A-Splendid-Ruin(94)
A long pause, but I felt the tension in him, and I knew it for excitement and not apprehension. “Are you certain?”
“Yes. Maybe nothing will happen, but . . .”
He kissed my hair. “My dear girl, have you forgotten where you are? This is San Francisco. Anything can happen here.”
Long after he’d fallen into sleep, I lay awake, thinking of possibilities, until dawn broke and with it the bustle of the city waking. The world had opened for me at last. I had allies. I had my sketchbooks. All I needed was my inheritance. We had not yet received an answer to Dante’s telegram to New York about my father, though he checked every day. I was growing more anxious, but he’d assured me it would come. His fellow reporter was thorough, and once we knew who my family was in New York and contacted them, once they were told what happened and we contacted an attorney with all the information, Stephen Oelrichs perhaps, as he’d once—
With a start, I remembered my conversation with Shin.
I shoved Dante, who moaned and grumbled and squinted against the morning before he opened his eyes to peer at me. Then he threw his arm over his face and said, “Generally I prefer something gentler. Coffee. Perhaps a kiss.”
“I’d forgotten—I meant to tell you. Yesterday morning I went to see Shin.”
He sighed. “What time is it?”
“Early yet.”
“I don’t have to be at the paper until eight.” His hand went to my hip. “I can think of something better to do than talking about Shin.”
I brushed my lips against his rough cheek. “Dante, Shin said Stephen Oelrichs was at the camp to talk to my uncle. That they argued.”
“Oelrichs?” He sounded as surprised as I had been.
“I hadn’t thought they even socialized. Has something changed since I’ve been away?”
“Changed how?”
Ellis and Goldie in the kitchen tent at the camp, her golden hair in the lamplight. All of Nob Hill forced to hobnob together. “Come now, put on your Alphonse Bandersnitch hat for a moment. Has Goldie’s marriage to Ellis made a difference socially? Have they moved into a different tier? Has Ned Greenway invited them to join the Cotillion Club?”
“You think Farge could get her in?” Dante snorted.
“If he’s so famous now—”
“No. He’s been invited to the Bohemian Club, but that’s a different thing altogether.”
“The Sullivans are still in the Sporting set?”
“And never the twain shall meet—unless they have business together,” he confirmed. “But that’s not likely with the Sullivans, especially after Goldie jilted him.”
I was quiet.
Dante frowned. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“It wasn’t Goldie who jilted Stephen Oelrichs. It was the other way around. He found out she was gambling and probably about the opium too, and he jilted her. But he let everyone think that she broke the engagement. He was trying to protect her, but Goldie thinks he did it to humiliate her. She hates him. And Dante . . . At the Anderson soiree, Oelrichs told me to be careful of the Sullivans, and he warned me about China Joe.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He told me that I was in over my head. I think he was afraid for me.”
Dante went thoughtful. “I wonder what it means?”
“Maybe that he wanted to help me?”
“Do you never suspect anyone of ulterior motives?” he asked. “That’s what got you into trouble, you know.”
Tartly I said, “Mr. Oelrichs jilted Goldie and warned me against the Sullivans. I can’t help but think that it’s possible his motives aren’t in conflict with mine. But it’s strange that he would be arguing with my uncle, and I don’t like it. I want to know why.”
“I’ll see what I can find out today.” He rolled to face me. “But not yet. First there’s the little matter of a rude awakening . . .”
I was, of course, happy to make it up to him.
Stay here today, please. Can you do that for me?” Dante said. “I’ll be back before long. I want to see if there’s an answer from New York about your father, and check on this Oelrichs business, and I don’t want to worry where you are.”
I promised I wouldn’t leave. I sat on the stoop with one of my sketchbooks. Dante had taken one with him to the Bulletin. I knew he meant to put the advert in the newspaper today, and I had trouble settling. But the morning felt fresh and new, even with its familiar scent of salt and wet ash and smoke. Perhaps my life was not turning out exactly as Mama had hoped, or as I dreamed, but it was turning into something rather more interesting.
I drew in the foggy air until my hands were too cold, and then I went inside and put the sketchbook away and wondered if standing in the relief line for today’s provisions would be breaking my word to Dante. Before I could decide, there was a knock on the doorjamb, a “Hello?” at the open door that made me jump.
I turned to see a man standing there. He wore a dark heavy coat, and a hat with its brim pulled low, and he held a folded newspaper.
It was the same man who had followed me yesterday.
My instinct was to run. But he blocked the door, and I didn’t think I could get to the back without him catching me.