Caroline's Daughters Read Online Free PDF

performed miracles (or, almost performed; he tends to leave things unfinished): walls knocked out so that what had been a warren of tiny rooms now contains essentially one room per floor. Downstairs, a living-dining room; upstairs, big bedroom and bath. Everywhere large white spaces. Scant furniture, good Oriental rugs.
    And that is how they first met, Sage and Noel. He was the carpenter whom a painter friend recommended to help her with her new house. “He’s sort of offbeat, you’ll like him. Very talented, good ideas. And fabulous-looking.” Thinking that she did not especially need a fabulous-looking carpenter, Sage nevertheless calledthis Noel Finn and Noel came over, came over again for more talk, and plans. And then wine, excitement, more plans and eventually love, or something like it.
    And now they are married, and the house is still unfinished, its suspended quality still (sometimes) afflicting Sage with gloom: Why must their house be so perfectly an expression of their life? she wonders. And she answers her own question: Because this house is Noel’s work, he made it this way.
    The small panel on her answering machine shows a bright-green 2. Two messages, one surely from Noel, with excuses.
    Sage pushes Play, and instantly she hears loud sounds, banging, background shouts and then Noel’s clear voice: “For Christ’s sake, Bill, you fucker, cut that out, I’m on the phone.” And then, “Sorry, babe, my asshole partner’s deaf. And look, I’m sorry I missed the lunch, but we’re really going at it down here. Got to go now, it’s going great! See you later.”
    Oh, so he really is at work, is what Sage thinks. And then, How terrible that I should be pleased by the mere fact that he isn’t lying.
    The next message is fairly long, and entirely unexpected.
    â€œSage Levine? Jack Cronin. You won’t remember but I’m the guy who bought that little woman-holding-cat figure from your show at that place down on Union Street?” (Sage does remember, it was her only sale from that show.) “Anyway, I’m in New York, and a friend of mine saw it and went a little nuts, I mean he really liked it, and guess what? He has a gallery down on Broome, in SoHo. So, do you have some slides? Would you be interested in something back here, and if so would you call him tomorrow? Calvin Crome,” and he left a number.
    Sage has been a ceramic sculptor for about fifteen years by now, and she has considerable dark knowledge of the probabilities of success in her field (she knows about the art world in the meticulous way that a jealous lover knows the faithless habits of his beloved). Still, despite all that information, her blood leaps at this message, this possibility of a New York show—and the woman whose face she sees in the mirror above the phone table, the woman holding the phone, is grinning, a bright grin that seems to cover her face.
    And even with such a grin this woman, Sage, looks very pretty, she has to admit this of herself. She looks like a happy, very pretty woman.
    â€œBaby, that’s great, that’s
great
.” Noel hugs her to his chest, but the face that Sage now sees mirrored, Noel’s face, is frowning, preoccupied. He came up to the bedroom, where she has remained since the phone call, where she has been sitting and thinking, daring to imagine: a New York gallery. And so as she went to greet him, to tell him, and as Noel embraces her she can see the two of them mirrored there. And at his slight frown her elated spirits sink, just a little.
    She asks, “But you don’t think it’s necessarily so great?”
    He touches her hair very lightly, quickly. “Well, maybe not.” He laughs, a light quick laugh. “But don’t take me so seriously, babe. After all, what do I know?”
    Noel’s very dark hair is longer than men are generally wearing their hair that year, and his skin is very white