Caroline's Daughters (41 page)

“It's dangerous in San Francisco, and really dangerous in New York,” has been Hilda's answer.

“Not the same way. No wars.”

“Crack wars. Gangs.”

“Still. It's not as dangerous,” Portia repeats, feeling helpless, scared.

In the meantime, roses. Today, a Saturday, they have driven down to Watsonville to a place that specializes in old-fashioned varieties. “Caroline would go mad,” remarked Portia, going a little mad herself.

The rose place turned out to be enormous, fields and hills of roses, all kinds, damasks and tea roses, ramblers and climbers, English roses, floribundas. Miniature roses, the only kind that Portia and Hilda could agree not to like, not to covet as they did almost all the rest, all those ravishing colors, velvet petals. A rich rose scent wafts delicately up through the cool blue air, of that California day.

They came home with a dozen cans of roses. Having chosen ten quite at random, not counting, they then said almost at once, “Oh well, in that case we might as well get a dozen,” as though twelve were a magic number. The two final choices were of course the most difficult; they settled at last on the impractically lovely pale lavender Sterling Silver (a favorite of Caroline's) and an orange-pink hybrid tea, called Tenerife.

Other choices were various. Everything but white in fact, yellow to burnished gold, and every shade of pink, and deepest scarlet.

And so, on the deck of their house, in the declining sunlight, there sit Portia and Hilda, and their dozen cans of beautifully flowering roses. And their separate preoccupations.

“I don't even know whether we want to put them down in the garden or just have them up here in pots,” continues Portia.

“Well, maybe some in both places.” Saying this, Hilda frowns, as though judicially confronting the most serious problem in the world.

At which they both laugh, and Portia thinks, It's going to be all right, after all.

And then the phone rings.

“Want me to get it?”

“I will—”

“Okay, it's more likely for you.”

It is indeed for Portia. It is Sage, saying that she and Stevie have just made some gravlax; they were in Sausalito the day before and bought some lovely fresh salmon. Could they bring it over? Maybe a picnic supper out on the deck?

In an almost automatic way Portia says yes, do come, what a great idea. And then, after hanging up, she begins to note the lowering of her own spirits. Odd: she loves Sage unreservedly, and Hilda likes both Sage and Stevie—and Portia takes such pleasure in all Sage's new happiness, and really she is very fond of Stevie too.

“I can't figure it out,” she tells Hilda, having already developed the habit of telling Hilda most stray thoughts, most random reactions. “I really wish they weren't coming. And why?”

“Dear Portia, you think about it. I don't know.”

And then of course it comes to Portia: she is remembering the night she had planned to cook for Sage, and came home to find Sage
and
Noel in the kitchen. And on that occasion too there was salmon involved: Noel turned her salmon steaks into an hors d'oeuvre, and cooked his own goddam pasta. And talked so much, was so
present
.

She tells Hilda all that; they have not talked about Noel much before.

“Such a complicated human,” is Hilda's comment.

“Sage seems to go for that. Roland, I think, had even more contradictions.”

“Which would possibly indicate that Stevie is more complex than he looks to be?”

“Probably. And if he's not it simply won't work out.”

“But it has to. With the baby.”

“Oh, has to. Hilda, what will I do when you're gone?”

Hilda smiles darkly, impenetrably. And then she says, very practical, “You'll find some work. It's the only solution, for anything.”

“Oh, I know you're right. But what?”

By the time Sage and Stevie arrive, quite promptly at 7, both Portia and Hilda are very happy to see them.

“Someone sure has an eye for the greatest roses,” Stevie exclaims as they reach the deck; there, in the continuing warmth, despite the clutter, they plan to have some wine and the now-chilling gravlax. Stevie goes slowly from bush to bush, less as an inspector than as a lover. He looks intently at each clump of blossoms, smiling at them, breathing them in. And then, standing up, he begins to laugh at himself. “I'm sorry, I'm really a rose nut,” he explains. “Honestly, this is hog heaven.”

“I did work in a nursery for a while.” Portia seems to feel that her superior taste in roses requires explanation. “With, uh, what's-his-name.”

None of them can remember the name of Portia's former co-worker, her semi-lover, until at last Portia comes out with “Harold.”

“Which reminds me,” Stevie says, “do you all remember Fiona's old flower purveyors, Lois and Bonnie? Lois was tall and black, Bonnie little and blonde.”

“Not really,” Sage tells him. “But then I never exactly spent a lot of time hanging out at Fiona's.”

“I sort of do remember them, I think,” lies Portia, the truth being that she remembers both those women with excruciating vividness; she used to be so (she finds no other way to put this) so turned on by them, by their persons and by the very idea of them: two forthright, uncloseted and apparently very happy lesbians. She was passionately curious about them, especially about Lois, the very tall, very beautiful black woman.

“Well, they broke up, remember?” (Portia does very clearly remember, and remembers certain fantasies of her own, concerning Lois). “And Lois, who's one terrific businesswoman,” says Stevie, “or I guess that's what she is, Lois has this new nursery business over on Potrero, near where we used to be, the restaurant. And she's looking for someone. In case you hear of anyone interested in working with her.”

“Why not in fact for you, Portia?” asks innocent Hilda. Or, is she after all so innocent? Can she have picked up something in the air from Portia, some breath of Portia's intense interest, and sensed its nature? It is hard to read anything so devious on Hilda's clear-featured pale-brown face, or in her luminous green-brown eyes.

And how possibly can she, Portia, even imagine anything with someone else? “Well, I don't know,” she says. “It's true that I need to get into some kind of work, and it should be something I know about,” she trails off, weakly.

Or, does subtle, very wise Hilda actually plan to stay in Lebanon, and does she (altruistically? managerially?) hope to leave Portia on the threshold of a new relationship? Impossible to tell, and certainly impossible at the moment to ask Hilda.

“Harold might be interested,” says Portia. “He called the other day and sounded sort of at loose ends. Besides, I've been thinking that I might go back to school and get a teaching credential. Learn how to teach foreigners. Boat people. Children.” She had in fact thought of this before, but not been sure that she would do it until she spoke—so definitely.

“Well, that's a most good idea.” Hilda smiles.

And Sage, “Yes, good.”

Sage is wearing a sort of maternity smock, something yellow, embroidered in red. It seems to Portia a little early for such a costume, but she can understand Sage's need to confirm it. “Are you going to have the test?” she asks Sage.

“No, I'm not.” Sage is very clear, and defiant. “I know at my age I'm supposed to, but unless you're prepared to have an abortion, which I'm not, there's no point.”

“We plan to take what we get,” adds Stevie, smilingly.

“And we think our chances are great,” Sage announces, and then she frowns. “I keep having to explain that this doesn't mean I'm anti-abortion, for God's sake. I plan to march and do everything I can if those morons overturn
Roe v. Wade
. It only has to do with this particular kid. Mine and Stevie's. Also, at my age I'm not all that likely to get pregnant again.”

“You can't tell, this may be the first of many.” Stevie laughs.

“Don't count on me for more,” Sage tells him.

“It's certainly no one's business but yours,” Portia tells her sister.

“Exactly, that's how I see it. Anyway, I really don't want to know its sex.”

Hilda asks, “When does Caroline get home, exactly?”

Sage tells them, “Next week. Thursday morning. We should have a party for her, don't you think?”

“No, I don't think.” Portia is thoughtful. “Really, can you imagine all of us together in a festive way? I mean, now?”

“Well, I guess not. You're right.”

By now the fog has come in, obscuring the hills of the Mission, and cooling the air on the deck where they all still sit, among all those rusty cans of beautiful roses. Behind one of those cans the old cat, Pink, is hiding; from time to time she looks out malevolently, hating guests.

“In Lebanon—” Hilda begins, and then interrupts herself to say, “But I've already told you, I repeat myself. The roses of Lebanon are famous too.” Her smile is gentle, mildly ironic.

“Caroline will tell us how to deal with all the roses,” says Portia. “Is anyone cold now? Isn't it maybe time to go in?” And then she asks, “Where's Pink? Has anyone seen her?”

“T
he thing is, I'm rather tired of my daughters,” says Caroline to the woman on the bed, in a strange and creaky, dingy old hotel, in Seattle. “Not Sage and Portia,” says Caroline, “and really not Liza, although she is awfully self-absorbed these days, going on and on about her writing. But I am terrifically tired of both Fiona and Jill, is the truth of it. I don't even want to hear about this new sort of inn in the Napa Valley. I'm sure there's something fishy about the whole operation, and I just don't want to know.”

“Five daughters is quite a lot,” says the woman on the bed, who has long yellow-white hair and strange light eyes.

“Yes, and I'm sure they'll do much better without me around. They're all much too old to have a mother so actively in their lives. I've been so
present
.”

“Five daughters would have driven me crazy.” The woman laughs, a soft, rusty sound, an old rocker of a laugh. She is very fat, a huge sausage mound in the tight white bed. “Not to mention all those husbands,” she adds. “Four, did you say?”

“No, just three. But you're right, it was quite a lot. But I didn't set out that way. I only—”

“You're probably over-sexed.”

“I guess. I could be.”

“Always hated it myself, which kept me out of considerable trouble, is how I see it. Your daughters seem to have a lot the same problem, from the sound of it.”

Not much wanting to go on in that way about her daughters, nor about sex generally, Caroline remarks, as she has several times before, on the several successive days that she has visited, “Your view is marvellous.”

“I know, see it all the time.” Again the creaky, gentle laugh.

This room is on the top floor of a building a few blocks from the Pike Place Market. From its long wide windows is the view, first, of water—Elliott Bay, Bainbridge Island. To the north, more water, and, eventually, the mysterious dark San Juans. Southward, water and more islands and, on very clear days, the mountains of the Olympic range. Just now there is a streaky, tattered sunset, bright remnants of color, mauves and faded pinks against an old ash-blue sky, reflected in all that dark smooth water.

On one of the streets below this hotel, down closer to the water, there is a newish building, lots of glass and steel, what look to be condominiums. What views they would have! Constantly, there would be those views. Caroline plans to go by and have a look at one the following day. Well, why not? She could easily sell her house and move to Seattle. Maybe that's what she most needs, a move. A real change.

To leave San Francisco.

A week or so earlier, in San Francisco, the following conversation took place:

“Caroline, please try to understand. Bayard Lord did everything in the world to get that woman off the streets. It wasn't just you who saw her and recognized her. Several people did and called Bayard about her.”

“Jim dear, you sound as though that were the worst of it.”

“Caroline—God in heaven. I did not mean that. You are always so determined—But you must admit, she made a point of choosing the neighborhoods—Well, the point is, Bayard sent a whole team of professionals—”

“What sort of ‘professionals' do you mean?”

“Oh, a couple of social workers and an intern from Children's, I believe he was from Children's. Caroline, just a minute—”

This early-morning talk between Caroline and her former husband
was interrupted then as Jim seemed to muffle the phone with his hand—as Caroline heard in the background an impatient, young and feminine voice: “Jim, for Christ's sake, come on—”

“Honey, I am—”

And then Jim's voice, back to her. “Professionals,” he said again. “Honestly, Caroline, I appreciate your concern but you weren't exactly friends, as I remember you were pretty hard on old Higgsie in fact. Look, I really have to go—”

“I know, I know you do. But where is she now? Did they ever find her, these professionals?”

“Yes, they found her but after that I don't know. Caroline—”

“Jim, as a terrific favor, could you call Bayard? I honestly don't want to.”

“Sure thing. I'll get back to you soon.”

That last was what he always said to patients, Caroline reflected, hanging up. “I'll get back to you soon.” As though that would cure everything. Cure Mary Higgins Lord of her madness, and now cure Caroline of all her uneasiness, her guilt and deep concern over the fate of this almost unknown woman.

However, Jim did in fact get back to her. Two days later a tiny note came from his office, in his own small cramped hand, which through long training Caroline can read. “Higgsie Lord okay and in Seattle.”