Meet the OLYL cast.

Seven principal characters are at the center of the OLYL story. Around them are the Hot Old Ladies, a circle of women who gather on the second Tuesday of every month for mahjong, books, conversation, and a fair amount of unsolicited opinion.

Blanche Fox

Blanche knows what she likes, and she usually assumes you will too. A Brown graduate in the history of art and architecture, she has an extraordinary eye for beautiful things, expensive taste, and opinions she is more than happy to share.

• The vicuña swing coat in camel, worn over cream silk
• Heretic Dirty Hinoki, in the Astier de Villatte cup beside it
• Equator coffee, the Chemex, the Krewe Vivien cat-eye

“They serve different purposes.”Blanche, on the seventeen candles.

Hazel McGuire

Hazel is a retired Yale professor of Russian literature and Blanche’s closest friend of fifty years. She is widely read, deeply curious, and considerably more interested in evidence than Blanche is.

• The reading lists and the Russian shelf, through the Reading Room
• Krewe Edie in sage, bought for her by Blanche
• Dean’s Beans French Roast, weighed on the Acaia, brewed in the Hario Switch

“I read the Russians because they are right about people, and almost nothing else is.”

Claire Fox

Claire is Blanche’s daughter and an art director at the Whitney. She would rather buy one extraordinary thing she knows is real than ten things pretending to be. She inherited her mother’s eye, although she would probably object to that description.

• OSEA and Vyrao Magnetic 70, her mother’s houses in her own hand
• Sachajuan, matched to the one cut she keeps
• The Smeg, a cup made exactly as Ana would have it

“It’s fine.”Claire, when it is very clearly not fine.

Ana Fiala

Ana is a painter and New York gallery owner, and the daughter of Hazel McGuire and Matej Fiala. She has a habit of noticing things before everyone else does and very little need to point that out.

• Hiram Green Slowdive, worn for herself alone, never sold
• Vintner’s Daughter Active Botanical Serum, the one step she never skips
• Brooklyn Roasting through the Kinto, the Czech mug that is really Matej

“I know.”She usually does.

Senior Research Associate

Herbert

Herbert is a cream lynx point Siberian with blue eyes and permanent possession of the best chair in the townhouse. At the Vineyard, he relocates his operations to the pergola porch. His qualifications remain unclear. His tenure appears secure.

• The Mau Pets cat tree, through UpperPromote
• The Herbert Candle, owned, the household’s small devotion
• Three books. No explanation.

“Herbert has no position on it. This is unusual.”

The Housekeeper

Annette Fontaine

Annette is French, over seventy, and technically the housekeeper, although very little housekeeping appears to take place. She washes her face in milk, drinks her café au lait slowly, and has been part of the family for so long that nobody is particularly interested in the job description anymore.

• Chanel Rouge Allure Velvet, worn a shade too dark, never sold
• The milk and the donkey-milk soap, the ritual
• Malongo, a café au lait taken slowly with the full shrug

“He is nobody.”Annette, about the gentleman downstairs. He is never nobody.

Luisa Ortega

Luisa is the person who keeps the household running. She once rode rodeo in Mexico, which may explain why very little rattles her. Practical, observant, and difficult to fool, Luisa has one question about almost everything: does it really work?

• The Carolina Herrera boots, a gift that said she had been seen
• Branch Basics, The Laundress, Redecker
• Café Bustelo and Purity, brewed twice as strong as anyone intends

“I bought a second pair because they survived a Vineyard summer.”

The Driver

Harry Wren

Harry is twenty-six, from Macclesfield, England, and trying to become an actor. In the meantime, he drives Blanche’s classic black Jaguar XJ6 and calls her Mrs. Fox without ever having been asked to. Annette has complicated the job considerably.

• The Jaguar XJ6, black, which Annette considers her own private vehicle
• His dignity, which Annette perpetually commandeers using impeccable French logic
• The look on his face when she explains why this is entirely reasonable

“Mrs. Fox.”

The Gardener

Steffan

Steffan is Scandinavian, in his early thirties, and takes care of the garden and pool at the Vineyard. He is quiet, extremely capable, and has learned that moving a chair once does not mean Annette will leave it there.

• The hydrangeas, better this year because of something he did with the water
• The pool, cleaned before sunrise, which he mentions once
• His name, which Annette pronounces Stéphane and always will

“She called me Stéphane again. Also she gave me a very good piece of cheese.”

Mothers and daughters

Blanche the instinct against Hazel the evaluation, carried down a generation: Claire the institution and Ana the contemporary. The house keeps its history the way any family does, in framed photographs.

Some findings require further investigation.

The Hot Old Ladies have been gathering on the second Tuesday of every month since 1982. Blanche and Hazel are part of the circle, where books, mahjong, friendship, strong opinions, and the occasional disagreement have kept things interesting for more than forty years. Meet the Hot Old Ladies.