Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [130]
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
A Ghost of Christmas Past
On Friday, the 23rd of December, I was sitting at my kitchen table cutting slices from a ten-pound ham and drinking bourbon from a bottle. Beside my plate was a proof of the premier issue of Gotham. Mason had spent a lot of time thinking about the cover. He wanted it to be Eye-Catching, Beautiful, Witty, Scandalous, and above all else, a Surprise. So only three copies of the mock-up existed: Mason’s, the art director’s, and mine.
It was a photograph of a naked woman standing behind a five-foot-high model of the San Remo apartment building. Through the windows you could see her skin, but curtains had been drawn selectively to obscure your view of her finer parts.
I had been given one of the mock-ups because the image had been my idea.
Well, sort of.
It was actually a variation on a painting by René Magritte that I had seen at the Modern. Mason had loved the idea and bet me my career that I couldn’t find a woman to pose for it. The photograph was framed so that you couldn’t see the woman’s face, but if the curtains on the fifteenth floor had been open, you would have seen a pair of eggplant-colored silver-dollar aureoles.
That afternoon Mason had called me into his office and asked me to sit—something he hadn’t done more than twice since the day he’d hired me. As it turned out, Alley had been on the money with her plan—both of us were going to be held on for another year.
When I stood to go, Mason gave me his congratulations, the proof with the mock-up and, as a bonus, he threw in the honey-baked ham that the mayor had sent him. I knew it came from the mayor because His Honor’s warm wishes were written on a golden card in the shape of a star. Lugging the ham under my arm, at the door I turned back to thank Mr. Tate.
—No thanks are necessary, he replied without looking up from his work. You’ve earned it.
—Then thank you for giving me the opportunity in the first place.
—You should thank your sponsor for that.
—I’ll give Mr. Parish a call.
Mason looked up from his desk and eyed me with curiosity.
—You’d better keep a closer eye on who your friends are, Kontent. It wasn’t Parish who recommended you. It was Anne Grandyn. She’s the one who twisted my arm.
I took another slug of bourbon.
I wasn’t much of a bourbon drinker, but I had bought the bottle on the way home thinking it would go well with the ham. And it did. I had bought a little Christmas tree too and set it up by the window. Without decorations it looked a little forlorn, so I pulled the mayor’s golden star off the ham and propped it on the highest branch. Then I got myself comfortable and opened Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, Mrs. Christie’s latest. I had bought it back in November and had been saving it for tonight. But before I could get started, there was a knock at the door.
I suppose it’s an immutable law of human nature that we sum up the events of the year as we approach its end. Among other things, 1938 had been a year of knockings at my door. There was the Western Union boy who brought Eve’s birthday wishes all the way from London; and Wallace with a bottle of wine and the rules of honeymoon bridge. Then Detective Tilson; then Bryce; then Anne.
In the moment, only some of those intrusions seemed welcome; but I guess I should have treasured them all. Because in a few years’ time, I’d be living in a doorman building myself—and once you’re in a doorman building, no one comes knocking ever again.
Tonight, the knocker at my door was a heavyset young man dressed in a Herbert Hoover suit. The walk up the stairs had winded him and his brow looked waxy with perspiration.
—Miss Kontent?
—Yes.
—Miss Katherine Kontent?
—That’s right.
He was greatly relieved.
—My name is Niles Copperthwaite. I am an attorney with Heavely & Hound.