The Appetites of Girls - Hardcover

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Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

This, above all else, binds the four of us together: standing side by

side, each struggled to believe the best in herself, hearing amid

the dark doubts in her mind the whisper of triumph.

Long before we grew in strength, we began life in separate corners.

In my first moments, I made only small whimpers, my family tells me.

Then my face turned red as beet soup, my fists tight as knots, and I cried

with a roar that seemed beyond my tiny lungs. Opal was born into the

arms of midwives in a country house outside of Paris. Her mother reclined

on feather pillows and sipped lemon water until it was time. Francesca

claims she bellowed her first day morning through night until the

nurses relented, freeing her from her swaddling blanket. And Setsu’s life

opened just as her mother’s closed, her cries lasting longest of all.

Far we have come since those beginnings, and long the journeys to

victory over doubt. But always, in us, were stirrings of possibilities, and

we would find the will to hold fast to these hopes.

In the eleven years since graduation, Francesca and I have phoned each

other regularly, as we have with Setsu and with Opal, a pledge we

made long ago and kept. But in the spinning hum of our grown-up lives,

our visits became sporadic, and not since our final college year have all

four of us been together in one place. This past spring, though, just days

after Francesca had come into Manhattan, meeting me for lunch and a

stroll through the American wing of the Met, she called, insisting the

baby I was carrying deserved a celebration. Besides, what better excuse

could the four of us have to reunite? For old time’s sake, she said. Wouldn’t

it be fun?

“Oh, no, Fran, you don’t need to. Thank you, really . . .” I had fumbled

for the appropriate words to decline her unexpected offer. In part

because it is not in the Jewish tradition, a baby shower had never crossed

my mind.

“B’sha’ah Tova—in good time,” my aunts and sisters and mother had

said when they learned that I was expecting. One’s hopes should not rise too

high before the hour comes. Congratulations may bring bad luck, they worried.

My grandmothers and great-?grandmothers

would not have so much as

knitted a bootee before a baby’s arrival. “Why tempt bad spirits?” Nana

Leah had cautioned with an old wives’ superstition.

But shouldn’t I have known Fran would persist? “Ruth, you are bringing

a daughter into the world. How can you refuse her some festivity?”

There was a time she could talk me into many things because I lacked

the courage to trust my own mind. Now, though, with the sudden possibility

of reuniting with my suitemates, I realized I missed not just each of

them separately, but all of us together as a group. Our weaknesses differed,

but our journeys to overcome them were shared. We learned from

one another’s struggles, and learned, too, we were not alone in struggling.

In our day-to-day living together and the friendships formed in

those years, we gained strength to fight for our deepest yearnings. And

now as I take this new step toward motherhood, it seems fitting that we

four come together again.

So here we sit at this table beneath the tulip tree: Francesca, Setsu,

Opal, and I. Our spoons dip into shallow dishes of chilled soup as the

tree’s high branches cast soft, swaying shadows across our faces and arms

and the plates of luncheon food before us. Years ago we could not have

dreamed we would ever be this picture of contentment. But no storms

rage forever, not even those that whirl within us. Yes, each of us was

stronger than she knew. Even I.

Fran has thought through every detail. Her garden table is set with

linen place mats and napkins, at its center a crystal vase thick with

daffodils. At the table ends stand two pitchers of iced mint tea, their

handles wound with ivy and tiny white flower buds as intricate as snowflakes.

And beside each plate, someone has placed a pair of cellophane-wrapped

baby shoes made entirely of pink sugar.

This is the first time any of us has seen Francesca’s new Connecticut

home, and when I arrived, ringing the bell to the right of her paneled

front door, I heard her calling to someone—“Got it! Got it!”—and then

the familiar pounding of her running feet.

“God, it’s great to have you here,” she said, kissing me, walking me

through the house, hanging my spring jacket in her hall closet. As we pass

the kitchen, I glimpse the food to be served—dishes I had seen in

magazines—crustless sandwiches rolled like pinwheels, bowls of pastel

soup with scrolling loops of cream at their edges, salads of nearly transparent

green leaves no larger than rose petals. A trim woman in a starched

white blouse stands to the left of the double sink, slicing raw vegetables—

Lucienne, Francesca introduces her.

“This is really so beautiful, Fran—everything. And so generous—”

“Oh, goodness. You’re welcome.” She shrugs off my words, never

comfortable with sentiment. “Let’s talk about you. You look wonderful.

How are you feeling? Are you getting any sleep?” It was the one trial of

her own pregnancies, she remembers. How for hours in her bed, with

eyes wide open, her mind would whir.

“Sleeping, yes, but I’ve never had such vivid dreams,” I tell her.

As we speak, a dream of the four of us from the night before returns

to me: we are racing along the shore, kicking up the foaming water. And

how young we are. Only girls, but then in a twinkling we are women,

with our shadows stretching far, out into the ocean.

Then we are interrupted by the arrival of Opal, followed soon by

Setsu. “I can’t believe you’re here,” Fran says. “You both look terrific.

And doesn’t Ruth look terrific?”

But Setsu and Opal are already embracing me, asking me exactly

how many more weeks, exclaiming that I’m radiant.

In the kitchen, Fran mixes mimosas, pouring them into tall flutes.

“Occasional drinks in the third trimester are permissible, aren’t they?”

She winks at me.

“Just not the way you make them.”

She laughs, surprised by my retort but approving of it, and fills a

separate flute without champagne.

Lucienne arranges the bowls of soup on a tray, and we follow her,

carrying our glasses across the lawn, settling around the table. And now

as our spoons clink against Francesca’s china bowls, we begin to chat, at

first taking turns, speaking of work, of families, of things we’ve heard of

other college friends. But before long, we are talking together and at

once, the way we used to do. A rhythm suddenly familiar as chords from

well-loved but, for a time, forgotten music.

Setsu surprises us. While sorting through some files at home, she has

unearthed some photos from our college days.

“Oh, look at us. Is that freshman year?” Opal asks.

“Yes, it must be finals week. We look exhausted. Remember how we

studied until morning and Fran kept us all awake with chocolate-?covered

coffee beans?” Setsu smiles at Fran.

“That’s right! And, Ruth, you collapsed on your books right on...