Caroline's Daughters by Alice Adams Page B

them, and he came up with a very high five-figure settlement.
    â€œHey, why not six?” asks Fiona.
    â€œWell, even R.G.’s got his limits, I guess.”
    There is a pause, during which Fiona is staring out the window as though coming to a decision. This small room faces east, and its eastern wall is all glass, a French door leading out to a miniature herb garden, and so what Fiona sees beyond the garden is the shining dark slate of the San Francisco Bay, boats, tankers and big white container ships—and the shining windows of Oakland. She could buy a boat, Fiona thinks, a nice big boat but still small enough for exploring, up the secret inlets of the bay and far up into the delta. Christ, she could live on her boat. She does not have to do all this stuff that she does.
    â€œWould you believe,” she then says to the young apprentice lawyer, who is smiling expectantly in her direction, “that I don’t give a flying fuck what that dago pig Roland Gallo does?” Fiona had no idea that she was going to say that.
    After an instant he recovers. “May I quote you on that?”
    â€œYou do and I’ll sue, I’ll have you out looking for work.” And she adds, “And tell Stanley to stop hustling me, okay?” Stanley being the main lawyer, who wishes that Fiona would lead a more active legal life.
    â€œYou must be the thousandth person to ask me that question. I’m thin because I’m thin. I do not suffer from anorexia or bulimia—is that what you wanted to ask me? I am simply a very thin person. My two younger sisters are even thinner than I am. I eat quite a lot, in fact I eat all day. I love my own food very much. Obviously I would not spend my entire day doing what I do if I didn’t like food, would I.
    â€œBut 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.
    â€œI 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 smartboutique, 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