Blossom (The Blossom Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  “How perfectly awful! Can you imagine me serving my guests cakes with egg yokes plopped in the centers?” She made the face of a repulsed child who had taken a mouthful of castor oil.

  “But how wonderful that you found the fortune cookies!” said Clarissa, anticipating a supreme social success. “What was the shop like…where you bought them? Was it clean? Please tell me it was clean.”

  “Yes, it was clean.” He paused. “But there definitely was something different about that place. I can’t believe we haven’t spent time in Chinatown before. No need to, I guess. We just skirt around its fringes on the cable car or in a carriage.”

  Brock continued to share details about his afternoon’s adventure. “It had all kinds of smells. Some were nice, I guess. The people were friendly enough, and there were lots of them on the streets, in the shops and looking out the upper-floor windows. They bow to each other, mostly when someone enters or leaves a room. I didn’t feel uncomfortable, but it didn’t necessarily feel comfortable either. And they don’t speak English unless they’re speaking to someone who’s not Chinese. At least that’s what I noticed.”

  He added, “I met a sweet little girl named Ting Ting. Her eyes twinkled, almost like sparks. The funny thing is her family sold fireworks. It was right next to The Golden Palace.”

  His thoughts flashed to Blossom and how his time with her was strange and thrilling. Even the thought of her now made him inhale deeper than usual and release the pent-up air in a sudden burst.

  “Are you alright?” Clarissa rested her hand on the fireplace mantel and then ran her fingers through the row of hanging tassels of the lambrequin that dressed up the hearth.

  “Not to worry. Now tell me about your plans for this evening.” Brock knew that if he changed the subject to anything related to their wedding, Clarissa would refocus. And he did have an interest in what was planned.

  Clarissa explained how the party was going to be a girls-only affair for her bridesmaids and a few special guests. Unfortunately for Brock, Clarissa went on in great detail about the setting of a proper table. He did his best to appear to listen attentively. He also did his best to stop his mind from wandering and keep anything from escaping his lips that should remain unsaid.

  “First, the servants spread a felt silencing cloth on the table and then top it with a freshly ironed damask tablecloth. Snowy white is always best. The table’s seating arrangements should be roomy. People don’t wish to sit with their elbows pressed against their sides like trussed fowl.” She sounds like an etiquette book being read out loud, thought Brock.

  “The flowers come next,” she said with confidence. He nodded in agreement.

  “Then dishes of nuts and bonbons are added. These candles will provide just the right light for a festive table. The covers are then placed at each place setting.”

  “A cover?” asked Brock. Asking a question always makes her think I’m interested.

  “Yes, when the servants use the sturdier versions at their table, they call them ‘placemats.’ Honey, I know you’ve spent time in the kitchen.”

  “Yes, I know what a placemat is.”

  Clarissa jumped right back in to impress Brock with her knowledge as the soon-to-be mistress of their household.

  “Then come the dinner plates, with tri-folded napkins centered on them. Now Brock, you should know that napkin rings are rarely if ever used at a formal table. Do you know why?”

  “Uh, no, I don’t.”

  “In homes of families that are less fortunate than ours, mismatched napkin rings are used to identify each family member’s personal napkin so it can be used more than once.”

  Mismatched. He looked at his fiancée with narrowed eyes, as if to sharpen his vision. Are we mismatched like the napkin rings?

  His thoughts were interrupted as he again heard Clarissa sharing her knowledge. “That reduces the need to launder them. Isn’t that sensible for those who don’t have the means to enjoy linens as they were intended…used for just one meal and then swept away for someone else to deal with?”

  “Oh yes, that’s sensible.” Is she ever going to stop?

  “To each plate’s right, with edges inward, is the knife for the meat, then a knife for fish, a tablespoon for soup and an oyster fork.” Apparently not.

  “Should I tell you more about the forks?”

  Brock’s response to this yawn-inducing question was to clear his throat and shake his head. “Do I have any duties tonight?”

  “No, though you’ll be the topic of discussion. I’m sure of it!” said Clarissa, knowing that she’d have plenty of opportunities to brag about her beau and their future together.

  “Then I’ll leave you to your preparations and party. Maybe I’ll see what Austin is up to tonight. But I promise not to have too much fun without you,” he said as he hugged her, kissed her on the forehead and walked toward the door.

  “But I haven’t explained the placement of glassware, tallest to shortest glass to the right of the dinner plate. What about the correct times to serve from the sideboard ‘a la Russe’ or ‘en buffet’?” Clarissa’s voice became softer as Brock escaped the dining-room lecture.

  ***

  Clarissa returned to her work and muttered, “Just as Mother says, ‘The work of a home is love made visible.’” Katie, one of Zelda’s co-workers, entered the room. “Don’t you agree, Katie?”

  “Yes, Miss Clarissa. I do indeed agree.”

  “The things we do for our men!”

  “Yes, Miss. If I had a man, I’d treat him right nice. I’d—”

  “Katie, I know that I shouldn’t talk to you about such things, but I’ll bust if I don’t.”

  Clarissa went on about Brock’s rough-edged good looks and the rancher-type clothes he wears. She said how it frustrated her when people underestimated his social standing because of his appearance. Clarissa was well aware that unlike many of the nouveau riche who inhabited The Hill of Golden Promise above the city, he wasn’t the kind of man who flaunted his family’s good fortune or expected extraordinary treatment because of it. At twenty-five years of age, he was running his own business on the outskirts of town.

  Clarissa gloated in detail about the couple’s time together last Saturday. She described how they spent the entire day together, just the two of them, walking and talking and dining like a married couple. At least that’s what she thought married couples did.

  Clarissa took a moment to sit down at the dining-room table. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Katie stood nearby, not leaning or sitting. Clarissa looked like a woman who was going into a trance at a séance, bringing back the ghosts from the past.

  “The colors in the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park were absolutely spellbinding. It transported us to faraway places. There were plants from the Amazon that had leaves the size of elephants’ ears.”

  Clarissa waved her hands in front of her with exaggerated grace. “The air was heavy and moist, like it was pampering everything that was delicate and green and growing.”

  She pondered for a moment. “Katie, the clothes were as spectacular as the plants! Women were showing off their most elegant dresses and parasols as they strolled. I was wearing an ivory lace dress with a bright yellow ribbon around my waist. And my hat, oh my hat had pure-white ostrich feathers and yellow-ribbon streamers. If I do say, I looked like springtime itself,” she confessed as she kept her eyes closed. Her hands swirled above her head.

  Katie remained standing and listening. It was her job.

  “Then we had a fashionably late luncheon at the Palm Garden of the Palace Hotel. The orchestra played on and on. Katie, anyone who wants to mingle with royalty, writers and heroes either stays or dines there. It’s as close to being at a palace as we can get here in San Francisco…but my honeymoon with Brock will be filled with castles and cathedrals. You’ll see!”

  Clarissa rested her elbow on the table as she relaxed and then removed it. “No elbows on the table” rang out in her head. It wa
s a phrase she didn’t have to be told too many times as a child, though her mother reprimanded her father with it often.

  She took Katie back in time to the Palace. “Picture this.” Clarissa began to clearly recall the conversation she and Brock had during the meal to the point that she could hear it word for word in her head.

  “Can you believe we’re getting married in fourteen days?” asked Clarissa, hoping that Brock would reply with something romantic that would affirm his limitless love for her.

  “I better believe it if you want me to show up!”

  Clarissa did not disguise her lack of enthusiasm for his response. Brock noticed and added, “Who would have thought we’d be getting married if they’d been there when we first met…well, the first time we met and truly noticed each other?”

  Clarissa smiled and threw her head back. “Yes, we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot, did we?”

  “Actually, I believe I stepped on your right foot!” replied Brock.

  “You did. If Faye hadn’t introduced us at that party, we wouldn’t be here today.”Never one to like dancing, Brock was proficient as a result of lessons that his mother required be taken and completed.

  Brock recalled, “You’d been travelling out of town a lot with your parents, and I was never one to go to many parties, except the ones that my mother made me and my brother attend. So when Lloyd Shelton introduced you and Faye Huntington to me, I almost didn’t recognize you. You’d changed. You’d become a woman.”

  Clarissa grinned.

  “Lloyd was hoping that I’d take a shine to Faye so that he could monopolize you that evening.”

  Clarissa laughed in a restrained manner. “You know, I’ve never told you this before, but Faye confided in me later that she wanted to be paired with you that night. Let me see if I can remember how she told me. I believe she said that her smiling lips were for Lloyd, but the smile beneath her smile was for you. Oh well!”

  Clarissa noticed how Brock looked embarrassed, then uncomfortable.

  “I guess both of their plans didn’t work out. But you didn’t exactly like me at first, did you?”

  “You were a diamond in the rough. And I’m a girl who likes diamonds, rough or not! But, I have to admit that it wasn’t love at first sight. You grew on me.”

  “It wasn’t easy, with Lloyd interrupting our time together. Did you know he was trying to pay boys for their slots on your dance card?”

  “Yes, Faye pointed that out a number of times during the night. I wasn’t sure why she kept talking about it, as if I should be flattered.”

  Brock and Clarissa enjoyed the two dances that he was able to get on her dance card. The second dance ended when Brock stepped on Clarissa’s foot. They spent the rest of the party talking at a table while others danced. She turned away her would-be dance partners.

  Clarissa remembered how it was several weeks before the two met again, and their relationship developed slowly and properly. Their families knew of each other on Nob Hill and grew closer as the pair’s engagement was announced and the wedding date was selected. While it wasn’t a whirlwind of passion, the engaged couple came to accept that their match was supported by two overriding factors: their fortunes and their families.

  The mansion’s doorbell rang and Clarissa’s insides jumped a bit. “Katie, you may go and see who it is.”

  She soon returned to the dining room. “Miss, it’s another wedding-gift delivery. I’ll put it with the others.”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Clarissa focused again on her table setting. As she fussed with the placement and symmetry of the silverware, her mind soon wandered back again to last Saturday’s time with Brock.

  She smiled as she recalled how she acquiesced to Brock’s need to be by the sea late that afternoon. They headed toward the ocean and strolled along the beach near the Cliff House Restaurant, an aptly named establishment that loomed above the shore at the very edge of a continent. She watched how Brock was fascinated by the seagulls as they wheeled about the rocks. Their raucous screeches intermingled with the thunderous percussions of the crashing waves. Clarissa had to admit that the air was fresh, though a tad too chilly considering the outfit she’d selected for the Conservatory and the Palace Hotel.

  Before long, they decided the fresh air and walking had worked up their appetites, so they watched the sunset as they dined behind the protection of panoramic panes of glass that lined the Cliff House’s main dining room.

  Back in the present in her own dining room, Clarissa tucked her memories away for safe keeping. She rose gracefully from her chair and adjusted the position of the fork in the place setting next to her. She smiled at her thoughts of their day together around San Francisco, and she looked forward to her party that evening with her best girlfriends.

  Just one more week and we’ll be making new memories as Mr. and Mrs. Brock St. Clair, thought Clarissa with great satisfaction. She held the bag of cookies and grinned at the excitement their prophecies would bring to her guests.

  Fortune cookies. What an amazing way to finish a celebration. This is going to be a night that no one forgets!

  Chapter 5

  Favor From A Little Brother

  Saturday, April 14, 1906, 3:16 p.m.

  Four days before the earthquake and firestorm

  The St. Clair name was just a breath away from being included among the elite “Bonanza Kings” of the Comstock Lode, alongside James Flood and James Fair. Brock’s father’s silver-mining interests were the family’s ticket to high society.

  Nob Hill not only offered an escape from the rawness and rowdiness of the boomtown below, it allowed the newly rich San Franciscans to have homes on a pedestal. The “Big Four” railroad barons staked their claims and built their mansions, setting the pace for all who followed. Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, Collis Huntington and Leland Stanford constructed estates of architectural excess that lowlanders ventured up the steep hill to stare at slack-jawed and awestruck.

  Brock was well accustomed to the St. Clair estate, dubbed “Silverado” by his father. For as long as he could remember, this house glistened with silver accents in just about any form that silver could be applied. From the front door knob to the light fixtures, even the toilet handles, if it could be solid silver or plated with silver, it was part of the grandeur of Silverado.

  Constructed with the finest woods, wrapped in radiant stone and crowned with a tiara of towers, steeples and turrets, Nob Hill’s magnificent homes and manicured grounds lacked comparison west of the Mississippi River.

  Brock raced up the grand staircase, putting his hand around the waist of the silver goddess statue on the newel post—a superstitious act he and his brother had done since childhood. At the top of the mahogany staircase, Brock turned to the left and walked quickly to the second door on the right.

  “Hey, Austin. Spent much time in Chinatown lately?” Brock knocked on his brother’s bedroom door. There was no answer. He opened it, but Austin wasn’t there.

  Brock searched for his brother, who was younger by three years. The mission ended in the billiard room. No surprise to Brock. Austin lived life like a gambler, taking risks both calculated and on a hunch. So far, his luck held out. Brock was perpetually annoyed at Austin’s talent for getting himself out of any situation just by flashing his pearly smile and doing some fast talking.

  Brock, as well as his widowed mother, worried about Austin’s prospects. Not that money or comfort would ever be an issue. They were concerned more about a direction and purpose for his life.

  The billiard room offered every luxury a hard-earned—or even ill-gotten—dollar could buy. Brock observed his brother. Matching his jade-green eyes, Austin leaned on the green felt-lined game table over which hung a Tiffany lamp shipped from the East Coast, like so many of the home’s furnishings. A lit cigar in his mouth completed the picture of a pompous playboy enjoying masculine pursuits.

  “Spent much time in Chinatown lately?” Brock asked, breaking the
room’s silence. “Want to go today?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I was there this afternoon, running an errand for Clarissa. I met someone—”

  “You did what? Were you whoring around? No, that wouldn’t be something you’d do. That’s what I do down there! Were you looking for a good game of poker?”

  “I said I met someone,” corrected Brock.

  The room fell silent as Austin digested what Brock just said. He turned and looked into the massive mirror on the wall. He checked his teeth, and then up his nose to be sure nothing was there that shouldn’t be. Brock noticed that even when Austin puffed up his chest like a rooster in the mirror, it did nothing to harden his slight build and delicate facial features he inherited from his mother.

  “You mean to tell me that while you were running an errand for the woman you’re about to marry you met another girl—a Chinese girl—who made your blood rush down to your—”

  “Don’t be crude. Someone might hear you, not that they’d be surprised by what falls out of your mouth. Besides, I’m still your older brother. I’m still bigger than you, and I can pound the life out of you just as easily today as I could when you were six years old.” Austin backed off, recalling previous painful times that Brock had inflicted his sibling authority.

  “Finally, my real brother surfaces,” Austin announced. “What a relief. I didn’t think it would ever happen. You’re finally being impulsive. You actually want to do the opposite of what your intuition is telling you. You bad boy, you bad—”

  Brock took control of the conversation. “Calm down. Her name is Blossom. She works in a bakery that’s part of a small restaurant. Maybe you’ve been there. It’s called The Golden Palace.”

  “Can’t say that I have.” Austin folded his arms and cocked one leg at a new angle. “But what if I had?”

  “I just figured that you spend a lot of time down there and you might know.”