And women...splendid women in fur-trimmed coats, their pretty faces framed by cloche hats. Everywhere he looked, Adam saw another woman more beautiful than the last.
If there was one thing he coveted more than a new automobile it was a beautiful woman. With his good looks, he had never lacked for female companionship. But these women, so richly dressed and brimming with confidence, seemed like modern goddesses. Each one ignored his smiles. No matter. Someday they would be smiling back.
At Union Square, Adam paused outside the entrance of a tall Gothic building and stared at the gilt letters above the door. THE SAN FRANCISCO TIMES. He glanced up at the large clock, which read nine-fourteen, and then quickly looked at his watch. He cursed under his breath. He was late after all.
He quickly found his way to the third-floor city room and was directed to the office of the city editor, George Ringman. Adam anxiously waited for Ringman to finish some business with another man. The pause gave Adam a chance to look around the city room.
It was crowded with plain oak desks and slat-backed chairs. Gooseneck lamps poked out of the piles of paper on each desk top, and telephone cords snaked up into the ceiling. Men in loosened vests and ties, the sleeves of their white shirts rolled high, were bent over black typewriters or seated in silent clusters, their pencils moving like little whirligigs as they edited copy. A cloud of pale yellow cigarette smoke hovered near the ceiling.
A pang of disappointment went through Adam. The San Francisco Times city room looked just like the one in Oakland, just bigger.
Yes, bigger, Adam thought with satisfaction.
“Bryant? Come on in.”
Adam looked back to George Ringman, standing behind his desk. Adam shook Ringman’s hand and took the offered chair.
“Sorry I’m late, Mr. Ringman,” Adam began.
“Late? You’re early. And by the way, call me George.”
“But the clock outside—”
George Ringman laughed. “Jesus, that thing hasn’t worked since the Bickford family built this place in eighteen sixty-five. Just like half the stuff around here.”
“Well, I didn’t want to be late my first day.”
“Joe Davenport said you were that kind of guy. And that you were the best reporter he ever had.”
“Best one he trained,” Adam said with a smile.
George Ringman laughed.
“Mr. Ringman...George.” Adam paused. “We never discussed my exact salary. You said only that it would be generous.”
"I’m starting you at fifteen hundred dollars a year,” Ringman said. “That’s what all our young street men start at.”
Adam struggled to hide his disappointment. The figure was only a hundred dollars more than he had been making at the Oakland Tribune.
“When do I start?” Adam said.
“Right now. But first you have to go upstairs and meet the owner. Old man Bickford likes to meet every new man. He’s expecting you.”
As Adam rode the elevator up to the tenth floor his disappointment over the salary hardened into anger. He was worth more than what Ringman was paying. It would not take long to prove that. But more important, it was the last time, he resolved, that anyone was going to take advantage of him.
Robert Bickford’s office was a mahogany-paneled fortress guarded by a stern secretary. Bickford himself was not nearly as imposing as his surroundings. He was a short fat man, his red face straining above the crisp collar of his immaculate white shirt and finely tailored suit. He sat behind his desk, lobbing questions at Adam about his background.
“So, you are from Oakland?” Bickford said.
“I was born in San Francisco but after my parents died in the earthquake, I was sent to an orphanage in Oakland.”
Bickford sobered. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “Yes...April eighteenth, 1906, a black day.” He paused, his eyes drifting to the window. “My father ran the Times in those days,” he said. “We couldn’t publish, you know. We lost the house on Nob Hill and had to move my family over to Oakland. We lived over there for almost eight months while we rebuilt.”
His eyes came back to Adam, lingered for a moment then he picked up Adam’s resume. “How did you come to be in the newspaper business? I don’t see anything here before your job with the Oakland Tribune.”
“I left the orphanage when I was fourteen and worked at a bunch of odd jobs -– street cleaner, caulker’s assistant in the shipyards,” Adam said. “When I went to apply as a printer at the Tribune I got off on the wrong floor. The first person I met was Joe Davenport. We started talking and he asked me what I really wanted to do for a living.”
Adam paused. The memory of that day was still vivid -- the smell and bustle of the newsroom. “I told him I wanted to be a reporter,” he said. “Joe offered me a job as a copy boy. I worked my way up from there.”
“So why did you want to leave Oakland?” Bickford asked.
Adam could recall the exact day he had asked himself that very question. It was five years ago, January 16. Prohibition had just become law and Adam was assigned to cover how it was creating economic chaos in the wine country and in San Francisco. It was his first trip to the city, and it instantly ignited his imagination and all his latent ambitions. Suddenly, his happy existence at the Oakland Tribune seemed too small. Or maybe the rest of the world was too alluringly big. Adam became obsessed with the idea of moving back across the bay.
“Why did I leave Oakland?” Adam smiled. “You lived there for a while, sir. Why did you want to leave?”
Bickford stared at Adam. The impasse was interrupted by the door opening. Adam smelled the woman’s perfume before he saw her. She moved across the suite to Bickford and kissed his balding head.
“Hello, Daddy,” she said.
“Lilith, I’ve told you to knock,” Bickford said. “I’m busy.”
The woman looked over at Adam. “Oh, sorry,” she said with a smile. She was in her early twenties, tall and slim, with dark eyes. Two curlicues of black hair wound out of her green hat onto her white cheeks, and her lips were painted bright red. She wore a bottle-green suit, trimmed in mink. “I’m Lilith Bickford,” she said, extending her hand to Adam.
He took it and introduced himself.
“Adam’s our new street man,” Bickford said. “Just starting today.”
“Well, the Times can use some new blood,” Lilith said. “Why did you decide to come work for my father, Mr. Bryant?”
Adam considered the question before replying. The truth was, he wanted to work for San Francisco’s other newspaper, the Journal. It was bigger and far superior to the Times. But he hadn’t been able to land a job there.
“I came here because this is an excellent newspaper,” Adam said.
Lilith Bickford stared at him then slowly smiled. “Oh yes, the Times is, indeed, an excellent newspaper.”
Adam realized Bickford was oblivious to her sarcasm.
“Well, Mr. Bryant,” Lilith said, “I hope you do better than those washed-up lushes down there.” Bickford shot his daughter an angry look, which she ignored.
“I intend to, Miss Bickford,” Adam said. “Within a year, I guarantee that I’ll be the Times’ top reporter.”
She arched her penciled eyebrow then turned to her father. “Daddy, we have to talk.”
Adam took the cue and rose. He shook Bickford’s hand and said his good-byes to Lilith Bickford.
He lingered outside the open door just long enough to hear Bickford say, “Arrogant chap.”
And his daughter’s reply, “And much too handsome for his own good.”
CHAPTER THREE
Within a year, Adam made good on his promise, rising quickly among the Times’ lackluster reporters. He was indefatigable and relentless in his pursuit of stories. When a carpenters’ strike erupted into violence, the city’s readers found the best accounts in the Times. After a small earthquake, it was Adam Bryant’s colorful reporting everyone quoted over breakfast the next morning. The rival Journal repeate
dly tried to lure him away, but he turned the offers down. He had studied the inner workings of the Times carefully and decided that it was an arena in which he could make his mark quickly.
Adam became Bickford’s favorite reporter —- and the object of Lilith Bickford’s attention. He wanted to be editor in chief of the Times someday, and he considered that Lilith could be a conduit to his goal but he wanted to make it on his own merits.
Then, one afternoon, Bickford came down to the city room to see Adam. They chatted about the day’s news, but then the conversation sputtered to a stop. Bickford pulled a cigar out of his breast pocket and clipped off the end.
“Say, Adam,” he said, “I’d like you to come to dinner tomorrow.”
“We have city elections tomorrow, sir,” Adam said. “I really should be here for the late results.”
“It’s Lilith’s birthday,” Bickford said. “I know she’d be pleased if you came.” He paused. “So would I.”
“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 modern 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.
Lilith 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, he 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. Sh
e 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.
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