A lump in her throat prevented Kate from speaking, so she nodded.
Giuliana hooked her arm through Kate’s. “Come, Miss Newspaper Photographer. We will take the ferry home.”
CHAPTER 22
Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, California
April 26, 1906
Not having any chairs had its advantages, Giuliana mused with a smile. It forced her and Kate to share the upturned crate and sit so close that their bodies touched all along their lengths, from ankle to shoulder.
Kate nudged her. “You’re not paying attention.”
“Yes, I am.”
“To the lesson.” Kate nodded down at the book Mrs. Kohler had lent them, balanced on their laps so they could both see the pages. The grin curling the corners of her mouth indicated that she had guessed the source of Giuliana’s distraction.
Giuliana quickly returned her attention to the book.
Kate pointed to the next letter. “So this is an
N
as in
nose
,” she tapped the mentioned body part, letting her finger linger for a fraction of a second, “or in—”
“Newspaper,” someone said from a few steps away.
They looked up from the book.
Lucy stood in front of them, wearing a smile and a skirt and shirtwaist that, for once, weren’t stained with blood or other gore. The dark circles around her eyes had faded. Like Giuliana, she had been off duty for the last day, so she’d probably caught up on sleep.
“Have you seen this?” Lucy took another step toward them and dropped a newspaper on top of the book.
Giuliana gasped and squeezed Kate’s arm.
There it was, right on the front page: the photograph Kate had taken of blackened Market Street.
As Kate turned the pages, Giuliana discovered that others of her pictures had been used too: the ruins of City Hall, the burning city from on top of Nob Hill, the sea of white tents in Golden Gate Park. Even the picture of Luigi and his wine barrel had been printed.
Kate stared at each black-and-white image and traced them with her fingertips as if she couldn’t believe it.
Giuliana threw her arms around her, nearly toppling them off the upturned crate. “This is wonderful. I am very proud of you.”
“Congratulations,” Lucy said. “You must be really—”
Without warning, the ground shuddered beneath them. A low rumbling sound vibrated through Giuliana’s bones. In the tent next to theirs, tin cups rattled against each other. A hastily erected shelter consisting of a few sticks and a carpet collapsed. Someone screamed. As if watching herself from the outside, Giuliana realized it had been her.
For a moment, she was catapulted back into the collapsing boardinghouse, but Kate’s firm grasp on her shoulders brought her back to the present.
The shaking stopped.
Lucy still stood in front of them. “Damn aftershocks. I hope that was the last of them.” Her brow furrowed as she studied Giuliana. “Are you all right?”
Trembling, pressed against Kate’s side, Giuliana could only nod.
Kate put the newspaper down on her lap and pulled her even closer. “It’s all right,” she whispered into Giuliana’s ear. “You’re safe.”
“Kate, is that you? Oh thank God! We thought we’d never find you.” Mrs. Winthrop stalked through the damp grass on dainty shoes, holding on to her husband’s arm with one hand while pulling up her purple-blue taffeta dress a little with the other.
Wonderful. Just what she needed. Giuliana decided that she’d take a little aftershock over the Winthrops any day.
Hastily, Kate let go of her and jumped up. “Mother! Father!”
“What on God’s green earth are you doing here, in this rat-infested hell?” Mrs. Winthrop glanced around with her nose wrinkled and shook her head. “I can’t believe you didn’t come to Belvedere with us.”
It didn’t bode well that Mrs. Winthrop had come all the way from Belvedere instead of just sending her husband. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Giuliana watched Kate embrace her parents.
“What the heck were you thinking, jumping that ferry!” Her father held her at arm’s length so that he could run his gaze over her, making sure she was still in one piece. “That was a really stupid thing to do. You risked your life…and for what?”
For me,
Giuliana thought.
To be with me.
But she could never tell them that.
Kate shuffled her feet. “Um, what are you doing here?” she said instead of answering the question.
Giuliana had a pretty good idea of why they were here. They had come to take Kate home with them. Would Kate have the courage to stand up to them and refuse? Kate, who had been too scared to tell her father she’d scratched his precious automobile…
“Is everything all right with the summer house?” Kate asked.
“It’s fine,” her father said. “And so are my ships and the docks. We lost one warehouse, and we’ll have to relocate our offices, but the fine men of the navy managed to save the rest.”
“That’s wonderful news!” Kate’s gaze flicked back to the latest edition of the
San Francisco Call.
She hesitated for a moment and then picked up the newspaper from the crate. “I have good news too.” She held up the front page for her parents to see. “They printed my photographs. Not just this one, but four others as well, can you believe it?”
Her father took the newspaper from her and leafed through the pages, glancing back and forth between the photographs and his daughter. His bushy eyebrows rose as if he hadn’t known Kate was this talented. “Quite an accomplishment.”
Giuliana breathed a sigh of relief. At least one parent had acknowledged this impressive achievement. She knew that would mean the world to Kate.
Kate beamed, nearly growing a few inches under her father’s praise. “That’s not all. Mr. Fulton hired me as a photographer for the
Call
.”
With deliberate slowness, her father folded the newspaper and handed it back. “Kate…” He sighed. “We talked about this. I told you a hundred times that you don’t have to support yourself. That hasn’t changed.”
Her shoulders hunched, Kate stared down at the newspaper in her hands before slowly raising her head and looking at her father. “
I
have changed. I let you put off this discussion for years now. No longer. What if I had died in the earthquake or the fires?”
Her mother let out a loud gasp, but Kate kept talking. “I would have gone to my grave without ever achieving my dream. Like Corny,” she added in a whisper. “Is that really what you want for me?”
“Kathryn…child…” Mrs. Winthrop folded her hands as if praying for Kate to see reason. “Just think of what it might do to your marital prospects.”
Kate faced her squarely. “I don’t care about my marital prospects.”
Mrs. Winthrop’s eyes nearly bulged out of her head. She clawed at her chest with both hands, wobbled on her feet, and collapsed into a heap of taffeta.
“Now look what you have done!” Mr. Winthrop shook his head at Kate, bent over his wife, and patted her cheeks to revive her.
Lucy, who had stayed in the background during the discussion, crouched down next to her and felt her pulse. “She’s fine.”
“Who are you?” Mr. Winthrop asked.
“Dr. Lucy Hamilton Sharpe. Pleased to meet you, sir.” Lucy held out her hand.
Mr. Winthrop just stared at it. “Another woman who’s working outside of her home? Was it you who put those ideas into my daughter’s head?”
“Your daughter doesn’t need anyone to put ideas into her head. She can think just fine for herself,” Lucy said. “Besides, would it really be so bad to have a daughter in the newspaper business? She might be able to negotiate better advertisement fees for your company. That could save you quite a bit of money.”
Mr. Winthrop stroked his mustache. “Hmm.”
Giuliana bit back a grin. Clever Lucy had beaten him with his own weapons.
Kate’s mother sat up with a groan.
Mr. Winthrop put his arm around her. “Let’s get her home.”
Kate hurried over and took her mother’s other arm. “I have the automobile. It didn’t get blown up after all. I could drive you to the ferry dock.”
“We’re not going back to Belvedere,” her father said. “I bought a house on Gough Street in Pacific Heights. It’s a fine neighborhood that remained completely unburned.”
“Then let’s take her there.”
With Mrs. Winthrop staggering between them, they walked toward the edge of camp, where Kate had left the automobile.
After a few steps, Kate looked back over her shoulder and searched Giuliana’s face. “I’ll be right back.”
Would she really? Giuliana wasn’t so sure. The Winthrops would never allow Kate to sleep in a leaky tent and eat the tasteless stew the Red Cross food stations handed out while they lived in a mansion and dined on baked oysters and lamb roast.
Did she really want Kate to forgo all of that? If she loved Kate, shouldn’t she want what was best for her, even if it shattered her heart into a thousand pieces? Her chest already felt empty as she watched Kate walk away with her parents.
Lucy pulled her around and enveloped her in a hug without saying anything.
Giuliana put her forehead against Lucy’s shoulder and struggled to hold back tears. “Why did I not fall in love with you?” she whispered. It would have been so much easier.
Laughter rippled through Lucy’s body. “Don’t ask me. It should have been impossible for you to resist me, but alas…”
Giuliana pulled back and lightly hit Lucy’s arm.
Lucy handed her the newspaper, which had been left behind. “You’d better put that away somewhere safe. Kate will want to frame it.”
For a moment, Giuliana could already see that frame hanging in the tiny cabin they had talked about getting, but the mental image quickly faded. She rubbed her burning eyes and smoothed her hand over the newspaper as if it were a good-luck charm.
Please, let it come true.
* * *
Her father had taken over the driving, relegating Kate to the backseat. After being in the driver’s seat for so long, it felt strange. Or maybe it was being away from Giuliana that made her feel a little out of control.
“You’ll love the house,” said her mother, who seemed to have recovered.
Kate bit her lip. How could she tell them she wouldn’t stay? She had just accompanied her parents so they wouldn’t have the unavoidable fight in the middle of the refugee camp, where half the park could overhear.
When they passed Lafayette Square, which was a mass of white tents too, her father turned left and drove past a row of stately mansions.
From on top of a hill, Kate glimpsed the bay and Alcatraz Island to the north, but what held her attention even more was the view of the destruction to the east. If only she’d brought her camera.
In front of a mansion with a gabled roof and two round turrets, her father stopped the automobile and helped her mother climb down.
Kate followed. With its walls painted a pleasant shade of yellow and images of sunbursts framing the second-story windows, the house looked friendly. For a moment, she could imagine herself living here. After sleeping in a smelly tent for almost a week, having a home—and a bed—of her own would be nice.
She helped steer her mother up a couple of steps to the covered front porch and into a marble-floored entryway.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” her mother said as she sank onto a brocade sofa, one of few pieces of furniture already in the house.
Kate nodded. Had the house been on sale even before the earthquake, or had its owner decided to pack up and leave afterward?
“Your room is the first one at the top of the stairs. It doesn’t have any furniture yet, but as soon as all the stores reopen, your father will take you to buy a new bed and a dresser and everything else you want.”
Anything she wanted? In the past, her mother had always tried to pick out the furniture for Kate’s room. Maybe living through the disaster had changed her mother too.
“Of course, you could also order some pieces from a catalog,” her mother continued. “If you—”
“That’s very kind, Mother,” Kate said before she could go on. “But that’s really not necessary.”
“What are you talking about? Of course you need—”
Kate braced her shoulders as if preparing for a storm. “I’m not staying.”
“You’re not…staying?” her mother repeated. “Where else would you stay but in your home?”
It’s not my home,
Kate wanted to say but held it back. No need to hurt them any more than necessary. “I’m staying in the park.”
Her father sank onto the sofa next to his wife. “Are you out of your mind? You want to stay in that tent?” His mustache twitched. “You prefer sleeping on the ground with perfect strangers to staying in your parents’ comfortable home?”
“It’s not about what I prefer. It’s what I have to do.”
“Have to do? You mean for an assignment?” He shook his graying head. “Kate, don’t you think that takes investigative journalism a little too far?”
Kate slowly shook her head. “I’m not just staying there because I’m taking photographs for the newspaper.”
“But that’s why you don’t want to live here, isn’t it?” her father asked. “It’s because of this…this…job with the newspaper. Because you’re afraid I’ll forbid it.”
“Well, you did forbid it.” Kate raised her chin. “And I’m not giving it up.”
Her father sighed. “Where on earth did you get that stubbornness from?”
“Not from my side of the family, that’s for sure,” her mother muttered.
“You’re both plenty stubborn, or we wouldn’t be having this discussion for the hundredth time,” Kate said, surprising herself with her daring words.
A tremor went through her father’s clenched fists as if he barely held himself back from shouting at her. He took several deep breaths. “All right. You can work for that darn paper—with the understanding that it’s only until you get married.”
It was quite a concession. And since Kate planned to stay unmarried, she had no problem agreeing to this compromise. But the job wasn’t really what kept her from living with her parents again. “It’s a generous offer, Father, but I’m still not sure I can live here.”
“Is this about Julie?” her mother asked, her eyes narrowed.
Kate swallowed. Did her parents suspect what Giuliana meant to her? She peeked at her mother, then at her father. Neither looked close to jumping up and strangling her, so they probably had no idea what was going on. “Her name is Giuliana.”