THE WHOLE TRUTH
Six weeks later, we were on the train north once more.
California was rather odd, I thought, looking out of the window. It was beautiful, yes, but it never changed. The sky and the sea were still blue, the many trees still green, and the houses still dotted the hills that rose to the east, but other than the temperature being warmer, it wasn’t much different in June from what I’d seen on that first journey in November.
In San Francisco, oddly, it wascolderthan it had been in November. A thick fog enveloped the city, and a cold wind blew down the artificial canyons created by the skyscrapers as Joe and I emerged from the cab on Bush Street and hurried through the revolving doors and into Joe’s father’s office building.
It was a handsome place, although ornamented only by a cornice at the top, and the floor of the lobby was marble. All of it looked quietly prosperous, like Mr. and Mrs. Stark’s home. Bourgeois, was the name for what the Starks were, but I didn’t think one used that word in the United States, or perhaps only as an insult? This I didn’t understand, for to be bourgeois was to be prosperous, comfortable, and perhaps abit conservative, and these things, the Starks most definitely were. One was meant to pretend, though, that social class didn’t exist in America, even when it so clearly did. Every person, as far as I could tell, considered himself “middle class,” except the very wealthy and the very poor. One could move between the classes; that was the difference. Money: the great equalizer. I approved of this, for it spurred one on rather than allowing one to sit back complacently and consider oneself free of the need for further effort. It was a verybustlingsort of country, and I was a rather bustling sort of person.
We rode up to the eighth floor in silence, staring at the back of the elevator operator. This was only the second time I’d been on an elevator, the first time being the hotel in New York, and my stomach dropped most oddly as we ascended. Or perhaps that was nerves. One white-gloved hand held my brown Collegiate notebook. The other, I had tucked through Joe’s arm.
“To the right,” Joe said when we stepped off and the brass doors closed behind us. I could hear a rattle of typewriters—“The typing pool,” he told me—but the noise faded as we walked down the carpeted hallway. Around another corner, and we stepped through a door into a windowless office where a rather severe-looking woman in a dark suit and spectacles rattled her own typewriter keys.
She stopped when we came in, smiled, and said, “Hello, Joe. It’s nice to see you back again. I kept you in my prayers.”
“Hi, Miss Forrest,” Joe said. “That was awfully nice of you. It worked, too, I guess: here I am.” He looked rather embarrassed. “How have you been? You haven’t met my wife, Marguerite. Miss Forrest is my dad’s lifeline, Marguerite. He’d be lost without her. Just ask.”
“Oh, you,” she said, looking rather flustered. “When you know very well that your father is a brilliant attorney. He’s ready for you. Let me just announce you.” She didn’t get up,though. Instead, she flipped a switch on a wooden box and said into a microphone, “Your son and his wife are here to see you.”
“Send them in,” a voice boomed from the box, and I jumped.
Mr. Stark was seated at a large desk in front of a window, a sheaf of documents and a pad of yellow paper before him. He stood when we entered, but looked a little harassed.
“Hi, Dad,” Joe said, and sat down. “Thanks for making the time.”
I felt rather foolish, for I had my hand out. I forgot much too often that Americans didnotshake hands at every meeting. Mr. Stark did shake it—what else could he do?—and we both sat.
“What can I do for you?” he asked. Some eagerness in his face, I thought. “Is this something to do with the marriage? You should really talk to Levy, down in?—”
“Dad,” Joe said. “Marguerite and I aren’t divorcing. We don’t need to talk to Levy.”
“Obviously, I didn’t mean that,” he said. (I was willing to bet hehadmeant it.) “I’m a little pressed at the moment, though. We need to file this motion by the end of the day.”
“But you made time for our divorce,” Joe said.
Mr. Stark waved that away. “What can I do for you?”
Joe said, “Marguerite will tell you.”
“Oh.” Mr. Stark looked nonplussed.
“I would like,” I said, in my most businesslike tones, “to sell the emerald necklace. But I believe, from asking at jewelry shops—I’ve been to three, and they all say the same—that I must contact a very important auction house for this. Sotheby’s or Christie’s, I understand, but both are based in London. They’ll have a representative in New York, though, for there are of course many very wealthy people in this country. I wish your help in finding the correct persons to talk to, for it israther complicated to make such calls, and a woman, especially a young one, is not so much believed as a man. Or perhaps I don’t mean ‘believed,’ precisely, but …”
“Taken seriously,” Joe said.
“Yes,” I said. “This. Lawyers, however, are always the most believed—are taken the most seriously—and you will know, too, how to ensure that everything is done properly. A telephone call, first, and then perhaps the sending of photographs? This part, the next steps, I don’t know, but I believe it must begin with telephone calls.”
“You carried that necklace through the city streets?” Mr. Stark asked.
“Well, yes. Certainly. How would I have transported it otherwise, so the jewelers could see it? And it’s been many places with me, you know, in the sleeve of my coat. Through Germany, to England, and on the ship, too, without the smallest difficulty. I believe it’s because I look rather young, and not wealthy. How would such a person be carrying anything of value?”
“Still,” Mr. Stark said. “You took a chance, showing it off like that.”
“But how else would I have learned what to do with it? In any case, that’s done, and the necklace is back in the bank. Can you help with the other?”
Mr. Stark’s face had softened, or lightened, or something, though he wasn’t smiling. He leaned forward a bit and said, “That’s a big step to take. May I ask why? Are you and Joe buying a car? A house? Planning for children?”
“No,” I said. “None of this is important to do now. I wish rather to make some investments with the money.”
