The Tolling of Mercedes Bell: A Novel (9 page)

She saw Jack emerge from an elevator, head and shoulders taller than everyone around him. He was escorting an elderly woman in a fur coat toward the exit. Catching sight of Mercedes, he nodded and waved as he held the door for his client.

Some hours later, her briefcase packed with file copies, she returned to the office building, where Jack happened to be waiting for the elevator in the lobby.

“Are you following me?” he asked in his low voice.

“No, I’m not,” she said with a smirk. “Darrel sent me on a mission and it wasn’t to follow
you.”

“Big mistake. Oh well. Did you get my note this morning?”

“You mean your valentine?”

“It was
not
a valentine. Valentines have hearts on them. Did you
read
it?”

“Yes, counselor, I did.”

“Remind me never to put you on the witness stand. Was there a question in my note?”

The elevator arrived. “Yes, there was, and yes, I’d love to go.” She leaned coquettishly against the wood paneling inside.

“Are you going to make things difficult?” he asked, grinning.

“Probably.”

“Just as I suspected.”

“You’re the one who sent the valentine.”

“It was
not
a valentine.”

The doors opened. They stepped off together and walked past Julie at the front desk without saying another word.

O
N SUNDAY MORNING SHE LAY
wide awake at 6 a.m., despite her best efforts to sleep in. Germaine was at a slumber party and would be there until late afternoon. She gave up the pretense of luxuriating in bed and began the day’s yoga. Soon her breathing and concentration quieted her thoughts.

As she was getting ready, she kept telling herself it was just another day, that she was just going to have a new experience with a nice guy from the office. She’d never been to Belvedere but knew its reputation for exclusivity. She pulled on her well-worn corduroy jacket and locked the door behind her.

Her car started on the second try. No one was out on the street yet and shades were drawn on most of the neighbors’ windows. The sky was overcast. Surveying her surroundings, she was glad that she was taking the train into San Francisco to meet Jack instead of letting him pick her up, as he had offered. Although the round-trip train fare was possible only because of careful budgeting—something Jack probably could never imagine—concealing the fact that she lived in the ghetto was important.

The aftermath of a typical Saturday night was on display at the neighborhood “park”—a slab of concrete abutting a cinder-block wall, a sandbox full of dirt mixed with sand, bottle caps, pop tops, and probably a used syringe or two. Empty liquor bottles, some of them smashed to bits against the wall, littered the area, along with countless cigarette butts and assorted rubbish. A man in greasy clothes lay motionless on a park bench, his arm over his eyes to block
the morning light. A collarless mongrel sniffed at the bench and lifted his leg.

W
HEN SHE EMERGED FROM THE
train at Civic Center station, Jack was waiting for her at the top of the escalator. He reminded her of Cary Grant. He looked rested and ready for a date in his cobalt blue jacket, fine black slacks, and highly polished shoes.

She looked into his face and smiled. He guided her by the elbow to his shiny black Mercedes, which still had the new-car smell. He opened the sunroof, and they were off, heading north toward Tiburon and Belvedere. He popped a Joan Armatrading tape into the cassette player and music seemed to come from everywhere at once.

After they turned off the freeway, the traffic noise faded in the distance. The fog was in retreat; sunlight splashed on the roofs and roads in the hamlets they passed. They were on a small peninsula that jutted into San Francisco Bay, with idyllic coves for the yacht club marina and a ferry landing. The waterfront was both quaint and cosmopolitan, like pictures of the French Riviera. Jack snuck peeks at her profile as she stared out the window.

A paved walking trail hugged the shore. Passersby walked dogs and pushed strollers. Old people sat on the occasional bench to enjoy the view of the Golden Gate Bridge and sailboat traffic.

Jack turned left and the car began to climb a narrow roadway. Multimillion-dollar homes lined both sides of the street. Some were several stories high; all had decks facing the spellbinding panorama of the harbor below and the city of San Francisco.

Mercedes took stock of her boots, sweater and slacks, unpolished fingernails, and dry hands, roughened by housework. She considered how she would appear to her hosts. She smoothed the hair on the back of her head.

“Mercedes,” he said, “you of all people shouldn’t be worried about how you look. I can’t imagine a setting that would not be improved by your presence.”

She looked at him, shocked by the statement and embarrassed that her thoughts had been so transparent.

He parked at the top of the hill. She got out of the car and viewed the harbor below. Filling her lungs with fresh ocean air, she caught the scent of eucalyptus and wood smoke in the breeze. Jack came around, engulfed her hand in his and led her past a multiplecar garage built into the hill beneath a mansion. The touch of his hand guiding her up a wide stone staircase made her feel as though she were floating past all the colorful flowerpots lining the way. Stone lions stood on either side of the massive front door.

A boyish, ebullient man answered the door, and clapped Jack on the back. Gabe Harrow looked younger than Mercedes had expected, with thick ash-blond hair. He shook her hand and said graciously, “Welcome to our home, Mercedes.”

Then a short woman appeared, in a salmon-colored top with lipstick to match. She opened her arms to Jack, who bent down to hug her and receive a gooey kiss on his cheek. Scanning Mercedes’s figure from head to toe, she said, “Hi, I’m Kitty.”

They were led into a grand drawing room flooded with light from numerous picture windows. Redwood beams ran the forty-foot length of the ceiling. Gabe poured a round of mimosas and asked Jack how his friend, Janine, was doing.

Kitty led Mercedes into a chef’s kitchen with terracotta walls and exquisite cabinetry. There was generous work space on either side of an enormous six-burner gas stove, and there were sinks in two locations. A full set of the finest French copper cookware hung from a rack over a center island. Wood-framed windows faced the gardens and hillside.

“You must have so much fun in this kitchen!” Mercedes exclaimed. “I would spend half my life in here—and it looks like you’ve been working for hours on our lunch.” She spied the commercial Italian espresso machine and sighed with pleasure.

Kitty wrinkled up her nose. “Actually, I don’t like to cook at all, as Gabe will gladly tell you. In the kitchen, I’m an accident waiting to happen. Marjorie brought in the food a little while ago. She does a good job.”

To continue showing off her home, Kitty led Mercedes upstairs. Two children—Brandon, five, and Molly, eight—peered cautiously out of their bedrooms. Each had brown hair, unremarkable features, sour expressions, and very expensive-looking clothes. Mercedes bent down to introduce herself, but neither child replied.

“Uncle Jack is downstairs,” Kitty announced brightly. As though a fuse had been lit under their sullen little bottoms, Brandon and Molly bolted down the staircase.

Mercedes followed Kitty past bedrooms, alcoves, and bathrooms out onto the third deck outside the master suite at the top of their castle.

“How long have you lived here?” she asked her hostess.

“We built the house about ten years ago, just after we were married. It’s kept me pretty busy, and then of course the kids came along.”

They descended the staircase just in time to see Jack on all fours with both children screaming in delight, riding his back. As Mercedes set foot on the landing, Gabe saw pleasure spread across her face.

Jack roared and made a sharp turn, nearly losing the children in the process. He headed straight for Mercedes, lowered himself, and dumped Molly and Brandon at her feet, amidst their loud protests.

Gabe stepped forward and interceded. “Mercedes, allow me to show you the best room of all.”

He led her, followed by Jack, across an exquisite Bokhara tribal carpet to a doorway at the far end of the living room. Beyond it was a room paneled with walnut and lined with shelves of books, save for a few open areas where fine paintings were on display. Behind Gabe’s antique desk was a portrait-sized, signed photograph of President Reagan. A leather sofa was positioned in front of the hearth and fireplace. A brass ship’s clock sat on the mantel beneath a portrait of an elderly gentleman from a previous century. She looked at the inviting couch with its well-placed reading lamps and ottomans. She imagined reading to Germaine there for hours, in front of the fire on a rainy night.

With wonder on her face she went to the books, many of which were old leather-bound volumes of classics. Mercedes grew mesmerized by the treasure trove of first editions.

“I think we’ve lost her,” Gabe said to Jack, who watched his date move from shelf to shelf. She stopped before Gabe’s impressive collection of books on religion and philosophy, and pulled out
The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali,
which shared a shelf with Paul Tillich’s
Systematic Theology
and Teilhard de Chardin’s
Phenomenon of Man.

“I can’t believe that of all the books here, that’s the first one you take off the shelf,” said Gabe. He looked at Jack. “Where did you find this woman?”

“I used to own this exact translation,” she explained, “but I lent it to someone who never returned it. I’ve searched for it in many stores since, but have never been able to find it. I never thought I’d see it again. I can’t believe you have this, Gabe!”

She went to the shelves of poetry and selected a volume of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Without opening it she recited “First Fig”:

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—

It gives a lovely light!

Jack had a gleam in his eye. “We’d better get you away from that bookcase.”

She reshelved the books and sighed. The library made her ache. “This
is
the best room,” she said quietly.

“Let’s go see whether Kitty and the kids have torched lunch or actually gotten it on the table,” Gabe said brightly.

Mercedes helped Kitty carry the dishes to the table. Immediately the children abandoned their duties and began running in circles around Jack. Kitty yelled at them, to no effect. Gabe poured out the next round of mimosas. Jack grabbed a child under each arm, which made them both holler more loudly. He asked Gabe where the garbage can was. The children flailed and squealed with joy.

They sat at the rectangular dining room table, which was set with old, ornate sterling silver flatware. The food was delicious, although difficult to savor amidst the racket of the ill-behaved children and their mother’s alternate cajoling and yelling. Jack and Gabe carried on, ignoring the noise, catching up on the news about their friends, especially Damon Vanderveer, a psychologist, and Murielle Hand, a psychiatrist.

Gabe told Mercedes about Jack in law school—how he hadn’t been the best student in the class but had excelled at extracurricular activities, like making money in the foreign currency market, partying, and traveling in Europe.

Kitty piped up, “So, Mercedes, where did you go to college? Tell us a little about your family.”

“I graduated from Colorado College, where I studied religion,
philosophy, and English literature. Not the most practical education, I suppose, but it’s what I’m interested in.”

Gabe nodded and threw a look at Jack.

“My parents live in Boston now, but we moved around while I was growing up. My father is an engineer. My mother never worked outside the home. I have a nine-year-old daughter named Germaine Llewellyn.”

Molly perked up. She looked at Mercedes and then at Jack, who winked at her.

“We live in Oakland. I met Jack at the office where I’m a paralegal.”

The conversation turned to interests outside of work. “Kitty’s got a new project,” Gabe interjected. “She’s been doing genealogical research so she can join the DAR—Daughters of the American Revolution.” Mercedes thought she detected a taunt in his voice and wasn’t sure at whom it was directed.