“Shhhh. Close your eyes and lay back down, lover boy.” Again, he did as he was told.
Within a few seconds he felt a concentrated hot spot, just above his navel.
“Feel the sting and then the warmth that follows,” she said with restrained excitement.
Brock did his best to block out the vision of the flame that he had in his mind. In no time, he sensed a thrill each time a drop of liquefied candle wax stung and then caressed his skin. The frequency of the sensations slowed until they stopped. Brock kept his eyes closed and couldn’t imagine what might come next.
Then his boots slid off of his feet and Chloe firmly tugged at his trousers.
“Take a deep breath because I’m going to take you places you’ve never dreamed of,” she said as she continued to do what she did best.
Brock never told anyone about what he experienced that night, even when pressed as more fourteen-year-old boys in the St. Clair family were poised to unlock the mysteries of women.
He would forever remember his adventure “into the fire,” as the embroidered sign at The Kensington Club foretold and, indeed, delivered. And he would never look at a candle in quite the same way again.
Chapter 30
Stirring The Pot
Monday, April 16, 1906, 9:32 p.m.
Two days before the earthquake and firestorm
“Are you ever going to have your bedroom redecorated? It looks like an eight-year-old lives here!” exclaimed Faye.
“With the wedding coming up, I just don’t see the point. Brock and I will be in our new home before we know it,” replied Clarissa dismissively.
Clarissa scanned her room. She looked at how the hooded chimney piece was flanked by quaint little galleries and shelves of treasures and ever-changing transient objects. Bows and sashes adorned just about anything that could accommodate them. Plumes, pictures, dried flowers and countless little mementoes spoke loudly about Clarissa’s life and choices.
“Why don’t you just stay the night?”
“Clarissa, my dear, I think I’ll do just that. Even though I just got here a little while ago, it seems like we’ve chatted the evening away while your fiancé has been tomcatting around as part of the bachelor party his darling brother put together.”
Faye looked directly at Clarissa and reached out to hold her hand. “The least I can do is stay and distract you from fretting about the depraved things he’s doing at this very moment and might try out on you Saturday night.”
Faye turned and faced the vanity. She grasped a pair of Clarissa’s long evening gloves. “Oh, it just makes my head spin to think about the riff-raff and debauchery he’ll be subjected to tonight. Skimpily clad trollops traipsing to and fro.” To emphasize to and fro, Faye added a flip-flap of the pair of gloves in her hand.
“By the way, how many pairs of gloves do you have?” she asked as she noted the numerous colorful glove boxes lined up on several of Clarissa’s shelves.
“You are so easily distracted tonight!” replied Clarissa. “I don’t know how many I have…a dozen or two. How many do you have? There are short gloves for the daytime, long gloves for the evening and heavier gloves for the country—not that I ever go there. So, we must have quite a supply, right?”
“Back to what I was saying about bachelor parties—”
“Your imagination is running wild,” interrupted Clarissa. “What could you possibly know about bachelor parties?”
“My brother has gone to plenty. From what he was willing to share with me and what I forced out of him, an innocent girl like you best not know too much before your time. Trust me.”
“Well, men should have their private time, just as we women should. Whatever wild oats Brock is sowing tonight, well…I just hope he gets them all out of his system. Starting Saturday, the rules change, right?”
“Usually,” agreed Faye, “but not always. Do you think that all of the skirt chasing that goes on in San Francisco is being done only by our city’s strapping young single men?”
Clarissa looked unsure about how to answer. She wasn’t so naïve as to think that all married men were monogamous, but she didn’t want to give Faye too much pleasure in one-upping her in a I’m-more-worldly-than-you contest.
“Oh, pish-posh! I can’t speak for other girls’ men, but my Brock is a one-woman man. I’m not the slightest bit concerned that he could be unfaithful. It’s not in his nature.”
“Nature?” asked Faye. “That’s the whole point. Don’t have the audacity to disagree that men are by nature always on a hunt to woo and possess women. Yes, Brock is truly a gentleman, but even gentlemen stumble and fall sometimes.”
Faye consciously prepared herself to speak in a coy voice to ask, “Clarissa, what did Brock tell you about going to Chinatown? Did he discover anything exotic there?”
Clarissa rolled her eyes up to the ceiling as if to pull down Brock’s remarks from inside her brain. “Ummmm, he said it smelled different.” You can say that again dearie, thought Faye.
“He said the people were friendly and showed him to a bakery to get the cookies for my party. He told me the difference between moon cakes and fortune cookies, and something about the yolks of duck eggs. Why do you want to know?”
“Has he gone back there?” she managed to squeeze out of her unnaturally smiling mouth. Faye ran her fingers delicately along the beaded fringe of a nearby lamp shade. This is going to be good.
“If he did, he hasn’t told me. If he hasn’t, I wouldn’t know that either. I’m going to ask you again, why do you want to know about Brock and Chinatown?”
“Oh nothing, just making conversation,” said Faye. I’ve stepped into something here and it’s not a bed of roses! Clarissa may learn from me to never trust a pretty girl with an ugly secret.
Clarissa signaled that she’d had enough of this inquisition by not-so-gently removing a fresh nightgown from her chest of drawers and presenting it to Faye.
“Pink! Oh, you know how I adore pink,” said Faye upon seeing the pale-pink cotton sleeping gown. “But do you have anything in green?”
“Yes,” replied Clarissa, who had already pulled out a lime-green gown, knowing full well that Faye only wore green.
“I thought you’d lost your mind there for a moment. I had to be as polite as possible when you began to hand me that ghastly pink nightgown,” admitted Faye.
“Mother was telling me today about how New York’s high-society women are wearing a lot of pink these days.”
“Well, the Astors and Vanderbilts can have all the pink they want. They can have all of New York City, along with the entire East Coast for all I care!” exclaimed Faye, demonstrating her haughty Huntington West Coast attitude of affluence and arrogance.
“Just put this on,” Clarissa remarked as she turned and left the room to allow Faye some privacy to undress.
“Heavens, we’re closer than most sisters. You don’t need to leave the room. I don’t believe God equipped me with anything he didn’t give you.”
Clarissa turned as she walked through the doorway. “That may be true, but just the same, I’ll check on Mother and be back with some warm milk for us in a few minutes.”
“Milk! Are we drooling babies or grown women?”
Clarissa just kept walking down the hallway shaking her head, softly mumbling an answer: “Both.”
Chapter 31
A Veiled Discussion
Monday, April 16, 1906, 9:54 p.m.
Two days before the earthquake and firestorm
Clarissa re-entered her bedroom with two glasses of warmed milk on a tray, along with half a lemon and a saucer. She nearly dropped the tray at the sight of Faye twirling around in front of the vanity mirror wearing Clarissa’s bridal tiara and veil.
“Pardon me!” Clarissa announced with great force as she entered the room.
“Don’t get all superstitious about this,” replied Faye as she sat down in the fancifully frilly chair that matched the vanity. In a move to avoid eye contact with Cla
rissa, Faye picked up an ornate silver jewelry casket from the vanity’s surface and began to fidget with it.
“You had no right to open that box, much less put my tiara on!” Clarissa snapped back as she set down the tray.
“I know, but it just called out to me and pleaded, ‘Put me on…put me on…and pretend for a moment that your wedding day is coming.’ But, you’re right,” admitted Faye.
“It’s against tradition! It’s against the rules,” pointed out Clarissa.
Red-handed, caught red-handed! An awkward pause of silence provided Faye with the opportunity to plot her next checker-board move.
“As you well know, as a rule I avoid rules! Anyway, I had no business dreaming for even a moment that I’d have this diamond-encrusted, silver tiara given to me by a man as wonderful as Brock.” Faye stopped there and made a pouty face at Clarissa in hopes of worming her way out of an awkward position. She removed the tiara and veil.
Doesn’t she know that there’s only one person who matters in this world, and that’s me, thought Faye. It’s always been about me, and it will always be about me, except Clarissa’s wedding, I guess.
“With this tiara, he’ll make you his princess and you’ll never have another thing to worry about. Your dreams will have all come true,” said Faye in a syrupy sing-song way.
“Well, I hope I have a few dreams after we’re married.”
“I wouldn’t. Marriage is going to solve all of my problems. I won’t be a second-rate Huntington anymore. I’ll leap to the top of the heap. Status, obscene luxury…everything will be mine and I will be ecstatically happy and content.”
“You? Content?” asked Clarissa.
“I don’t want to ever lift a finger.”
“But you don’t now!”
“Precisely, and I’m going to make sure that I never have to. The right man will take care of all that. There may not be a white horse or shining armor. He may not be a real prince. But there will be legions of servants and massive houses and anything and everything I could ever want.”
“Fine. Just give it here,” said Clarissa with an unmistakable sense of urgency as she eyed the tiara.
“Afraid I might muss the lace, are you?”
“No. I want to put it on you correctly and take a good look at how you’ll appear to your husband-to-be when you walk down the aisle someday soon.”
They smiled at each other. She’s so sweet she makes my teeth hurt.
“After the wedding, these two stones will become tear-drop earrings. The rest will be used for a brooch and necklace, all using the silver from the tiara,” explained Clarissa.
“You’re going to have it melted down? I understand putting this bundle of diamonds to good use, but not destroying the tiara.”
“With all of the silver I’m marrying into, the little clump this melted-down tiara is going to become won’t make any difference at all,” replied Clarissa with a shrug of her shoulders. “Besides, changing things is good.”
“That’s all fine and well, just so you don’t think you’re going to change Brock,” Faye said. “It’s the greatest fantasy for women, you know!”
“Know what?”
“Clarissa, since the beginning of time, women have thought they could change the men in their lives. It doesn’t work and it won’t work. What you marry is what you get. So you better get used to that ranch of Brock’s. I think he was born with dirt and hay in his veins! Keeping him on Nob Hill, well, it’s just not going to happen.”
Clarissa gazed off in the distance.
Faye added, “Face it. You’re Nob Hill. You’re lace. He’s leather. You’re slender tapered candles. He’s a scrap-wood campfire. Something’s going to have to give. And someone’s going to have to give in. Are you ready for that?”
“Sure,” said Clarissa with a slow nod.
“It could very well be you who ends up giving in. How are you at milking a cow?
Clarissa patted Faye’s back. “Don’t worry. I’m sure the milk in my kitchen on Nob Hill will be delivered to my back door and received by my cook…with no hide nor hair of a cow in sight.”
Clarissa adjusted the veil after she placed it on Faye’s red hair. “Take a look. You’re going to make a stunning bride.”
Faye did her best to beam with excitement for Clarissa’s sake. “Let’s toast to our future happiness.”
“With milk?” asked Clarissa.
“Yes, milk.”
Their glasses clinked.
“Now on to the lemon. I’ve been applying it to my face as a tonic for weeks to have the smoothest, whitest skin on all of Nob Hill for my wedding day.”
“Yes, none of that tanned working-class skin for the future Mrs. St. Clair!” added Faye.
“Before we know it, I’ll be a married woman. That tiara will be at the jeweler’s shop while Brock and I tour Europe on our honeymoon. My dream is coming true.”
You better hope Brock doesn’t have the jeweler melt down your heart too, along with that precious dream of yours.
Chapter 32
Revelations
Monday, April 16, 1906, 10:17 p.m.
Two days before the earthquake and firestorm
Blossom peered out her bedroom window into the alley with worried eyes. She hugged her knees while sitting on a wood crate draped with a golden silk cloth. Everything was dampened by the wet evening air. Despite her increasingly frail body, Grand Ma Maw insisted that she and Blossom still share the third-floor bedroom. She told everyone it was to breathe the fresh air that travelled above the streets of Chinatown. But most people knew it was a prime position for observing activity in the alley…activity that could be discussed in great detail in the market, over the sale of a smelly fish or gnarled root, or across the mahjong table.
Grand Ma Maw was breathing loudly. It was only a matter of minutes before the snoring began. Every night it was the same routine.
Blossom’s thoughts were interrupted as she looked down on the people passing in the alley below, some strolling hand in hand, others scurrying as if they were late for an important appointment. She zeroed in on a young couple, looking more at each other than where they were walking. The girl tripped over a block of wood that had been left in the main pathway. She teetered, but the man supported her arm and kept her from falling. That’s just how Brock caught me, she recalled. Brock, where are you and what are you doing…right now?
Her face felt flushed, so she reached for her collapsible handheld fan. She quietly opened it up. Blossom gazed at the black fabric with the simply painted cherry blossoms on it. She looked back out the window and rhythmically fanned her face.
“You more restless than usual. You not think I notice these things?” asked Grand Ma Maw from her bed.
Blossom continued to look out the window and fan herself as she replied. “I know there isn’t a thing that you miss here or anywhere in Chinatown.”
Grand Ma Maw inhaled deeply. “Blossom, I notice you change…like little girl in you now gone away.”
“I believe she has. She may be gone, but I’m right here. But I’m changing…and I can’t help it,” responded Blossom as she cast her eyes down and rested the fan on one of her knees. “But that’s not necessarily bad.”
“You meeting that rich white man, yes? I find pot of make-up in your handbag when looking for your comb. You wear make-up for him, yes?”
“Yes, just once.”
Though shocked by the directness of the elder woman’s words, Blossom was almost relieved to be confronted by her grandmother.
“You think you love him, yes?”
“I didn’t know, but I do now. Yes, I love him. And he has a name: Brock.”
The room went silent.
“But you engaged to Ming Yang.”
“You and Ba Ba engaged me to Butch. I had nothing to do with that.” Blossom’s restrained energy was released like someone had just broken the seal on a jar of jam and the pent-up pressure escaped. I said it out loud. I love him.
�
�Then now is time to say things that remained unsaid for far too many years.” Grand Ma Maw spoke in a gentle but concerned voice as she sat up in her bed. “You now going where I and your father been before.”
Blossom looked puzzled.
“Our time here, it like a flickering candle with a short life to live. You, my granddaughter, must make most of what in front of you. What behind you, in past, you must now learn. These things you deserve to know before you give your love to this Brock man. Come, sit with me.”
The old woman went on to tell her love story and about how marriages in China were almost always prearranged by families, though romantic love was encouraged and allowed. She recalled how a band of musicians banging gongs and blowing flutes accompanied the bride’s procession to the groom’s house.
“You look at me and see old woman. My body get tired, but young girl inside just like you. Many seasons ago, I young inside and outside on my on my wedding day. I make a big racket even then! And I not even have to say a word!” said Grand Ma Maw with a large grin. Blossom grinned back, but wondered why she was telling this story that she’d heard many times before.
Grand Ma Maw continued the familiar story that included a tea ceremony served by the younger family members and gifts brought by older couples as tokens of their best wishes.
“I not Grand Ma Maw then. My parents name me Lei after cherry blossom buds. I meet your Grand Ba Ba only four times before we marry,” she said holding up four fingers. “I scared. But love bloom for us.”
Her words stopped flowing.
Blossom nestled beside her just as she had when she was a child. The old woman reached out her weathered, withered hands to cup Blossom’s chin.
“I know you always felt different. That because you different. You special. A treasure—”
She stopped again for a moment.
“Your mother not one of our people. Iris Lancaster, that her name. Cameo Rose, that her working name.”
Blossom (The Blossom Trilogy Book 1) Page 17