by Megan Chance
“You’re not alone any longer, Goldie,” I assured her, trying to calm my racing heart. “I’m here to help you. Always.”
We had been invited to the Anderson soiree, a showcase for a newly lauded soprano, Verina Lombardi. That evening, as I dressed, I started at a shout from the hall. I met Shin’s gaze in the mirror as she pinned my hair. “What was that?”
Another shout. Shin went to the bedroom door. “Mrs. Sullivan!” She ran into the hallway, and I hurried after.
My aunt’s dressing gown was askew, her hair a mess, and her eyes wild and unfocused.
Shin tried to ease her back into the bedroom. “Come now, missus. You must rest.”
Then my aunt caught sight of me. “Why aren’t you gone? They told me you were gone!”
My heart sank. How I hated this. How I wished I knew some way to help her.
“Come back to bed, missus,” Shin crooned again. “Come now.”
“Aunt Florence, do as Shin says. You need to be in bed,” I said soothingly.
My aunt lurched from Shin to grip my hands. “You must go. Now. You don’t belong here.”
Shin pried my aunt’s fingers from my hand, releasing me from both my aunt’s hold and her glare. “Miss, if you would please—”
“Yes, of course,” I said heavily, turning back.
Now, Goldie came from her room. She looked beautiful in soft pink. The only thing marring her prettiness was her disgust. “For God’s sake, what is she doing now? What are you doing, Mother? Shin, why isn’t she in bed?”
“She won’t come, miss.”
The layers of Goldie’s silk gown skipped about her ankles as she gave her mother’s arm a little jerk and said, “Let go of Shin now, Mother. That’s right. Back to bed with you. Really, you are making a terrible scene.”
As on that first night, my aunt seemed to lose her will at Goldie’s touch. She let her daughter lead her back to the bedroom.
“I wish I knew what to do,” I murmured to Shin. “She always seems so alone. How often does my uncle look in on her? I’ve never seen them together.” I could not help the snarly thought of the Dennehy woman, my uncle’s mistress, nor my resentment that she was undoubtedly keeping him from my aunt’s side.
Shin said, “It is better if he stays away.” Then she followed Goldie and Aunt Florence.
Only Goldie and laudanum seemed able to soothe my aunt. Goldie had a way of making problems and worries disappear, to distract until one was so wrapped up in her world that one’s own seemed no longer important. We were all so pliable in Goldie’s hands, weren’t we?
It seemed a lucky thing. I did not know how she managed it when her own worries loomed so large. Goldie came from her mother’s bedroom, looking more beautiful to me than ever now that I knew her vulnerability. She smiled. “Are you quite ready, May? We don’t want to be late.”
The Anderson house was only a few blocks away. Italianate, with a ballroom decorated by a colonnade of classical Greek figures that put the indecent, gilded Sullivan bacchante to shame, and festooned with bunches of silk leaves in golds and reds and oranges, basket cornucopias spilling dried corn and pinecones—all very November, celebrating the coming holiday when there was no real evidence of it outside. The weather had turned damp but showed no seasonal change, not like Brooklyn. I did not miss it really, but I did warm to the decorations.
Mrs. Jeffers Anderson was as small as her house was huge, and she was plump and wore her beaded blue-and-gold Parisian Worth gown with easy elegance. It seemed everyone we knew was there, and though I smiled and tried to enjoy myself, I was bored before we arrived, already knowing that I would feel awkward and lonely, and still upset by my aunt’s fit.
Goldie looked for champagne as I went to the French doors, which were opened onto a parterred garden.
The soon-to-be-famous soprano stood near a gushing fountain in the garden, surrounded by adoring fans. She was dark haired, bejeweled, and beautiful, her voluptuousness encased in shot green silk, emeralds encircling her throat and enhancing her double chin. She chattered away to her circle of admirers, and I wondered if her excitement was real, or if she too was simply playing at being engaged.
“Hard to believe she grew up selling sardines on Fisherman’s Wharf, isn’t it?”
The voice in my ear was familiar. I turned to see Dante LaRosa, dressed in a suit—not evening wear—and suddenly the tenor of the night changed; here was something interesting at last.
“Why, if it isn’t Mr. Bandersnitch, in the flesh. What are you doing here?”
“Not so loud.” He winced. “And I was invited. At least, Bandersnitch was.”
“You cannot tell me that no one here suspects who you are. You stand out.”
“Do I? I think it’s only because we’ve met. You’ve never noticed me before. Not at the Cliff House, not anywhere.”
I was flummoxed by the truth of his words. It was the most discombobulating feeling. I couldn’t reconcile his charisma, or frankly, his out-of-placeness, with his apparent invisibility. I wanted to tell myself he’d simply never been to the events I’d attended. But of course he had. He’d written about them. He’d written about me.
He smiled. “People see what they want to see. They’re busy trying to figure out who Bandersnitch is, but what they don’t expect is someone who looks like me, so no one sees me, even when I’m right in front of them. I’m hiding in plain sight. I stay in the background mostly. It’s a damnable thing, but it works. You were surprised at who I was, remember. I wasn’t as you imagined me.”
“No,” I admitted. “I’d thought you shorter.”
“An old woman with cats.”
“Not exactly. A roundish blond man with a liking for cream puffs.”
“You’ve just described Ned Greenway perfectly. I trust you’ll keep my secret.”
“And if I don’t?”
He indicated the soprano laughing just beyond us. “Verina Lombardi’s real name is Anna Russo. Not quite so fancy, is it? She used to slide around in fish blood at the market and pretend she was skating. Once, she threw a calamari in my face. She has a bad temper.”
“What’s a calamari?”
“A squid.”
I made a face. “What did you do to offend her?”
“What makes you think it was my fault?”
“Wasn’t it?”
“I tried to kiss her. It was a festa.”
“I see.”
“She was irresistible. Even back then she had this voice . . . Nothing sounds as good as Verdi sung from the fishmarket. She and Luigi Conti used to duet. He had the stall next door to her father’s.”
“Is he an opera singer?”
“He’s a fisherman. You can hear him sing every evening when he’s cleaning his nets. Along with most of the other fisherman. Now Anna—Verina—would tell you in a minute that I’m no one important. A fisherman’s son. Up to my elbows in fish guts. You’d never convince her I was anything more than that. You’d never convince anyone.” He was direct; there was no hint of self-deprecation.
“She’ll be surprised to see you tonight, then,” I said.
“She won’t see me, and even if she did, she’d never acknowledge me. It would ruin the history she’s written for herself.” He took in my gown. “Pretty. City of Paris or Emporium?”
“Emporium.”
“No Worth gown imported from Paris for you, I see.”
“Well, I—”
“But she’s wearing one, isn’t she?” He nodded toward my cousin, who laughed and flirted with Jerome Belden.
“You have a very good eye.”
“It’s my job to figure out where everyone stands,” he said. “Belden’s father is in silver, but his mother is a gadabout. She’s in London right now. Over there is Robert Krieg. Railroads. A bit of a drunk. There, Mrs. Martin Rolfe. A fortune from the gasworks, but her mother was a chorus girl. So Verina’s got her foot on the next rung of the ladder, but she’s not at the top yet. This is second best. Maybe third. Ve
rina’ll be disappointed. Expect her to throw a champagne bottle at some point this evening when she realizes it.”
“Second or third best?” I was surprised.
“Do you see Mrs. Hoffman? Or Mrs. McKay? Oelrichs is here somewhere, but he’s just slumming.”
Sets and rungs. Now I understood as I hadn’t before, the true worth of Goldie’s engagement to Stephen Oelrichs. “Who belongs to the Cotillion Club?”
“The Conservatives. The Ultras. Some of them, anyway. The Fashionables looking for husbands or wives.” A studied glance. “I’m still trying to figure out where you belong.”
“What is there to wonder about? I’m one of the Sporting set. You said it yourself.”
“They say you’re the fast one.”
“What?”
“I would have thought it by the bathing costume. You looked nice in it, by the way. But there’s something about you—I don’t know. I find you puzzling.”
I frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t take your meaning.”
“No, I suppose not. How well do you know Farge?” He glanced about the ballroom. He paused, caught by something, and murmured to himself as if to remember it. It reminded me that he was a reporter.
“Is my answer going to be in the Bulletin?”
“Not if you don’t wish it.”
“I told you already. My uncle hired him to design a building.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“That’s my answer, however. It’s really none of your business, is it?”
That got his attention. A faint smile touched his full lips. “Verina won’t sing for an hour yet. Not until she’s done being feted. Come with me. Let’s get some champagne.”
“Why should I?”
“Because you wonder why I’m asking. There’s a waiter over there. Grab two glasses, won’t you? I don’t want to call attention to myself. Hiding in plain sight, you know.”
I did, and handed him one as we went into the hall, which became a gallery hung with portraits down its length. Very classic, very moneyed. The talk and the music from the ballroom were loud, and it wasn’t as if we were alone; people drifted in and out, laughing, smoking, mingling.
LaRosa gestured with his champagne to one of the paintings—an unsmilingly earnest man of impressive girth. “Ten to one none of these is any relation to the Andersons.”
“There’s something familiar about that one. The nose, maybe.” I sipped at my drink.
“And the stomach too,” he said. “So maybe him. I’ll bet the rest all came from Gump’s. There, they’ve pedigrees for sale—for the right price.”
Goldie had pointed out the exclusive store, where society shopped for their statues and paintings. “That’s a bit cruel.”
“Is it? You know where the Anderson money came from?”
I shook my head.
“Real estate speculation.”
“They’re no different than half of San Francisco.”
“And corruption.”
I wandered down the length of the gallery, taking in the bewigged and powdered women, the bearded, courtly men.
“You don’t seem surprised,” said LaRosa, following.
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“Jeffers Anderson is on the city board of supervisors. As was Edward Dennehy. You might know him better as the late husband of your uncle’s mistress. Now, of course, your uncle’s on the board too.”
“What has that to do with anything?”
He stopped to consider one of the portraits as he drank his champagne. “You know Abe Ruef, I take it?”
The name was mentioned so often by my uncle that I could not forget the dark, curly-haired man with the receding hairline I’d seen months ago at the Palace.
Lightly, I quoted Goldie. “Nothing in this city gets done without Abe Ruef.”
LaRosa lifted a brow. “You do know him.”
“I know who he is.”
“Has your uncle ever spoken of him?”
There was something in his voice that made me wary. I wished I hadn’t been so light. “Why would he speak of him to me?”
A shrug. “I thought he might, given . . .”
“Given what?”
“Well . . . your position in the family.” His expression was pleasant, but I could not help tensing.
I was reminded again that my fantasy friendship with him was only that. I hardly knew him. “What are you implying, Mr. LaRosa?”
“Dante,” he corrected. “We’re friends, aren’t we, May? Coppa’s Comrades, so to speak.”
“Then why do I feel as if you’re accusing me of something?”
“I’m only wondering. One minute I’ve never seen or heard of you, and the next you’re everywhere. You’re all the talk, you’re always at Goldie Sullivan’s side, and then you show up on the arm of Ellis Farge.”
“I’m only all the talk because you’ve made it so.”
“Touché,” he said. “But you have to admit you’ve made it impossible to ignore you.”
“Really? I’m really very ordinary. My mother died, and my aunt and uncle took me in. Goldie is my cousin, and my uncle commissioned Ellis Farge. You know all of this already.”
“Why do I feel there’s more to it?”
“I have no idea.”
“The Sullivans are not well known for their generosity.”
Now I was becoming irritated. “You don’t know them at all if you think that.”
“And—forgive my frankness—but you aren’t Farge’s type. Nothing about you makes sense, unless . . .”
He was a reporter. He was looking for stories. And not just any stories, but society secrets. He’d told me that outright. I should have listened.
He was not a friend, and I could not trust him.
He pressed, “I think you might have some knowledge about your uncle’s involvement with Ruef and the board, and maybe, because we’re friends, you’d be willing to help me find the evidence I need.”
“Evidence of what?”
“Graft. Bribery. Unsavory dealings.”
“Mr. LaRosa, I have no idea why you would think my uncle might be involved in any such thing.”
He said nothing, but his gaze lingered on my face, and I felt the threat in it, a tacit quid pro quo. Keep my secret, and I’ll keep yours. I remembered his article about Chinatown. The debutante who’d gone unnamed. Goldie. He knew about her, of course he did. Just as he knew about my uncle’s mistress. Tell me what I want to know, or . . . Goldie, Chinatown . . . It was all the more powerful for being unstated. The danger of it prickled my skin.
A moment, and then two, and then his expression softened; he tapped my glass with his own as if acknowledging a stalemate, and his intensity drained away as quickly as it came. It had bound me more fiercely than I’d realized.
“Well, I’ll leave you to Verina. Give her my best, won’t you? No, wait—on the other hand, don’t. She might throw something at you when she hears my name.”
“That must be a common reaction,” I said.
His mouth quirked in a half smile. “Maybe I’ll see you at Coppa’s.” Then he turned on his heel and walked away.
I started back to the ballroom, relieved that he was gone, but so distracted by his questions and his implications that I did not see the man who stepped in front of me until I nearly ran into him.
“My pardon, Miss Kimble.” He put his hands on my arms to stop my forward movement. “You seem in another world.”
He was familiar, though I could not place him, and then, suddenly, I did. The Cliff House, the bouncing black feathers on Mrs. Hoffman’s hat, Goldie’s tears and the beach and her explanations of her failed engagement. Dante LaRosa’s comment, “Oelrichs is here somewhere . . . slumming.”
“Oh. Mr. Oelrichs, hello.”
His gaze leaped over my shoulder. “If you’re here, then it means Miss Sullivan must not be far behind. The two of you are in each other’s pockets these days.”
“We are very clo
se,” I said.
“So the gossip says.”
“The gossip?” I asked, unable to help myself, and then remembered my promise to Goldie that I would not listen to anything Stephen Oelrichs had to say.
But Oelrichs looked amused. He had hoped I would ask. He’d set a trap, and I had unwittingly raced right into it. “Why, they say that you lead Miss Sullivan into all manner of indiscreet behavior.”
I blinked in surprise. “Me?”
“That is what they say. You know, at the Cliff House, Mrs. Hoffman liked the look of you. She said you seemed a ‘good girl,’ and that perhaps you might be the one to bring Goldie Sullivan to heel at last.” He tapped my chin, too intimate, too close. “But you and I know better, don’t we?”
“I—I don’t know what you mean.”
His polite expression did not waver. Anyone watching us would have seen only a courteous encounter. “May I offer you a bit of advice? Stay away from China Joe. He’s not the ignorant Chinaman he pretends to be. And he understands English perfectly well.”
I struggled to hide my shock.
Oelrichs went on with a quiet lightness that belied his words, “You don’t belong here, Miss Kimble. You’re completely in over your head. Learn to swim, or drown. Those are your only choices when it comes to the Sullivans. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll wish you good evening.”
He left me astonished and bewildered. Given everything Goldie had said about Stephen Oelrichs, I would have discounted his comments without thought. But now, coming so soon after Dante LaRosa’s, it was not so easy to do.
I went back to the ballroom to find my cousin. When she saw me, she gave me her great golden smile and said, “Where have you been? We’ve been looking everywhere!” and I let her sparkle carry me into the party, and wrapped myself once again in the jocular good natures of Linette and Thomas and Jerome. I tried not to think of what Dante had said about social tiers that we did not belong to, or about secrets and corruption, or about Abe Ruef sitting at a table in the Palace Bar with my uncle and his mistress with her Important Connections. I tried not to think of Stephen Oelrichs. “You don’t belong here . . . Learn to swim, or drown.”