The Saving Graces Read Free Page A

with friends your own age." I said, "You ought to go out and play with friends my own age." We laughed, and then-I'm not sure who said what, but before we knew it we were talking about starting a women's group.
All my life I've had a lot of girlfriends, and I admit I enjoy organizing them. I founded a girls-only club that met in my basement during sixth and seventh grades, and in high school I was cocaptain of the pompom squad, then president of my sorority in college. But since moving to
Washington
, I guess because I was so busy, except for Isabel, I hadn't made that many women friends. I loved the idea of starting a group. It wouldn't be a book club, and not a political group, not a feminist organization. Just women we liked and respected and thought we could learn something from, meeting every so often to talk about issues of interest to us. Quite a modest agenda. Little did we know we were planting the first seeds of a beautiful garden.
Isabel said that, not me, years later. She said we were growing wholesome vegetables for sustenance and gorgeous flowers for joy. I asked her which one I was, certain she'd say a wholesome vegetable, but she said I was both. "We're all both, you dolt," were her exact words.
First impressions. After we'd been a group for about a year, we had a meeting at which the topic (at my suggestion) was what we had all thought of each other-those of us who didn't know each other already-at the first Graces' meeting. I started us off, saying I'd thought Emma looked like someone in the arts, or the fringes of the arts, possibly a rock star. (More of a fading rock star, I really meant, because of the sort of blasé, world-weary air Emma likes to project. In reality she's not jaded in the least, and I don't understand why it's so important to her to look "cool" all the time.) Well, she was thrilled to hear that she looked like a rock star. She wanted to know which one, and I came up with Bonnie Raitt-thinking they both have pretty, sharp-featured faces and (it must be said) the same slightly snotty expression at times. Also the same hair-long, reddish blond, and, to put it charitably, self-styled. (I am dying to introduce Emma to Harold, my hairdresser, but she says she can't be bothered.) Rudy and Emma both said they had loved Isabel on sight, thought she was wonderful, although maybe a little old-fashioned, just a tad conservative. "Matronly, but in a good way," Emma said, and Rudy said, "No, motherly." I do remember that during that first meeting Isabel wore a red denim apron over her sweater and slacks -kept it on the whole evening, just forgot to take it off. That's how lacking in vanity she is. But conservative? No, no, no, no, no. Here is obvious proof that first impressions can be wildly inaccurate.
Isabel said she thought Rudy was one of the most beautiful women she'd ever seen in real life, and of course Emma and I agreed. The rest of us are fairly attractive women in a normal, average way, I would say. But Rudy's special. Everybody notices her; we can't go anywhere together and not attract attention. She has skin like an angel, a cover model's body, shiny, perfect, blue-black hair that does anything she wants it to. If she had only a gorgeous face, you could hate her, but behind the classic features there's such a sweetness, so much innocence and vulnerability, she brings out everybody's protective instincts. Everyone wants to save Rudy-men especially, she says. But so far, I'm sorry to say, I don't think anyone has.
As for me, Emma claimed she'd thought I looked like a rock star, too. Who? I asked eagerly. (Once an old beau told me I reminded him of Marie Osmond-"the perkiness," he'd said.) But Emma said, "Sinéad O'Connor." What? "Oh, not the baldness, although your hair was pretty short, Lee. More that, you know, humorless, self-righteous schtick you do." Oh, thank you very much! I was offended, but Emma added, "No, Sinéad O'Connor's gorgeous, haven't you ever noticed her eyes?" No. "She's