SAN FRANCISCO 1928
Lucia stood outside Miss Golding’s office, trembling. She was about to graduate in three days. Had she done something wrong? She knocked on the door.
‘Come in, Miss Frizzelli!’
Lucia went in, facing the director of the School of Speech. Through the window, she glimpsed the blue of San Francisco Bay and longed to be out there, strolling with Alfredo.
‘H-have I done something wrong, Miss Golding?’
The irony of her timid stutter was not lost on either of them, but Miss Golding smiled.
‘Not at all. I wanted to congratulate you again on your work with Jonah Leventhal.’
‘Thank you. Jonah is doing well now at school, I believe.’ As long as his father didn’t pile on the pressure, she refrained from adding.
Robert Leventhal was a railroad industrialist looking down on the city from his eyrie on Nob Hill, Jonah his heir. When he could no longer ignore 13-year-old Jonah’s stutter, Robert had consulted the School of Speech more in hope than expectation. After all, its director and many of its students were female.
Delegated to the task, Lucia had worked with Jonah on breathing and tongue placement exercises, drilling him in the necessary phonetics to achieve correct articulation.
‘You were patient not only with the boy but also with his father,’ remarked Miss Golding. ‘Parents are often our biggest obstacle.’
Miss Golding was a pioneer, believing that speech problems were located in the mind as much as in the throat muscles.
‘You also took a risk accepting the assignment,’ Miss Golding added. ‘As I
