Dinner and the dishes are done, the children asleep and Saul is neither trying to read nor playing with any of his various electronic audio equipments, not recording or listening, retaping anything. And Liza is not turning the pages of magazines that she means to read later. They are simply talking.

“First Joanne Gallo. Honestly, that poor woman. A potential suicide if I ever saw one. And then Sage. If Joanne were a patient of yours would you tell me?”

“No, of course not.”

“I sure hope she's someone's patient. If I ever saw a woman in bad shape. Sage is not exactly happy either but she has more going for her, at least I think so.”

“Sage. I don't know, but I think you're right. She'll probably be okay. Depending on what you mean by okay.”

“Do you say that just because you know she put in all that time with your colleague?”

“No, certainly not.”

“Saul, don't you ever get really turned on by a patient? I mean, you must get an occasional really dishy young girl?”

Liza has asked this question before, in various forms, so that now Saul smiles—in a way that Liza has wondered about: is he being condescending to her? would he dare? “Not often enough,” he now tells her, with that smile.

“The point is, you wouldn't tell me if you did, is that right?”

“Even more to the point, I wouldn't tell her. How dishy she looked.”

“Like a priest. How sexy, I'm married to a Jewish priest. But, Saul, it surely must happen?”

“I suppose. Or so some people say.”

“The irony.” Liza sighs. “People observe that we get along, we seem to talk to each other a lot, and from that they probably conclude that you confide in me. That I'm privy to all sorts of juicy secrets, the way lots of doctors' and lawyers' wives are. Whereas actually it's the other way around, I tell you things.” She sighs again, before continuing. “Anyway, I did get a clear impression that something went very wrong between Sage and Jim.”

“I hope not. I think she counts on him. She needs him.”

“Of course she does. After all, he began in her life as her father, really. But I got such an odd impression today, as though things had taken a sort of sexual turn. Between Sage and Jim.” Liza gives a tiny shudder. “Needless to say, that made me feel a little odd. After all. My dad.”

“True enough.”

“If they actually did it, would that be incest?”

“Good God, Liza. What a thought. I guess technically not, literally not, since they aren't related by blood. God knows what the laws are about that, if there are any. But emotionally it surely would be.”

“On the other hand, once you're grown up, why not?”

“Liza. God. I'm going to see to it that you never get a chance to remarry. God!”

A small pause, and then Liza asks, as she reaches to pull gently at the longish hair on his neck, “Do you not get haircuts because you hate to or is it really some vanity about your hair?”

“Oh, Liza—”

“Do you mean you don't know?”

“Maybe both things are true? That's what my patients and I often seem to say to each other.”

“Well, really. Are you actually quoting a patient—to me?”

“Patients. I was speaking generally.”

“Darling, you do have lovely hair, though.”

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?

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.”