20
2012
NORTH CAROLINA L ITE R A R Y RE V IE W O N L INE
number 21
is actually having the time of her life, though not so much because of the restaurant as because of this brush with celebrity. She tells her husband, “I’m thrilled you brought me here, especially tonight, because I’ll never forget it as long as I live. . . . You couldn’t have given me a better gift than being right here, right now” (57). So it is no surprise to Cliff when Alma insists on getting a picture with the actor and asking for an autograph before they leave the restaurant. She finally works up the nerve to go over to the star’s table, hastily blurting out to him, “I’ve seen all your movies and you’ve always been my favorite. Do you have any idea what this means to me to see you live in person?” (59). Even Cliff is a bit excited by this point, and the incident certainly turns out to be a memorable way for the couple to spend their anniversary together. But Cliff’s and Alma’s evening ultimately does not go well for either of them. Cliff wanted to have a quiet meal with his wife. Alma wanted to eat at this particular restaurant. Had neither of them seen Robert Redford, they might have walked away with pleasant memories from that night. Instead, Alma embarrasses both herself and Cliff with her star-crazed excitement, not only showing little concern for the boundaries of her favorite celebrity, but assuming that, because he is a celebrity, he expects to be approached by adoring fans. Cliff, in contrast, assumes that someone like Robert Redford has better things to do with his time than listen to the exclamations of a strange couple, especially when
do all the things she wants to do, so in the end, Carol Ann leaves her rich husband for a man who will indulge her sense of adventure. She runs off with Rob, the Foodliners owner, and weeks later, Jane receives a postcard from Carol Ann saying, “‘Buenos Diaz de Buenos Aires,’ as if Evita was talking . . . as she hovered in an oval bubble above elaborate marble tombs that resembled little playhouses with fancy porches” (53). Not only has Rob been helping her cheat in store drawings so that she can win trips around the world and lifetime supplies of her favorite products, but he, from what Jane and the other Foodliners workers can gather, drained his bank account in order to take Carol Ann traveling. In this plot, Wilson explores two sides of celebrity dysfunction. Carol Ann does everything in a “big way” in order to curry favor with men and foster envy in women. Rob, with intentions as shallow as Carol Ann’s, is willing to abandon his business,
his friends, his family, the very foundations of his life, in order to win the affections of this shallow woman. His interest in Carol Ann seems less about loving her than about boosting his own social status by gaining a top-of-the-line trophy wife – and the town celebrity. In the collection’s title story, Alma and Cliff, a couple celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary, spy Robert Redford in a local restaurant. For Cliff, recognizing a movie star several tables over is nothing to get worked up over, but Alma cannot concentrate on “ordering dinner with Robert Redford sitting across the room” (56). Like the seven-year-old narrator in “The Glamour Stretcher,” Alma is infatuated with celebrity – particularly this celebrity. She has seen nearly every Robert Redford movie. But, on this night Cliff wants nothing more than to have a good meal and enjoy spending time with his wife, especially when they are sitting in the very restaurant she had been pestering him for weeks about trying. Alma
above Illustration by Grey Blackwell for
Grey Blackwell is a graduate of NCSU’s School of Design. He works in print illustration and web animation and has illustrated for the News & Observer, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mad Magazine, and Entertainment Weekly, among other venues. See his website for more information.
NCLR’s 2002 publication of Tamra Wilson’s title story, “Dining with Robert Redford”