Women Drinking Benedictine by Sharon Dilworth Page B

is a pleasure. One should eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a queen.”
    â€œI would never eat a meal,” the woman said. “Ever.” She turned to the side and admired her thin shape in the cracked mirror.
    Amber realized that she was wasting her words on this creature, but she felt empowered, full of strength and wisdom. She put all thoughts of the Maurice disaster aside and talked with pride and conviction. “The kitchen is a country in which there are always discoveries to be made. Eating is the one passionate thing left to us in these bleak times.”
    â€œI don’t want to discover anything,” the woman said. “I just want to be skinny. That’s what I want.” She extracted a small tube of toothpaste from her purse. She squeezed a thin line onto her finger and moved it around her mouth, all odor disguised by the mint flavoring. “What I don’t want,” she said, brushing her hair back with her fingertips, “is to end up like you.”
    â€œYou’ll never be like me,” Amber said. “Never.” Not one to exert herself in a useless cause, Amber stopped talking.
    The hotel room, with its smells of lavender soap, cinnamon candles, and peanut butter-chocolate treats, was at once warm and welcoming. Jane and Sally were asleep. Their thick noisy shapes, cocooned in extra blankets and pillows, made her weep with relief. She got under the covers and waited for morning.
    Jane and Sally were her friends. She should not have fought with them. It was up to her to apologize—an act she would have to do with a great deal of care. She would have to be humble.
    At first light she went downstairs to reserve their favorite table on the seaside terrace, then waited for them to come to breakfast.
    Sally and Jane walked outside a short while later. They had showered and looked fresh and ready for a full day of sightseeing.
    â€œHow was dinner?” Amber asked, waving them over to the table.
    â€œExcellent,” Sally said.
    â€œYour liver was delicious,” Jane said. “You owe me 150 francs. There are no refunds in four-star French restaurants.”
    Amber pulled out the money and handed it across the table. It was going to be rough. They would not let her off easily.
    Jane read the newspaper. Sally flipped through the travel guide. They were doing a good job of ignoring her.
    She was not sure they were listening, but she went ahead with her plan.
    â€œI was thinking,” Amber said slowly. “The Hôtel Negresco in Nice has a very good lunch deal. Four-course gourmet meal for two hundred francs, which is actually quite reasonable,” she paused and then added, “as long as you don’t convert it into dollars.”
    She bribed them slowly and carefully. “It’s probably my turn to treat you both to a good meal.”
    Jane looked up from the International Herald Tribune . “Duck is very good this time of year. Even here on the Riviera. I wonder if the Negresco has duck.”
    â€œIt says here that the dining room has a domed ceiling decorated with twenty-four-carat gold leaf and the biggest carpet ever to come out of the Savonnerie workshops,” Sally read from Jane’s pocket guide to the Riviera. “The chandelier was commissioned from Baccarat by Czar Nicholas II. It doesn’t sound like the kind of place that wouldn’t have duck.”
    Amber nodded. “Yes. We could have duck.”
    â€œAlthough duck is very fatty,” Sally sniffed.
    â€œThe walk from the train station to the Matisse museum is two miles,” Jane said, jotting some numbers on her newspaper.
    â€œWe could do a quick tour of Antibes,” Sally said. “I still have to go to the post office. Twice around the old town could be part of our constitutional today.”
    â€œThat’s good,” Jane said. “That’ll put us way ahead. We should be all ready for a nice big