Caroline's Daughters (7 page)

“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 small 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.

“H
ow 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—”

“You're not wearing anything, Jilly. You're perfectly bare, I can tell.”

“Don't call me Jilly, I hate that. And I hate you, Noel Finn. Where are you, anyway?”

“I'm out in my workshop, where do you think? Do you wish I were there?”

“No. Yes. Oh shit.
No
.”

The truth is that Jill wishes almost anyone were there, any man, and until fairly recently, she thinks, there always was some guy, and almost always someone pretty good. Some okay or fairly cute or handsome guy. She is not sure just what has changed—and it seems to have changed for all the women she knows, lots fewer men around, and it can't all be guys gone gay, or fear of AIDS. But she knows that then she was not reduced to these sleazy conversations with her half-sister's sleazy husband, for heaven's sake. She would not be there when he called, or not answering the phone. He could ask her answering machine how much money she had, if he wanted to know. “This is a very sleazy conversation,” she says to Noel.

He laughs. “I've had sleazier, and I'll bet you have too.”

Well, he's right there, and for an instant, it is fortunately just one instant, Jill is tempted to tell Noel about certain things that she used to do. Things that would really shock him, that he would never expect of her, Miss Successful Corporation Lawyer. Daughter of Dr. and Mrs. James and Caroline McAndrew. Noel is kind of a snob, she feels that—but he also has a way of making her want to talk to him. Or maybe she is simply lonely.

“What's the worst thing you've ever done?” she asks Noel. “Aside from cheating on my sister, that is.”

“You're some lawyer, Ms. McAndrew. Okay. One, I don't cheat on your sister all that much. Nowhere near as much as she thinks I do. In fact she's very flattering, that way. And, two, sure I have done worse things than that. So now let's hear about you.”

Sitting up, pulling silk-smooth sheets around her shoulders, Jill laughs, comfortably. “You wouldn't believe me,” she tells him.

“Try me.”

“No, I have to go. I just remembered there's a really good book on my table.”

“Well, of all the—” He laughs, defeated.

“I mean it, I want to read for a while.”

Jill puts the receiver down very lightly, and reaches to the table next to her bed for the book that she did in fact just remember, a nice new edition of
The Last Chronicle of Barset
, which is her mother's favorite book (Jill believes). She herself finds it hard to tell one Trollope from another. But she has always meant to read this one.

Most of Jill's reading is of magazines, she must subscribe to a couple of dozen, all very glossy, bright—and by contrast this book seems so heavy; she does not really want to read it at all, she finds. Annoyed, she puts the book down, and recognizes that she is more than a little turned on by Noel. She feels sexy and restless, her mind very lively, roaming all over.

And for both reasons, sexiness, restlessness, she begins to think about what she used to call (to herself) the Game, which is what she came so dangerously close to telling Noel about. How he would have loved that! The only man she ever did tell almost went crazy, he was so excited. He adored her for what she had told him, he said. As Noel would have.

The Game began in a curious way, one day at lunch with a sort-of friend of Jill's, a round-faced, pink-skinned, nebbishy-looking guy named Buck Fister (so wrong, he was the last person for a name like Buck). Buck was a big success in something odd, like lighting fixtures; no one was ever exactly sure what he did, a lot of people always said he made his real money dealing—the only explanation for so much funny money, these days. And he was usually good for some blow, if you felt the need.

Buck was always around in the places Jill was around, hanging out at lunch at the Balboa, sometimes the Elite at night, Campton Place or the Zuni Cafe. He used to call Jill a lot, apparently just to talk, he never actually asked for dates. He seemed to want to be friends (he could have been gay but no one thought he was) and every now and then they would do lunch, and always on him, Buck insisted on that, and usually in a fairly pricey restaurant. He was a pretty fun lunch, lots of insider scam on everyone, he always knew just who was in big trouble with money or drugs, who had just tested positive, he knew a lot.

Jill always wondered, though, just what he was up to: what did he really want of her, anyway? She knew there was something.

And then it came out, very slowly, very cool. He simply said for maybe the hundredth time that she was the spiffiest girl in town. (“Spiffy” was a word Buck liked a lot—oddly enough, a word that Jill's stepfather, Ralph Carter, also used. Ralph liked to tell Caroline
that she was very spiffy.) And then Buck said, “I know guys who'd give a thousand bucks for a date with you.”

They went on talking after that, and Jill laughed it off, but as soon as he had said that, Jill knew exactly what was meant. Later he said it again. “Well, you do have some curious friends,” Jill told him. And, “Just how much would you get out of it, Bucks?”