Read Online Caroline's Daughters by Alice Adams - Free Book Online

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 tooknow 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