Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [9]
“For crying out loud, take off that coat.”
“I won’t. I’m cold.”
“You lie. This is the hottest, stuffiest restaurant in New York.”
May Wynn rose, almost as reluctantly as if she were being compelled to strip. “I’m beginning to think you’re very silly-Well,” she added, her face flushing, “stop looking at me like that-”
Willie had the appearance of a startled stag-for good enough reason. May Wynn’s figure was glorious. She wore a purple silk dress with a narrow gray belt. She sat, all in confusion, trying not to laugh at Willie.
“You have a figure,” said Willie, taking his seat in slow motion. “I thought you probably had elephant thighs, or no chest.”
“Bitter experience,” said May Wynn. “I don’t like to get jobs or make friends on the strength of my figure. Things are expected of me that I can’t deliver.”
“May Wynn,” said Willie thoughtfully. “I like the name.”
“That’s good. It took me a long time to think of it.”
“Isn’t that your name?”
The girl shrugged. “Of course not. It’s too good.”
“What’s your name?”
“If you don’t mind my saying so, this is a queer conversation. Who are you to go probing at me like this?”
“Sorry-”
“I don’t mind telling you, though I usually don’t blab it. My name is Marie Minotti.”
“Oh.” Willie looked at a waiter carrying a tray heaped with spaghetti. “Then you’re at home in here.”
“Very much.”
Willie’s reaction to the discovery that May Wynn had an Italian name was complicated, and quite important: a mixture of relief, pleasure, and disappointment. It struck away most of the girl’s mystery. A night-club singer who could carol a Mozart aria with understanding was a wonder, for in Willie’s world familiarity with opera was a mark of high breeding-unless you were an Italian. Then it became a mere racial quirk of a lower social group, and lost its cachet. Marie Minotti was someone Willie could cope with. She was pigeonholed after all as a mere night-club singer, if a very pretty one. The feeling that he was tumbling into a real relationship was an illusion. He knew perfectly well that he would never marry an Italian. They were mostly poor, untidy, vulgar, and Catholic. This did not at all imply that the fun was at an end. On the contrary, he could now more safely enjoy being with the girl, since nothing was going to come of it.
May Wynn regarded him with narrowed eyes. “What are you thinking?”
“The nicest possible things about you.”
“Your name, no doubt, is really Willis Seward Keith?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And you come from a fine old family?”
“Oldest and finest- My mother is a Seward, of the Mayflower Sewards. My father is something of a bar sinister, since the Keiths didn’t get over here until 1795.”
“Ye gods. Missed the Revolution.”
“By a mile. Mere immigrants. My grandfather has made up for it slightly by being the head of surgery at the Chase Hospital, supposedly the big wheel of that branch of medicine in the East.”
“Well, Princeton,” said the girl with a light laugh, “obviously we can never hit it off. Talking about immigrants, my folks came over in 1920. My father runs a fruit store in the Bronx. My mother hardly speaks English.”
The pizzas arrived on two large round tin platters: smoking hot flat cakes of dough covered with cheese and tomato sauce-and, in Willie’s dish, sprinkled on one side with chunks of anchovy. May Wynn picked up a triangular slice, folded it expertly with a flip of her fingers, and took a bite. “My mother’s pizza is better than this. As a matter of fact, I make about the best pizza in the world.”
“Will you marry me?”
“No, your mother wouldn’t like it.”
“Great,” said Willie, “we understand each other. Allow me to tell you, then, that I’m falling in love with you.”
The girl’s face suddenly clouded over. “Keep the blows above the belt, chum.”
“No harm intended.”
“How old are you?” May said.
“Twenty-two. Why?”
“You seem