Introduction

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Excerpt

FOR OLD TIME’S SAKE

• 2003 •

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 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 left 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 the floor!” Fran recalls.

We laugh and agree it feels both a lifetime ago and just like yesterday.

As we put aside the photographs, and as I look from Setsu to Opal to Fran, I see their clothes are more tailored than they once were, their hair more stylishly cut, the angles of their faces more defined. But in other ways, how little they have changed. Setsu’s long fingers still fold beneath her chin as she speaks, pressing to her mouth now and then when she has finished. Francesca’s voice pierces with the same old boldness. And as the soup begins to disappear, how well I recall Setsu’s tiny meals—mouse portions, I thought them—that gave her rope-thin arms. Opal’s insistence on measuring, analyzing every morsel before it passed her lips, scrutinizing each bite before she swallowed. Francesca with her penchant for frosted cakes, her French baguettes and Brie from the gourmet store in town. Much of those years has faded and blurred, but these and other things I still see clearly. And I cringe at what they surely, maybe especially, remember of me.

As the soup slides along my tongue, I gaze at each of the women and think of the hindering roots that had found soil in our earliest experiences of life. Entangled with a thousand secrets and unshared stories, and thickening as we grew, becoming, after a time, almost as hard to cut away as our own limbs.

But these struggles are part of what it means to be human—struggles with our own natures, often undeclared, as if unnoticed by those who know us, even by ourselves. Yet such battles must be waged and won if we are to grow, if we mean to claim what is truest within. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. The four main characters in the novel grow up in homes with very different family dynamics. How do the dynamics in each of their childhood homes shape how they view themselves? In what ways do their upbringings inform the attachments they make-or, at times, their inability to attach-as they grow older? How is the relationship each girl has with her mother reflected in her behavior? How does that relationship affect the choices each girl makes?

2. How do the characters in the book use food to exert power over others? How do they use it in attempts to gain mastery of themselves and their own worlds? Have you ever used food to try to attain control in a relationship or in your own life?

3. The word appetites in the book's title refers to a desire for food, but it alludes to other appetites as well. What are the deepest longings of the four main characters? How do Setsu, Fran, Opal, and Ruth use food as a substitute for deeper hungers? How else do people do this in their lives?

4. When the four young women first meet as college suitemates, Ruth wonders what she could possibly have in common with the other three. Opal tells us, "It seemed to me that friends washed in and out of one's life like pebbles tumbling in the surf." But over the years, the four establish a lasting bond. As their friendship deepens, what strengths do the women gain from one another? What challenges does each find in her relationship with the others? How does the friendship cause each woman to face truths about herself she otherwise might not see?

5. Fran and Ruth are plump; Setsu is waifishly thin; Opal has a figure men ogle with longing and women scrutinize with envy. Despite their physical differences, what struggles with body image do the four friends have in common? How do their challenges differ? In our own culture, do women share challenges with body image regardless of their appearance? Are we more relaxed about body image than people in the past, and do we have a broader concept of what is physically attractive or acceptable than people did in the past, or is the reverse true?

6. For each of the friends, the journey to find herself includes learning to make choices in romance that bring happiness and strength; but all four make mistakes along the way. Why does Ruth make the decisions she does with Gavin? Why is Setsu susceptible to James's manipulations? Why is Opal so quick to dismiss Daniel's interest in her, and Fran to dismiss Sanjeev's? If you were a fifth college suitemate, what advice about relationships with men would you give to each of the friends?

7. Ruth's mother and father are from immigrant families, and Ruth's mother holds on to connections and traditions from "the old country," often discouraging her daughter from embracing what is foreign or unfamiliar in modern American culture. In what ways does she attempt to hold Ruth back? Are there instances in which she is right in rejecting the new and preserving the old? What expectations are placed on the other girls by their parents? Which of these expectations are fair, and which unfair?

8. Some weeks after Amara has left, Opal tells us, "But I was beginning to see that at some point, yes, we had to cut loose old hurts, or they would swell and swell until they infected the parts of our true selves that remained." It is this understanding that eventually sets her free. What epiphanies do the other women have about the choices they have made? Why do these moments of revelation come at crisis points in their lives? Have you had such a moment in your life?

9. Setsu's fullest expression of herself is through her music, and Ruth finds herself, in part, through writing. For Opal, it is painting and sketching, and Francesca, too, is attracted to the fine arts. In one form or another, art is significant to a number of characters in the book. Is there something about art that reaches beyond our conscious understanding? Can it call us to something higher or greater in ourselves?

10. In the opening of the book, Ruth says, "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." What are the self-destructive tendencies the characters must overcome in order to find out who they are meant to be? Is each of us born with some "bit of darkness" in us as well as strength, and is it part of our purpose in life to claim what is strong within? Is what is strongest in us the truest part of ourselves, as the book suggests?

Weblinks

»	Author Paula Moses' web site
»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Follow Pamela Moses on Facebook

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