Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [122]
The afternoon before, I had run into Fran in the Village and she was full of news. She had finally checked out of Mrs. Martingale’s and moved in with Grubb. It was a railroad apartment off Flatbush and from the fire escape you could practically see the Brooklyn Bridge. She had a bag in her arms overflowing with fresh mozzarella and olives and canned tomatoes and other Mott Street fare—because it was Grubb’s birthday and she was going to make him Veal Pacelli. She’d even bought a hammer like her nana used to use, so she could pound the cutlets herself. Then tomorrow night they were having a party and I had to promise to come.
She was wearing jeans and a tight-fitting sweater, standing about ten feet tall. A new apartment with Grubb and a scaloppine mallet . . .
—You’re on top of the world, I said, and I meant it.
She just laughed and slugged me in the shoulder.
—Cut the crap, Katey.
—I’m serious.
—Sort of, she said with a smile.
Then she got all concerned like she’d offended me.
—Hey. Don’t get me wrong. Nicer words were never said. But that doesn’t mean they aint crapola! I’m on the top of something, I guess, but it aint the world. We’re gonna get hitched and Grubb’s gonna paint and I’m gonna give him five kids and sagging tits. And I can’t wait! But the top of the world? That’s more in your line of work—And I’m counting on you getting there.
The crowd was a mulligan stew of their friends and acquaintances. There were gum-smacking girls from the Catholic stretches of the Jersey shore mixed in among a sampling of Astoria’s poets-by-day-watchmen-by-night. There were two big-armed boys from Pacelli Trucking who’d been thrown to the mercy of an up-and-coming Emma Goldman. Everyone was wearing pants. They were crowded in elbow to elbow and ethos to ethos, shrouded in a haze of cigarette smoke. The windows were open and you could see that some of the savvier attendees had spilled onto the fire escape to breathe the late autumn air and take in the almost view of the bridge. That’s where our hostess had perched herself. She was seated precariously on the fire escape’s railing wearing a beret and a low-hanging cigarette in the manner of Bonnie Parker.
A late arrival from Jersey who came in behind me stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the living room wall. Hung on it from floor to ceiling was a series of Hopperesque portraits of bare-chested coat-check girls. The girls were sitting behind their counters looking aimless and bored but somehow confrontational—as if daring us to be just as aimless and bored as they. Some had their hair pulled back and others had it tucked under a cap, but all were versions of Peaches—right down to her eggplant-colored silver-dollar aureoles. I think the latecomer actually gasped. The fact that her high school chum had posed bare-chested filled her with fear and envy. You could just tell that she had made up her mind to move to New York City the next day; or never.
In the center of the wall, surrounded by Grubb’s coat-check girls, hung a painting of a theater marquee on Broadway: a Hank Grey original, with apologies to Stuart Davis. He’s probably here, I thought, and I found myself hoping to see his misanthropic silhouette. He was basically a porcupine, but with a sentimental stripe and quills that made you think. Maybe Tinker had been right, after all. Maybe Hank and I had hit it off.
True to the working-class tone of the gathering, the only alcohol in attendance appeared to be beer—but all I could find were empty bottles. Collecting at the feet of the partygoers, they would occasionally get knocked over like ten pins and rattle across the hardwood floor. Then, coming down the crowded hallway from the kitchen, I spied a blonde holding a newly opened bottle in the air like the Statue of Liberty holds its torch.
The kitchen was decidedly less gregarious than the living room. In the middle was a raised tub where a professor and a schoolgirl sat knee to knee sniggering over personal business. I made my way to the icebox, which was along