i a72d981dc0406879 (33 page)

She frowned, not in perplexity but in displeasure at the
question. "No, in fact I am quite sure I wasn't. I didn't exactly
go walking right out on the sidewalk, Fremont. I slouched from
house to house, keeping to cover as much as I could-along fences,
behind bushes and things of that nature. And of course I was
continually looking around, checking, because I didn't want anyone
to see me. I'm telling you, nobody followed me!"

"As far as you know," I said evenly, bowing my head as if to
acquiesce, though my words themselves implied otherwise.

Two deep rose spots bloomed suddenly on her cheeks. "You want me
to take the blame for what happened to your mattress and your
pillows, is that it? You want me to replace them? Well, by all
means let us go to the City of Paris"-she leapt up from the
table-"'without further delay. If we get there soon enough perhaps
Jeremy will not yet have removed my name from the account and I
will be able to buy not only mattress and pillows but also clothing
for myself. The bill can be his final remembrance of me!'' Her chin
came up defiantly-quivering, to be sure, but defiant all the
same.

"I meant nothing of the kind, no offense was intended," I said,
my voice gently insistent. But I did not try to tug her back down
into her seat. A weird sort of energy had started to build in the
kitchen. It flashed through my mind that this could be what Frances
felt at automatic-writing time. I felt as if some spirit were
hovering nearby, uninvited but not necessarily unwanted.

Indeed, the feeling was so strong upon me that I almost reached
across the table for the writing tablet that Edna had brought to
the meeting, as was her habit, in case one of us decided that notes
should be made. I stayed my hand, though, watching Frances from the
corner of my eye, for she was nothing if not skittish. But the
moment passed, the feeling subsided, and so did the high color in
my friend's cheeks. Edna, as alert as always-a keen woman our
Edna-flashed me a questioning glance, to which I gave a barely
perceptible shake of my head. Wish cleared his throat, scratched at
his ear in an overly casual way, and said, "Well. Where were
we?"

At that, Frances sat down again and normality appeared
restored.

"I think Frances had an excellent idea," I said with enthusiasm.
"She and I will go to the City of Paris to shop for some things we
must have, and if she can put them on her husband's account, well,
why not? Edna, if you would be so good as to call the St. Francis
Hotel and inquire as to exactly when my father is expected, I
should be most grateful. His name is Leonard Pembroke Jones. And
Wish, as much as I've benefited from your help the past few days,
you really must talk to your mother about the client who came in
when we were both out yesterday. Now, what have I forgotten?"

"Do you have any idea when Michael is coming back?" Wish asked.
He alone, of us four around the table, was still dissatisfied about
something. I could tell by the expression on his face.

Normally I would have taken time to deal with his
dissatisfaction, to draw him out if need be as to its source and
possible solution. But nothing seemed normal now, and I was
possessed- one might even say consumed-with a sense of time running
out. Therefore I gave him the short yet truthful reply: "I don't
know. He never said." Then, with an artificial smile on my lips, I
cast a rapid glance around the table and rose. "Now, if there's
nothing else, we should get on with our day."

The ferry bearing the passengers from the cross-country train
trip, which ended at the Southern Pacific station in Oakland,
crossed the Bay in late afternoon. My father arrived at his hotel
approximately on time, that is to say at 5:45 p.m.; the hotel desk
notified me at his request; and I presented myself at the door to
his room on the third floor at seven-fifteen. I knocked. While
waiting for the door to be answered, I reflected that if I had not
gotten turned around in the corridors, this would be a corner suite
overlooking Union Square.

I had butterflies in my stomach. A thousand of them.

The door opened inward.

"Father?"

He opened his arms, tried to smile, and his eyes glinted with a
sudden sheen of tears withheld. With the smile I knew him-for
otherwise my father was much changed. "My dear Caroline," he
said.

I rushed into his arms.

Since my adolescence my father has not been much taller than I,
and this was so still; yet he had always been a substantial man,
not only in a business sense but physically. Broad-shouldered and
equally broad of chest, with thick arms and legs, and a tendency,
as he aged, to a paunch. Now as his arms closed around me I could
feel his bones beneath the skin, even through his clothes. It was
beyond shocking.

"Oh, Father," I said, my voice muffled as I buried my head, like
a child, against his shoulder. I could not look full on him again
until I had better control of myself. I trembled
uncontrollably.

"There, there, child," he said, not awkwardly but warmly. He
patted my back, my arm, and finally my head. "I see you still don't
like hats," he commented, with some of the old verve in his
voice.

I shook my head, which had the effect of rubbing my face against
his shoulder, which in turn had the effect of wetting the fine but
slightly prickly wool of his suit coat. I was crying, most
unexpectedly, and had no more ability to stop the tears from
falling than I'd had of controlling the earlier tremors. Those, at
least, had stopped.

Father stepped back from the doorway, his arms still around me,
and somehow-perhaps with the nudge of a toe, I didn't raise my head
to look-closed the door behind us. I heard it click shut. "My
little girl," he said, a bit thickly. "Come now, Fremont-if I may
call you Fremont? That is what others call you now, isn't it?"

"Um-hm," I sniveled, nodding this time, smearing more tears but
up and down.

"Let me look at you. It's been a long time." He took my
shoulders in his hands then, and with more strength than I would
have thought his newly frail frame could muster, moved me back at
arms' length.

I sniffed, tossed my head, lifted my chin . . . and finally
managed a smile. "I expect I've changed quite a bit," I
acknowledged.

:Yes, you have,'' Father agreed, his eyes twinkling. Then in the
blink of an eye, his face grew grave. He said, "But then, so have
I."

In Father's hotel room we talked and drank some excellent dry
sherry until the encroaching fog had absorbed the last pale rays of
daylight, and Union Square, though it was just directly across
Powell Street (Father did indeed have a corner room), had
disappeared from view. For the most part I answered his questions,
and did so truthfully. I did not like to ask him questions myself,
because the ones I most wanted answered would be considered rude,
even from so outspoken a daughter as I. For example:
How are you
really getting along with Augusta? Has she made many changes in our
house? If I were to come home for a visit tomorrow, would there be
any little touches of my mother left at all?
And most
importantly:
Father, have you been ill, that your face and form
can have altered so much in only three years? And if so, are you
still?

When I had satisfied the minimum of Father's curiosity, we went
down to the sumptuous dining room on the mezzanine, which overlooks
the lobby with its tall marble columns, some replaced and some
repaired since the earthquake. A string trio was playing quietly
near one end of the balcony. Father had requested a table against
the wall, far back in the room, as he is somewhat afraid of
heights. A fault he does not admit to, of course; my mother told me
long ago.

"This is quite elegant," I remarked, after the waiter had taken
our order.

"You have not been here before?" Father raised one white
eyebrow. His eyes nestled now in folds of crinkly skin, the whites
of them faded, without luster; yet the green of his irises was
bright as my own. Those eyes sparkled with an intelligence undimmed
by whatever beset him physically.

"No, I haven't," I replied. "Before the earthquake I had been
only to the Fairmont, and since the earthquake I haven't been able
to afford to dine in a hotel like this."

"Oh?" Up went the eyebrow again. Now that I was getting used to
his appearance, I saw that the thinness was in its own way rather
becoming. Leonard Pembroke Jones had broad but prominent cheekbones
I never remembered seeing before. His mouth, though-that had not
changed. And why had I not realized until this very moment how much
Michael's mouth resembled my father's?

Even as I thought of Michael my father said, "I would have
thought your, hum, partner might have brought you on occasion to a
place like this."

"My partner," I repeated dully.

The waiter arrived with bowls of soup, the first course, a crab
bisque that smelled delicious. The string trio was playing
something haunting, with a plaintive, moaning cello line. This was
a moment I had both feared and anticipated with great
excitement-for there was a part of me that wanted to tell my father
everything. A part of me that craved his approval, and had once
been so certain of his love that never would I have dreamed of
holding anything back. But that part of me had either died or gone
into hiding when he married Augusta.

Behind the waiter came the sommelier, with the silver apparatus
for dealing with the long-necked wine bottle around his own long
neck. This was done to Father's approval, and as it all took
awhile, I had time to frame my answer.

"You mean, of course, Michael Kossoff. My business partner."

"Yes indeed. And is he not somewhat of a benefactor also? An
older man, you said in one of your letters?"

The soup was delicious, even in such strained circumstances. "In
the sense that it is Michael's money that has set us up in
business, then yes, you could say he is my benefactor. But not in
the sense that the business would function as well without me-in
fact, it might not function at all." (This was true: I was the
inspiration behind J&K. If inspiration could be the right word.
Michael had told me many times that he hoped our business would
enable me to use my God-given talents and at the same time keep me
out of trouble. Of course, Father did not have to know any of
that.)

I interrupted myself to say, "Father, please eat your soup
before it gets cold. It's really very good."

Father obligingly dragged his spoon through the creamy pinkish
liquid, sniffed, smiled slightly, and sampled it. I could never in
my whole life recall his approaching food with such delicacy. He
had always enjoyed his meals so much that, if anything, he'd leapt
into them with a gusto that bordered on bad manners. Now he raised
the spoon to his mouth, paused, and looked me in the eye.

"Caroline-Fremont-you have never told me the nature of the
J&K Agency's business."

"We are an investigatory agency. We do confidential inquiries.
Into whatever our clients want and need." I met Father's steady
gaze, my green eyes and his locked. Father and daughter.

"You do not use that infernal machine, the typewriter, in your
business? I thought you did. I thought you had thrown away all that
education I invested in for you, as if you were a boy ..."

"Not quite," I said grimly. This was an old, touchy subject for
us.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I mean, Wellesley was a good school, but I did not get the same
education I would have had at Harvard or Yale. But I did not throw
my education away, Father. What I learned will remain forever in my
head, in my brain, to inform and transform everything I say or do.
Once one is educated, that education becomes a part of who one is.
As mine is a part of me. Whether I sit at a typewriter or not."

"Nevertheless"-Father had become interested in his soup, and
paused to indulge that interest-"if you are no longer tied to the
typewriter, I am glad. And I'm grateful to this Michael Kossoff.
You have a high opinion of the man, do you not?"

I blushed. I could not help myself. The flush began on my chest,
where I felt it as a great, spreading warmth proceeding outward
from my heart, and traveled then up into my neck and into my cheeks
until I felt on fire. I did manage to find my voice, but had to
swallow hard before I could make it work reliably: "I do indeed
have a high opinion of him. He has worked for government agencies
and knows what he's doing. In addition he's a very learned man. His
library alone reveals the liveliness of his mind."

I realized I was about to say too much and stopped myself.

Father smiled. His face and his voice softened. "Ah, daughter,
who could resist you when you look like that? I have just one
question: When do I get to meet this man?"

I FELT MY EYES go wide, then reached for the wine, which was
white, cool, crisp, and very faintly sweet on my tongue. I savored
it even as I wondered what my father thought he knew, and how he
could know that, what should I say, and last but far from least,
what must
he
think of me?