“Yes,” Pie agreed. “Actually, it was a surprise to us too. People are so kind in these dreadful circumstances. Don’t you agree? Kind,” she said again. “And surprising.”
His mother and sisters frowned—clearly, they hadn’t seen such kindness—and by the look on James’s face, neither had he. “Where is this house—just over there, you say?” He craned his neck to peer over the hill. “Can we see it from here?”
“Oh, not quite.” Pie waved in the general direction.
“It must be grand if it’s on the square,” his mother ventured. I could see she was bent on knowing exactly.
“The gold one,” I said.
“Gold, you say? Not the one with all the doodads,” his mother replied. “Why, I know that house. It belongs to that woman, what’s her name? The madam.”
“Her name is Rose,” I declared.
“But how… could you be related to her, dear?”
“Only distantly,” Pie assured them, and she looked to James for help.
“How distantly?” his mother pressed.
“Why does it matter?” I said with a good deal of indignation. “Seeing as how our mother is dead and many folks have nothing but a… dented pot. I shouldn’t think it matters what a person is or does, nor how distant she is to us as kin, so long as there’s a roof over our heads. For which we are grateful.”
James’s mother nodded at Pie. “Your sister has quite a tongue.”
Pie beseeched James with her eyes. He had yet to let go of that foolish pot.
“Here, let me walk you, Pie,” he said, clearly wishing to get away from his mother and, no doubt, away from me.
“Well,” his mother sniped as the pair of lovers walked away. “Our mortification never seems to end.”
“No,” I agreed, “it doesn’t.”
And with that, I excused myself and took my foul mood to look for Ricky. I called to him until I was hoarse. But he wasn’t in the tall trees at the top and he wasn’t in the scrub at the base of the hill. He wasn’t anywhere.
I waited for Pie on the corner nearest the house. Large flakes of soot floated around me, blanketing the grass and my hair and shoulders. It was snowing the bones of the city.
At last she appeared and I could see at a distance that she’d been crying.
“What. What did he say?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“Oh, V, I am so stupid. I thought he was—”
“Kind. Maybe he was, Pie. No one is who they used to be. What did he say?”
“He said he has nothing—no money, no store—nothing to offer me. I said it didn’t matter. He, he didn’t agree. I said of course you and your sisters and mother must come and take shelter in Rose’s house, with us. He said his mother would never allow it. He said he wouldn’t allow it.” Pie wrung her hands, pulling at them as she went on. “He said now that his mother has a clearer sense of me, she’ll never agree to our arrangement. She’s lost everything, he said—”
“Stupid cow.”
“James said he couldn’t… possibly add to her sorrow.” Pie wept. “Then I said, What about my sorrow, James? What about my sorrow?”
“Yeah, and what did he say to that?”
She was shaking all over. “He said… oh, my pretty Pie.”
I took her home to Rose’s and put her in one of the fancy guest beds, where she cried herself to sleep. By morning the ash and smoke were so thick, they blocked the sun.
To See the Mayor
At that time, Mayor Schmitz had two houses: a mansion in Pacific Heights and the house they’d left Francisco Street for, a modest Victorian, halfway up the hill. Several months before the quake, with the indictments imminent, the Schmitzes decamped to their smaller house—to show that the mayor was still half humble, and not a criminal living in a castle.
From Rose’s house, it was a straight pitch down. I had to hold tight to Pie’s hand, lest we trip.
There were soldiers on horseback guarding the house, and police on foot, and still more posted at the mayor’s front door. Half a dozen soldiers were smoking on the grass inside the short iron fence. The soldiers ignored the cops and the cops shunned the soldiers, who were strangers to our city. Yet soldiers and cops alike watched our backsides as we climbed the stairs to the mayor’s door.
Pie dipped her chin so as not to meet their eager gazes.
“Pie!” Eugenie cried as we passed into the foyer. The two girls collapsed in a heap on the hall stairs and began at once to confess their hearts. There was too much to cover: the quake and fire; Morie’s death, our house, and James—awful James. On Eugenie’s side, there was the miraculous reprieve the mayor had been granted, for which Eugenie had devoted months of prayer. It was all too much.
When Eugenie asked, “Where did you disappear to?” Pie had a well-timed coughing fit, and Eugenie rushed to get her a glass of water.
Julia Schmitz, the mayor’s wife, pulled me aside—with the house full of strangers, there was no place to talk but in the packed front hall. She paid her respects regarding Morie, and I thanked her and hoped I wouldn’t have to say more. My heart was the opposite of shut: it was a house of feeling with no walls or doors.
Julia Schmitz, being a practical woman and no fool, understood. She had her own troubles. When the quake hit, she and Schmitz had been lying in bed, talking about what she and the children should do if he were sent to jail that morning.
Knowing that I didn’t care to linger on my losses or hers, Julia Schmitz turned our attention to the dozens of men crowding her parlor. Men in coats, their faces recognizable from the papers.
A stink pervaded the rooms and I couldn’t decide where it was coming
