Adam's Daughter (5 page)

“I’d be honored,” Adam said with a stiff smile.

Despite their wealth, the Bickfords were not considered to be among San Francisco’s best families. They lived in Pacific Heights, but
their mansion on Vallejo Street was small by neighborhood standards. Still, it was more opulent than any home Adam had ever seen.

He had worn his new lounge suit, which had cost him two months’ pay. He glanced at Bickford, focusing on his gold collar pin, and thought about the hidden safety pin holding his own collar erect.

But it wasn’t feelings of inferiority that made him uncomfortable. It was Lilith. She had been acting strangely possessive, as if she considered him a birthday gift delivered by Daddy.

He glanced at her. She was babbling about the opera star Luisa
Tetrazzini, who had married a man twenty years her junior.

"
Quel scandale
!” Lilith said. “But then, what can one expect of Italians, after all.”

Her mother nodded sympathetically.

Adam took a bite of the dry white cake and with a discreet glance at Mrs. Bickford’s plate carefully set his little fork, tines up, across his own plate. The room was overheated and was making him drowsy. He tried to look interested in the conversation, but his mind kept wandering.

Yesterday,
Bickford had told him that the city editor position was coming open soon and that there were only two candidates: Adam and another man named Rogers. Adam knew he had proved himself yet Bickford was still dangling the job in front of him like a carrot. Was Lilith part of the package?

The conversation had
deteriorated into local gossip. Adam caught Bickford’s eye and saw the man’s weary resignation. He felt a little sorry for Bickford in that second, caught as he was between two insipid women.

There was a lull as Lilith paused to drink her coffee and Adam jumped in, “So, sir,” he said to Bickford. “What did you think of the Dempsey-Tunney fight?”

Bickford brightened. “Dempsey’s nose is like glass. Couldn’t hold up after he had it rebuilt for the moving pictures, you know.”

Adam listened as Bickford went on about the fight, offering an occasional comment. The conversation moved on to the upcoming World Series, and Lilith and her mother sat in silence, sipping their coffee. Adam felt a slight distaste for resorting to the ingratiating ploy with Bickford, but he was beginning to accept the evening for the opportunity it was.
After all, it was he -— not Rogers —- who had been invited.

“What do you think, Adam?” Bickford asked. “Can the Cards finally beat the Yankees?”

“They’ve got the talent,” Adam said.

Bickford laughed. “It’ll take more than talent. It’ll take plenty of luck!”

Adam felt Lilith’s eyes on him. “Yes,” he said. “A little bit of luck never hurts.”

“Spoken like a true Irishman,” Bickford said. He rose, patting his belly. “A fine dinner, Catherine,” he said to his wife. “How about a cigar in the library, Adam?”

“Sounds fine to me, sir.”

“It’s time we drop this ‘sir’ stuff,” Bickford said. “It’s
just plain ol’ Bick.”

Adam smiled and allowed himself to be led out of the dining room. “If you insist, Bick.”

During the next two months, Bickford invited Adam to the house often. It became clear to Adam that the promotion was forthcoming. And that Lilith was, indeed, part of the deal. He began to see her occasionally, just enough to appease everyone. Then, one afternoon, Adam was called up to Bickford’s office. Lilith was sitting there.

“Bryant, do you have a dress coat?” Bickford asked.

"A dress coat?”

“I thought not,” Bickford said with a grunt. “Well, here’s some money. Go over to Tilton’s and rent yourself a dinner jacket. You’re going to cover the opening of the Mark Hopkins tonight.” He smiled at Lilith then at Adam. “We’ll have a grand time.”

CHAPTER FOUR

It rose nineteen stories, a brick monolith on the crest of Nob Hill where the rail baron Mark Hopkins’s mansion had stood before the earthquake.

Every inch of it glittered with the most dazzling decor and furnishings the outrageous five-million-dollar price could buy. Yet beneath the splendor of the Mark Hopkins Hotel was a skeleton of metal braces engineered to withstand any fire or earthquake. It was an ingenious building. Steel and silk. The perfect melding of the city’s gold-leaf sense of history with the most mode
rn disaster-proof engineering.

The gala opening was the biggest social event of the season, a dinner dance for
fifteen-hundred with thousands turned away.

It was like
an elaborately choreographed ballet for the senses that left Adam awed. He sat at the Bickfords’ table in the Peacock Court, trying to forget that Bickford had picked up the ten-dollar-a-plate cost. Adam had never tasted food so wonderful in his life or seen such sights.

For
entertainment, beautiful models swirled across the dance floor in the latest fashions, picked up by colored spotlights. And the air was heavy with the scent of perfume, projected through the ventilating system.

After dinner, as he stood in
the lobby waiting for Lilith to return from the powder room, Adam watched the parade of wealthy guests waltz by in a kaleidoscope of color and jewels. The sounds of laughter and music mingled with the gentle gurgling of a nearby fountain. He was slightly dizzy, satiated with food, wine and sensation. And he felt oddly charged, as if the night held out some strange promise.

L
ilith returned and gave him an appraising smile. “Even in that terrible suit, you are the most handsome man here.”

“What is wrong with my suit?” Adam asked.

“It’s rented, darling. You need custom clothes. It’s the only way. You’ll look better once I get you to a good tailor.” She took his arm. “Let’s go dance.”

In the Peacock Court, Eddie Harkness’s orchestra was playing the new Gershwin song, “Someone to Watch
Over Me.” While they danced, Lilith hummed along in Adam’s ear, which he found annoying. He found many things Lilith did annoying, especially her little condescending asides, such as the remark about his clothes.

More than anything, h
e disliked her assumed air of ownership of him. But he was beginning to understand what motivated her. She was, at her core, an ambitious woman. Marriage to Adam Bryant was certainly below her but she understood that Adam had the potential to be the savior of the ailing
Times
. More than anything, Lilith Bickford wanted to make the leap from middle-strata society to the city’s gilded upper circle. And she was quite willing to take a temporary step down to do so.

Adam moved Lilith around the dance floor, his feeling of contentment dissipating. It was a special night and he wished suddenly that he were dancing with someone else. Some girl who could, with the press of her body against his, stir him inside, give him that sudden flood of...

A woman’s laugh floated above the music. Adam glanced over Lilith’s shoulder.

She was sitting at a table, one hand on her hip, the other reaching up to cup the chin of a perturbed-looking young man. She laughed again, said something to the man, and he walked away. She was very young and very beautiful.

Adam maneuvered Lilith closer to the girl’s table, but the song ended. The orchestra suddenly struck up a fast tune, “Black Bottom.” A few brave couples attempted the new dance craze, looking awkward in their evening clothes.

“Looks like fun,” Adam said to Lilith. “Want to try?”

“Oh, Adam, God, no. Let’s sit down.”

They went back to the table. Adam heard the throaty laugh again and then saw the girl. She was dancing, holding her silver beaded gown above her knees, much to the delight of her partner. She moved gracefully across the floor, more in response to some free-form idea of ballet than the prescriptions of the faddish dance. And she laughed
—- at her partner’s red face, at her own missteps, at the faces of everyone staring at her.

Like all the other men Adam
watched her, transfixed. She had cream-colored skin and flaming red hair, not cut short in a bob like most of the young women but pulled into a chignon at the back of her long neck. She was very tall, and she had a voluptuous figure that even her fashionable gown, with its tight boyish bodice, could not hide.

“That girl is inebriated,” Mrs. Bickford said.

Adam let the remark pass. Most of the guests had flasks concealed in breast pockets or handbags, some even sipping gin from demitasse cups, but somehow he didn’t think the girl was drunk. She just looked very happy.

The song ended and a slow one began. The dance floor quickly filled with couples. The girl disappeared into the crowd. Adam excused himself from the table. He walked around the perimeter of the
ballroom, searching for the girl in the silver gown. Finally, he saw her, at the far end dancing with a different man. Adam ventured closer and leaned against a pillar, watching her. Her eyes, large and alert, flitted across the room over her partner’s shoulder. She saw Adam staring at her. She stared back. He thought she smiled.

Adam went over and tapped the man on the shoulder. The man moved away and Adam paused, astonished by the girl’s beauty.
Her eyes were pale green, like light jade, and damp strands of red hair clung to her forehead.

She slowly raised her arms and smiled. “Well?” she said.

He took her into his arms and they danced. He was not a graceful dancer; he had never had the chance to learn. Yet he found he could move her effortlessly, as if she were a wisp of wind. He drew her closer and became lost in the sensation of her, the gentle brush of her body against his and her wonderful smell of nothing but skin.

She was the one who finally pulled away. The music had stopped. They stared at each other for a moment. The music began again and they danced, but this time she looked him in the eyes.

“You know, I was quite happy dancing with that other fellow before you cut in,” she said.

“Then you shouldn’t have smiled at me.”

“I didn’t.”

“Shall I take you back to your table?”

She stared at him then laid her cheek against his. “No,” she said.

When the song ended, Adam pulled away reluctantly. “There’s something I have to take care of,” he said.

“Then you’ll have to take me back to my table, after all.”

Adam followed her to a table, where a finely dressed couple
and an elderly woman waited. They eyed him with interest as he approached.

“Mother, Father,” she began, “this is..
.” She turned to Adam. “My goodness, I don’t know who you are!”

Adam saw the disapproving look pass over the man’s face. He quickly introduced himself.

“Charles Ingram,” the man said stiffly. “This is my wife Anne and her sister Mrs. Carter.”

The music began again and the red-haired girl looked at him expectantly. Adam wanted to stay but he had to get back to the Bickfords. He began to say his goodbyes.

“You are coming back, aren’t you?” the girl said. “We’d like you to join us, Adam.”

Adam saw the cool expressions harden. He smiled. “Yes, I’d like that...” He was going to use her first name but realized he did
n’t know it.

“Elizabeth,” she said, laughing.

Adam quickly made his way back to the Bickfords’ table,
his stomach tightening as he realized what he was about to do. He wasn’t an impulsive man; he could not think of one genuinely spontaneous act he had committed in his entire life, except the day he told Joe Davenport he wanted to be a reporter. Yet tonight, for the moment at least, he wanted to be a different man, to feel outside himself. He wanted to be with Elizabeth Ingram.

The Bickfords looked up expectantly when he returned. “Where have you been?” Lilith demanded.

“Phoning some details in,” Adam said, pulling a small notebook out of his jacket.

Bickford nodded his approval.

“Listen,” Adam said, “It’s getting late. And I still have work to do here. I hate to be rude, but I’m afraid the party’s over for me.”