“Kate, your parents—”
“There it is!” someone shouted.
Kate looked toward the bay.
A ferry made its way toward the docks, the smoke from its thin chimney mingling with the fire smoke looming over the bay. The paddle wheels on each side churned through the gray waters, quickly bringing the ferry closer.
Maybe the sight of the ferry should have made her feel as if escape was near and the nightmare was about to end, but it did just the opposite. She’d halfway hoped the ferries wouldn’t be running so that she and Giuliana would be forced to stay together for a while longer.
Instantly, the crowd started shoving and jostling. An elbow hit Kate in the side as someone tried to squeeze past her. Ahead of them, at the edge of the dock, one woman raised her umbrella and swung it down on the head of another, who stumbled back and landed in the water with a loud splash.
The crowd surged forward, immediately taking up her space on the dock.
Kate craned her neck and raised on her tiptoes to make sure someone had fished the woman out of the harbor so she wouldn’t drown in her water-logged dress and petticoats. But the people at the edge of the dock blocked her view, so she couldn’t see what had happened to the woman.
“It’s the ferry to Tiburon!” someone shouted.
The ferry they’d have to take to get to Belvedere. Kate squeezed her eyes shut. Why couldn’t it have been the ferry to Sausalito, giving her more time to convince Giuliana—or at least to say good-bye?
All around her, people surged forward or struggled back because it was the wrong ferry for them. The push-pull nearly dragged her off her feet and shoved her against Giuliana. She threw both arms around her. “Come with us!”
Giuliana hesitated and then peered toward Kate’s parents. “I want to. But your parents—”
Wild hope coursed through Kate. “I’ll convince them. No problem. You’ll see.” She whirled around, searching for her parents in the jostling crowd.
Other refugees had shoved between Giuliana, Kate, and her parents. She caught sight of her father’s graying head ahead of them. “Father!” she shouted toward him. “Let Giuliana come with us. Please!”
“We have to go!” he shouted back. “Move, Kate—now!”
He reached past the people between them, grabbed Kate’s hand, and tried to pull her toward him, closer to the approaching ferry, but Kate dug in her heels and clung to Giuliana. “Not without Giuliana!”
The ferry bumped against the dock. Ropes were tossed down to secure it to the dock, and the gate started to lower. “Stand back!” one of the ferrymen shouted. “Outta the way, or you’ll be squished!”
People veered back a little, and the gate banged down.
Elbows, shoulders, and pieces of baggage hit Kate from all sides as people streamed past and onto the short gangplank.
Her father had to let go. “Kate, dammit! We’ll lose our place on the ferry. Move!”
She shook her head.
“For heaven’s sake!” Her father’s mustache trembled with rage. Then he huffed out a breath. “All right. Bring her, if you must. Now that Obedience is with her sister, we don’t have any servants around anyway.”
Yes!
There would be time later to make it clear that Giuliana was a guest, not a servant. She turned toward Giuliana and looked at her with pleading puppy-dog eyes, not caring whether she seemed pathetic. “Come with us. Please.”
Giuliana’s chest lifted beneath a deep breath, then she blew it out and nodded.
“Thank you.” Firmly gripping Giuliana’s hand, Kate rushed forward.
The ferry had quickly filled up with refugees. Even the rear deck was crowded with shouting men, pale-faced women, and screaming children.
“Just three more,” the ferryman next to the gangplank shouted.
“That’s us!” Kate’s father dragged her forward by the shoulder.
Even as her heels slid over the damp ground, she never let go of Giuliana. “There’s four of us,” she called up to the ferryman.
He hesitated, glanced back at the rear deck, and then gave her a grim nod. “All right. On board with the four of you. But hurry.”
Kate’s parents rushed forward.
She nearly skipped up the gangplank behind them, still tightly holding on to Giuliana so she couldn’t change her mind at the last second. How lucky they were to get the last places on the ferry! Soon, all of them would be crossing the bay, safely on their way to their summer home—and Giuliana was with her!
The ferryman blocked their way before she and Giuliana could set foot onto the rear deck.
The blood rushed from Kate’s head, leaving her dizzy. Had he changed his mind about letting all four of them board the ferry? She planted her feet. If he sent Giuliana back, she’d refuse to go too.
“No baggage,” the man said.
“What? I don’t have any—” Then she realized what he meant. The carrying case! Her finger tightened around its handle. “No! I can’t leave it behind.” That little suitcase held her camera, her photographs of the disaster—her future!
He gave her an impatient glare. “No baggage. We don’t even have room for all of the passengers. It’s either this”—he pointed at the carrying case—“or her.” He gestured toward Giuliana. “Choose. But do it fast.”
The ferry’s whistle echoed across the water.
A roaring started in her ears. Giuliana was saying something, but she had no idea what it was. She couldn’t hear anything—or see anything other than the black leather case. She squeezed her eyes shut and took several gulping breaths. With her jaw clamped shut so tightly that her teeth ground against each other, she raised her trembling arm and held out the carrying case. “Take it.”
“Kate, no!” Giuliana clung to her arm.
Kate didn’t look at her. Tears blurred her vision. “Take it,” she repeated harshly.
Just as the ferryman was about to take the carrying case from her, Giuliana’s hand slid from Kate’s and she jumped back onto the dock.
“Giuliana! What are you doing?”
“I cannot let you leave your…suitcase.” Giuliana stood on the dock with hanging shoulders and a forlorn but determined expression.
The ferryman shoved Kate onto the rear deck. “Stand back, everyone!” He bent to pull up the gangplank.
With wide eyes, Kate looked down at Giuliana, who stood rooted to the spot while the people jostled around her.
Their gazes met.
Kate didn’t look away, not even as her father put his hand on her shoulder from behind.
“She’ll be fine,” he said and tried to pull her away from the railing and Giuliana.
No!
Every muscle in Kate’s body locked. She couldn’t leave Giuliana behind. Gripping her carrying case, she rushed forward and pushed the ferryman out of the way.
He’d already pulled up the gangplank, and the ferry’s paddle wheels started to move, but Kate didn’t stop.
Eyeing the growing gap between the ferry and the dock and the lapping waters beneath, she took a deep breath—and jumped.
“Kate, no!” her mother shouted.
Too late. Kate was already in mid-air.
The crowd surged back to give her space, but Kate’s forward momentum stopped much too soon.
Darn!
She wouldn’t make it. The gap was already too large, so she would crash into the harbor, camera, glass plates, and all. Her precious photographs would be lost.
Just as she prepared for a wet landing, a pair of hands gripped the front of her shirtwaist and pulled.
Kate was catapulted forward onto a warm body. They both landed on the rough planks at the edge of the dock.
Breathing heavily, Kate stared down into Giuliana’s eyes from just inches away.
“Madonna mia,” Giuliana muttered, just as out of breath. “Why did you do this?”
Kate brought her free hand up and touched Giuliana’s cheek, pale beneath her olive complexion. “I couldn’t leave. Not without you.”
Giuliana opened her mouth as if preparing to answer but then just licked her lips. They looked at each other. Shadows of emotions darted across the brown irises too fast for Kate to identify, but for one wonderful second, she was entirely sure that Giuliana felt the same way she did.
Then the piercing whistle of the ferry reminded her of where they were. She rolled off Giuliana and sat up. “Are you all right? I didn’t crush your ribs, did I?”
Giuliana lay still for a moment longer and just blinked up at her. Then she shook her head as if to clear it and sat up too. “I am good. You are not so heavy.”
Kate waved at her parents, who stood on the rear deck, clutching the railing. “Don’t worry,” she shouted across the water. “I’ll be fine.”
We’ll be fine.
Just her precious glass plates might not be so fine. Had they survived the rough landing on the dock? Her fingers shook as she opened the carrying case. She didn’t dare peek in, afraid to find her photographic plates shattered.
“Let me do this.” Gently, Giuliana took the carrying case from her and looked inside.
Kate held her breath and gazed just at Giuliana’s face, not at the contents of the carrying case. “Are they…?”
Giuliana beamed. “They are good. All of them.”
Kate pitched forward, right into Giuliana’s arms. “Oh, thank the Lord!” She enjoyed the warm embrace for a minute longer before slowly letting go.
“Oh, wait.” Fine lines formed on Giuliana’s forehead as she peered into the carrying case. “A little corner broke from one.” Her lips pressed together, she pulled a glass plate out of the carrying case.
It was one of the glass negatives she had already developed and then shoved into the carrying case before rushing from her smoldering home. And it wasn’t just any negative.
Giuliana squinted at the negative image. “Is that…me?”
Heat shot into Kate’s chilled cheeks. She quickly took the glass plate from Giuliana, put it back into the carrying case, and closed it. “It’s one of the photographs I took that day in North Beach,” she said as lightly as she could, as if the photograph of Giuliana held no more meaning to her than the image she had captured of the men playing bocce ball.
Giuliana said nothing.
The crowd around them slowly dispersed, as people walked away to find other ways out of the city.
Side by side, Kate and Giuliana sat on the damp dock and watched the ferry with Kate’s parents grow smaller in the distance.
CHAPTER 18
Ferry Docks
San Francisco, California
April 20, 1906
“What do we do now?” Giuliana asked after they’d been sitting in silence for a while. “Wait for the next boat to Belvedere?”
Kate immediately shook her head. “No. They’d ask me to leave the camera and my photographs behind too. I won’t do that, no matter what.”
Yet Kate had been willing to relinquish her carrying case so Giuliana could get on the ferry with the Winthrops. Never before in her life had anyone sacrificed that much for her. She didn’t know what to say.
A piercing whistle drowned out the calls of the seagulls circling overhead. Giuliana placed her hand above her eyes to shelter them from the wind as she gazed out over the bay.
Another ferry was chugging toward them.
Giuliana hastily got up before the crowd surging toward the edge of the dock could stumble over her.
Kate followed suit. She stared toward the white ferry. “I think it’s the one that goes back to Oakland. If you want to catch a train to New York City, now that you can’t stay in Belvedere after all…”
Her voice and her expression were carefully neutral. Even now that Giuliana had gotten to know Kate well, she couldn’t read her.
When Kate had jumped back to the dock and landed in her arms, a feeling of euphoria had swirled through Giuliana. Kate wanted them to be together! But now a nagging worry crept into her mind. Was that really what Kate’s desperate jump back to the dock meant? Maybe Kate hadn’t wanted her to stay behind alone, but that didn’t necessarily mean she wanted them to stay together, did it? Was there even a way to make that happen in the long run?
“Do you think is a good idea to go to New York?” Giuliana asked, gesturing toward the approaching ferry.
“I can’t leave the city, not without having to give up the carrying case. But you…you could leave all this behind.” Kate swept her hand toward the smoke drifting over from the north. Her voice was still carefully even. “You’re first in line. Should be easy to get a place on that ferry.”
Giuliana nodded.
Kate shifted her carrying case from one hand to the other. Her lips were pressed together so tightly that the blood was draining from them and they were turning white. “I mean…if that’s really what you wanted.” Now a tiny tremor entered her voice, and a bit of emotion leaked through. “Or you could go back to Golden Gate Park.”
“What good would this do? There is nothing there.” Giuliana forced a crooked smile. “Only rats.”
“I would be there,” Kate answered, her expression serious.
Their gazes seared into each other.
Was Kate asking her to stay with her, to throw their fates together, no matter what happened to their burning city? Giuliana found the answer in the blue depth of Kate
’s irises. But was it really what Giuliana wanted too? She knew she should want to leave. There was no money to be made in San Francisco. New York City was the place to be if she wanted to take care of her family, which had always been her highest goal.
But for the first time in her life, she wanted something else too. Something for herself. She was no longer sure whether she wanted to stay or go.
Yes. Yes, you are. You want to stay; you’re just too scared to admit it.
When Giuliana remained silent, Kate repeated her whispered words, “I’d be there.”
For how long?
the realist in Giuliana wanted to say.
Until your parents return and rebuild their mansion?
But she was too scared of the answer to ask.
The ferry to Oakland was so close now that Giuliana was able to make out the face of a sailor standing at the railing, smoke curling up from his cigarette.
The people behind her pushed and shoved against her back, trying to gain a few precious inches on the rest of the desperate crowd.
Giuliana didn’t shove back. Why fight for something she didn’t really want? “If we stay,” she said and gestured at the crowd behind her, “we can give our places to these people.”