Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [134]
As someone rattled on about a trip to Cuba (“the new Riviera”), Carter leaned toward me and whispered in my ear.
—What’s the worst thing you did in 1940?
A piece of bread sailed across the table and hit him on the head.
—Hey, Carter said, looking up.
The only way you could tell it was Harry was by his perfect repose and a slight upward turn of his lips. I considered giving him a wink; instead I threw the bread back. He acted aghast. I was about to do the same when a waiter handed me a piece of folded paper. It was an unsigned note scrawled in a rough hand.
SHOULD OLD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT?
When I looked confused, the waiter pointed toward the bar. Seated on one of the stools was a stocky, good-looking soldier. He was grinning a little impolitely. Well groomed as he was, I almost didn’t recognize him. But, sure as the shore, it was unwavering Henry Grey.
Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?
Sometimes, it sure seems that’s what life intends. After all, it’s basically like a centrifuge that spins every few years casting proximate bodies in disparate directions. And when the spinning stops, almost before we can catch our breath, life crowds us with a calendar of new concerns. Even if we wanted to retrace our steps and rekindle our old acquaintances, how could we possibly find the time?
The year 1938 had been one in which four people of great color and character had held welcome sway over my life. And here it was December 31, 1940, and I hadn’t seen a single one of them in over a year.
Dicky was forcibly uprooted in January 1939.
On the heels of the New York cotillion season, Mr. Vanderwhile finally became fed up with his son’s easy ways. So under the auspices of the recovering economy, he sent Dicky to Texas to work on an old friend’s oil rigs. Mr. Vanderwhile was convinced that this would make “quite an impression” on Dicky; and it did. Though not in the way Mr. Vanderwhile expected. His friend happened to have an ornery daughter who adopted Dicky as a dance partner when she was home for the Easter break. When she went back to school, Dicky sought to extract some promise of love, only to be rebuffed. While the weeks with Dicky had been great fun, she explained, in the long run she saw herself with someone a little more practical, down to earth, ambitious—that is, of course, someone a little more like her pa. Before long Dicky found himself working extra hours and applying to Harvard Business School.
He would get his degree in 1941, just six months before Pearl Harbor. From there, he enlisted, served with distinction in the Pacific, returned to marry his Texan, had three children, went to work in the State Department, and generally made a hash of everything that anyone had ever said of him.
Eve Ross, she just waltzed away.
The first I heard tell of her after she disappeared to Los Angeles was a clipping that Peaches gave me in March of 1939. It was a photograph from a gossip magazine and it showed a boisterous Olivia de Havilland pushing through a line of photographers outside the Tropicana on Sunset. She was on the arm of a young woman with a good figure, a sleeveless dress, and a scar on her cheek. The photograph was titled Gone with the Wind and the caption referred to the scarred woman as de Havilland’s “confidante.”
The next I heard of Evey was on the first of April, when I received a long-distance call at two in the morning. The man on the other end of the line identified himself as a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. He said he was sorry for disturbing me, he knew it was late, but he had no alternative. A young woman had been discovered unconscious on the lawn of the Beverly Hills Hotel and my telephone number had been found in her pocket.
I was stunned.
Then I heard Eve in the background.
—Did she bite?
—Of course she did, said the detective, betraying an English accent. Like a trout to a fly.
—Give me that!
—Wait!
The two were wrestling for the