Blossom (The Blossom Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Chapter 3

  Time For A Pinky Swear

  Saturday, April 14, 1906, 1:18 p.m.

  Four days before the earthquake and firestorm

  Blossom mindlessly selected yet another slip of paper for the soon-to-be-folded circle of dough. The slip—like all of its brothers and sisters in the pile—offered a prediction of a future overflowing with good fortune, dreams coming true or discoveries waiting to be made. Blossom felt like the unrelenting repetition of her life made her existence flow like a run-on sentence, devoid of punctuation…especially exclamation points.

  As she completed another tray of cookies, she asked herself, “How many does that make? Too many, that’s how many.” She inhaled deeply to make a strong puff of air that she sent toward her left eye to dislodge an irritating strand of hair.

  Blossom rested her chin on her elevated right hand, with her palm cupping her cheek. She peered through one of the shop’s hazy window panes and let herself drift away on the forceful currents of her imagination, as she too often did, to someplace else…anyplace but here at The Golden Palace.

  She thought back to the conversation she had with Monique and Anna Mae, her two best girlfriends, yesterday on a bench in the alley—the conversation that led her to be so flirty and coy with Brock today.

  It started with a firm knuckle rapping on the window and a cheery, “Hey, chick-a-dee! It’s lunchtime. See you out in the alley.” The voice’s body had already passed the confines of the window frame before Blossom was able to look.

  Blossom made her way through the bakery to the kitchen. She scooped up a bowl of rice and steamed vegetables, and opened the door to the alley. Her foot almost didn’t clear the raised threshold of the doorway. She jerked and almost dropped her chopsticks. Her friends were already on the bench, ready to share another meal. Leaning against a red-brick wall, the cracked-wood bench was the trio’s island. Not like Alcatraz. It was an oasis, a refuge.

  Blossom took her usual place in the middle. With a wavering voice, she said to Monique on her right, “I wish you wouldn’t pound on the window and scare me. It’s bad enough that I have to sit there for hours and daydream to stop from losing my mind, but then you come along and bang on the window and rattle me back to work!”

  Monique jutted out her chin at Blossom. “You’re most welcome.”

  Blossom leaned in. “So what’s new with you?”

  “Oh, it’s been just another day in paradise.” Monique rolled her eyes, stared straight up to the sky and continued. “My knight in shining armor swept me off my feet. Well, I wish he had.” She stopped speaking, sat up and then relaxed into a slouch. She smoothed her charcoal black hair to ensure that all of the prisoners were still captive in a bun so tight that it further narrowed her already almond-shaped eyes.

  “Instead, I had an early-morning encounter with a banker from Chicago, who spoke mostly German. He was polite enough, but there was a cloud around him of week-old sweat, wet wool socks and sauerkraut!”

  “German sauerkraut? Monique, what do you know about that?” Anna Mae leaned forward.

  “More than I wish to know.”

  Blossom was well aware that Monique’s gentleman caller was one in a long parade of penises in her line of work. She was one of Chinatown’s most sought after prostitutes. For as long as Blossom could remember, it was a profession for which Monique had made no apologies. “Someday, a man is going to want me for more than a few stolen moments. He’ll want me for a lifetime. I have to admit, though, I’ve got a regular who lights a fire in my furnace, if you know what I mean. Maybe one day you’ll be calling me Mrs. St.—”

  She dammed her flow of words. “Oh, I’ll just keep that to myself for now.”

  “Say, aren’t you going to ask about my day?” asked Anna Mae.

  “If you’re the ultimate entertainer in town, Monique, that makes me the ultimate matchmaker. I’ve connected so many people already today that my fingertips and ears are numb.” Blossom heard Anna Mae say this before, but she knew that being a telephone operator was a skilled and exhausting job that provided her incomparable intelligence about the residents of Chinatown.

  “Numb fingers and ears…those you have,” said Monique. “But you still don’t have a man for yourself either!”

  Blossom chimed in to lighten the conversation. “I guess that makes me the ultimate fortuneteller. Even if there are only a dozen or so different messages, those prophecies that I put in each cookie could change the course of humanity,” she stated with a grand wave of her hand. “At least they might make some people change their plans for the day…or not.” She shrugged her shoulders.

  A Chinese woman walked by clutching the hand of a little boy, pulling him along at too fast a pace. But his smile beamed upward to his mother with a loving bond.

  “You know, as a child, I was sure I was mailed to the wrong address,” Blossom admitted in a flat, monotone voice. She poked at the vegetables in her bowl with her chopsticks and slowly stirred them. “I’ve always felt like a misfit, even in this misfit neighborhood.”

  Blossom pressed her lips together and paused. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately. I know that’s a dangerous pastime around here. I’ve decided to go out and get my own future, one that I choose. Surely you’ve both felt that way?”

  “Nope, I’ve never felt that way,” replied Anna Mae with her head held high in an exaggerated way. She delicately patted her upturned nose, winked at Blossom and grinned.

  “Me neither,” added Monique. She chewed a mouthful of white rice, but couldn’t hold back a cough that escaped her mouth before she could cover it. It snowed rice bits.

  “Classy, real classy,” said Anna Mae with a smirk. Monique laughed and took a quick drink of tea to clear her throat.

  The conversation dried up. Blossom waited for the right words to reveal themselves to get the conversation going again, like panning for gold in her mind and coming up empty handed.

  “It reminds me of the Yeh-Shen story,” announced Blossom.

  “The Chinese Cinderella?” Monique took another quick drink. “What reminds you of her…now?”

  “Us. Our situations. We may not have her talking fish, sea-green silk gown, golden slippers or a king to whisk us away to a palace, but we’re ready for some changes, true?”

  “True,” responded Anna Mae.

  “True,” added Monique with a single nod.

  “Yeah, but now look at our reality. Smell our reality,” added Blossom as she lowered her bowl and chopsticks to her lap.

  “Oh Blossom, you’re not going to start whining again about your unfulfilled life and how you’re craving for something more out there…or over there,” said Monique with exaggerated flair, pointing up in the direction to the hills and then down to the bay.

  Blossom didn’t need to look, because she knew the view from the alley was completely obscured by buildings, making it impossible to see up to the mansions of Nob Hill and down to the congested wharves. However, for the sake of the conversation, she and the girls looked in unison one way and then the other.

  They saw three young women coming toward them who must have been on an adventure. Blossom could tell because they weren’t from Chinatown and they definitely were not Chinese. Each had on an attention-grabbing outfit, hair styled to perfection and an immense hat crowned with ostrich plumes. Blossom studied how the feathers danced with each step they took.

  They looked back at the Chinese girls on the bench and giggled. They huddled close and whispered something as they got a few steps away.

  Again, the walking girls giggled.

  The sitting girls did not.

  “I wonder what their lives are like.” Blossom asked, “Think they’d switch places with us for a day, an hour, a few minutes?”

  A quick reply came from Monique. “Yeah, that’s about as likely as me shitting a strand of pearls!”

  The trio on the bench burst with laughter, prompting the walking trio to look back from a distance and chit-chat among the
mselves. Just down the alley, several crates crashed to the ground.

  “Who’s there?” Blossom yelled. “I thought I felt someone watching us.”

  “There’s always someone watching…everything, everyone, all the time,” said Monique.

  “This time it felt different, in a creepy way.”

  Two cats ran out into the alley. “See, just some cats!” Monique pointed out.

  Blossom noticed a group of men coming their way. “Say, those are Butch’s friends. But I don’t see Butch in the gang,” said Anna Mae. “I wonder what he’s up to…or chopping up!”

  They kicked the crates out of their way.

  “You can always count on the men of Chinatown to keep the streets in order,” said Anna Mae.

  As they got closer, Butch somehow appeared to be part of the group. Blossom couldn’t miss the angry look on his face as they came near.

  “Hello, ladies,” they said almost like an all-male chorus.

  “Blossom,” Butch said as he passed.

  “Hello, Butch,” Blossom replied. Where did he come from? He wasn’t there a second ago.

  The girls watched the men turn the corner and disappear.

  “Just look at us. We’re twenty years old and still meeting on this same bench…in an alley no less! We’ve really got to make some changes.”

  “I have to admit that I’m tired of being patient and waiting for Mr. Wonderful to come along,” Monique added. “Actually, I’m just tired.” She looked down at the ground. “One of us is going to do something about it…today.”

  Her eyes zeroed in on Blossom.

  “Honey, I dare you to…um…okay, I’ve got it. You must flirt with the next man who comes through the bakery door. Flirt like you’ve never flirted before. Use your eyes. Use your hands. Use your body. Use your voice. Make it impossible for him not to want to get to know you.”

  Blossom had a stunned, blank-page face at first, but summoned a comeback. “That’s amusing. Anyone who walks through your doorway can have whatever and whoever he wants, not to mention however he wants it.”

  “You’re right, but that’s work. It’s a fantasy for the men, but it’s work for me. It’s about paying for what he wants and moving on. I’m challenging you to taunt this man in your bakery with what he can’t have, but letting him think he can.”

  “You have a platoon of men at your door. This is a bakery. How many men shop in a bakery?”

  “So that’s your challenge,” announced Monique.

  “I’ll take the dare. But you two have to seal your lips. Don’t tell a soul or I’ll—we’ll—be the talk of the town, and not in a good way.”

  “Deal,” replied Anna Mae.

  “Deal,” added Monique.

  “Then it’s time for a pinky swear,” said Blossom.

  The three got up off of the bench and faced each other. Each girl crossed her arms and locked pinky fingers with the other girls, making an interlocked circle. It was a school-girl ritual they devised and continued to practice despite its childish appearance. No verbal instructions were needed to complete the gou xiaozhi promise. Together they chanted, “Cross my heart, hope to die, one thousand chopsticks in my eye.” They broke their pinky chain, in unison kissed the top of each of their own hands and with their right hands knocked three times on the wooden bench.

  Anna Mae looked at Blossom. “So how are we going to know if you followed through? And if Butch comes in, he doesn’t count.”

  “You’ll know. Trust me. I’ll tell you about it right here on this bench if not sooner.”

  Monique took hold of Blossom’s shoulders. “You’re always saying that you’re waiting for your life to begin. Now, it begins!”

  Chapter 4

  Everything In Its Proper Place

  Saturday, April 14, 1906, 2:04 p.m.

  Four days before the earthquake and firestorm

  Brock found Clarissa Donohue, his fiancée, in the dining room of her parent’s house, ever so carefully positioning place cards at each setting on the expansive table. He lingered just outside the doorway and didn’t disturb her. She was beautiful, and the toast of the Paris of the Pacific’s society.

  At twenty-two years of age, Clarissa had completed her education, expertly played the harp and was well-read. She’d mastered the nuances of being mistress of the mansion and a perfect hostess. Everything appeared to be falling into place for Clarissa and her self-centered girlfriends who inhabited the city’s thin layer of social veneer. Like a well-cultivated hothouse orchid, Clarissa was in full bloom.

  Someone was singing a tune that was an unrecognizable blend of jumbled lyrics and sour notes. Brock leaned in and discovered Clarissa’s mother. She was accomplished in many ways. Singing was not one of them, thought Brock. She can carry a tune, but not very far! He recalled stories of how Clarissa’s father teased her mother by saying she had a singing voice best suited for selling fish in a street market. However, he always followed that criticism with a wink and a kiss blown in her direction.

  Brock’s movement in the hallway caught her eye and Mrs. Donohue stopped singing. “I didn’t hear a thing,” he said. “Not…a…thing!”

  “You did too.” Clarissa’s mother, one of the leaders of the gilt-edged aristocracy of San Francisco, gracefully rose from her chair. As she exited the room, intentionally leaving the two without a chaperon, she said, “You two lovebirds are on your own now. I trust that you’ll be on your best behavior.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  Brock came through the dining room’s entryway that was hung and swagged with burgundy silk cords and tassels that formed open-air portieres. “Here they are. I got a dozen. I hope that’ll be enough. The table looks too perfect to eat at,” he said and then kissed Clarissa on the cheek. “Here, these are for you!”

  “Eleven red roses and one white. They’re simply exquisite.” Clarissa’s face was incandescent.

  “Yes, you’re like the white one. You stand out even among a bouquet of roses,” Brock replied.

  Clarissa turned her head a bit, but kept her stare squarely on Brock.

  “Zelda, please come here,” Clarissa called out to one of the household’s maids. “I know you’re there in the hallway eavesdropping. Send someone to the flower market this very minute to get three dozen red roses.”

  “Yes, I’ll do just that,” could be heard from down the hall.

  “If one dozen is good, then a total of four dozen will be better. I’ll arrange them perfectly. You’ll see,” Clarissa said.

  She turned and ran her fingers across the side of the ornately intertwined wires of the suspended birdcage that housed her pair of rosy-cheeked lovebirds, Romeo and Juliet.

  “Hello, my tender hearts.”

  “Why are your birds in the dining room?”

  “Oh, I just wanted them to keep me company while I prepared for the best party ever held...the best party held before our wedding, that is.”

  “I love how you see the world now,” said Brock.

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “For you, time is no longer measured by a.m. or p.m., or even BC or AD. Instead, everything is ‘before our wedding’ or ‘after our wedding.’”

  Clarissa’s smile beamed at Brock. He grinned back at her and walked over to the birdcage.

  “Don’t you agree that animals deserve to be outdoors, even ones named Romeo and Juliet? Birds in a cage…one day you’ll set them free, won’t you?”

  Clarissa wound her index finger around the gold necklace that draped from her neck. A silver and gold heart-shaped locket, a most cherished gift from Brock, hung from the chain. Actually, it was Brock’s mother’s idea for him to give the locket to Clarissa. In fact, she had it designed, engraved and gift wrapped.

  “Your horses and cows are fenced in. How’s that any different?”

  “It’s very different. They’re outside and can move around in some open space. And the horses get to go to town with the wagons.” Brock stopped there, realizing that it was not a
discussion worth having.

  “Anyway, don’t you think the fortune cookies will make my party one that the girls will never forget, just like our entire wedding? I want it to be so wonderful, so spectacular that every girl in town dreams of having a wedding as magnificent as ours. Oh my goodness, the date April 21 will forever be known as our day!”

  Brock was now certain that Clarissa could talk faster than he could listen. He mulled over his options for navigating this conversation, but it didn’t take long to find his path. “Let’s not get too full of ourselves,” said Brock. “I want our day to be memorable, but not so grand that we may regret it later.”

  Clarissa’s mouth began to fall open. She composed herself and smiled. Brock studied how her tortoise-shell brown hair was smoothed and swirled atop her head like meringue on a lemon pie. Her ivory-colored lace dress, tight at the waist and again at her ankles, provided clear hints about the curves of her body. She lowered her head and opened her deep bluish-green eyes widely and gazed into his eyes.

  “My dear Brock, I want only the best for you. I want our wedding to be the best in the worst way,” she whimpered and made a droopy shape with her lips. “But if you would prefer to scamper away and elope, that would be fine with me,” Clarissa said, her voice trailing off. “As for our honeymoon this summer to Europe, well I’m sure we can scratch that off our list of things to do as well.”

  “Eloping doesn’t sound half bad.” Brock flashed a quick grin. “Seriously, I know you and your family want a big wedding to make up for the modest one your parents had, so I’m happy to do whatever’s needed.”

  “Thank you. So how was your visit to Chinatown?”

  All at once, Brock’s cheeks flamed. “Oh, it was fine…just fine. It didn’t take long to find someone who made fortune cookies and moon cakes. He was surprised that I knew about moon cakes because they’re only made in the fall as part of some festival of theirs. They even put whole duck egg yokes in the center to represent the moon!”