Parlor Games (17 page)

“Quite good, actually. The city is booming; newcomers are pouring in every day.”

Not to be outdone, Mr. Zimmer added, “And they’re buying. The furniture business has never been better.”

The waiter arrived, and I ordered and leaned back in my chair. Overhead, the hue of the Grand Court’s stained-glass dome deepened. Dusk had settled. The table and wall lamps now outshone the outdoors’ ambient light, and the stained glass reflected its golden glow on the diners’ faces, the clean tablecloths, and my periwinkle-blue gown.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a gentleman standing twenty feet to my side, studying me in the most unabashed manner. I turned and met his gaze. He had the darkness of a foreigner, a broad, pronounced jaw, and cocoa-brown eyes. A shock of wavy black hair swept back from his square forehead, and a trim mustache gracefully outlined the shapely curve of his lip. His compact yet proud bearing showed off a barrel-thick chest clad in a tailored dinner jacket. In a word, the man was dashing—and much younger than my dinner companions. He placed a hand over his abdomen, bowed to me, then strode off, unhurried but purposeful.

When I bade good night to my dinner companions and started for the stairs, this same man reappeared from the corner of the lobby, as if he’d been waiting for me. He approached, bowed again, and said, “May I introduce myself,
señorita
? I am Juan Ramón.”

“Mr. Ramón,” I said, dipping my head. “I am Pauline Townsend.”

“Yes, I know.” Though accented, his English was quite clear.

“Oh? How is that?”

“I asked the maître d’.” Opening his hand toward the hotel’s bar, he asked, “Would you permit me to buy you a drink?”

He escorted me to the bar, where he ordered brandy for us.

“I take it, Mr. Ramón, that you do not reside in San Francisco?”

“No, I am from Guatemala. But I travel much. And you—is California your home?”

“No, no. I’m from Chicago.”

Our waiter delivered our drinks, and Mr. Ramón lifted his glass. “To the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“How you flatter, sir.”

“It is true. Never in all my journeys have I encountered such beauty.”

“Then your compliment means all the more, coming from a man who has seen much of the world.”

“How can I tell you?” He spread a hand over his heart. “You are lovelier than the most delicate orchid bloom.”

“Ah, Mr. Ramón, that is quite enough about me,” I said, though my heart fluttered under his moony gaze. “What is it that brings you to San Francisco?”

“I am an importer of coffee.” His held his head high. “Do you like coffee?”

“Yes, I do, though I’m woefully uneducated on the subject.”

“You must permit me to teach you. Perhaps tomorrow I can take you for breakfast?”

And after breakfast Mr. Ramón insisted we dine that evening at the Palace. By then I’d learned he was a man accustomed to having his way. “Waiter,” he snapped when we’d been sitting for only a few minutes, “the lady would like …” He turned to me.

“I’ll have a glass of champagne.”

“And Pisco punch for me.”

As the waiter trailed off, I said, “You are an adventurous man, Mr. Ramón. I’ve heard many stories about the famous Pisco punch.”

“And all true.” He flapped his hands in a grand but-of-course gesture. “But you must call me Juan. That is how my family and friends call me.”

“Very well, then: Juan it shall be.”

“And may I have the honor of calling you Pauline?”

“I should think that first names are quite in order, under the circumstances.”

When his flaming drink of Pisco punch arrived, my handsome Mr. Ramón toasted to “life’s pleasures,” swirled the flaming drink in its glass, and, as the blue flames flickered out, brought the drink to his lips and gulped it down all at once.

I laughed. “You do embrace life, don’t you?”

“Yes, and for dinner, I insist on the house specialty—roasted squab. And then I will hire a carriage, and we will go to the Cliff House.”

“Ah, you will spoil me, Juan.”

He leaned over the corner of the table and circled his hand around my fingertips. Fastening his glistening eyes on mine, he said, “That is exactly what I intend to do,
mi florecita
. You will not object, will you?”

SPOILED SPOILS
SAN FRANCISCO—DECEMBER 1889–APRIL 1890

S
ue Marie didn’t object to Juan’s spoiling me—that is, not once she’d verified his status as a successful importer. By playing the part of an assistant to a coffee dealer and exploring possibilities for bringing more coffee business to San Francisco, she discovered that Mr. Ramón had made his mark on the city. And a few weeks later, after I stole a peek into his wallet and spied a picture of him with a woman and two little boys, Sue Marie’s enthusiasm for our liaison was sealed.

“You have to get him into a compromising position,” Sue Marie said, pacing our hotel room. “Ask for an apartment. And an allowance.”

I relaxed in our room’s overstuffed chair. “At the right moment.”

Sue Marie stopped in her tracks in front of me. “The right moment, my fanny. We’re almost broke.”

“Where’d all the money go?”

The look she gave me could’ve scared a bear. “I need to eat, too.”

Snuggling the folds of my robe over my legs, I said, “Some things take time.”

“Listen,” she said, looming over me. “While you’re being wined and dined, I’m climbing streets steep as mountains and wringing every last drop out of our pennies.”

“Fine, fine. I know what I’m doing. Let me play it my way.”

“Yeah, you won the lead role—you’d better play it.”

That evening, Juan and I stepped into a cabriolet outside the Palace, and Juan ordered the driver to the Poodle Dog. As we trundled
through the city’s misty rain, we passed by department-store windows decorated with nativity scenes, and a caroling party strolling arm in arm. Still, save for the clomp of our horse’s hooves, a glum quiet pervaded our carriage compartment.

I nestled up alongside Juan, who had been morose from the minute we’d stepped into the carriage. “Don’t you love this time of year?”

I surmised he had not embraced the spirit of Christmas, for he clenched his hands on the tops of his knees and asked, “Why were you talking to Mr. Schmidt in the lobby?”

“Oh, him,” I said, circling my hand around his arm. “He insists on exchanging pleasantries every time he sees me.”

“You do not encourage him?”

“Goodness, no.” I kissed his cheek, resolved to shower him with affection the rest of the evening. As my acquaintance with Juan deepened, the veneer of his charm had thinned, and the surliness of a wronged husband occasionally surfaced. “I haven’t the slightest interest in any other man.”

“I will take you away for Christmas, to San Diego.”

Much as the prospect of escaping San Francisco’s damp chill appealed to me, I couldn’t abandon Sue Marie. Besides, our money was dwindling fast. “Travel again? I’ve barely gotten settled here.”

“We would only stay long enough to warm up in the sunshine.”

“What I’d really like is a home for you and me right here in San Francisco.” I nestled my chin on his shoulder and looked up at him. “If I had an apartment with a kitchen, I could prepare coffee exactly as you like it. I could be waiting for you each day.”

“No, we have my suite at the Palace.”

“A hotel room,” I said with a heaving sigh. “Please don’t take offense, but it seems tawdry.”

“An apartment is not practical.”

“But you’re away on business so much.”

Juan stiffened beside me. “It makes no sense to pay for an apartment and my hotel when I travel.”

I pressed one hand over my bosom. “Are you saying you don’t want to spend the money on me? That I’m not worth it?”

“Don’t be foolish.”

“I hate having all those men ogle me in the lobby.”

“And if you had an apartment, how do I know you would not see other men there?”

I let go of his arm and pulled away from him. “I would never do that. How could you think such a thing?”

I pouted all the way to the Poodle Dog. Finally, once we were seated, Juan apologized. To keep his spirits up, I fawned over him while we dined and pointedly ignored the glances of passing men.

When we took up our carriage again, on our way to the Tivoli Opera House, I entwined my fingers in his and cast my eyes downward, studying the walnut-colored skin of his broad hand. “Juan, I can hardly believe you accused me of considering another man.”

He cupped his other hand over mine and twisted around. “Forgive me,
mi florecita
.”

The trace of a whimper escaped from my throat. I closed my eyes and clamped my lips tight together, trying to suppress the tears pressing at my eyelids.

“Do not cry. You shall have your apartment,” said Juan, kissing my forehead.

I blinked my eyes open. “On Powell Street?”

“
Sí
, wherever you like. A place for just the two of us.”

In January, Juan secured and furnished an apartment on Powell Street—a lovely one-bedroom affair with a living-and-dining area, a serviceable kitchen, a bathroom with modern plumbing, and wallpaper so freshly applied I could still smell the pasty glue. Although Juan had acceded to my request for a weekly allowance, which Sue Marie insisted on budgeting, the amount was insufficient for the apartment expenses, my dress budget, and her room at the Palace—or any other hotel, for that matter. She was forced to take employment at Lillie Winters’s brothel on Columbus Avenue, though she registered quite a protest: “This is not what we planned. I won’t put up with this for long.”

“Don’t be so impatient. I’ve only just settled into the apartment.”

“He hasn’t even bought you one trinket. You better figure out how you’re going to cash in on your Mr. Ramón.”

Then my Mr. Ramón upset the whole apple cart. One afternoon
in February, he arrived home with two carved-wood puppets. “Look what I found for my little ones.”

“Little ones?” I asked, closing my Sherlock Holmes story and rising from the couch. “You have children?”

Juan stood before me, holding one of the puppets in each hand and grinning mischievously. “
Sí
, two boys.”