Authors: Shirley Streshinsky
"Should I go?" Kit asked at dinner last evening.
"Suit yourself," Willa answered flippantly, "it might be nice to know what else Wen is up to these days—besides suing his mother."
Thad looked up then and told us, to our embarrassment, a story about a time when he and Wen went into Boston together in search of a house of ill repute. Wen told Thad it would make a man of him.
Thad's memories are confined to the years before he finished school. He seems to be fixed in that time when a boy is becoming a man. His sense of humor is puerile at best, he laughs at inappropriate times, he is awkward and shy in the presence of strangers. At the same time he is anxious to please. He is both sweet and pathetic. We protect him as best we can—from strangers, from himself, and from the elements. He has grown increasingly thin and has been sick several times this winter. I am always amazed to see him in heavy sweaters, even on the warmest of days.
April 7, 1930:
Disaster. There is no other word. Charlie Rich is in the county jail. Criminal charges have been brought against him for mismanaging his clients' finances. He used the monies he collected for his own speculations, and lost it all. Willa reels under this latest blow. Troubles pile on troubles. She trusted him and I did not, not for a minute, but it would be cruel to say so. I cannot for the life of me understand how people can be so willing to believe charlatans. Willa is not his only victim. Can they have such a terrible need to believe what they want to believe, to hear
what they want to hear? Now Willa must meet the heavy interest payments on the loan she took out for all those improvements at the same time that more and more of the people who turned money over to Charlie are demanding it back, claiming breach of contract. It is all so complicated. But Willa must make good, that much is clear. The money Charlie took is long gone. She is forced to sell more securities, and take a terrible loss.
Kit works night and day, trying to salvage something from this mess. Willa walks around and around, never sitting, at one moment looking as if she would like nothing so much as to take a whip to the county jail and apply it to the soft white hide of Charlie Rich, and the next instant she is so filled with self-loathing that she cannot bear to have anyone look at her.
In exasperation I told her, "I prefer Horsewhip Willa to Tail-Between-the-Legs Willa," and she sat down hard on a crate and cried straight out, not even bothering to cover her face. After that I rummaged around in her desk until I found the last of the notebooks she had done on the falcons. The covers were coated with dust, it has been that long since she worked in them. I told her it was time she got back to the peregrines, and to my surprise she agreed.
But I get ahead of myself. Before all this awful business with Charlie Rich, Kit paid a courtesy call at Wen's home and reported that while Abby is as sour as ever, the girls are quite delightful. They seemed happy that she had come, and asked about us. Caroline, who is sixteen, is the prettier of the two, Kit said, but it was clear that it was fourteen-year-old Lucy who caught her fancy.
Kit described Lucy as a pale child, small for her years, with straight hair and an even straighter back. She has a scar on her forehead near the hairline, memento of a fall from a horse, which she wears as a point of pride, pulling her hair back so that it can be admired. Her legs are so thin that her stockings sag, and Kit noticed they were of two slightly different shades of beige, the sort of calculated carelessness designed to ruffle a mother's feathers, which it did.
"I got the distinct impression," Kit laughed, "that Abby would have liked to lock her in the nearest closet."
"Spunky girls run in the family," I noted. "I'll bet her grandmother would like her."
"I think so too." Kit told me, "and she would be good for Mother right now. Besides, Wen's children could be the only grandchildren she is going to have, so it would be a pity not to know them. I'd like to arrange a visit. I've already sounded Wen out . . ."
"What did he say?"
Kit mimicked Wen's stolid delivery: "I very much approve of the way you've taken over the reins of the family business, and I hear that you do admirably up in San Francisco, managing your late husband's holdings . . . I would, of course, be glad to put the good offices of my firm at your disposal . . ." She smiled, adding wryly, "I think Wen is counting on being the only Reade of our generation to produce heirs, and he would like his heirs to be ours . . ."
"In other words?"
"The girls may come at our convenience."
"Did you set a date?"
"If Mother agrees, next Sunday."
But as I said, the Charlie Rich debate exploded since then, and I haven't the slightest notion what lies in wait now.
April 14, 1930:
This past week has been a bother. Willa and Kit are in town every day, all day long, trying to salvage what they can of the Charlie Rich mess. That, coupled with the generally dreary state of the economy, makes these dark days. Some say the worst is yet to come. In some perverse way, Willa seems to take heart from the nation's gathering woes. "I'm not the only one in trouble," she says, "a lot of us are in this together." I feel like hitting her when she says that. To think she has the gall to compare herself to those poor souls who are in far worse straits, and have had nothing at all to do with getting themselves there. They are the real victims. To be honest, however, I suppose I am most vexed because she wouldn't listen when I warned her about Charlie.
Like everything else, it is going to take time to sort out just how much damage has been done. According to Kit, Joseph feels the Charlie Rich business is a setback, but not a crippling blow. It has had one concrete effect, however. Finally, Willa is convinced she should stop work on the Casa Blanca.
When Wen's girls arrived on Sunday, their grandmother had regained enough of her composure to give them a tour of the house. Caroline was interested in the decorations, while Lucy wanted nothing more than to get out to the barns and the countryside, and would have been pleased to see the whole of the ranch in a day's time, had that been humanly possible. Willa has promised to cover it with her on horseback when school is out next month, if it is agreeable to her parents. From the look on Lucy's face, I sincerely doubt that either Wen or Abby would be able to stop her from coming. By the end of the day, she and Willa were chattering like old friends. I can always tell when Willa takes to someone. She gets quite excited. It has been a long time since she has allowed anyone new into her life, and I, for one, am glad. They will be good for each other, I suspect. Lucy is as plain as an old shoe, but there is something about her that is fetching. I am glad for yesterday. The girls offered us a small island of pleasure in dreary times.
June 8, 1931: San Francisco.
The gloom gathers, the trouble deepens. Discontent lies like a gray fog over everything, though admittedly, one is hard put to see the real turbulence from the vantage point of the Malibu, or Nob Hill. Even so, the bright sun and the sea at Malibu seemed to mock everything, so I came to San Francisco to escape the heat, to hide in the summer fog. Kit is here too, tending to business. She has become a regular traveler on the overnight train. I think I prefer the night train these days. During the daylight, it is too easy to see—in those places where the railroad parallels the highway—the steady stream of refugees, that is all one can call them, pouring into California in search of work.
I am happy to report that Porter, at least, is feeling hopeful. The Wobblies are back in force, pricking the conscience of those who have called for reform, and this time the workers are listening. The International Longshoremen's Union is witnessing a revival, and Porter is in the midst of it all.
It does seem strange to me, and I told Porter this, that the men should choose this time to ask for what, admittedly, they are due: better pay, shorter working hours, a guaranteed number of hours each week. But to ask for it when company profits are down and the depression deepens, I don't know. It doesn't seem to make much sense. Porter says that it does. He insists that there would not be a depression had not wages for all workers been so low. It was, he says, a case of too many goods being produced and too few people able to buy them. The unemployment figures have been hovering at twenty percent . . . dreadfully high, and now they are up to twenty-five percent, one out of four workers.
In the meantime, Porter skitters up and down the coast between ports—Tacoma and Aberdeen, Stockton and San Diego— exhorting the men to stand together. "You are twelve thousand strong and you are the lifeblood of the docks," he shouts to them. "If we stand together, we can make the owners listen. The time for change is now."
And they cheer for him and shout and raise their fists.
Porter has heard from Ch'ing-Ling. She is living in Hawaii now, he told me, with her father's eldest brother and his family.
"Have you thought about seeing her again?" I asked. The look that flashed over his face said more than words ever could, and for the first time I glimpsed the depth of his longing for her.
"It would be more difficult to see her now," he said. "The elder uncle is much more traditional than her father. He would never permit me to call on her."
"And Ch'ing-Ling, does she want to see you?" I probed.
He nodded, clasping and unclasping his hands as he often did when struggling with strong emotions.
"Would she defy her uncle?" I asked.
"I don't know," he answered. "It would be difficult for her. I don't even know if I have the right to ask it of her."
"You'll find a way, Porter," I told him. It was all I could think to say.
September 22, 1931:
Thad is in the hospital in Santa Monica. He weighs little more than one hundred pounds, and his lungs are weak as a result of the gassing during the war. Wen has been to the hospital several times, and I believe his concern is genuine.
It seemed a good time to tell him how much we enjoy Lucy's company at the ranch. "Lucy, well, yes," he said, as if the subject were not agreeable, "she seems to be fond of her grandmother. I think she is the only one who is. As Abby says, they deserve each other."
I was shocked and dismayed that he would speak so to me, not only about Willa but about his own daughter. Still, I held my tongue. I did not want to do anything that might hurt Lucy and Willa's friendship.
"Do you suppose Lucy might like to come north with me, the next time I go to San Francisco?" I asked. "Caroline is welcome too, of course."
"Oh, Caroline's busy all the time," he answered, "but Lucy can go. It would give us a bit of peace, to tell the truth."
I held my smile. Lucy had already let us know how she felt about her parents, her mother especially. I suppose I shouldn't be shocked at Wen, when the child is just as acid in discussing her parents. "I'm not much interested in Mother," she said one day, "because Mother is not very interesting. And don't tell me that is an arrogant and a rude thing to say about one's own mother, because I know it is."
I don't know why I like the little hoyden so much, but I do. And I believe she is blossoming under our wing. Speaking of which—the most wonderful thing has happened. Lucy, it turns out, has become fascinated with birds, not raptors so much as the shore birds that flock into the lagoon near the old pier. She is undertaking
to catalog them, with Willa's expert guidance. In return, she goes hawking with Willa—always on horseback. Lucy loves to ride.
December 7, 1931, San Francisco.
Lucy is on school vacation, so Kit and I brought her with us to the city. Willa had promised to come but, as usual, she found an excuse to stay on at the ranch. I thought that Lucy was going to stay with her, such was her disappointment. But in the end, she came.
Kit took her to the salon at the City of Paris and had her hair penned, then she bought her quite a beautiful, grownup dress and she is almost pretty. Porter calls her "Little Poker Face" but she seems to like it. Rather, she likes Porter. I do believe she is quite smitten, but we try not to let her know we notice.
Sara suffers from arthritis; it affects her hands and impedes her work. She spends several hours each day exercising, bathing, and massaging her hands in an effort to keep them supple, but I fear it helps little.
I am worried about her. For the first time, she is succumbing to periods of depression. She has even said that perhaps it would be best if she gave up painting altogether. In desperation, I have offered to sit for a portrait. She accepted, but not until she had scolded me for fully an hour, saying such things as "now that my hands won't work properly, you agree. After all my years of pleading, now that I can't do you justice, isn't that just like you, Lena Kerr . . . to wait until my hands are crippled?"
Her ranting drove me to such distraction that finally I said, "Now that we're both cripples, maybe you will learn some patience."
I felt worse than awful when she answered, "I've always understood, Lena." We had a good cry together, after which Sara made a sensible schedule and I am to start sitting tomorrow. I had to agree to stay on as long as it would take. Anything to keep her at work.
Lucy must return to Los Angeles tomorrow, to her chagrin. She would like to live in San Francisco forever, she says melodramatically, looking at Porter.
Porter is oblivious. I have never seen him so distracted, and I thought I knew why. We were alone last evening for the first time. I approached the subject of his trip to Hawaii with care. "You were there three weeks," I reminded him, "can you tell me about it?"
He rose, clearly disturbed. He paced back and forth a few times, finally coming to rest by the window, looking down on California Street. For a while the only sound in the room was the continuously low singing hum of the cable on the street outside.