Adam's Daughter (9 page)

The charge began and the cheering rose. Adam cupped Ian’s dark head and held the baby’s naked body tight against his chest, letting the other men race past. The baby was awake but quiet. Adam walked to the ocean and waded in up to his waist.

All around him, the water churned with howling Olympians.

“To the future, my son,” Adam said.

The baby looked up at him, dark eyes wide with trust. Adam carefully dipped the baby’s feet into the water.

Ian Thomas Bryant began to scream.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Adam
read the ledger with a small smile of satisfaction. The
Times’
advertising revenue figures showed a substantial increase for the first four months of 1937. After all the lean years, things were on the upswing.

He set the ledger aside and picked up a proof of that
afternoon’s front page. The headline was bold and black.

WESTERN WORLD JAMS CITY

TO CELEBRATE AMAZING SPAN

It
was one of the biggest news events of the year —- the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge. Adam had been up for almost two days straight, personally supervising the coverage. He reread the lead story: “A necklace of unsurpassed beauty will be placed about the lovely throat of San Francisco today. It is the Golden Gate Bridge. It is the bridge that sings. It is given to the people who willed it to exist; given to them after years of struggle, years of doubt, years of labor.”

But the bridge was more than that, Adam thought. It was a symbol of a hopeful new era, coming after seven years of crushing Depression. A symbol of a grand dream realized.

That was what he found so compelling about the bridge —- its metaphoric connection to his own life. Though many people’s lives and dreams were still as barren as the country’s dusty heartland, his own life was flourishing. He had survived, even prospered, during the last seven and a half years.

Four years ago, after the repeal of Prohibition, Adam had sold nearly all of his Napa Valley land
for a sizable profit. In a rare sentimental gesture he had kept one large vineyard, which he had bought from a German immigrant winemaker who had been wiped out during Prohibition. Adam allowed the man and his wife to live for nothing in the house they had built on the property.

Adam leaned back in his chair, running his hand wearily over his eyes. He thought suddenly of Bick. He had died three years ago, leaving Adam the promised
fifty-one percent majority interest. Bickford’s will had come as a complete surprise to Lilith and she felt betrayed by her father. She took out her bitterness on Adam, questioning every expenditure he made for the
Times.
The will, which Bickford had hoped would unite Lilith and Adam forever in mutual service of the
Times
, had left instead a legacy of rancor.

Adam thought back to two years ago, when he had bought a struggling newspaper in Sacramento, using
some of the profits from his Napa land. It was the first step in his dream to acquire a chain of newspapers and he was proud that he had done it with money he himself had made.

When Adam told Lilith about the Sacramento paper she
angrily accused him of diverting profits from the
Times
to further his own fortune. After that, Adam never again tried to talk to Lilith about his dream.

Soon after, he sent her to Paris for a
four-month vacation. During her absence, he spent most of his time in Sacramento, leaving Ian in his governess’s care. Lilith came home with a new spring wardrobe and an uneasy calm settled in, as if both she and Adam, too weary to continue the war, had called a truce.

Lilith left Adam alone to his work. His side of the bargain was an occasional public appearance to maintain Lilith’s social pride. Only his closest editors knew that, more often than not, Adam spent the night on the sofa in his office instead of going home.

Adam glanced over at the sofa and then down at his pants, which were creased from his fitful nap. He rubbed his palm across his stubbly jaw and glanced at his watch. No time to go home; he’d have to clean up here. He started for the adjoining bathroom, and someone rapped on the door.

One of Adam’s editors poked his head in. “We’re all through with the tour,” he said. He ushered in a dark-haired boy. “Thought I’d better bring him back here.”

“Thanks, Hank,” Adam said. “I appreciate your taking the time to watch him while I finished up.”

“Any
time, boss.”

The man left, closing the door behind him. Ian stood waiting, staring up at Adam. Lilith had dropped him off earlier, and Adam had intended to show the boy around the newspaper. But pressing last-minute business had forced Adam to enlist the help of his editor. Adam looked at the boy, feeling a bit guilty.

At seven and a half, Ian was tall for his age. His face, a combination of Lilith’s dark coloring and Adam’s handsome features, was almost too beautiful for a boy. Adam had always worried that Lilith’s preoccupation with the boy’s clothes made him effeminate-looking.

But t
oday Ian looked different. He wore a smart gray suit, shiny shoes and a striped tie. Ian looked suddenly older. In fact, except for his knee-length pants, Ian looked unnervingly like a miniature adult. And any urge Adam had to smile was vanquished by Ian’s dark eyes staring up at him gravely.

“Sit down, Ian,” Adam said, motioning toward the sofa. Ian
took a seat. Adam began to straighten his desk.

“So,” he said, smiling. “How’d the tour go? Did Hank show you the presses?”

“Yes,” Ian said, his gaze wandering over the office.

“Pretty impressive, huh?”

“I guess so,” Ian said with a shrug. “Awful dirty.” His eyes finally returned to Adam. “Is this your office?”

“Yes. It used to belong to your grandfather. You were in here once before, you know. Your mother brought you in to see your grandfather when you were a baby.”

“I don’t remember,” Ian said.

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

There was a silence. Ian was staring at Adam, as if waiting for something. Adam cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you that tour myself, son,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get my work done so we could go to the bridge opening this morning.”

“That’s okay.” A flicker of disappointment crossed the boy’s face, which he quickly hid by seeming to study his shining shoes. He began to kick his feet out rhythmically, and the miniature man image evaporated.

“I have to get cleaned up,” Adam said. “Why don’t you come in and keep me company.” Ian climbed off the sofa and followed him into the adjoining bathroom. Adam stripped to his undershirt, and began to wash his face and hands at the marble sink. Ian stood nearby, watching the ink-tinged water from Adam’s hands spiral down the drain. When Adam began to shave Ian’s dark eyes followed every move intently.

“Does that hurt?” he asked softly.

“Only if I slip and cut myself,” Adam said, flicking the cream into the sink. He turned to smile at Ian but the boy regarded him solemnly. Finally, Ian went to a window and stared out, his fingers drumming restlessly on the glass.

As he finished shaving, Adam watched Ian’s reflection in the mirror. He
knew Ian was smart yet he seemed so easily distracted. And he had a self-possession and coolness that was disarming in one so young. What distressed Adam the most, however, was that the coolness extended to him. He was always intending to spend more time with the boy but something always seemed to come up at work.

Adam dried his face with a towel and went to the closet, pulling out a fresh white shirt and suit. He returned to the mirror to do his tie, watching Ian from the co
rner of his eye as the boy wandered back to the outer office.

He thought, not for the first time, how different it might have been if Ian had a brother. Knowing the loneliness that came from being a
n orphan, Adam had wanted a large family and expected that Lilith would comply. But after Ian’s birth, she announced that she wanted no more children.

“I won’t ruin my figure just so you can prove your virility
,” she told Adam. “Besides, large families are vulgar.”

Adam swallowed his disappointment and the issue of children became just another brick in their wall.

Adam came out of the bathroom and smiled at Ian. “So, what do you think of the place where your father works?”

Ian was standing at Adam’s desk, rearranging the pens and pencils in the holder. “It’s okay, I guess,” he said.

“Think you’d like to work here someday?”

Ian looked up at him. “Sure. As long as I don’t have to be down with those dirty presses.” He smiled slightly and his face was transformed. “I’d like to work up here in this office. With you, Father.”

Adam came over and ruffled Ian’s hair. It was an awkward gesture and Ian pulled back slightly. At that moment, the door opened and Lilith came in.

“Lilith,” Adam said, surprised. “I thought you were going to wait at home for me to pick you up.”

She was dressed in a suit by Coco Chanel, a boyish design that she couldn’t carry off without looking hard. “Frankly, I didn’t trust you to remember,” she said. “I don’t want to be late for the ceremonies. Are you ready to leave?”

Adam began to gather some papers off his desk and put them in his briefcase. “In a few minutes. I have some
—-”

“Adam, I told you I don’t want to be late
.”

“I know, Lilith, I know.”

“You promised when you left last night you wouldn’t let work get in the way. You said —-”

“Dammit, Lilith!” He threw a newspaper on the desk. “I’m up to my ass with this union contract! It’s important
-—”

“It’s always important! Well, I’m important, too, Adam! You keep forgetting that!”

They glared at each other. Adam glanced down at Ian, whose dark eyes were fiercely bright, as if he were fighting back tears. Adam smiled at Ian in an effort to ease the tension. “You ready to go see the new bridge, sport?”

Ian was determined not to cry. “Can we take a trolley?” he asked.

Adam glanced at Lilith. “Your mother doesn’t like you riding on trolleys. The car will get us there quicker.”

The new Golden Gate Bridge was scheduled to open for vehicles tomorrow but today it belonged to pedestrians only. It had opened at six that morning, and tens of thousands of people had already made the two-mile round-trip walk.

The streets were filled with revelers
and out-of-state license plates seemed to outnumber the familiar black-and-gold ones. At cafes and bars along Market and Powell, lines snaked out into the streets.

They rode across town in silence, the car making slow progress in the crowded streets.
Ian pressed his face against the car window, his eyes wide. Adam watched him in the rearview mirror. He felt guilty that Ian had witnessed another fight between him and Lilith.

They stopped for a traffic light. A raucous crowd stream
ed past but there was one man trailing alone. He was dressed in rags, his cheeks sunken. He looked up and for a second his eyes met Adam’s.

As Adam stared back he had the sickening feeling he was looking into his own empty soul.

The light changed and he drove on.

He felt
almost nothing these days. Except for work, there was no passion in anything he did. He and Lilith had separate bedrooms now, and Adam had begun to suspect that Lilith had taken a lover. It was an accepted practice among her crowd, as long as it was discreet.

His own sexual needs were met at Sally Stanford’s bordello. There was no passion in what he did, just the quick-bu
rn pleasure of physical release. He never asked for the same woman twice. Sally, thinking he simply craved variety, kept him accommodated with an eclectic stream of women. Adam refused her choice only once, when she sent to his room a tall, cream-skinned redhead.

If Lilith knew about the prostitutes she never said a word. Many of her friends’ husbands were on Sally’s client list, so Lilith knew the proper code of conduct. I don’t care what you do in private, was the unspoken rule, but in public, you are my husband.