Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [21]
—Please, he said again.
Once we were seated, he held a hand in the air and three menus materialized like giant playing cards in the hands of a magician. He delivered them with ceremony.
—Enjoy.
The menu was the largest I had ever seen. It was almost a foot and a half high. I opened it expecting a cavalcade of choices, but there were only ten. Lobster tail. Beef Wellington. Prime rib. The items were handwritten in the generous script of a wedding invitation. There were no prices, at least not on my menu. I peeked at Eve, but she wouldn’t peek back. She scanned her menu coolly and then laid it down.
—Let’s have a round of martinis, she said.
—Capital! said Tinker.
He raised a hand and a white-jacketed waiter appeared where the maitre d’ had been. He had all the fast-talking charm of a country club con artist.
—Good evening, Mr. Grey. Good evening, ladies. If I may be so bold, you’re the best-looking table in the place. Surely, you’re not ready to order? The weather is horrendous. May I bring an aperitif?
—Actually, Casper, we were just talking about having some martinis.
—Of course you were. Let me take these out of your way.
Casper tucked the menus under an elbow and within minutes, the drinks arrived.
Or rather, three empty glasses arrived. Each had a trio of olives skewered on a pin that was propped on the rim of the glass like an oar on the hull of a rowboat. Casper placed a napkin on top of a silver shaker and rattled it good. Then he carefully began to pour. First, he filled my glass to the brim. The liquor was so cold and pure it gave the impression of being more translucent than water. Next he filled Eve’s glass. When he began filling Tinker’s, the flow of alcohol from the shaker slowed noticeably. And then trickled. For a moment it seemed as if there wasn’t going to be enough. But the gin kept trickling and the surface kept rising until with the very last drop Tinker’s martini reached the brim. It was the sort of precision that gave one confidence.
—Friends, Casper observed, are the envy of the angels.
Before any of us noticed that the silver shaker was gone, Casper had produced a small scaffold topped with a plate of oysters.
—Compliments of the house, he said, and disappeared.
Eve clinked her water glass with a fork as if she was about to make a toast to the whole restaurant.
—A confession, she said.
Tinker and I looked up in anticipation.
—I was jealous today.
—Eve . . .
She put her hand up to silence me.
—Let me finish. When I learned that the two of you had your little coffee, cream & sugar—I admit it—I was green. And not a little bit peeved. In fact, I fully intended to spoil the evening to teach you both a lesson. But Casper is perfectly right: Friendship is the mostest.
She held up her drink and squinted.
—To getting out of ruts.
Within minutes, Eve was her perfect self: relaxed, buoyant, bright; inexplicable.
The couples at the tables around us were engaged in conversations they’d been having for years—about their jobs and their children and their summer houses—conversations that may have been rote but that reinforced their sense of shared expectations and experience. Shrewdly, Tinker swept that aside and launched a conversation more suitable to our situation—one grounded in the hypothetical.
What were you afraid of when you were a kid? he asked.
I said cats.
Tinker said heights.
Eve: Old age.
And just like that, we were off. In a way, it became a chummy sort of competition in which each of us tried to land the perfect answers—those that were surprising, diverting, revealing, but true. And Eve, ever under-estimateable, proved the runaway champ.
What did you always want that your parents never gave you?
Me: Spending money.
Tinker: A tree house.
Eve: A good licking.
If you could be anyone for a day, who would you be?
Me: Mata Hari.
Tinker: Natty Bumppo.
Eve: Darryl Zanuck.
If you could relive one year in your life, which one would it be?