Too Much Too Soon Page 4

  “A brokerage office?” Langley asked.

  “Umm.” Honora stared down at the wishbone. “They’re only trying me out.”

  “These brokers need a delightful young thing to liven up their offices,” Langley said. “A receptionist’s hardly what I had in mind for my Portuguese, but it’s only temporary. Before you know it things will pick up for me and you’ll be at the University over in Berkeley.”

  Honora couldn’t look at him.

  * * *

  “Tell me about it,” Crystal demanded.

  It was an hour later and the sisters were at Fisherman’s Wharf, sitting on a bench that faced the ghostly, bobbing shapes of mist-veiled boats. After they had washed the dishes, Crystal had suggested she and Honora take a walk: these few blocks were as far as Honora’s blisters would permit.

  “The others are quite amazing—you should see them dashing about with hundreds of plates.”

  “Honora, no stiff upper lip. This is just us.” Just us, a phrase they had used since they were very little. The words meant that they were in a special, twinlike state, almost one person, and innermost thoughts could be shared.

  Honora’s sigh trembled. “It’s odious. Nasty old men pat your legs and expect you to play up to them. Each time I picked up a tip I felt like a beggar. And there’s the smells—bacon, frying, cigars. Are they in my hair?”

  “No.” Crystal sniffed. “Yes, a little.”

  “How awful. Crys, the very worst part is I feel so rotten about being ashamed of doing the work. The others were very kind. Especially the one I told you about—Vi.”

  Crystal got up, moving the few feet to the railing. The lamppost’s misty light turned her bright yellow hair to a blurred silver halo. “Tomorrow I’ll meet you—”

  “Crys,” Honora interrupted unsteadily, “I couldn’t bear you coming there.”

  “Not at the cafe. On Maiden Lane.”

  Honora drew a sharp breath. G.D. Talbott’s was on Maiden Lane, and Langley had repeatedly informed his daughters that no visitors were admitted. “You know Uncle Gideon’s rule,” she said.

  “About not getting in? I’ve never believed in that rule.”

  “Daddy doesn’t lie!”

  “It wouldn’t exactly be a lie. He never did like us seeing him at work. You should understand that.”

  Honora stirred uneasily on the hard bench. “Anyway, why should we go?”

  “Because I say so. Or do you want me to tell Daddy about that wonderful job of yours?”

  “Oh, go ahead and tell him.” Honora’s voice shook in the fish-scented darkness. “What’s the difference? He’ll have to find out sooner or later.”

  “Not unless somebody tells him point-blank. He always prefers to keep the unpleasant details vague.” Crystal peered at her. “Well? Are you coming?”

  A gull landed on a nearby stanchion, a cab pulled up to let off diners at Tarantino’s. After a long pause, Honora nodded.

  “Good,” Crystal said. “Quarter to four on the corner of Maiden Lane and Union Square.”

  5

  Crystal normally contrived to appear sophisticated, but today she wore bobby socks and her Peter Pan dickey with her favorite sweater, a pale blue cloud of angora from Harvey Nichols, one of Langley’s final London extravagances. She had tied back that fresh-minted hair in a girlish ponytail, but a few tendrils had escaped—either by design or chance—to blow about her exquisite features. As she crossed Union Square men and woman alike turned to smile at her.

  Honora waved. She often found imponderables in Crystal’s behavior, and as Crystal saw her and waved back she was asking herself for the thousandth time what her sister was up to with this visit. The truth was uncomplicated. Crystal had a talent for going directly after what she wanted.

  “Don’t you look a dream,” Crystal said in greeting. Secure in her own looks, she dispensed compliments with careless generosity. “That blouse always did something for you—is the top button undone for Curt Ivory?”

  Sisterly teasing.

  “I still say we shouldn’t risk Daddy’s situation,” Honora said, hastily changing the subject.

  Crystal’s eyes glittered like faceted sapphires. “Let’s not start that again,” she snapped, turning down Maiden Lane.

  After the brightness, bustling pedestrians and honking cars of Union Square, they might have entered another universe. Maiden Lane, which ran two short blocks, once had been a street of knifings and prostitutes exposing their wares at every window, but the 1906 earthquake and ensuing fire had scattered the revelers and now the narrow, tree-lined little alley was highly respectable, with a few quietly exclusive shops tucked under the office buildings.

  Talbott’s occupied a lavishly bulbous wood edifice. The girls ascended the steps and entered a large, uncarpeted hall that echoed with masculine voices coming from open-doored offices. To the left of the stairwell was a switchboard.

  “Talbott Engineering,” said the operator. “Yes sir, he is. I’ll connect you right away.” Plugging in the wire, pressing down the mouthpiece, she looked up at Crystal and Honora. “Can I help you?”

  Honora murmured. “We’re here to see Mr. Sylvander.”

  “Yes, sure.” The switchboard operator’s smile revealed her pink gums. “The spec writers are in the furthest office to your right.”

  A specification writer, Langley had explained to his daughters, was an editor whose task was to translate the engineers’ incomprehensible jargon into language that a prospective client could comprehend—and buy. The work, he emphasized, demanded a rare and unique skill. Honora had accepted this version of his importance. Now, as they went into the dingy, smoke-filled cubicle, filial pity clutched her throat, and she couldn’t look at him.

  The typing had ceased and the three other men, all extremely young, lounged back in their metal typist’s chairs, removing the cigarettes from their mouths as a form of reverent courtesy as they gawked at the visitors.

  “What are you doing here?” Langley barked.

  “We were looking through City of Paris, Daddy,” Crystal said, going to plant a gay little kiss on his forehead. “On the spur of the moment we decided to drop in to see you.”

  Langley turned to Honora, who remained frozen in the doorway.

  She stammered her support of Crystal’s lie. “I . . . yes, it seemed a good idea.”

  One of the other writers inquired, “Are these your daughters, Mr. Sylvander?”

  Langley rose, making the introductions with overly much of his whimsy—“Two of my three graces.” Crystal cast radiant smiles. Honora, burning with contrite empathy for her father, could barely nod toward each typewriter.

  “Daddy,” Crystal said earnestly, “while we’re here, we really must thank Uncle Gideon. It was so thoughtful of him to send us home in his car.”

  “He’s out in the field today.”

  “He was at the Oakland freeway project, but I’m pretty sure he came back after lunch,” said the spec writer who sported a carrot-red crew cut—he looked no older than Crystal. “A few minutes ago I heard footsteps.”

  “Is that where Uncle Gideon’s office is?” Crystal asked, pointing upward.

  “I’ll show you the way,” volunteered the crew cut.

  “There’s no necessity,” Langley said.

  While at the same instant Crystal was saying, “What a sweetie you are, Brian.”

  The upstairs hall was crowded with a half dozen large, tilt-topped drafting tables where men were busy with India ink, T squares, triangles, protractors, linear scales, compasses.

  “The new draftsmen,” their guide informed them. “They’ve got no place else to work. The scuttlebutt is that we’re renting a floor in the next building, but your uncle knows more about that than I do.”

  Gideon’s antechamber was Spartan, especially when compared with the Clay Street mansion. A short, equally undecorative secretary was retrieving a manila file from the top drawer of one of the gray metal filing cabinets.

  Lookin
g up, she said, “Yes?”

  Before Crystal could reply, the door to the inner office opened. Curt stood there, looking the classic young American executive in his broad-shouldered charcoal suit and beautiful blue tie with the small crest below the knot. The discreet motif matched the extraordinary golden topaz of the amused eyes smiling at Honora.

  An almost unbearable joy suffused her chest and she looked away.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Well, Honora, didn’t I say we’d bump into each other?”

  “Prescient of you,” she heard herself answer. “Do you know my sister Crystal?”

  Gideon’s voice rasped from the interior of the office, “Curt, who’s out there?”

  “It’s us, Uncle Gideon,” called Crystal. “Honora and Crystal.”

  Gideon stumped to the doorway. “So you dropped in to see your father? I’m surprised you haven’t sooner.”

  “We really came to see you, Uncle,” Crystal chirped. “We never had a chance to thank you for the ride home.” It was impossible not to respond to the girlish magic of her smile.

  And Gideon’s answering smile proved that he was not the ancient that the girls saw him as. “It was my pleasure, Crystal.” This time he got the name right.

  “Uncle Gideon,” Crystal said softly, “I’ve brought something that you should have.”

  Honora could not control her sharp intake of breath as Crystal drew from her purse a small jade Kwan Yin. This exquisite little goddess of mercy carved during the Ming dynasty had been prized by their mother and for this sentimental reason Langley had not taken it to the London pawnshops during the past penurious year.

  “A Christmas ago Aunt Matilda sent me this,” Crystal lied with downcast lashes. “She wrote on the card that she’d owned it ever since she and mother were little girls.”

  “It’s very generous of you,” Gideon said. “But if your aunt sent it to you, she wanted you to have it.”

  “I never really knew her. You were married such a long time, Uncle, so her special things must mean everything to you.” Crystal clasped the figurine briefly, as if she could not bear to part with an object so drenched with sentiment, then she dropped the dark green jade, warm from her small hand, into Gideon’s thick, deeply grooved palm.

  The white smile lines showed in the tan at the corners of Curt’s eyes.

  “Come on, Crystal,” Honora said, her hand clamping on her sister’s arm. “We’ve taken up enough of Uncle Gideon’s time.”

  “No need for thanks or giving me your things, girls,” said Gideon, but he slipped the Kwan Yin into his pocket. “Run along now.”

  “I’m on the way down, too,” Curt said.

  Crystal, glancing at Honora, lagged back a bit as they moved along the crowded hallway.

  “So now you’ve been at Talbott’s,” Curt said. He moved easily, as if he had spent his life on the tennis court.

  “What’s everybody so busy doing?”

  “Next time you stop by, I’ll explain the principles and practices of engineering.”

  Crystal caught up as he opened the front door for them. “Nice meeting you, Crystal. Honora, goodbye for now.”

  Crystal pranced along Maiden Lane, her golden ponytail abounce on her angora sweater, a hum rising from her throat. Mmm, mmm, mmm. “He’s not really my type, Curt. Too cocksure of himself. But if that Imogene’s sleeping with him, I don’t blame her.”

  Honora’s bubble of pure joy broke. “That was really rotten!” she burst out. “Giving away Mother’s jade. It doesn’t even belong to you—it’s Daddy’s, remember?”

  “How do you suppose Uncle’s going to rescue us from our Lombard Street rattrap if he doesn’t know we exist? Glare all you want. To get something, you have to give something.”

  “All that saccharine—don’t you have any pride?”

  “Pride? Look who’s picking up tips.”

  “You took the money to buy stockings.”

  Crystal’s step faltered. It was as if her mature strength of will had deserted her.

  “I’m sorry, Crys.” Honora took her sister’s hand. “Please. I’m a monster to throw that at you. I didn’t mean it. I’m tired, that’s all.” She walked a few steps in silence. “Crys, we’re happy, our family.”

  “Yes, we’re happy. But there’s so much more.” They had reached Union Square and Crystal looked around at the sunlit, marble-façaded shops where uniformed doormen admitted elegantly dressed women. “And I intend to have it all.”

  6

  That Friday when Crystal unlocked the Sylvander mail slot, she found a stiff envelope addressed to The Sylvander Family. Inside was a creamy engraved card:

  SATURDAY OPEN HOUSE

  Three to five

  Mr. and Mrs. Gideon Talbott II

  Obviously Gideon had not yet had time to order new invitations.

  “Whoopeeeeee!” Her exultancy echoed through the narrow, drafty tunnel as she offered up her devout gratitude to the small, ancient jade goddess.

  This time Gideon introduced the four Sylvanders as “my English family,” giving his dry, gravelly chuckle and extending a large, thick hand toward them in an attempt to be convivial.

  Joscelyn, the only child present, stationed herself on a large, squashy, brown velvet chair near the mammoth tea and coffee set, her hand shooting out each time the heavy-footed maid, Mrs. Wartobe, or Juan—the Filipino—passed with a silver tray of frosted cake or tiny tarts. Joscelyn’s insatiable sweet tooth showed no effects on her meager frame: all evidence lay packed with silver within her molars. Her plain little face solemn with curiosity, her heavy eyeglasses glinting, she peered around.

  This was her first meeting with their American uncle. He was ugly, but everyone spoke respectfully to him, so he must have more than money, he must have power. Joscelyn, a wretched outsider on two continents, had the deepest respect for power.

  Crystal was tossing her head like a bright-crested tropical bird as she flittered between various groups, including Uncle Gideon’s.

  Honora chatted animatedly with a younger man who grinned at her with exactly the right amount of amused sarcasm. Seeing this sister, almost a mother figure, so flirtatiously vivacious struck Joscelyn as a desecration.

  Her father held his hands in his pockets, lounging with aristocratic nonchalance. The men present, obviously too common to realize his good breeding, did not include him in their conversations.

  When they were ready to leave, Uncle Gideon insisted on having Juan drive them home. Escorting them through the huge front hall, he said with a stiffly warm smile, “We—I—have Open House every other Saturday afternoon. And I expect all of you.”

  Joscelyn perched proudly on the limousine’s jumpseat.

  Langley remained silent in the car. As they emerged, he said, “Your daddy has a matter of business to attend to, my pets. Eat your suppers without me.” He raised his derby, executing a little dance, his charade of a vaudeville actor exiting from the stage. “Adieu, adieu.”

  “Daddy, you’re being an ass,” Joscelyn called in a thin, high voice, praying her father would not leave.

  But he, typically, paid no attention to her prayer.

  She moped around the flat, refusing to go to bed until her sisters did. Soon the sound of regular breathing came from their beds. Joscelyn was desperate to use the lavatory but she could not face the sinister hall, the evil shadows in the living room, the dread song of the pipes in the bathroom.

  She had always been a terrible coward, a cowardice that she disguised with truculent bravado and a sharp, mean tongue, and her fears had been freighted to this side of the Atlantic. Let the least thing go wrong, and she was like Pavlov’s dog, secreting terror. Where was her father? San Francisco was earthquake territory. Could one part of the city fall in ruins while another section remained stable and unscathed?

  Why didn’t he come home? Just when she was positive she would wet the bed, she heard the loud creak of uneven footsteps on the exterior staircase, her father’s voice muttering oaths a
s his key jabbed against the lock. Stumbling into his room with a sob, he slammed the door.

  Joscelyn darted into the lavatory. She was back in bed and asleep within five minutes.

  That was Langley’s first and last Open House.

  * * *

  The next few weeks Honora learned her trade, or rather, Vi instructed her in it. She and the pepper-tempered older woman were bound in an unarticulated yet genuine friendship that excluded outside lives—Honora knew almost nothing about Vi except that she had two exes, had “been around” and had worked five years at the Hollywood Pig’n’Whistle.

  Although Honora refused to submit to the lightfingered sexual reconnoitering that Vi insisted led to much silver being left on the table, her youth, her prettiness, her soft-voiced accent earned her excellent tips. A good thing. Langley was depositing less and less in the housekeeping jam jar so the money was urgently needed for the household as well as Joscelyn’s dentistry and new clothing.

  Dior’s New Look also proved an expenditure. Skirts had plummeted. She and Crystal could no longer wear their English clothes, which they both thoroughly detested anyway. After work Honora would meet Crystal at the nearby Mode o’Day: they consulted anxiously over each blouse, dress, skirt, but in the end Honora relied on Crystal’s keen eye to select the smartest from endless racks of inexpensive rayon clothing. They both would have preferred quality, but it was essential that they own several outfits for the Open Houses.

  The three Sylvander sisters had become part of the Clay Street regulars. With Curt Ivory and Imogene Burdetts, they were the only guests under forty.

  “You’ll fit in better if you drop the Uncle,” said their host, his gravel-voice awkward with warmth. “We aren’t blood kin anyway. Just call me Gideon.”

  To all three it seemed a daring American departure to address a forty-five-year-old man by his Christian name, and Joscelyn especially felt a thrill of pride each time she obeyed him.