Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [115]
Upon seeing me, a tall, well-dressed man on the first step stood to attention like I was a commanding officer entering a barracks. A moment later, every man on the stair was on his feet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Neverland
It was a Saturday night in mid-November. Dicky, Susie, Wellie, and I had come to the Village to meet the others at a jazz club called The Lean-To. Dicky had heard through the grapevine that downtown musicians gathered there late at night to play impromptu sets, and he figured if the musicians were going, it was a reliable sign that the place had yet to be spoiled by blue bloods. The truth of the matter was that the owner was an old Jew with a thick heart and a thin skin who lent money to musicians without interest. They would have gathered at The Lean-To if it swallowed the Social Register whole. But the end result was the same: If you stayed late enough, you got to hear something that was fresh and unfiltered.
The club was a little fancier than when Eve and I had frequented it. There was a coat-check girl now and little red-shaded lamps on the tables. But then, I was getting a little fancier too. I was wearing a choker with a one-carat diamond that Dicky had wheedled off his mother in honor of our three-week anniversary. I don’t think Dicky’s mother particularly liked me, but for his entire life Dicky had been carefully fashioning a persona that was surprisingly hard to say no to. In general, he was fun loving and free of spite, but when you replied yes to even the smallest of his requests (Do you want to go for a walk? Do you want to get an ice-cream cone? Can I sit next to you?), for a moment he would light up like a bingo winner. I doubt Mrs. Vanderwhile had said the word no to him more than three times in his life. I wasn’t finding it so easy to say myself.
The eight of us were gathered around two four-tops that Dicky had pushed together with the help of the hostess. As we waited for another round, Dicky conducted the conversation with an olive spear filched from my martini. The topic: hidden talents.
Dicky: Wellie! You’re next.
Wellie: I’m unusually buoyant.
Dicky: Of course you are. Doesn’t count.
Wellie: I’m ambidextrous?
Dicky: Closer.
Wellie: Uhm. On occasion . . .
Dicky: Yes? Yes?
Wellie: I sing in a choir.
Gasps.
Dicky: Touché, Wellie!
TJ: It’s not true, is it?
Helen: I’ve seen him. In the back row at Saint Barth’s.
Dicky: You’d best explain yourself, young man.
Wellie: I sang in the choir as a boy. Occasionally, when they’re short a baritone, the choirmaster gives me a call.
Helen: How sweet!
Me: Will you give us a sample, Howard?
Wellie (uprightly):
Most Holy Spirit! Who didst brood
Upon the chaos dark and rude,
And bid its angry tumult cease
And give, for wild confusion, peace
Oh hear us when we cry to thee
For those in peril on the sea.
Awe and applause.
Dicky: You scoundrel! Look at the girls. They’re weeping. In ecstasy. It’s a dirty trick. (Turning to me) And you, my love? Hidden talents?
Me: What about you, Dicky?
All: Yes. What about you!
Susie: Don’t you know?
Me: I don’t think so.
Susie: Go on, Dicky. Tell them.
Dicky looked at me and blushed.
Dicky: Paper airplanes.
Me: Great Caesar’s ghost.
As if to bail him out, the drummer wrapped up a Krupa-like solo with six booms on the kettle and then the whole band was swinging. It was like the drummer had jimmied open the door and the others were stealing everything in the house. Dicky was the one who was ecstatic now. When the vibraphonist began playing in triple time, Dicky swung around in his chair and his feet ran in place. His head did a few quick rotations, as if he couldn’t decide whether he should be shaking or nodding it. Then he goosed me.
Some people are born with the ability to appreciate serene and formally structured music like Bach and Handel. They can sense the