Henry stared straight ahead, and though he saw Goldie, he didn’t show it. The organ paused and, a moment later, began again with the bridal march. Mayumi appeared in the lacy pink dress that she despised, followed by three other bridesmaids and finally the bride herself, on the arm of her father. Her dress was lacy as well, with a prim collar, a shoulder-length veil, and a bouquet of carnations so large and pink and weighty that the fragile Akemi appeared in danger of toppling over with them. The girl moved slowly, eyes on the ground, and Goldie could almost believe she was counting her steps. Akemi did have a pretty face, as Henry had acknowledged, but she seemed wholly docile and without spark.

  Henry, from where he stood at the front of the church, saw these qualities in his bride as well. He had never looked at Akemi from any point of view that wasn’t completely objective. He didn’t love her; he didn’t hate her. His opinions were entirely reasoned and devoid of emotion. She was sweet and pretty enough. She would probably make an excellent wife. He didn’t compare Akemi to Goldie, because he didn’t consider the two in relation to each other. He loved one and he was marrying the other. From where he stood now, it seemed that the sunlight streaming in through the southern window fell like a beam directly onto Goldie’s face. Henry wasn’t a complete romantic, though. He maintained enough self-awareness to recognize that the effect was most likely a trick of his imagination.

  The reception took place in the church social hall downstairs. The guests sat at round tables, drinking tea and punch and helping themselves to cookies and dainty sandwiches arranged in artful designs on silver trays at the center of each table. Goldie and Rochelle found themselves at one of the two tables reserved for “professional acquaintances,” which was basically all the people who weren’t Japanese. One table consisted of Golden Gate Park officials who worked with the baron, and the other of Feld’s employees and Henry’s associates in the antiques trade. A few seats remained empty, including, notably, that of the Golden Gate Park supervisor, Mr. Banes, who, as a World War I veteran, was assumed to be too patriotic to attend such an occasion.

  Goldie sat between Alan Stevenson and Rochelle. Today, the qualities that had once attracted her to Alan—his exemplary sales record, his brown-haired, brown-eyed all-American good looks, his jokes about car racing and sailing—now struck her as terribly boring and indistinguishable from those of so many other San Francisco men. Rochelle, though, was delighted to have the chance to speak with a clean-cut non-Jew with excellent manners. She leaned forward on Goldie’s other side, employing her rusty conversational skills to engage his attention. “And are you a habitué of weddings, Mr. Stevenson?” she asked.

  “Unfortunately, never my own,” he responded with a mock self-pity that made Goldie sigh audibly with irritation.

  “I’m just sure you could find some lovely girl whenever you set your mind to it,” said Rochelle, who had retrieved her southern accent from the same mothball-laden chest out of which she had scrounged up her best brassiere.

  Alan Stevenson leaned a little closer toward Goldie now, the conversation bringing out a friskiness that he had rarely demonstrated during their lackadaisical romance. “You see, Rochelle,” he said, “lovely girls don’t seem to see me in the same way that I see them. I think I’m destined to be a bachelor for my entire life.”

  Rochelle gave him a sympathetic smile. “Oh, I doubt that. Take it from a married woman. You’ll find someone. Or maybe I should say, someone will find you.”

  While Rochelle laughed, Goldie felt the weight of Alan Stevenson’s shoulder pressing against hers. He had never been as ardent as she might have wanted, but he had continued to ask her on dates. She idly wondered if a wedding could bring out the same kind of longing in an unmarried man as it did in a single girl. She felt his fingers under the table, nimbly tapping against hers. A few months earlier, the effect might have been tremendous, but she felt annoyed by it now.

  At the front of the hall, the band struck up the tune of the first song. Alan stopped talking, listened to a few notes with his eyes closed, then opened them and looked at Goldie. The song was “You’d Be So Easy to Love,” and he crooned the words softly. Rochelle drummed her fingers against the table in accompaniment. Goldie turned her eyes downward and examined her nails.

  Rochelle encouraged Alan. “You’ve got to get her out there,” she said.

  He took Goldie’s hand. “Shall we?” he asked.

  Goldie watched the dance floor. “The bride and groom take the first dance,” she reminded him.

  And there they were. Henry and his bride had been stolidly moving around the hall, greeting guests at each of the tables. Now, halfway through the task, he stopped and took his new wife’s hand, leading her toward the dance floor. Akemi didn’t show any more vivacity than she had shown walking down the aisle, but at least she was smiling now.

  “Do you think she’s ever danced an American dance?” Alan asked, speaking softly enough that only Goldie and Rochelle could hear.

  “I hope she doesn’t trip,” Rochelle said.

  Goldie had no patience for this kind of chatter. “She’s been living in this country since she was seven.” She watched as Henry slid his arm around Akemi’s waist. They danced well together, with poise and precision, but no one could miss the formality between them. His hand rested high on her back, but well below the point at which her lacy collar stopped, revealing her bare skin. His gaze floated somewhere above her head. She stared into his chest.

  Rochelle said, “You could drive a truck between the two of them.”

  Other dancers had begun to take their places on the floor. Alan pulled Goldie along behind him, and soon she felt herself relax as she glided to the music. Whatever other emotions she might be experiencing, dancing could still give her joy. Alan moved with grace, too, and pulled her closer toward him. “It does seem a shame,” he sang into her ear, “that you can’t see your future with me.” His hand moved down her arm, then squeezed her fingers.

  “You flirt,” she said, not even bothering to look at him.

  Alan held her tighter. Her disdain inspired in him an interest that those earlier months of dogged conniving for his affections had never managed to secure. With a burst of drama, he twirled her. The novelty of the move surprised her and she laughed. Then, suddenly, they turned, and she found herself facing Henry directly. The two couples began to circle in each other’s orbit. “It’s a beautiful afternoon,” Alan announced, pulling Goldie closer. “You two have started something. Romance is in the air!”

  Akemi offered the same polite smile she’d been offering all afternoon. Henry looked at them, unable to say anything and equally unable to pull himself away. He made no attempt to disguise the emotion in his face. For the first time, his suffering gave Goldie no satisfaction. Instead, it nearly shattered her. And then she felt an enormous, unexpected anger well up inside. Why had he done such a thing? Why had he caused them both so much pain? Without Alan Stevenson’s strong arms around her, she might have slapped Henry across the face. But Alan was holding her. She turned her eyes toward him, lifted her hand to his cheek, and gently held it there. “My sweet boy!” she exclaimed. And then, just as suddenly, the music switched tempo and he swept her away.

  They were all drinking coffee when Henry and his bride finally arrived at their table. Rochelle, overcome by the sentiments of a wedding (even a Japanese one), fairly gushed over Akemi’s hair, dress, and suede shoes. “They’re so fetching!” she exclaimed.

  Alan, too, seemed taken. “You’re just as cute as a China doll,” he said.

  “And the gloves,” Rochelle said, “they’re so elegant.” Akemi’s giggle sounded like the tinkling of little bells. She held her fingers up shyly while Rochelle examined the gloves’ intricate lacework and patterning. For once, Goldie appreciated her sister, whose exclamations were so voluble that Goldie herself didn’t have to say a word.

  With all this attention focused on the bride, then, Goldie and Henry found themselves standing alone. “This is really divine,” she said, using her lightest tones.

  He smiled, but she could hear the words coming out of his frozen lips. “I’m dying,” he told her.

  She laughed then, loudly, throwing her head back as if she had heard a hilarious joke. To Goldie, it sounded like a scream, but no one else appeared to notice this odd exchange between the groom and the best friend of his sister. Whose devastation was worse, she wondered, Henry’s with his future sealed, or Goldie’s with hers so uncertain?

  After the wedding, Alan drove Rochelle home, and then he and Goldie headed south out of the city toward a little restaurant he knew in Pescadero. It was just after four o’clock. Though the sun set early in December, the sky remained so deceptively bright that it seemed the day would last forever. They rolled down the windows and turned up the radio, sending the notes of the Benny Goodman Orchestra flowing like a wake behind them on the narrow road.

  “The girl from Memphis needs to see the coast,” he told her as they rounded a bend and saw to their right the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

  “I can’t think of anything more perfect,” Goldie said, the buoyancy of her tone reflecting, to Alan at least, her wonder over the extraordinary vista. In reality, Goldie was not so much amazed by the view as grateful to have left behind the oppressive good cheer of the wedding. Even this relief, though, remained tempered by the fact that the man she loved was married.

  Alan drove with one hand, resting the other lightly on Goldie’s knee. He had been making such gestures all afternoon—a hand on her leg, a finger sliding along her neck, an arm resting across her shoulders. In the past, Alan Stevenson had always balanced a strong attraction for Goldie against a fear of entanglement. Despite his statements to Rochelle, he didn’t actually regard himself as a marrying kind of man, or at least not the kind to marry a charming but penniless Memphis Jew. Until now, he had taken Goldie out regularly but not very often, and never with the kind of eager attentions that would telegraph to a girl that he was in love. Lately, though, his rhythm had begun to change. Simply put, Alan Stevenson’s interest increased as Goldie’s waned. Her occasional requests for help at the perfume counter notwithstanding, she had neglected him, and he didn’t like it. He had gone to the wedding fully intending to woo her back.

  The road wound through the hills, the ocean always beside them. They rumbled past beaches and farmland, following the contours of the land to trace the edges of cliffs above the churning Pacific. “Don’t be scared,” Alan assured her. “Some girls get nervous on this road.”

  Goldie had been staring out the window without actually seeing anything. The sound of Alan’s voice brought her back to the present, and she forced herself to pay attention to the landscape. “Oh, my,” she said, gazing out toward the sea.

  She picked up his hand from her knee and, without really thinking about what she was doing, lifted it to her mouth and kissed each finger one by one. At that moment, Goldie was only vaguely aware of Alan’s presence. She understood, within the context of her own misery, that she needed him right now, which meant she had to demonstrate that she had not forgotten him entirely. Her own lack of feeling, however, caused her to seriously miscalculate the effect that a gesture like this could have on a man whose lust had grown increasingly less manageable as the day progressed. Those little taps of lip against finger left Alan Stevenson almost completely unwound. “Oh, Goldie,” he sighed.

  After about an hour, they turned off the highway, then followed a country road east toward Pescadero. At first Goldie saw nothing but farmland. Then, after a mile or so, the town appeared, and they pulled to a stop amid a run-down collection of buildings lining a dusty intersection. “The great restaurant is here?” she asked. It seemed like a long way to drive for so little.

  Alan grinned and pulled the keys out of the ignition. “Trust me,” he told her. Then he came around the side of the car and opened the door for her. It might have been a nothing town in Goldie’s eyes, but she did notice that expensive-looking cars filled every space along the street. Alan took her hand and led her toward a door.

  Inside, they walked through a carpeted vestibule and stepped down through a red velvet curtain into a large room arranged with tables set elegantly around a dance floor. Other diners already filled most of the seats. The men wore suits and smoking jackets, the women evening gowns, elbow-length gloves, high heels. Goldie still had on her outfit for the wedding, which was appropriate for a daytime ceremony and reception but made her look underdressed now. She lifted her hand to her head and smoothed down her hair.

  A maître d’ in a white tuxedo approached them. “Good evening, Mr. Stevenson,” he said. “Your regular table?”

  Alan nodded. He glanced at Goldie to see that she was impressed. They followed the maître d’ to a table on the edge of the dance floor. He pulled a chair out for Goldie, then handed them menus. Goldie glanced around the room. “I don’t even know the name of this restaurant,” she said.

  “Maestro’s Inn,” he told her. “Most people just call it Maestro’s.” He pulled a cigarette from his silver case and struck a match. “They call it the most famous place that no one ever talks about.”

  Now that her eyes had adjusted to the light, Goldie could more easily observe the scene around her. The restaurant, with its white linen, twinkling crystal, and lively band, seemed much like the other fine restaurants she had visited in San Francisco, but she sensed a difference in the atmosphere here. At other establishments, each table served as its own little planet of activity, with diners focused on the people they were with. Here, people seemed equally interested in diners at the tables surrounding them. They turned to observe each new party that stepped into the room. The mood was festive, but also edgy and distracted, and this combination gave the room an energy that Goldie found unfamiliar and intriguing.

  “It feels like something’s about to happen here,” she said. “Is there a show or something?”

  “Just dancing.” Alan kept his eyes on the menu. When he looked up, he leaned forward as if he were making her a tender offer. “You know, they serve lobster here. Would you like that?”

  Goldie felt no loyalty to her religion, but the idea of eating pork or shellfish still repelled her. “I love a good steak,” she told him.

  Alan had heard that lobster made women receptive, but when he failed to convince Goldie to try one, he settled for a couple of steaks, some baked potatoes, and a bottle of champagne to “celebrate the newlyweds.” The mention of the wedding made Goldie’s face, which had finally grown more attentive, turn vacant again. Alan wondered if she expected his efforts tonight to lead to a proposal. The idea concerned him, but he didn’t feel it necessary to alter his plans.

  They danced every song. The band was only a combo, but their sound was lively and confident, and they seemed to play every melody that Goldie had ever loved. Dancing offered a kind of salvation to her then. She didn’t have to think at all with Alan leading her across the floor. Together, they danced the Jitterbug, the Balboa, and the St. Louis Shag, stopping to eat only when the band took its breaks. As soon as they heard the musicians tuning up again, Goldie pulled Alan back onto the dance floor. Eventually their rainbow sherbet turned into forgotten little puddles in their crystal bowls.

  At about eight o’clock, the music slowed and the band slid into “Fools Rush In.” Alan pulled Goldie closer. She rested her head on his shoulder. He had taken off his jacket now, and his body, pressing against hers, gave off a heat that she found unexpectedly soothing. Goldie chided herself for her disappointment. Who had ever promised that anything wonderful would come her way? Don’t think about your empty pocket, Goldie’s mother had told her, think about finding that penny on the ground. Alan Stevenson was tall and handsome, Caucasian, manly, and ambitious. Every time an image of Henry floated into her mind, she resolutely pushed it away. When she felt Alan’s lips against her neck, she closed her eyes and tried to focus completely.

  There were times in Goldie’s life when she possessed an astonishing ability to read the clues in front of her. At Feld’s, she could estimate a woman’s wealth by the scent of her perfume or the seam of her stockings. On dates, the way a man unfolded his napkin or buttered his bread supplied her with everything she needed to know about his background and education. She had found herself to be so consistently accurate that, in her brief adult life, she had developed an almost unflagging confidence in the sharpness of her intuition.

  But tonight she was not so astute. It was perhaps too much to expect that such a young woman would remain observant at all times, particularly on a day that had nearly destroyed her. By this point, her emotions had worn her down and blinded her. Goldie failed to notice the shift in atmosphere that began to occur when the lights dimmed and the music slowed. She had not even contemplated the obvious questions about Maestro’s Inn: Why would an elegant restaurant become so crowded with fashionable people at 5 P.M.? Why had these people traveled so far from the city? And why now, when it was still quite early, did it feel like the end of the night? There were other details, too, that Goldie missed entirely. For one thing, among the couples in the room, she might have noticed a predominance of gray- and white-haired men paired off with voluptuous younger women wearing magenta lipstick and thick mascara. The women’s gowns, too, had necklines that dipped surprisingly low, and side slits that rose to levels that weren’t quite proper. Goldie didn’t notice the way the men slid their hands up and down their partner’s bodies, or see the couple kissing deeply a few feet away from her. She rested her head on Alan’s shoulder, keeping her eyes shut, telling herself again and again that things could get better.

  Despite her obliviousness, then, it was this commitment to her future, and not her naïveté, that compelled Goldie to follow Alan out of the dining room and down a hallway that led them in the wrong direction. Later she would remember a room draped with satin curtains, a tiled bathroom, a large bed. She would remember, too, that she didn’t agree, but she didn’t argue, either. He was gentle enough, but driven more by urgency than care. And when, finally, she felt him slide between her legs, she wasn’t completely surprised by what was happening. Instead, she pictured the smooth chairs, the lovely rug, the big window looking out onto Market Street, and the inconsolable expression on Henry’s face. Now she understood that every touch, every kiss and whisper of love could, after all, have led Goldie and Henry to this. But it hadn’t, and among all the emotions she would feel that night and for the days and months and years that followed, it was this sense of having missed something essential with Henry that affected her most.