“Sausage with mushrooms. It’s delicious. How’s yours?”
“Marvelous.”
“This used to be Le Mistral, you know.”
“Ah, right. I thought I recognized it.”
“The murals are still the same. The French Riviera.”
“Is that what it means? Menestrello? Is it Mistral in Italian?”
“I don’t think so. I think it means ‘minstrel.’ You should know, you spent much more time in Italy than I did.”
“No, we just passed through, actually. God, that seems like a million years ago. When I was traveling with Paul, I mean,” she says, and shakes her head. “I don’t even know now if I was truly in love with him. But I felt something with him I’d never felt with anyone else. I just wanted to be with him all the time, near him all the time.”
“I know just what you mean,” Barbara says.
“We never budged from that bed all the while we were in Amsterdam.”
“Heavenly,” Barbara says, and rolls her eyes.
“On the train to Paris, and later on the Orient Express to the Swiss border... do you know what he said just before we got on the train?”
“What?”
“He said, ‘It was five o’clock on a winter’s morning in Syria.’ That’s the first line of the Agatha Christie novel. He used to quote first lines all the time. But all the way across Switzerland to Milan and Venice, I couldn’t keep my hands off him. I guess even before we left Paris, I’d already given up any thought of going back to school. It was craziness, I know. But it was so damn exciting.”
“All of it,” Barbara says, nodding.
“Even the trouble at the border. Even those fucking dogs trying to kill us.”
She glances immediately at the table nearby, to make certain the matron there hasn’t overheard her obscenity. She turns back to Barbara, and wiggles her eyebrows at her. Both women begin giggling like teenagers. Now the matron does look at them. They sober immediately.
“What are you hoping for this time?” Lissie asks.
“Another girl. How about you?”
“A boy, I think.”
“Boys are a handful.”
“Yes, but you have to worry more about girls,” Lissie says. “Besides, I think Matthew would like a boy.”
“Matthew won’t have to take care of him.”
“Neither will I, for that matter. Not after the first year, anyway. We’ve already discussed it. I’ll be going back to work again after the first year. You should see him, Barb, it’s miraculous! He weighed three thousand pounds when I met him in that Cambridge head shop...”
“Just like us,” Barbara said.
“Exactly! But he’s been on a diet, and I can’t believe it’s the same man. He keeps looking at himself in the mirror. So do I, as a matter of fact. Looking at myself, I mean. I feel like a horse by comparison!”
“Do you plan on having any others?”
“I don’t think so. I really had the agency going pretty well, you know, when this happened. I’m not sure how I’d feel about leaving it again. I’m not even sure if taking a year’s leave now won’t, you know, ruin everything I’ve been trying to build for the past three years.”
“Sure, the personal...”
“That’s right.”
“Especially with travel.”
“That’s exactly right. Where they have to, you know, trust the agent’s taste and judgment.”
“Your personal taste.”
“And judgment, right. So I hope Matthew doesn’t get any more romantic ideas like he had last July on Fire Island.”
“Is that when it happened?”
“That’s when I figure it happened.” She lowers her voice again. “Did you ever do it by starlight on a sandy beach?”
“In Greece I did,” Barbara says.
“Yeah, well, the sand is finer there,” Lissie says, and both women burst out laughing. The matron looks at them again, and then signals for a check.
“Do your parents know you’re pregnant?” Barbara asks.
“Well, my mother does, naturally.”
“Is she still living in New York?”
“No, no. She went to Paris almost immediately after the wedding.”
“What’s he do?”
“My stepfather? He has a perfume company over there.”
“And she lives there full-time now?”
“Well, she comes to New York for a few weeks every fall.”
“How’d she meet him?”
“Skiing. In Switzerland.”
“Where?”
“Davos.”
“Never been there.”
“Me neither.”
“It sounds romantic.”
“Davos?”
“No, meeting a man on the slopes.”
“Yeah. Actually, he’s very nice.”
“What about your father?”
“What about him?”
“Does he know?”
“That I’m pregnant, you mean? How would he know?”
“I thought you might have...”
“I haven’t heard a word from him in more than eight years,” Lissie says, and hesitates. “It was eight years in October.”
“Since you’ve seen him?”
“Or talked to him. Or heard much about him, in fact. I don’t mean his professional life, I guess he’s busier than he ever was, I see his stuff all over the place. But otherwise... well, my mother used to fill me in every now and then, but that was when she was still living in New York.”
“He had a child with her, didn’t he?”
“Mm-huh.”
“A girl, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, mm-huh.”
“How old is she now?”
“Who?”
“Your sister.”
“My sister? Hey, come on, Barb.”
“Well, she... I mean, she’s your half-sister, anyway.”
“Mm-huh.”
“So how old is she?”
“I don’t know. Five or six, who knows?”
“What’s her name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ever try to look her up?”
“What for?”
“Well... I think if I were in a similar situation... well, I’d be curious to see what she looked like.”
“Mm, well.”
“Anyway,” Barbara says and grins. “Would you like some dessert?”
“What time is it?”
“Almost two-thirty.”
“What time are you due up there?”
“Three.”
“Maybe we ought to skip it then. I’ve still got to pick up a few more things for Matthew, none of his clothes fit him now that he’s lost so much weight.”
“Where are you heading?”
“Saks.”
“Don’t you miss Bonwit’s not being here anymore?”
“Desperately,” Lissie says, and rolls her eyes.
They say goodbye to each other outside the restaurant and promise faithfully to keep in touch and to try to see more of each other in the new year. Barbara wishes her luck with the baby. Lissie hugs her tight and says, “Oh, yes, Barb, and you, too.”
She watches as her friend waddles across the street to enter the Harper & Row building, and suddenly visualizes her as she looked nine years ago in San Francisco when they strolled along Castro Street, Barbara wearing a brightly colored caftan, her thick black hair falling in a cascade to the middle of her back — I remember once, when I was in L.A., I went to meet this guy in Mac Arthur Park, he had an ounce of good pot I wanted to buy. And this pregnant lady was walking toward me in the park...