Caroline's Daughters by Alice Adams Page B

trouble that Molly feared: “Daughter of actress caught in raid.” A very smart woman, she must have known perfectly well that a lot could go on in the back seat of a car, coming home from Katonah. Not to mention all the possibilities for parking in all those secluded lanes, almost anywhere in Connecticut.
    The band nearest Caroline’s table now is playing what she thinks of as Katonah music, which is to say early-Forties, pre-war dance tunes; it is all Caroline can do not to hum along. But her feet beneath the table do tap, a little. (In her day Caroline was known as a terrific dancer.)
    And she is thinking how much fun all that was, actually, all that dancing and then all the kissing and groping and touching—and how terrifically frustrating, finally. No wonder I so eagerly followed Aaron Levine into his bed, thinks Caroline; he was just the first boy who really insisted. “I don’t have time for this kid stuff,” Aaron said, after they had spent several dozen hours doing what was known as “everything but.” And of course as things turned out he was right, they had very little time.
    Aaron at first was just someone’s tall dark attractive friend down from Amherst; he was whispered to be “Jewish but terribly nice, and smart, of course they all are.” A very good dancer, and a tennis star. It was even whispered that he was “fun to kiss, really sophisticated.”
    (Just now, remembering that particular phrase, boys saying it to her, “Mmm, you’re fun to kiss,” Caroline is wistfully positive that no one ever says that any more. Certainly she will never hear it again.)
    And so Caroline and Aaron, in another phrase from that time, “got serious.” They progressed from parked cars to Aaron’s roomat Amherst; Caroline by this time was a freshman at Vassar. And then, on some steamy afternoon in the spring of 1943, during one or another jubilant act of love, Caroline became pregnant, and so they got married, in Molly Blair’s pretty house. And then Aaron went off to war, to Okinawa, where he was killed. And Sage was born.
    But it all really began out on the dance floor at the Katonah roadhouse, dancing to something pretty and quite ridiculous, like “Dancing in the Dark.” Which this band, at this preposterous party, is playing at this moment.
    â€œWould you care to dance?” Unnoticed by Caroline, a man from across the table has got up and come around to stand beside her, just after the
filet japonais
. A tall dark bald man, shining skin taut across his bare skull, heavy dark brows and arrogant, sexy eyes. He too looks vaguely familiar—but, then, everyone does, in this room.
    Murmuring some assent, Caroline gets up and follows him to a small dance floor (Katonah-sized), where other couples are making the same brave effort.
    This man is an excellent dancer, graceful and confident, strong. Too bad there is not more room and a better band, thinks Caroline; they would have had so much more scope, she could follow this man through almost any dance, she thinks. What fun!
    Believing, though, that women are supposed to make some sort of conversation, having been so instructed by Molly Blair, instead of just dancing, enjoying it, Caroline says, “I didn’t get your name, I’m sorry, so hard to hear—”
    â€œRoland Gallo. And you’re Caroline Carter, formerly McAndrew, right?”
    Caroline misses a beat and steps on his foot. “Oh, sorry.”
    He holds her more closely but Caroline has stiffened. Then she silently laughs at herself as she thinks, Am I supposed to be the avenger of my daughter’s old broken heart? She smiles up at Roland Gallo. “Yes, I am Caroline Carter.”
    And he smiles back, a very sexy, acknowledging look. “I do know some of your daughters,” he tells her. “As a matter of fact I met Fiona just last week, in her very spiffy restaurant.”
    â€œWe seem not