Daring Chloe

by Walker, Laura Jensen

  “You’ll love it. You too, Chloe.” Paige met my eyes in the rearview mirror. “It’s pretty amazing. And the view of the Bay is incredible.”

  Tess had actually taken me to the Legion of Honor for my tenth birthday, followed by lunch at the famed Cliff House afterward. And I remember liking the museum, being entranced by all the paintings, and intending to come back, but somehow I had never gotten around to it.

  I was relieved, however, that Paige had offered to drive. The last time I’d driven in San Francisco had been right after college graduation when a couple of classmates and I had decided to celebrate by dancing the night away. Unfortunately, my tiny Toyota was not an automatic, and driving a stick shift through the almost-vertical streets of wild-and-crazy San Francisco must qualify as one of the top-five most terrifying things in the world.

  Just behind sharks, spiders, sushi, and cheap pedicures.

  I’d only been back to San Francisco a few times since — but always with someone else at the wheel, and I always made sure the car was an automatic.

  Paige wove through the steep city streets and turned onto Geary heading west to Lincoln Park. Passing the remote golf course and arriving at the isolated Legion of Honor a few minutes after ten, we managed to snag the last couple of spaces in the narrow side parking lot. We piled out of both cars and followed tour guide Tess past wind-whipped cypresses that looked like a giant had squashed the greenery between his fingers.

  That same wind sliced through my thin jacket as Tess led us to an opening on the high bluff overlooking San Francisco Bay and the elegant Golden Gate Bridge. I hugged myself to keep warm and sucked air in between my teeth as I drank in the remarkable sight of the shimmering Bay laid out below like a sparkling sapphire necklace.

  “Oh my,” Annette breathed. “Would you look at that view!”

  Jenna whistled. “Now that’s what I call great art.”

  “Check out all the sailboats!” Becca pointed to a cluster of moving white dots below. “See! We could have done our sailing adventure now instead of waiting until this summer.”

  “Only if we wanted to freeze our tushies off,” Annette drawled.

  “Um, not that I wouldn’t mind the weight loss, but I’m actually freezing mine off right now.” Paige shivered. “Okay if we go inside?”

  Reluctantly we turned away from the gorgeous natural art and trooped across the parking lot toward the imposing white-columned structure guarded by two large stone lions. The center arch reminded me of pictures I’d seen of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

  Paris.

  It would be nice to be in Paris now, since it was April after all. I hummed a snatch of the old song.

  Since we were saving up for Paris, we couldn’t afford a trip to New York in the same year, so Tess decided that instead of running away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art the way Claudia and her younger brother, Jamie, had done in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, San Francisco would do just as well. She went into travel guide teaching mode and told us that the Legion of Honor was designed as a memorial to California’s World War I casualties and opened in 1924.

  Annette let out a low whistle as we entered the airy courtyard dominated by a familiar imposing bronze statue. “Hey, isn’t that the thinker dude?” Kailyn asked.

  We circled the sculpture. “Check out those calves,” Jenna said admiringly. “Great muscle definition.”

  “But I saw The Thinker in Paris years ago.” Annette’s penciled brows beetled together. “Was he moved here or somethin’?”

  “No. The original is still in Paris.” Tess checked her guidebook. “This is one of several original casts in museums around the world.”

  I made another slow circle around the famous statue, checking it out from every angle. It wasn’t only the thinking man’s calves that had great definition. His back, shoulders, powerful arms, and magnificent head, deep in thought, were carved to a glorious perfection.

  Amazing. Absolutely amazing. I wonder what he’s thinking.

  Kailyn tugged at her mother’s sleeve. “Can we go in and do the art stuff now?”

  Tess beamed at Kailyn’s eagerness as she led us past the white columns flanking the courtyard to the entrance, informing us that inside we’d find several more sculptures along with paintings, prints, and some decorative arts. “And there’s a wonderful Renoir I think you’ll especially love,” she said.

  “What I’d love is to have time to get in a little shopping before we go back home,” Kailyn said.

  “And what I’d really love is to stop by Pier 39 to visit the sea lions,” Becca said, “and pick up the information for our summer sailing adventure.”

  Tess sighed. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”

  We agreed to split into two groups with Jenna, Becca, and Kailyn in one, and Tess, Annette, Paige, and me in the other. Then we synchronized our watches to meet in three hours at the Ritz-Carlton for our second adventure of the day, afternoon tea.

  As we wound our way through the beautiful museum, I realized I always wound up with all the older women. What was that all about? Chris said I acted even older than I was — maybe he was right. Maybe that’s just part of who I am. Nothing wrong with that.

  Tess led us into an immense marble gallery that resembled a cathedral, with light pouring in from the high arched windows, illuminating the bronze Rodins far below.

  I sucked in my breath.

  How could metal and stone look so real? So alive? As if it was going to move or speak at any moment? I lingered before a statue of John the Baptist. I could almost hear him preaching: “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry.”

  My sandals carried me slowly into the next room of statues. Except Rodin’s work wasn’t just statues or lifeless monuments. I stopped before an immense hand that seemed as if it wanted to reach out and grab mine. My fingers itched to touch it, to clasp The Mighty Hand in mine, but I restrained myself.

  The guard in the doorway helped.

  Moving on, I came to a small yellowed plaster of Eve in Eden encased in glass, hiding her head and covering her nakedness in shame. Then I stopped before another of Rodin’s works that was nearly as famous as The Thinker outside — The Kiss. No covering their nakedness in shame for that couple. They were too in love, too caught up in their passion.

  Oh, to be kissed like that. To be loved like that . . .

  I pushed thoughts of my almost husband away (resolutely this time) and hurried past the remaining sculptures to rejoin the rest of the group. I found them in the Impressionists room, grouped around Tess’s Renoir.

  “No wonder you love this.” Annette gazed at the painting of a mother trying to dress a happy, rosy-cheeked child who was more interested in playing with a kitten instead. “The colors are so warm and soft, with such a dreamy feeling to them. This reminds me of my sweet baby girl when she was little.”

  “The chubby arms or the exposed bottom and dimpled thighs?” I asked.

  “All of it. The whole adorableness of the scene. And would you look at those precious curls. Isn’t she darling?”

  “Very. Except that she is a he,” Tess said.

  Paige was distracted by another painting. “Look! It’s one of Monet’s Water Lilies.”

  And people call Thomas Kinkade the painter of light.

  Mesmerized, I slowly approached the famous painting with the others. Like the rest of the known universe, I’d seen copies of the ubiquitous Water Lilies everywhere — in books, on posters, note cards, screen savers, even mouse pads. But they didn’t even begin to do justice to the real thing.

  I drank in the sapphire water, the rich grassy green lily pads, and the vibrant pink flowers — all exploding with light. And joy. Such joy. And those brush strokes! I moved closer. Brush strokes applied by Monet’s own hand nearly a hundred years ago.

  Tess came alongside me and squeezed my shoulder. “Beautifu
l, isn’t it?” she whispered.

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  Now I understood how the children had been able to hide in the New York museum in The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I’d have been happy to hide away in some forgotten nook at the Legion of Honor and come out again to explore the museum at length when everyone else was gone. I’d spend hours just in this very room.

  “Chloe?” Tess’s voice roused me from my daydream. “We need to catch up with Paige and Annette.”

  “Oh. I hadn’t even realized they’d left.”

  “I know.”

  Reluctantly, I left Monet and followed Tess in search of the others. Becca, Jenna, and Kailyn were long gone from the museum, but we found Annette and Paige a couple rooms away standing in front of a huge oil painting of a shy-looking young girl at a well with a broken water pitcher at her feet.

  “Look at her eyes,” Annette said. “It’s like she’s starin’ right into my soul.”

  Although I too was captivated by the mesmerizing eyes of the lovely girl in the painting, it was a smaller, less pretty picture just beside her that gave me pause. I’d never heard of the artist, Julien Dupre, but the young peasant woman in the field, holding on to a staff, caught my eye.

  It was almost like looking into a mirror — if that mirror had reflected brown hair scraped back into a bun, rather than a ponytail. And if the girl in the painting had been wearing my glasses. And if she hadn’t been dressed all in brown — a thick, heavy brown that weighed her down.

  Then there was that whole sheep-tending thing.

  Other than that, it was like looking into a mirror.

  I longed to pluck the poor girl with the wistful expression out of her drab, realistic surroundings and set her smack dab in a rowboat in the middle of Monet’s glorious water lilies. I closed my eyes, imagining it. She’d be wearing a long white cotton dress that ruffled in the breeze, her hair would be set free from its dutiful bun and flowing down her back, and her face would be turned to the sun, basking in the dappled light and warmth.

  “Chloe?” Paige cleared her throat beside me. “If you want to make a quick stop in the gift shop before we leave, we’d better hurry, or we’re going to be late to meet the others.”

  Half an hour later we entered the elegant lobby of the Ritz-Carlton in Nob Hill.

  “Oh my,” Annette whispered. “Are you sure we don’t have to mortgage our homes to be here?”

  “Only if you’re checking in.” The corners of Tess’s mouth turned up. “Rooms can easily go for a thousand a night.”

  “No way,” Annette squeaked. “That’s my mortgage payment.”

  Becca rushed up to us, her face flushed and eyes snapping. “We’re all set for our summer catamaran cruise around Alcatraz. You just need to go online when you get home and pay with your credit card.” She handed us glossy brochures with a large sailing ship on the cover. “Did you know we actually get to sail under the Golden Gate Bridge? We’ll be one of those dots on the water that we saw from the cliffs earlier.”

  My stomach clenched.

  Tiny dots.

  Big ocean.

  Deep ocean.

  “Um, shouldn’t we go into the restaurant?”

  Once we were seated, everyone began talking at once about their respective morning adventures.

  All except me.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about the drab peasant girl all in brown. And the water lilies. And the artist’s brush strokes. How incredible that something done over a hundred years ago could still touch people today.

  Will I ever do anything that will touch people a hundred years from now? I thought of the Monet quote magnet I’d picked up in the gift shop that said, “I would like to paint the way a bird sings.”

  I’d settle for either.

  Tess nudged me.

  “What?”

  “Could you pass the cream please?” Paige asked. Apparently not for the first time.

  “Oh, sure. Sorry.”

  Our waitress appeared with a three-tiered silver serving rack full of sweets and savories. Becca looked askance at the delicate finger sandwiches. “Those are supposed to fill us up? I might need a Big Mac on the way home.”

  “Just wait and see.” Tess selected a couple sandwiches from the bottom tier.

  We followed her lead.

  I bit hesitantly into what our server had said was pro-sciutto with melon on light rye. Yum.

  “Mmm, this cucumber, roquefort, and walnuts is delish,” Annette said. “What do you think, Kailyn?” But her daughter was too busy inhaling a smoked salmon sandwich with pickled onion and caviar to answer.

  I love smoked salmon. And I liked the caviar too, much to my surprise, having never had it before. But pickled onion? I removed it discreetly and set it off to one side. The real revelation of our lunch, however, was the lemon curd on a freshly baked scone. Heaven. Especially when topped with Devonshire cream.

  “Now I know how Judith felt the first time she had tea at the Carey-Lewises home.” Paige wiped her mouth with her linen napkin.

  Judith Dunbar was the underprivileged but strong and steadfast English heroine in our April selection, Coming Home. And the Carey-Lewises were the rich family of her rebellious school chum, Loveday, who took Judith in and unofficially adopted her when her mother and younger sister had to rejoin her government-employed father in the Far East.

  I heaped a little more lemon curd on my scone. “The only thing missing is the gorgeous country estate in Cornwall.”

  “And the good-looking son of the manor.” Paige expelled a wistful sigh. “Wouldn’t you have loved to live in England at the time of Coming Home?”

  “All except for the war part,” Becca said dryly.

  “But even that was kind of romantic.”

  Becca and Jenna — pacifists — sent Paige a look.

  “I don’t mean that war itself is romantic,” she added hastily. “Not at all. But that time in history, the late thirties and forties, was sort of magical. Something we won’t see again. If you look at movies from then, Mrs. Miniver, Casablanca, Goodbye Mr. Chips, it was a whole different world, full of honor, sacrifice, and nobility. And I think this book captured that world wonderfully. I loved it.”

  “Me too.” I took a sip of my Earl Grey. “Rosamunde Pilcher tells such sweeping sagas and always has these rich, wonderful characters that you really get to know and love. Like Judith. I hated to come to the end of the book.”

  “I know,” Kailyn said. “This was my favorite book since book club started. I loved all the description. Couldn’t you just picture the glamorous dresses Diana and Athena wore?”

  Becca tilted her head at Kailyn. “You know, you remind me a little of Athena.”

  “Really?” She preened. “Thanks.”

  “I’m not sure that was a compliment, honey,” her mom said. “Athena was beautiful, but a teeny bit on the shallow side.” Annette gave Becca an appraising look, and then drawled, “You remind me a lot of Loveday.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I do.” I slathered lemon curd on the other half of my scone.

  The rest of the table nodded in agreement.

  “No way,” Becca said. “I’d never marry a guy I didn’t love just so I could stay on my parents’ estate. I wouldn’t even care about an estate. And besides,” she scowled at Annette, “Love-day was a spoiled brat.”

  Paige jumped in to the rescue. “No one’s calling you a spoiled brat, Becca, but you must admit you do share a lot of other characteristics with Loveday. She was strong-willed and impetuous and definitely used to going after what she wanted.”

  “Well, I know what I want. And I’m not afraid to go after it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

  “All depends on how you go about it,” Tess said.

  My turn to jump in. “Annette, you’re definitely a Judith. You were in the military and served your country, just like she did. You too, Jenna.”

  “I’ve never been
in the military.”

  “No. Sorry, I mean you remind me of Judith too. That whole strong and independent thing you’ve got going on.”

  Paige bobbed her head in agreement, and then turned to Tess. “And I think you’re a three-way combination of the forthright nanny Mary Millyway, and Judith’s friend Phyllis.”

  “That’s only two,” Tess said. “Who’s the other one?”

  “Well . . . I think you have a little bit of Biddy in you too.”

  “The flighty aunt who drank too much?”

  “Only after her son died in the war. And just for a brief time. I think of her more as Judith’s fun and encouraging aunt.”

  “She’s nailed you, Tess.” I sent my aunt a warm smile. “Okay, since we’re playing this game, who am I, then?”

  9

  “So many books. Too many books . . . You’re clearly an inveterate reader.

  A girl after my own heart.”

  Coming Home

  There was an awkward silence. Tess busied herself with her napkin and Paige asked Annette how similar her military service had been to Judith’s.

  Kailyn broke the silence. “Actually, you kind of remind me of Judith’s mother, Molly.”

  “What? I’m nowhere near as old as that.”

  “I didn’t mean old, I meant more the way that she was always kind of scared of . . . driving.”

  “I’m not afraid of driving. Other than in San Francisco.”

  “And certain parts of Sacramento,” Becca said.

  “That’s just exercising discretion and showing common sense. Why would I consciously choose to drive through a bad neighborhood at night?”

  My roommate shrugged her shoulders. “Oh I don’t know. Maybe to attend a once-in-a-lifetime concert from the band you’ve been dying to hear forever? A band who’d come to town to perform at a fundraiser for a new youth center?”

  I could feel my face heating up. I really had wanted to go see Switchfoot, but they’d chosen to appear in a scary part of town known for its drug activity and gang violence, and I didn’t feel like getting shot.