Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [25]
—Two hearts? I opened tentatively, having counted my points with care.
—Two spades, said the rabbi with a hint of admonition.
—Six hearts! shouted my partner, still arranging his cards.
—Pass.
—Pass.
When the telephone rang, we all looked up in surprise.
—I’ll get it, I said.
The phone was teetering on a stack of Tolstoy’s novels.
I assumed the caller was the young accountant who’d tried so hard to make me laugh at Fanelli’s. Against my better judgment, I had let him write down my number—GRamercy 1-0923, the first private line that I had ever had. But when I picked up the receiver, it was Tinker Grey.
—Hi Katey.
—Hello Tinker.
I hadn’t heard from Tinker or Eve in almost two months.
—What are you up to? he asked.
Under the circumstances, it was a cowardly sort of question.
—Two games short of a rubber. What are you up to?
He didn’t answer. For a moment, he didn’t say anything.
—Do you think you could come by tonight?
—Tinker . . .
—Katey, I don’t know what’s going on between you and Eve. But the last few weeks have been a tough run. The doctors said it was going to get worse before it got better; I don’t think I really believed them, but it has. I need to go to the office tonight and I don’t think she should be alone.
Outside, it began to sleet. I could see gray splotches forming on the sheets. Someone should have reeled them in while they still had the chance.
—Sure, I said. I can come.
—Thanks, Katey.
—You don’t need to thank me.
—All right.
I looked at my watch. At this hour the Broadway train ran intermittently.
—I’ll be there in forty minutes.
—Why don’t you take a cab? I’ll leave the fare with the doorman.
I dropped the receiver in its cradle.
—Double, sighed the rabbi.
Pass.
Pass.
Pass.
Those first few days after the crash, while Eve was still unconscious, Tinker led the vigil. A few of the girls from the boardinghouse took turns reading magazines in the waiting room, but Tinker rarely left her side. He had the doorman in his building deliver fresh clothes and he showered in the surgeon’s locker.
On the third day, Eve’s father arrived from Indiana. When he was at her bedside, you could tell that he was at a loss. Neither weeping nor praying came very naturally to him. He would have been better off if they had. Instead, he stared at his little girl’s ravaged face and shook his head a few thousand times.
She came to on the fifth day. By the eighth she was more or less herself—or rather, a steely version of herself. She listened to the doctors with cold unaverting eyes. She adopted whatever technical language they used like fracture and suture and ligature, and she encouraged them to adopt her more descriptive terms like hobbled and disfigured. When she was nearly ready to leave the hospital, her father announced that he was taking her home to Indiana. She refused to go. Mr. Ross tried to reason with her; then he tried to plead. He said that she would regain her strength so much quicker at home; he pointed out that given the condition of her leg she wouldn’t be able to climb the boardinghouse stairs; besides, her mother was expecting her. But Eve wasn’t swayed; not by a word of it.
Tentatively, Tinker suggested to Mr. Ross that if Eve intended to convalesce in New York, she could do so in his apartment where there was an elevator, kitchen service, doormen, and an extra bedroom. Eve accepted Tinker’s offer without a smile. If Mr. Ross thought the setup unacceptable, he didn’t say so. He was beginning to understand that he no longer had a voice in his daughter’s affairs.
The day before Eve was released, Mr. Ross went home to his wife empty-handed; but after kissing his daughter good-bye he signaled that he wanted to speak with me. I walked him to the elevator and there he thrust an envelope in my hand. He said it was something for me, to cover Eve’s half of the rent for the rest of the year. I could tell from the thickness of the envelope that it was a lot of money. I tried to give it back to him, explaining that the boardinghouse was just going to stick me with another