Gift of the Golden Mountain (5 page)

KARIN PERCHED ON the window seat in the dining room, hugging her legs to her and resting her chin on her knees. For a time she scanned the wide view of San Francisco Bay offered from the window, then she turned to survey the living room with its high beamed ceiling. The morning light streamed through the French doors to illuminate the fireplace, and the acrid scent of fresh ashes lingered in the air from last night's fire.

     "I can't believe how lucky we were to find this place," she said, turning back to the sweeping view of the Bay, dotted now with hundreds of sailboats.

     May sat at the dining table, several forms spread out before her, and toyed absently with a fountain pen while she studied her friend. She was thinking of the contradictions that existed between them, of how opposite they really were. Karin was small and soft, curvaceous and warm, with large breasts while May was tall and dark and cool, and not quite flat-chested. Karin's mop of blond hair curled out of control, while hers was straight as a stick and black. Karin was pink and pretty in the Scandinavian way; she
was olive-skinned and unusual looking, people guessed she was Mediterranean. Karin was sweet-tempered and easygoing while she could be moody and intense. She sometimes wondered how they could have become such good friends. . . .

     "It's what they call an 'old Berkeley house,'" Karin broke in, "meaning brown shingle with lots of wood inside, and tiles and beamed ceilings and such, sort of a civilized rustic. A copy of a Maybeck, or a Julia Morgan. In case you don't know, they were architects who designed houses in these hills in the early part of the century. I've learned quite a lot about West Coast architecture in these past weeks. The people who own this house spent two solid years fixing it up, 'returning it to its 1920s glory,' is the way Kit put it."

     At mention of Kit, May looked up. "Has she seen the house?" she asked.

     Karin read the note of disapproval in her voice and answered carefully. "No. That's just how it was described to her."

     "Who described it?" May probed.

     "The people who told her it was for rent. Kit heard about it, and thought we might be interested."

     "Then it wasn't luck," May said in a flat voice, making a show of turning her attention back to the papers, "Cousin Kit never leaves anything to luck. She likes to control things, haven't you noticed? I should have known she would have a hand in this."

     May could taste the bitterness welling within her, and she was dismayed by it. She had come back because she was convinced she could put it behind her, the old hurt, that it didn't matter so much any more. She knew she could never forgive Kit—the damage had been done, and it was done forever. But she thought she could keep her anger under control, that she could maintain a civil attitude toward the woman who was her guardian. Now, suddenly, all the old anger had flooded back. Part of it was that the others had always been so taken in by Kit—her dad and Sara when they were alive, and Faith and Emilie and Phinney and even the twins. She
found Karin's studied neutrality especially annoying.

     Karin had turned back to the window, to the wide sweep of the San Francisco skyline. She knew it would not do to come to Kit's defense. May was too soon back, too tense, too quick to anger.

     "We've got to decide what to do about renting out the in-law cottage," May said in an effort to restore the earlier, easier mood.

     "I know," Karin answered without turning, "Sam wants it but he can't afford the rent. He's hoping to find someone to share it."

     May frowned. "Do you think it has enough privacy for two men? I thought maybe we could find a couple—and that we might let them have it in exchange for housework and taking care of the grounds."

     Karin turned, her face registering distress.

     "I thought we agreed," she began, forcefully for Karin, "I thought it was all decided, that in return for my part of the rent I would do the housework and the cooking. And I was really looking forward to the gardening. I know how . . ."

     "I know you do," May interrupted, smiling in an effort to ease the tension that was building. "You can still do all the cooking because you know how badly I cook. But when we made that agreement I was thinking in terms of a nice modem apartment which would require little work. Instead we have a huge old two-story house with grounds to match. You can't handle graduate school and all of this too, nobody could. I certainly can't, and I can see what's going to happen—you'll be working yourself silly, and I'll feel like I have to pitch in and help. I can't have you waiting on me, for crying out loud—we'll both get tired and bitchy."

     Karin's chin was set. "I can't be your guest. Besides, I was the one who found this big old house—I got us into it. It's the most beautiful house I've ever lived in. I love everything about it—the fireplace, and the view and the funny old plumbing in the bathrooms and the redwood trees out back. I won't complain, May. . . ."

     May looked at her, and smiled as the familiar flood of affection rose inside her. She sighed. "I know you won't complain, K. You
never do—and I was wrong about both of us getting bitchy. You never do that, either. Sometimes I think there's something wrong with you, that you just go along with that wonderful calmness . . ." May lifted her shoulders in the slightest of shrugs. "But please hear me out," she said, her tone warm and intimate, "it seems so crazy to me, that I should have plenty of money from Sara's trust, and very soon I am going to be richer than almost anybody either of us knows—richer even than Kit, I'm told—and I haven't done a thing for it. I don't deserve it any more than you do. My dad wouldn't have anything to do with the family money, did I ever tell you that? Sometimes I think that I shouldn't either, except . . ." She stopped herself from veering off the subject. Pulling up short, she said, "But I was talking about you and me and the money. I don't see why it has to change anything between us, why we can't just use it, and yet you refuse to share it with me, or to have anything to do with that part of me, that struggle . . ."

     Karin bit her lip; they had been through this before and it had never been resolved. "I did go to Europe with you after graduation . . ."

     "I give Kit credit for managing that, at least," May said, too sharply. She had been glad, then, for Kit's manipulations, for thinking far enough ahead to arrange for Karin to work in her company's New York office over spring vacation, so she could earn spending money for the trip.

     "It
was
good of her, May. It really was." Then Karin, too, moved away from the subject of Kit, and brought herself back to the one at hand. She continued, carefully, "Money really hasn't anything to do with it, I don't think. At least, not where we are concerned. It's just that I've never had a truly good friend before, a woman friend. And you are that . . . and sometimes I worry that the money, your money, could interfere. And I couldn't afford to have that happen."

     May smiled at the small pun, and remembered Kit telling her, at the end of their sophomore year, when Karin refused their offer of a summer at Kit's house in the south of France, about how money could be a problem, and especially between good friends.
That summer May had gone to Thera instead. Kit had arranged that, too. She joined a research team from Berkeley that was exploring the only active seabed volcano in the Aegean. Kit was so goddamned good at arranging things, May knew that as well as anyone alive.

     "Are you worried that someday I might wonder if it's me you care about, or my money?" May asked.

     "That's too simple," Karin answered. "It's not just you and me, it's other people too."

     "Like Sam Nakamura?"

     "I suppose," Karin said thoughtfully. "He probably thinks I am, well, taking advantage . . . and that there couldn't be any equality, that you naturally have a superior position . . ."

     "Why should he assume that?" May bristled.

     "Don't be angry," Karin told her, "because of his background. When you're poor as a kid—the way I was, and the way Sam was—and even more when you feel that your race sets you apart, makes you different . . ." She glanced at May to see if the mention of race had registered. May nodded for her to go on. "You come to think that people who have money know something you don't know. Like there's a secret you haven't been let in on. Sam was calling you my 'rich friend' and my 'benefactor' even before he met you."

     "Sam has a chip on his shoulder," May put in drily, but when she saw Karin's frown she added, "But he is gorgeous, with that wonderful tight body of his and that satin-smooth face and those black, black eyes that I swear leave burn marks when he turns them on full blast. And he has been helpful, and generous with his time and muscle power. Actually, I'm sorry he dropped off the gymnastics team—I'd love to see him in full muscular glory in white tights . . . Okay? Is that good enough?" Karin grinned, so that May couldn't resist adding, "But you have to admit he has an edge of arrogance."

     "Not arrogance so much as something like wounded pride," Karin said, drawing out the words slowly, "but that's because he
has this very distorted idea of what it means to be wealthy, and because you seem so sure of yourself. He thinks people with money are automatically secure, never frightened like the rest of us."

     May looked at her steadily. "That's ridiculous," she began, her voice rising.

     "I know, but I also know that you do appear to be full of confidence. And I
think
—I'm not sure about this, but I
think
—you don't know what it's like to feel
inferior."

     Karin's face relaxed into an impish smile. "Do you remember in our junior year," she suddenly remembered, "when our History Forum made that trip to Washington and toured the White House? Lord, I'll never forget . . . I mean, I'll never forget the moment when we were all sitting in that elegant little anteroom, and no one knew why we were told to wait there . . . and suddenly Jackie Kennedy appears and in that breathy, cultivated voice of hers asks which of us is Miss Reade, and then asks if you would like her to give us a tour! You would have thought the rest of us had swallowed our tongues, but you just said something perfect, and the two of you went sailing off together chattering like old friends, the rest of us in tow. You were different, May! You are!"

     May laughed. "Don't you know how that happened? Didn't I ever tell you? I knew right away why we were getting the royal treatment. Kit gave piles of money to the Kennedys. Think about it, K—that whole production smacked of Kit's little behind-the-scenes maneuverings. She arranged the whole thing with her usual precise manipulation, it's how she controls . . ." May caught herself then, made herself stop before she had moved into that other subject, the one that she could no longer talk about to Karin, not since they had come West and Kit had had a chance to spend time with Karin.

     Karin, too, decided it best to sidestep the issue. In a small voice she said, "The point is, you didn't know that Jackie Kennedy was going to appear, but you just took it in stride."

     "That," May said firmly, "had nothing to do with growing up with money. But it had everything to do with my father." She stood
then, pretending to stretch, and turned to look out at the back garden. She began, as if to herself: "I went with my dad to ail of the hearings . . . he was forever being called before one committee or the other. They had all of these names—Internal Security or Un-American Activities—but it was all the same, really. We would get out of the car and reporters would be there, cameras being shoved into our faces, questions being shouted at us. And then we'd walk into one of those big meeting rooms, filled with people and all of them would be staring at us. My heart would be beating so loud that I thought everybody would be able to hear it . . .
There's Porter Reade and his kid
, you could hear the murmur run through the hall. All I had to hold on to was his hand, and every now and then—when he would feel me shaking—he would squeeze it, so I would remember what he told me. 'It's okay to be scared,' he said, 'just as long as you don't let the sons of bitches know.' So I'd stand very straight, my mouth clamped tight so my lips wouldn't tremble, and I'd look the sons of bitches in the eye until they looked away."

     She turned then, her eyes bright but dry, and made herself laugh. "After that, Jackie Kennedy was a piece of cake."

     "Oh May," Karin said, her voice full of the emotion that May had drained from hers, but the sound of the doorbell severed her sentence.

     May waited in the dining room, shuffling through the forms that had to be filled out that day if she was to start classes on Monday, but listening to hear who might be at their door on a Saturday morning. She did not recognize the voice, which was low and resonant and male, but she did recognize Karin's flustered laughter. That meant he was attractive.

     She was right. "May, this is . . . Karin began, leading the way into the dining room, and hesitated because she didn't know his name.

     "Hayes Diehl," he said, "Sam Nakamura told me about the cottage you have for rent."

     He was tall and thinner than he should be, May thought. His pants rode low on his hips, and she noticed the belt had been
tightened a notch. His face was more interesting than good-looking, forehead high, mouth a little wide, his eyes a solid blue, with laugh wrinkles. His hair was a fine, light brown and fell into his eyes; he brushed it back absently, as if the gesture were a habit.

     "Hayes is in law school," Karin said.

     "Which means I'll be around for a couple of years, so I'd like to find some agreeable digs," he said. "Can I see the cottage?"

     He saw the look that passed between the women, and asked, "Or is it still for rent?"

     "I think so," Karin said, uncertainly, still looking at May.

     "Yes," May said, "Of course you can see it," and she led the way out the back door and across the lawn, moving from one stepping stone to the next to avoid the wet grass.