The Interruption of Dreams, volume 2, Chapter 2,

Sunday in New York

Solveig is seated in the small circular cafe with a view of the skating rink at Rockefeller Center.  Seated on each side of her are her pal, Eszter, and Jane Fonda.  I am also seated on the other side of Jane, but noone is aware of my being there.  Solveig  and Eszter are nearly thirty years younger than Jane.  The three women are discussing motherhood and how they were initiated into sex too early, comparing their experiences growing up in famous theatrical families.

Solveig tells Jane that her older son, Orlando, dismisses her as a superliberal Leftist, a contemporary Hanoi Jane.  Eszter tells how these creepy old actors in her father’s company would hit on her when she was an adolescent.  Jane says it explains a lot.  It was all very much of its time.

Solveig explains that her mind is on her first lover who just died the other day.  He was twenty years her senior.  Their affair didn’t last beyond the summer.  He had to return to Paris.  Jane understands.  Her first husband was a French filmmaker; not very talented, though.  Fortunately, they only had one child together.  As the women discuss their various early relationships, I am literally reduced to a fly on the edge of the fine linen table cloth.  Jane  notes that she started out a few years later than Solveig and Eszter.  James Franciscus  was her first and only three years older than her.  The three women wonder why it was that Harvey Weinstein so often went after the daughters of his old friends in the business.  Uncle Harvey nearly got his nose busted by Brad Pitt.  Eszter tries to shoo me away with a swipe of her hand. Jane recalls all the fun she and Rod Taylor had filming in this cafe almost sixty years ago.  She left him with some fond memories, but for her it was just another fling.