Caroline's Daughters (9 page)

She is not actually a poet, although she is occasionally explained as such. “I do write an occasional haiku,” Portia has confessed to Sage, to whom she is closest, “but that's just for fun. It's a sort of meditative exercise.” She allows the rest of them to think of her as a poet, since she believes that they like to, “poet” as a designation makes her more plausible. “I really don't quite know what I want to do,” Portia has said to Sage. “Do I have to, already?”

For a living she does several things. She house-sits, with emphasis on plants and pets, and when not house-sitting she works for a young couple who do organic gardening. This last is back in Bolinas, in her cabin (her purchase with her Molly Blair money), what
she thinks of as home. She also occasionally works, for no money, for a young man named Harold, who also lives in Bolinas, a refugee from a very high-powered East Coast alcoholic-politico father. Harold is trying to start a nursery.

Of all her occupations Portia's favorite is the pet- and plant-sitting, the houses. She likes Harold, likes helping him out, but she worries so that he may fail. She is over-identified with Harold, she sometimes thinks.

Plants and pets and houses, though, she finds extremely reassuring, especially going back to places; she is happiest when working on a more or less regular basis, as she does for a Mrs. Kaltenborn, an elderly, eccentric lady who lives in Bernal Heights but goes to Italy every summer for three weeks, leaving three cats and a house full of ferns and philodendrons, yucca plants and spathofilium. There are ferns especially all over the house, and one of Portia's chores is to see that the cats do not take bites from the fern leaves, which they like to do, and which always makes them throw up, an ugly green bile.

The oldest cat is eighteen, she is cross and demanding and extremely talkative, called Pink. She is Portia's favorite, for reasons that Portia herself does not quite understand. A tailless Manx, Pink walks with that non-existent tail held high, her long thin legs a little uncertain now.

The other two cats are Burmese, sleek and plump and fairly stupid; Pink dislikes them both. Portia believes that Pink remembers and recognizes her, which could be true. Portia also believes in a curious kinship between herself and Mrs. Kaltenborn; they seem to inhabit each other, which is to say that the absent Mrs. Kaltenborn seems (to Portia) to be present in Pink. Pink is a combination of extreme crossness and an affection that is just as extreme, as is Mrs. K. In any case, Portia feels herself quite permanently attached to both.

And that semi-shabby, architecturally eccentric neighborhood also appeals to Portia. The grander areas in which she sometimes tends house, or for that matter in which she visits her sisters or her mother—those places, Pacific Heights, Russian Hill and Telegraph, all quite intimidate Portia, they fill her with unease and loneliness. But in this tall narrow crooked house, impractically arranged, Portia
feels a sort of recognition. The house reminds her of herself; like her, it is not quite right.

In fact Portia is possessed of an exceptionally acute sense of place, a heightened sensitivity to the physical facts of her surroundings. She once had an almost mystical experience, involving “place.” This is what happened:

A few years back, when Portia was in her early twenties and just out of school, U.C. at Santa Cruz, she and some friends elected to drive across the country, to New York and back, in a more or less random way. (Portia paid for most of the expenses of this trip, her way of getting rid of a lot of her Molly Blair money.) Driving through Texas, they stopped in a town near Austin, called San Marcos, that for no apparent reason appealed very strongly to Portia. Quite literally it appealed: it cried out to her to stay there, everything shouted, the ordinary town square with its small, fairly ugly town hall, the streets of very ordinary two-story houses, with a few rare spacious beauties—and the river, flowing through.

Returning to San Francisco, more or less in passing Portia mentioned this town (of which she still thought, for which she yearned) to her father, only saying, “I really liked it there. Something about it.”

And Ralph told her: “That's pretty amazing. San Marcos is where your grandfather was born, and I used to visit there a lot when I was a boy. They had the prettiest farmhouse down on the river, the most beautiful trees. Your blood must have recognized that place.”

They both laughed, denying such a possibility, blood recognition, but to Portia that was exactly how it had felt, a surging of all her cells, with her warm blood, toward that place.

Portia “feels at home” in the Kaltenborn house, in Bernal Heights, to such a degree that she sometimes invites friends for supper, a rare event for her. She likes to cook in that narrow, hopelessly crowded kitchen, with its small vine-tangled deck just outside; she likes looking out to the rusting cans of flowering herbs, cracked terra-cotta pots of alyssum, lobelia and daisies. Ralph and Caroline have visited her there, and Liza and Saul and the children (Portia likes children, generally, and especially these half-nieces
and -nephews). Harold has visited her there, and several times Sage. Never Fiona or Jill, however, who are simply too fussy about how things are.

To celebrate Sage's good news, the show of her sculpture that is definitely scheduled for October in New York, Portia is making an old favorite dinner for just the two of them; Noel conveniently has some business with clients, over in Orinda. (Portia is pleased, nothing against Noel, really, just that being alone with Sage is a special pleasure.) Salmon and asparagus and brown rice, an endive-and-watercress salad. Sage will bring some fruit for dessert. The simplicity of it all will make it more fun, with minimal chances for culinary disaster. Portia is a fairly good cook but easily distracted, prone to burnings. And Sage's cooking has gone markedly downhill since her marriage to Noel, quite possibly because he is such a chef, given to flamboyant French feasts, Italian banquets (“Retro-disgusting,” is Fiona's harsh verdict on Noel's cooking. “A busboy's dream.
So
South-of-Market”).

In Portia's mind these days Sage is already a big rich success. Large glossy photos of her ceramics in all the fanciest art magazines, and for Sage herself a new house, a big studio. New clothes and trips to Europe. Imagining all that for Sage, Portia's heart warms: How wonderful Sage will look in her new role as a woman who has arrived. How becoming success will be, since Sage has so surely earned it.

Bedazzled, literally, by such large generous thoughts, late in the afternoon of the dinner day Portia simultaneously recalls two small lapses of her own: she is not yet dressed and has no idea what to wear, and, worse, she has forgotten to get any wine.

In a hurried way she pulls on the better of the two sweaters she brought over from Bolinas; it doesn't matter, but she does wish she had something slightly better for a Sage celebration. Clean jeans. She finds her billfold and heads out the door, which does not lock. Sage will know that she should just go right on in.

Portia has spent so much time in this neighborhood that she has various neighborhood relationships, people she nods or speaks to,
animals she stops to pat along her way. With the Vietnamese family in the corner grocery she has an especially elaborate connection—she really likes them. They are small and shy and highly ceremonious people, as Portia is tall and shy and also excessively polite. Thus any transaction between Portia and My, the mother, and other family members tends to be lengthy.

“I'm having some salmon,” Portia now confides to My, who seems to be alone in the store.

“Ah, fish! You like white wine?”

“Well yes, I thought white. I guess some Chardonnay.”

“Ah yes! very nice! Chardonnay.” My has lovely large dark eyes, and a terrible scar across her chin. She is always very pale.

This business, then, takes some time, the purchase of a seven-dollar bottle of wine, more than Portia meant to spend, but the label has a nice drawing of California poppies, so festive. At last it is over, the sale, and after inquiries into each other's health and happiness (would My tell her if there was actually something wrong? would she tell My?) Portia is out on the street again, and hurrying toward her temporary home.

And there in front of her house is Sage's old black VW convertible (formerly convertible, the roof doesn't work any more).
Good
, thinks Portia, who knows that she is late. How good that Sage is there, is inside.

As she pushes the door open, though, she hears Sage talking to someone, and at first she thinks, A neighbor? How strange.

And then she realizes that Sage is talking to Noel, they are both in the kitchen. Sage and Noel.

Portia's unstable heart sinks, even as she is calling out, “Hi! You're here! How great.”

Sage comes out of the kitchen by herself, looking wonderful in a red cotton shirt, her dark hair shining, lively, eyes brilliant. “Well, we're both here, as things turned out.” In a breathless way she laughs. “And guess who's cooking.”

“But I really—I was going to—”

“Sweetie, I know, but you know—” They exchange a long look, embarrassed half-sisters between whom there is no physical resemblance but much strong feeling, and intimate knowledge of each
other. Each, just now, is quite aware of the other's feelings regarding Noel: Portia takes it for granted that Sage is still “madly in love,” a condition that she finds it hard to imagine, outside of literature. And Sage knows that Portia has, well, reservations.

Noel comes into the room, slim and graceful, his dancer's entrance. He even bows, greeting Portia. “Ports! How's the kid? I hope you don't mind, I put a little marinade on your salmon.”

And Noel goes on to make one of his splendid dinners. Portia's salmon, cut in cubes, becomes the hors d'oeuvre. Noel has brought along a chicken, some pasta, radicchio and watercress. Peach ice cream and cookies. Lots of wine.

He even manages to provide some time alone for Portia with Sage, while he is cooking; they are ordered to stay in the living room and let him work. “You ladies just stay out of it, be my guests.”

And so Portia is able to say to Sage, alone, “Sage, this news is so great, I'm so excited.”

“That's good, you be excited. I'm trying not to be.”

They both laugh.

“But Sage, it's wonderful.”

“Not necessarily, really. It's just a show, people have them all the time. I may not even get reviewed, no one may buy anything.”

However, Sage is talking to herself, and her face belies all those stern lecturing words. She looks incredibly happy, her eyes and her voice are so warm, so pleased with her life—at this moment.

And then, leaning forward, she whispers, “I'm sorry about your dinner, but he means well, honestly. He just tends to take things over.” And she reaches to pat Portia's hand.

“It's okay, really. And God knows the food will be better.”

Noel makes a marvellous success of the celebration, in Portia's view, actually. Subduing her rebellious sense of having been taken over, she is able to understand that tonight, absolutely, he is making Sage
happy, he is giving her a much more dramatic sense of being fěted, celebrated, than she, Portia, could have done.

With dessert, the ice cream and cookies, Noel opens champagne, and he pours and stands up, and raises his glass to Sage. “To my Sage, with all my love. To success!” And he bends to kiss her mouth, as Sage leans to him, closing her eyes. And then Noel sits down again and they all begin to eat and drink—again. By now they are all a little high. Laughing a lot.

Portia dreamily believes that she is in the presence of true love, and half-drunkenly she recalls her early childhood with Caroline and Ralph, her (at that time) just-married, much-in-love parents. How fortunate she has been all around, Portia vaguely thinks (but in that case, whatever is wrong with her? how could she have turned out so odd?). Looking across the room at handsome Noel, his ravishingly perfect nose, his fine mouth and golden eyes—and at lovely Sage, so lively, so perfectly happy—Portia is quite struck by their resemblance to each other. She has seen this and thought of it before but never so strongly, and so she says, “You know, you two really look more and more alike, it's amazing.”

At which Sage laughs. “Don't say that, Noel will leave me.”

Noel frowns, the smallest frown, but what he says is, “I'm deeply flattered.” And then, “But I honestly can't see it.”

Portia goes to bed that night with blurry thoughts of love and happiness, of money and success for Sage.

The next morning, though, she wakes to a grinding hangover—and total havoc in her kitchen. “Promise you won't stay up to clean, that'll make us feel too guilty,” Noel and Sage both said, drunkenly leaving. And why? Why would her cleaning up last night make them feel more guilty than her doing so now?

Dirty dishes tend to multiply in the night; that is an axiom of Caroline's, an advocate of midnight kitchen cleaning, and Portia is sure that it is true.

Sitting down with a large mug of coffee, before starting in to
clean what looks to be an impossible, horrible mess, Portia is then visited by several (for her) uncharacteristically unkind thoughts.

First, of course, she considers what is nearest at hand, the mess, and she thinks: How could Noel possibly have used so many dishes?

And then, with somewhat more distance from the evening as a whole, she thinks too of his perfect aplomb, the complete assurance with which Noel took over the evening. A woman would not do that, Portia feels sure. If two men were scheduled to have dinner together, a woman married to one of those men would not automatically assume that both men were really dying to spend the evening with her.

Although nowhere near ever married (she has not even lived with anyone, and only made love, not terribly successfully, with Harold), Portia is still quite sure that this is true. And it makes an interesting feminist point, she thinks. Could she possibly discuss this with Sage? With Liza, or Caroline? Most likely with Caroline, she decides.