New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [351]
If his father was so accommodating toward his literary ambitions, Charlie shrewdly guessed that behind this lay two calculations. First, that William reckoned it was wiser to keep a genial eye on his son than provoke a quarrel. Second, that the family now had so much money that it didn’t matter anyway.
And Charlie was happy. He loved the Village, with its intimate atmosphere, its theaters, its writers and artists. He took the modest salary his father paid him, and never asked for anything more. He showed up at the house for social gatherings if his mother wanted, and when he did, he was charming to her guests, who found him witty and amusing. If he’d written some songs for the music publishers in Tin Pan Alley, they thought it was delightful. They promised to come to his play, when it was performed. “Young people are leading such exciting lives, these days,” they said.
Which brought him to Peaches. His parents hadn’t met Peaches before, and his mother was eyeing her, cautiously.
“What a very pretty ring, my dear,” she said, at last.
Peaches was wearing a short dress and a smart coat with a fur-trimmed shawl collar, which she’d opened when she sat down. Her hair was bobbed, under a cloche hat. Her lips were dark red. While the waiter was getting their drinks, she’d taken out a cigarette holder, put a cigarette in it, and taken a long draw, blowing the smoke politely over Rose’s head. The ring was an elegant little art deco piece, a pair of garnets set in white-gold filigree. The garnets matched her lips.
“It was made by a friend,” she said. “He’s the bee’s knees.”
Rose didn’t like the flappers. She thought their haircuts made them look like boys, and their dresses were much too short. Before the war, the Gibson Girl look, the trim blouses and skirts that places like the Triangle Factory had catered to, had suggested a new female freedom. And the end of the war had brought them a very real freedom: the right to vote. But to Rose, freedom meant responsibility, yet the flappers seemed to think they could be free with their morals as well. They smoked and danced the charleston; many of them quite certainly made free love. And they seemed to be everywhere you looked.
She wasn’t surprised that Charlie had taken up with a flapper, but, as usual, she was disappointed in him.
“Where do you come from?” she asked the girl. A simple enough question.
“London.” She looked bored. Charlie for some reason seemed to think this very funny. “Paris too,” she added. “Then Washington.”
“Did you like Washington?” Rose asked coldly.
“It was dull.”
“And where did you meet Charles?”
“In a speakeasy. He was half cut.”
“I was plastered,” said Charlie with a grin.
“But I could see he was no kluck,” Peaches added, obligingly.
“I’m just a flypaper,” Charlie said.
“Stick around.”
How Rose hated the way these young people talked. She’d heard it all before, of course. They thought they were so clever. It had also dawned on her that Peaches had not lived in either London or Paris, or even Washington probably, and that this was just her way of letting them know she had no intention of answering any questions if she didn’t feel like it.
“You work in the city?” Rose asked.
“In the music business.”
William Master stepped in now. He liked Broadway musicals. He’d been at the opening of Kaufman’s The Cocoanuts just the week before—the Marx Brothers were the stars. He asked Peaches if she’d seen it, and was favored with a smile. “It’s good,” she acknowledged.
“Think it’ll run?”
“Yes. Then it’ll tour. The Gershwins have a premiere later this month, too.”
“I know. Tip-Toes. We have seats. Do you and Charlie want to join us?”
This provoked another smile.
“We’ll