I drank that beer too. It was cool, the temperature of San Francisco, and delicious. It gave me the hiccups.
“Boo!” Alma exclaimed, and when that didn’t cure me, she added, “Don’t think about them anymore. Think on something else.”
“You do that a lot?” I said, hiccupping. “Think about something else?”
She gave me a long serious look. “How do you plan on getting on?”
I shrugged. “You know, everyone on Francisco Street wondered about you. You and your family disappeared.”
Alma found that amusing. She went on to tell me how she and her family spent the night in a suite at the Palace, paid for by AB Spreckels. When the Palace took fire the morning of the quake, they made a dash for it, ending up in Golden Gate Park, along with thousands of refugees.
“I figure, while I’m there, I might as well be useful,” she said. “I set up a school for the kids. Mostly, I’m teaching them to draw. What we need are desks. And who better to help a girl move some furniture around than a few strong navy boys?” She shrugged. “It’s okay, there are more where those came from. And as for that burglar, he deserved it. He absolutely did.” She smiled as she took back her handkerchief and slipped it into her sleeve. “Hey, you. Listen. Listen to ol’ Alma. Times are tough and they’re going to get a whole lot worse, by my reckoning. Girls like us can only afford to be soft in one or two places. All right, pet?”
“Are you always so sure?”
Alma thought about it for exactly a second. “Yes, yes, I am.” We both laughed, for we were both just putting it on most of the time, and that was a secret we shared.
“Have you seen Spreckels since the quake?”
“AB?” She hesitated. “We had a row after the opera. I let him know I’m getting impatient.” She took a long pull of her beer. “I think I overplayed my hand.”
“How long have you two—”
Alma shook her head, so I didn’t press it. She reached into her bag for a pack of Murads, lit one, and offered it to me.
“Thanks,” I said. I cursed, I drank beer, I smoked—sure I did. I watched Alma to see how it was done.
She took a long drag and held the smoke much longer than I thought humanly possible. She exhaled like a dragon, from the spouts of her mouth and nose.
“Three years,” she said. “He won’t marry me. He thinks I’m lowbrow.”
“Of course he’ll marry you. Anyone with eyeballs would marry you.”
Alma thought that was very funny. “Let me tell you something, pet. This town can burn to the ground, but the very last weed standing will be some rich matron’s sense of the proper social order. And the proper social order will never abide you and me. Dah-ling, you don’t marry the nudie artists’ model, not if you’re a Spreckels.”
“Then he’s an idiot,” I said emphatically.
“That’s lovely, but no. AB is the best man I’ve ever met.” And she showed me her face, her real face, besotted. “He is as far from a fool as I’m likely to know. Of course,” she added, “he’s also filthy rich.” And we laughed at that too.
“So long as we’re making our confessions,” Alma said, “how is it you know Rose, pet? I’ve been curious since I saw you on the arm of ol’ Hank.”
“I can’t tell you,” I said, not because I didn’t trust her, but because I didn’t trust myself enough to consider trusting someone else.
“Oh, I’m sure you can,” Alma replied, and took a long drag of her cigarette while she worked out the next scene in the play that was my life. When she finished the cigarette, she tossed it behind her, a gesture both careless and practiced. She was the kind of girl who tossed things over her shoulder yet knew exactly where they landed. I had a lot to learn from her.
“Your mother,” she said, thinking aloud, “the dried-up svenska, my father used to call her. I’m sorry, it’s rude to speak ill of the dead.”
“It’s okay,” I assured her. “Morie called your father the worthless Dane.”
We smiled at each other.
Alma puckered her lips. “You look nothing like her. And you aren’t like them, spirit-wise either. Pie is a sweet thing,” she said. “Standard pretty. You have nothing in common with her.”
“I guess I’m the black sheep.”
“I don’t think so. No.” She tapped me on the knee. “Listen, if we’re to be friends—let’s agree, friends, shall we? I need one friend and I think you’ll be it. I can promise you I have no allegiances other than to myself, and I don’t fib, unless absolutely necessary, and I don’t gossip,” she declared. “In fact, I despise gossips. What about you? You’re awfully young to have no shoulder to cry on. I mean, other than that dog. By the way, where is he? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without him.”
“He’s at the house.” I paused. “Rose’s house.”
“Ah, there, see.” She nodded, proud of me. “Are you going to tell me that story, or should I guess? I’m pretty good at guessing… and, by the by, you have her nose and hair. Has no one mentioned that? Very straight on, distinctive. If someone were to draw you, they would figure out in a second that you were hers.”
“I can assure you, no one’s ever drawn me,” I said.
“Ah, not yet.” With that, Alma finished her beer. “I might, one day. You’re not pretty and you have no idea how to dress, but with help you could be… hmm… striking. That’s almost better than pretty, you’ll see. Say, are you going to smoke that thing or stare at it? Here.” She plucked the cig from me and added it to her pack. Then she stood and arranged her blouse so it hung right, and said, “Okay, another day we’ll tell our secrets. Right now I need to find me some sailors.
