Free Three Black Swans by Caroline B. Cooney Page A

Gorgonzola salad with walnuts and bacon, long narrow golden loaves of bread, an assortment of giant crumbly cookies and gelato in three flavors.
    Her parents ate out or didn’t eat at all, being extremely concerned with staying slim. Genevieve couldn’t remember the last time her father had brought actual food into the house.
    Even more amazing, her mother had set the table. The Candlers almost never sat down together. What a treat to see her mother dance around, searching for place mats and napkins for the little round table in the breakfast area, a description they used in spite of the fact that none of them ate breakfast. Her mother even fixed a tiny centerpiece, lit a small fat candle and set a pretty yellow bread plate in front of everybody. Then she poured puddles of rosemary olive oil in the center of each plate and cut thick slices from the golden loaves.
    Genevieve dipped her bread in oil, reveling in the presence of both mother and father at the same time.
    As usual, Ned and Allegra were looking at each other. Theymight be distant parents, but they were not distant partners. “What’s our schedule for the weekend, Ned?” asked her mother.
    Genevieve’s father was in charge of giving away the charity dollars from his corporation. It wasn’t a highly paid management position, but it was fun. People were always giving him tickets to golf tournaments and basketball play-offs, rock concerts in huge arenas and chamber music groups playing to six people in the library, museum fund-raisers and historical society lectures. He had his choice of New Year’s Eve galas and Fourth of July picnics.
    Mom had an immense wardrobe and was beautifully dressed for every occasion. She was the perfect guest. She never forgot who was the chairperson or past president or who had created the delightful favors for some party five years ago.
    Rarely did Genevieve’s parents ask her to join them at these events. She didn’t mind missing an awards dinner at the Chamber of Commerce, but it would have been fun to go to the big tennis tournament with the famous players.
    From the bread on her dish, Allegra Candler ate literally a crumb. She worked for a cosmetics and fragrance company in New York and looked like a walking advertisement. She was still a size six.
    Emma’s mother, on the other hand, had left size sixteen behind and was now shopping at stores where they skipped sizes in favor of letters. She basically bought a variety of tents and swathed herself in glorious fabric instead of trying to lose weight.
    Genevieve sometimes wondered if the conditions were related: were skinny adults also skinny with love?
    Her parents discussed clothing and weather, which of their cars to take and whether they could come home and change between commitments or needed a wardrobe bag. They would be at events Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, while Dad also had an important golf game on Saturday morning.
    Over the years, Genevieve had had many babysitters, but her primary refuge was her great-grandmother, for whom she was named. Right up until her ninetieth birthday, the elder Genevieve Candler had had her own beach house, her own sports car and her own ideas about things. Then she’d fallen down the stairs, broken some bones that didn’t heal and gotten old. A minute later, or so it seemed, GeeGee was in a nursing home.
    Before that, Genevieve had spent most weekends at her great-grandmother’s. GeeGee was always ready to host a sleepover or take Genevieve and a friend into the city, or to the movies or shopping. But when GeeGee entered the nursing home, Genevieve had to stay home alone when her parents went out. She expected it to be fun, but it wasn’t. Nothing on TV was appealing when she sat alone in front of it. It was hard to buckle down and do homework when she was alone, hard not to be bothered by sounds and shadows. In ninth grade, and to a degree in tenth, Genevieve managed to spend weekends with friends. But now,