by Jae
“Exactly my thought. But I need to prove that to the editor,” Kate said. “That’s where you come in.”
Dr. Sharpe gave her an encouraging nod, indicating for her to go on.
Now or never. “I need someone on the inside of these walls.” Kate pointed at the building behind them. “Sooner or later everything newsworthy that happens in the city is reported either to the police station or to the hospital. If I could find out about it before the other newspaper photographers do…”
Calmly, the doctor held Kate’s expectant gaze. “You want me to telephone you whenever I have an interesting case or something else worth photographing.”
Kate nodded, glad that Dr. Sharpe had caught on and said it for her. “Yes.”
The doctor looked down at her reddened hands. When she lifted her gaze, she regarded Kate with a serious expression. “Believe me, I understand how hard it is for a woman to be taken seriously in her profession. But as much as I’d like to help you, I can’t.”
“What? Why not? You just said—”
“I know what I said. I’d really like to help you, Miss…”
“Winthrop,” Kate supplied. “But, please, call me Kate.”
Dr. Sharpe nodded. “Then feel free to call me Lucy. Kate, listen. My first duty always has to be to my patients. When they come through these doors, they’re completely helpless and vulnerable. They’re relying on me to protect them and make them better. I can’t repay that trust by giving information about them to the newspaper.”
“But…but some of your colleagues have no problem giving information about their patients to reporters.” Once, when Kate had accompanied her mother to the hospital because of her migraines, she had overheard a doctor ignoring confidentiality and blabbing about his patient to a reporter he’d played cards with.
“Be that as it may, I’m holding myself to higher standards.” Head held high, Lucy looked her square in the eyes.
Kate rubbed her face with both hands and groaned. “Women,” she mumbled into her palms. “Why do they have to be so stubborn?”
Smiling, Lucy nudged her with an elbow. “I have a feeling you’re just as stubborn. That’s why I think you’ll find another way.”
“I’ll have to, since you refuse to help me,” Kate said.
“Kate…”
She sighed. “It’s all right. I understand.” If she was honest with herself, she even admired Lucy for the way she protected her patients and stood up for her principles.
“Dr. Sharpe?” someone called from behind them. When Kate turned, a white-clad nurse stood in the hospital’s doorway. “A patient just came in with severe pain. I think it might be the gallbladder.”
Lucy stood without hesitation. “I’m on my way.” After one short glance back at Kate, she walked inside.
Kate remained behind on the bench, equally frustrated and impressed. How was she supposed to prove her skills as a photographer if no one alerted her to newsworthy happenings to photograph?
CHAPTER 7
Winthrop Residence
Nob Hill
San Francisco, California
April 2, 1906
Thanks to plenty of rest and the ice Kate had brought, the swelling around Giuliana’s ankle had gone down considerably by Monday morning. She could get her foot into the shoe with a minimal amount of wrestling.
But by the time she stepped off the first cable car of the day, her ankle was already throbbing. Gritting her teeth, she limped up the hill. Sweat dribbled down her back and beaded on her forehead, making her shiver in the damp fog.
This was going to be a long workday, she thought as she entered the house through the servants’ entrance in the back. She hung up her coat and attempted not to limp as she cleaned out the fireplace in the morning room. Kneeling was painful, but she tried to focus on the by-now familiar routine instead of the throbbing in her foot.
Once she’d stacked new logs in the fireplace, she scrubbed the water closet, always the second thing she did every morning. Hiding her limping was becoming harder by the minute. Good thing the Winthrops were still asleep.
Or so she thought, until someone blocked her path on the bottom step.
Startled, she nearly dropped the bucket with the scrubbing brush and the carbolic soap. “Kate!” Flushing, she looked left and right. “I mean, Miss Kate! I did not know you are awake. Do you need help?”
Kate shook her head. She was already dressed, wearing one of her crisp, white shirtwaists and a maroon walking skirt with a flared hem. “No. But you do. You can’t make it up and down the stairs and kneel to scrub the tiles with your bad ankle.”
“The ankle is good,” Giuliana said and tried to step around her.
But Kate stepped with her and blocked her way up. “Give me that bucket.”
Giuliana clutched the bucket as Kate tried to take it from her. “No, I can—”
“Give—me—the—bucket.”
Reluctantly, Giuliana released her hold. Kate might have acted like a friend yesterday, bringing her sandwiches and ice to cool her ankle, but she was still her employer’s daughter.
“Obedience,” Kate called.
A door upstairs opened, and Biddy appeared on the landing. “Yes, miss?”
Kate held out the bucket. “Could you please take over cleaning the bathroom today?”
Biddy, who had already started down the stairs toward them, paused in midstep. “But isn’t Julie supposed to do that? I mean…” Her gaze flicked from Kate to Giuliana and then back.
“I need Giuliana to clean my darkroom—right away. All the dust accumulating there can easily ruin my prints. So…” Kate shook the bucket, making the brush rattle against the metal.
Lips pinched together, Biddy took the bucket from her. She sent Giuliana a resentful glare before whirling around and marching up the stairs toward the bathroom.
Wonderful. Giuliana rubbed her face. Now Biddy hated her because she had to do Giuliana’s work for her. “You cannot do that,” she whispered to Kate.
Kate shrugged. “I just did.”
“I wish you had not. Biddy does not know I hurt my ankle. She will get angry if I do not do my work.”
“She’ll get over it,” Kate said. “She used to clean the bathroom every morning for weeks after my mother dismissed the last maid.”
That didn’t mean that Biddy would happily go back to those duties now, but Kate didn’t seem to understand that. Once again, the differences between them were driven home. Yesterday, in Giuliana’s room in the boardinghouse, they’d almost been equals, but now Giuliana realized that it had been an illusion. Sighing, she turned and limped down the hall to get the duster. From now on, she’d keep her distance from Kate and interact with her as just a maid. She would start by calling her Miss Kate whenever she thought of her. Or better yet: she wouldn’t think of her at all.
Kate—Miss Kate, she mentally corrected—hurried after her. “You don’t really have to clean the darkroom. I just said that to—”
“Yes, I do. Your parents pay me for this.” Giuliana took the feather duster from the cupboard beneath the stairs. In front of the darkroom, she hesitated, not wanting to repeat her earlier mistake and ruin some of the photographs inside. “Is it safe to go inside?”
“Yes. I poured out the developer and the fixer and cleaned the trays after I developed the photographs yesterday. Just don’t open any of the bottles or the cases holding the glass plates.”
Giuliana nodded, opened the door, and stepped into the tiny room.
Miss Kate hovered in the doorway as Giuliana dusted the workbench.
Was she worried about Giuliana knocking down a bottle filled with dangerous chemicals or about her re-injuring her ankle? Giuliana wasn’t sure. She tried to ignore her as she lifted up one of the enamel trays to dust beneath it.
“Lucy refused to help me,” Miss Kate said after a while.
With the duster in her hand, Giuliana paused and glanced over at her. “Lucy?”
“Dr. Sharpe. I ta
lked to her yesterday, describing my situation, but she refused to help me. She said she had to protect her patients first and foremost, so she can’t give me any information about them.” Morosely, Kate rubbed a corner of the workbench with her sleeve. She looked so dejected and helpless, like a little kitten who’d been caught in a downpour, that Giuliana couldn’t hold on to her promise to keep her distance.
She reached out and touched Kate’s hand for a moment before quickly pulling back. “I am sorry,” she said, not sure if she was expressing her sympathies or apologizing for the unbidden touch to Kate’s hand. Probably both.
“I won’t give up.” Kate’s blue eyes sparkled with determination. “If no one will tell me of any news to photograph, I’ll have to create my own news story.” The dejected look came over her fair face again. “I just don’t know where to find it yet.”
“You maybe look in Washington Square. I think you can find a lot of stories there,” Giuliana said before she could think about what she was doing.
“You want me to take photographs of the Barbary Coast?” Kate’s eyebrows moved up.
“Oh, no. Not there. I mean North Beach. That is where most of the Italian people live. It is so full of life and things you can make pictures of. Maybe the editor likes it.”
A huge smile lit up Kate’s face. “It’s worth a try. But I’ll need a guide. Someone who knows all the places and stories. You don’t, by any chance, know someone who could show me around? Say next Sunday, once her ankle is all healed up?”
The charming grin dazzled Giuliana, so she had already started to nod by the time she figured out what Kate meant.
“Wonderful!” Kate clapped her hands. “We’ll make a day of it and have lunch at one of the local restaurants.”
“But…but…” Giuliana helplessly waved the feather duster. “That is not what I meant. I—”
Kate was already moving down the hall, a spring in her step.
Giuliana leaned her forehead against the wall and groaned. If Biddy found out about it, her dislike of Giuliana would be complete. And if the Winthrops find out, you won’t have to worry about Biddy any longer, because they’ll dismiss you on the spot. There were plenty of good reasons why she should call Kate back and tell her no, but she couldn’t stand the thought of seeing the look of dejection on her face again. Just this one afternoon, she finally decided, and she’d think of it as work, not as a day out with a friend.
Decision made, she removed the brown bottles so she could dust the top shelf.
* * *
When Kate descended the stairs at half past eleven on Sunday, her mother sent her an appreciative look. It happened so rarely that Kate had almost forgotten what that expression on her mother’s face looked like.
“So you haven’t forgotten how to dress properly after all.” Her mother nodded at Kate’s midnight-blue walking skirt, the silk-and-lace blouse with the high collar, and her short, tailored jacket of a color that matched the skirt. “Is Mr. Jenkins calling on you this afternoon?”
Kate resisted the urge to grimace. Why couldn’t a woman dress nicely just to please herself? “No, Mother. I’m just meeting a friend for luncheon and a nice stroll outside.” She tried to step past her mother in the hall to pick up her camera in the darkroom.
But her mother grabbed Kate’s arm, held on to it, and regarded her through narrowed eyes. “You’re not keeping secrets from me, are you, Kathryn Elizabeth Winthrop?”
“S-secrets?” To her own annoyance, Kate found herself stammering. Wonderful. Now her mother would think she was indeed hiding something. Which, of course, she was. Yes, but only because Mother wouldn’t approve of my spending time with the maid. It’s not like I’m doing anything forbidden with her. The mere thought of it made Kate’s cheeks glow as if she had spent too much time in the kitchen, next to the cast-iron range.
“Yes, secrets,” her mother said, still eyeing her. “If I didn’t know better, I’d believe you were secretly meeting up with a young man your father and I wouldn’t find suitable for you.”
Kate relaxed and even had to bite back a grin. “No, Mother, there’s no man. I promise.” She looked her mother in the eyes, the picture of sincerity. If only her mother knew how truthful she was being. Kate was almost certain that there would never be a man for her.
Finally, after a few more moments of silent scrutiny, her mother nodded and let go of her.
Kate rushed past her into the darkroom. Within minutes, she left the house with a carrying case full of glass plate holders.
* * *
Giuliana had been quiet from the moment she’d climbed up into the automobile. She still hadn’t said anything when they left the vehicle behind near a construction site, where the new Sentinel Tower was being erected.
Kate kept sneaking glances at her as they strolled up Montgomery Avenue, which cut diagonally through the grid pattern of the city’s streets. “Is everything all right?” she finally asked. “Is your ankle hurting? We could have postponed the outing, you know.”
“The foot is good.” Giuliana stopped walking and held out her foot, wriggling it in all directions as if to prove her words true. “See?”
“What is it, then?” Kate hadn’t known Giuliana for very long, but she could already tell that something was bothering her; she just had no clue what it might be. How anyone could be in a bad mood on such a fine day was beyond her. Even the sun was making an appearance, so the damp weather felt less cold than usual.
“Nothing,” Giuliana said. “Everything is good.”
They continued for another few steps.
“You’re awfully quiet for a tour guide,” Kate said with a gentle smile. “Is it because being here reminds you of back home?”
“No. Yes. Maybe some, but…” Giuliana sighed. She walked ahead of Kate as if she didn’t want to look her in the eyes while explaining. “I am not sure this”—she waved a hand back between them—“is right.”
Kate stopped and stared at her. Not right? Did she mean…? Oh, no! Her stomach bunched up into a tight ball of dread. Had Giuliana noticed all the stolen glances when Kate had thought she wasn’t looking her way? Was that why she seemed to keep her distance and had barely spoken to her today? “I’d never…”
Giuliana turned around. “You are the daughter of a very rich family. And I am a maid…the maid of your family. I do not understand what you want of me.”
Oh. So that was what she meant. Relief mingled with fear. Feeling as if she were standing at the edge of a cliff, Kate wavered. One wrong step and Giuliana would bolt. But what was the right answer? What was it that she wanted from Giuliana?
She sensed that it was better not to allow herself to think about it in too much detail. “Friendship,” Kate finally said.
A wistful smile darted across Giuliana’s face. “Not possible. I told you: I am a maid, and you—”
Kate took a step toward her. “Look beneath all that. I have a feeling that we have more in common than you might think. More than I have in common with the other daughters of wealthy families anyway. When I tell them I want to be a photographer, they just laugh and say I’ll forget all about that crazy notion once I get married. You never once laughed at me.”
“You did not laugh at me when I said I want to take care of my family,” Giuliana said.
“Why would I laugh at that?” If anything, it made her admire and respect Giuliana even more.
Giuliana shrugged. “Back home, people would not think it was possible.”
“Just like the people here would find it impossible for two women as different as you and I to be friends,” Kate said.
Giuliana gave the tiniest of nods and continued to walk up Montgomery Avenue. As they crossed Vallejo Street, she pointed to the right, to the twin towers of a church. “This is St. Francis. My brother and I came here for Mass some times.”
Quickly, Kate caught up with her. Did Giuliana accepting her role as a tour guide also mean she accepted that friendship between them was possible? She didn�
�t dare ask. Instead, she focused on the way the sunlight lit up the white walls of the church, making them seem to glow. “Let’s stop here for the first photograph.”
It was the first of many. As they walked along Montgomery Avenue, past cigar makers, pastry shops, Italian delicatessens, coffee roasters, and trattorias, they kept stopping for photographs. It always took a while to unpack the camera, pull out the bellows, and get the settings just right, but Giuliana waited patiently.
Finally, they reached Washington Square and wandered along the unpaved paths that crisscrossed the park. Two old women, clad in black, sat on a bench beneath a tree. The deep lines on their weather-beaten faces looked like road maps of the sad and joyous moments of their lives.
“You want to make a picture of the statue, no?” Giuliana asked, pointing to the bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin in the center of the park.
Kate didn’t look away from the two old women. “No. I want to take a photograph of them. Do you think that would be all right?”
“Ask them.”
They walked over to the two women. Kate hefted her carrying case with the camera. “Excuse me. Would you mind if I took your photograph?”
The two looked at her with blank faces, clearly not understanding a word of English.
Giuliana spoke to them in her native language, which sounded as sweet as a melody to Kate. She could have listened forever even though she couldn’t make out where one word ended and the other began, much less what Giuliana was saying.
But still the old women didn’t seem to understand. When one of them answered, her language was somehow different from Giuliana’s.
“I think they are from Genoa,” Giuliana said. “I do not speak their language.” She turned back to the two old women and—despite saying she didn’t speak their language—spoke a few disjointed words to them and mimed taking photographs.
The old women looked at each other and then at Kate as if wondering why anyone would want to take their picture. Finally, they nodded.