Chapter 25
A Familiar Face
Into the editor’s office walked a tall young man, carrying a stack of papers. He wore a cap tilted to the right down over his forehead, which kept me from being able to see his eyes at first, though there was immediately something familiar about the way he walked and the few blond curls coming out from beneath his cap.
The instant he spoke I remembered the voice as if I had just heard it yesterday!
“Mr. Kemble,” he said, “I’ve got those files you asked me to dig up on—”
He stopped, apparently just as surprised to see me as I was him.
“If I didn’t know better . . .” he said, pausing to look me over from head to foot. I couldn’t think of a single word to utter as I stood there, probably with my mouth hanging open.
“It is the girl from off in the backwoods gold country!” he finally exclaimed. “Are you still trying to get into the reporting game?”
“You two know each other, O’Flaridy?” asked a bewildered Mr. Kemble.
“We ran into each other a couple years back, though I can’t remember your name,” he added, looking again at me.
“Robin O’Flaridy, meet Corrie Belle Hollister,” said Mr. Kemble.
“Hollister, that’s it!” he said. “Miracle Springs, right?”
I smiled and nodded. “It looks as though you’ve moved up a few notches from delivering papers yourself,” I said. “Are you really a reporter now?”
He shifted his weight onto his other foot, as if he was embarrassed for the editor to hear me ask the question, and the pause gave me a quick chance to assess the changes that had come over the first acquaintance I had ever made in San Francisco.
In the last three years, Robin O’Flaridy had shot up, and stood a good head taller than me. But he was still lean, with a smooth face and blond hair, though a bit darker than before. And his voice, though not boyish, was still high-pitched for a man. All that made it just as hard to tell his age as the first time I had seen him as a scrappy kid delivering papers and hanging around hotels. I figured him for twenty or twenty-one, and he certainly looked as at home and comfortable in the offices of the Alta as he had in the lobby of the Oriental Hotel. Maybe he hadn’t been exaggerating as much as I thought back then about his association with the paper. He seemed every bit the newsman now.
“Of course I’m a reporter,” he answered, a little defensively I thought. “I told you that back then.”
“Don’t listen to a word he tells you, Miss Hollister,” laughed Mr. Kemble. “To hear him talk, you’d think the Alta couldn’t possibly put out a single edition without him. But he does occasionally bring me something I can use.”
Robin’s neck reddened slightly. He tried to get the conversation off himself. “So I take it you’re here because you still hope to write for a newspaper someday, eh? But I can tell you from experience, just being a pretty face won’t get you anywhere with this editor!” He grinned and threw Mr. Kemble a wink.
“Now don’t get too cocky, O’Flaridy!” said the editor. “Miss Hollister has already written several articles for us—a couple of them have appeared back East. You may have seen the name C.B. Hollister.”
If Robin was surprised, even halfway impressed, he wasn’t about to let it show.
“What do you know about that!” he said. “So you’ve moved up from that other rag from the sticks! Good going, Hollister!” He gave me a slap on the back.
Now I remembered what had so irritated me about Robin O’Flaridy before. I smiled, but my heart wasn’t in it. My Belle blood was flowing again!
“Careful, O’Flaridy, she may be taking your job someday! I was just about to offer her three articles on an election they’re having up her way,” said Mr. Kemble. “That’s besides the two I’ve already got in the files. Can’t recall you ever bringing me good writing quite so fast as that.” He was kidding Robin O’Flaridy, that much I could tell from his tone, but whether he was being serious about my writing or making fun of me—that I couldn’t tell.
“Three articles, huh!” he said. “That is something! I guess I better get my pencil busy. I can’t let some girl cub reporter from out in the hills of the Mother Lode show me up!”
He set the files on Mr. Kemble’s desk and then turned to leave. “See you around, Hollister!”
“Well, I think that about concludes our business too,” the editor said to me before O’Flaridy was even out the door. “A dollar an article, as agreed. When will I see the first piece?”
“Uh . . . in a week or two,” I said, trying to get my mind back on what I had come for and off the surprise interruption by Robin O’Flaridy.
Mr. Kemble stood up behind his desk and offered his hand. I shook it.
“Good day, Miss Hollister,” he said.
I turned and left his office, my mind half numb from all that had gone on inside, part of me thinking of the things I had intended to say to Mr. Kemble but hadn’t. The whole interview now seemed awkward, even though I had accomplished what I’d wanted—he now knew who I really was, and he had agreed to let me write about the election. But somehow I still felt unsettled inside.
“Hey, Hollister, where you staying?” said the familiar voice of Robin O’Flaridy from where he was leaning against the wall of the hallway, apparently waiting for me.
I told him, then began walking toward the door where I had entered the building. He pushed himself off the wall, skipped a couple of steps to catch up with me, then continued to walk alongside me.
“That older lady with you again?” he asked.
“No.”
“You came to the big city alone, eh?”
“That’s right.”
“And how long you planning to be around?”
I said I didn’t know. To be honest, I had thought about remaining for another day or two. It was such an adventure being there on my own, I wanted to see a little of the city. However, I wasn’t so sure I wanted Robin O’Flaridy escorting me around—even with his blue eyes, blond curls, and air of confidence, as if he considered the whole city and everything in it his own personal domain. I suppose most nineteen-year-old girls would have been dazzled and flattered. But something about his attentions caused me to squirm.
He started in telling me all about his latest escapades as he moved closer to my side. I felt his hand slip through my arm. Immediately I knew my cheeks were turning red.
“Say, how about I come over to Miss Sandy Loyd Bean’s Boarding House tonight,” he said; “and you and me, we’ll go out to dinner someplace, and then I’ll show you San Francisco by night?”
We were just about to the door. He opened it for me with his free hand, then continued on outside with me.
“What do you say, Corrie?”
“I . . . I don’t know—I’d made plans to eat with Miss Bean. I told her I’d be back for dinner. Besides, I couldn’t possibly go out with you—alone!”
“Aw, forget Miss Bean. You can eat a home-cooked meal anytime! And who needs a chaperon? Who’d ever know about it, anyway?” He laughed. “When else are you going to have an invitation to go out to a San Francisco restaurant with one of the city’s well-known journalists? You’re a good-looking girl and I’m not too bad-looking a fella, and it just seems right that we ought to spend some time together, you being here alone like you are. Especially with us both in the same profession now. What harm could there be in one evening of fun?”
“I really don’t think I ought—”
“Listen,” he said, cutting me off as I hailed a horse-drawn cab for myself from the corner of the block, “you talk to your Sandy Bean and put your mind at ease. I know she won’t mind your not being there once you explain that you ran into an old friend who invited you out for the evening. I’ll be by at seven o’clock.”
Without giving me an opportunity to say anything further, he took my hand, helped me up onto the cab seat, gave the cab driver fifty cents and told him where to take me, then turned back toward me, smiled, tipped his cap, and as the horse’s hoofs clopped off, said, “See you tonight!” He turned and pranced off down the street, obviously pleased with himself.