A-Splendid-Ruin(23)

I glanced up from the menu. “How do you know I’ll like it?”

“Because I know just by looking at you. Trust me, I’m very good at this.”

“You’re horrible at this,” Linette disagreed. “You ordered snails for me once and swore I’d like them!”

“You told me you liked escargot.”

“I was trying to impress you. Yes, I know, silly of me, wasn’t it? Anyway, it sounded very French.”

“It is very French.”

“For snails.”

The waiter hovered politely, but I sensed his impatience.

Jerome studied me in a way that made me shy again. I was still not quite used to their flirting, or the fact that it meant nothing. “Let me see—ah, I have it! You’re a very serious girl, therefore nothing too decadent. Something like the Chicken Mayonnaise.”

Goldie sighed heavily. “She already has a tendency to be boring. You’ll only make her more so. We’ll start with the caviar.”

“And champagne,” Thomas said to the waiter. “Sir, we will indeed need plenty of champagne.”

The waiter departed with what seemed to be relief.

Jerome glanced toward the far end of the room. “My God, Ellis Farge is here.”

I looked to where a dark-haired man sat alone at a table, toying with a glass of wine. He was very pale, his face chiseled, almost gaunt. He huddled in a heavy coat as if he were cold, though the day was fine and the sun poured warmly through the windows. “Who’s Ellis Farge?”

“Only the most sought-after architect in San Francisco,” Jerome explained.

Linette leaned forward, lowering her voice. “I’ve heard he’s been refusing all commissions.”

“Well, he can’t take them all, can he?” Jerome asked reasonably. “Everyone wants him. He’d be swamped.”

“But to turn them all down!”

“I doubt that,” Goldie said firmly. “Why, my father has asked him and I don’t imagine even someone as famous as Mr. Farge will refuse Sullivan Building.”

“No, no one refuses Sullivan Building,” Thomas murmured, so low that I didn’t think Goldie heard him.

“I’m surprised to see him here. I heard he was at Del Monte,” Linette said.

Goldie glanced up from her menu and gave Mr. Farge a casual look. “He’s been back for days now.”

They all looked at her in surprise.

“Don’t you ever read the society page? He was in the Arrivals column just last week.” Then she grinned and nudged me. “Perhaps you should go over and introduce yourself.”

For a moment I thought she was serious. Then I decided she must be joking, and I laughed. “Yes, of course. It’s not the least bit brazen, is it? He wouldn’t think me fast at all.”

She whispered in my ear, “I don’t mean that. I mean you could tell him about your sketches.” Suddenly she stiffened and murmured, “Oh, dear God.”

I had never seen my cousin wear that expression. Dread—or perhaps even fear. I hadn’t thought Goldie feared anything. “What?” I asked in alarm. “What is it?”

Jerome glanced over his shoulder.

“Don’t look!” Goldie reached over the table to slap his hand.

“Who is it?” Linette whispered.

“Ah, I’d recognize those feathers anywhere.” Thomas whistled quietly. “My, my, how interesting.”

“What’s interesting?” Linette demanded. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll look for myself.”

But Goldie looked as if she might be sick. She grabbed the napkin from the table, pulling it to her lap, crumpling it in her fingers.

“Goldie, what is it?” I asked again.

The words had barely left my lips before a tall, aristocratic man with dark, oiled hair wearing a checkered scarf about his neck and a much older woman with black and gray feathers bobbing on her hat approached our table.

“Miss Sullivan. You’re well, I hope,” the man said with a tiny smile. Then his gaze came to me. “I’d heard your cousin was visiting. It’s all the talk.”

Goldie said nothing. In fact, she looked as if she were incapable of speech.

Another thing I’d never seen: Goldie at a loss for words. Not only that, but the others looked startled into silence as well. The man waited. Politely, I said, “Hello. I’m May Kimble.”

The man tipped his hat. “I’m very glad to make your acquaintance, Miss Kimble. Allow me to present Mrs. James Hoffman. I’m Stephen Oelrichs.”

Mrs. Hoffman. The Mrs. Hoffman? The Mrs. Hoffman who had sent her regrets to my welcoming party? The Mrs. Hoffman who seemed to matter so much to Goldie? I threw a quick glance at my cousin, whose expression had set mutinously.

Mrs. Hoffman said, “You’re from New York, I understand, Miss Kimble? Will you be in our city long?”

I wondered what about this woman had so silenced my cousin. “It’s my home now.”

“Really?” Stephen Oelrichs spoke to me, but he looked at Goldie, again with that tiny smile. “Well then, I wish you luck, Miss Kimble. Good afternoon.”

The encounter had lasted less than two minutes, and yet it set a pall over our party. The waiter arrived immediately after with the champagne. None of us said a word as he opened it with a flourish. Goldie had twisted her napkin into a coil, and she looked ready to cry—or to destroy something.