Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [43]
We were about the same height with the same chestnut coloring and we were both raised in two-room apartments across a river from Manhattan. I guess on a rainy Saturday afternoon, that was simpatico enough. So we trooped around a bit and then one night in early June, she called to see if I wanted to go to the runarounds at Belmont.
My father abhorred wagering of any kind. He thought it the surest route to relying on the kindness of strangers. So I had never played penny-a-point canasta or bet a stick of gum on who could throw the first rock through the principal’s window. I certainly had never been to a racetrack. I didn’t know what she was talking about.
—The runarounds?
Apparently, on the Wednesday before the Belmont Stakes, the track was opened to the horses on the card so that the jockeys could give them a feel for the course. Fran said it was much more exciting than the race itself—a claim so unlikely that the runarounds seemed certain to be a bore.
—Sorry, I said. On Wednesdays I happen to work.
—That’s the beauty of it. They open the track at daybreak so each of the horses can get a run in before it gets hot. We zip out on the train, watch a few ponies, and still punch the clock by nine. Trust me. I’ve done it a million times.
When Fran said that they opened the track at daybreak, I imagined this was a figure of speech and we would be heading out to Long Island some time after six. But it was no figure of speech. And this being early June, daybreak was closer to five. So she came knocking at 4:30 with her hair coiled in a tower on the top of her head.
We had to wait fifteen minutes for a train. It rattled into the station like it was coming from another century. The interior lights cast a halfhearted glow over the nocturnal flotsam in its care: the janitors, drunkards and dance-hall girls.
When we got to Belmont, the sun was just beginning to heft its way over the horizon as if it needed to defy gravity to do so. Fran was defying gravity too. She was perky, bright, annoying.
—Cmon, Patsy, she said. Hustle your bustle!
The sprawling race day parking lot was empty. As we crossed it, I could see Fran carefully scrutinizing the edifice of the track.
—Over here, she said without much confidence, heading toward the service gates.
I pointed toward the sign that said ENTRANCE.
—How about over here?
—Sure!
—Wait a second, Fran. Let me ask you something. Have you ever been here before? I mean ever once?
—Sure. Hundreds of times.
—Let me ask you something else. When you’re speaking, are you ever not lying?
—Was that a double negative? I’m not too good with those. Now let me ask you something.
She pointed at her blouse.
—Does this look good on me?
Before I could answer, she tugged on her neckline to expose a little more cleavage.
At the main gate we passed the unmanned ticket booths, pushed through the turnstiles and headed up a narrow ramp into the open air. The stadium was eerie and still. A green mist hung over the track like you’d expect to see over the surface of a pond in New England. Scattered across the empty stands, the other early risers were huddled in groups of two to four.
It seemed unseasonably cold for June. A few feet from us a man in a quilted jacket was holding a cup of coffee.
—You didn’t tell me it was going to be so cold, I said.
—You know what June is like.
—Not at 5:00 A.M. I don’t. Everybody else has coffee, I added.
She slugged me in the shoulder.
—What a whiner you are.
Fran was scrutinizing again, this time the people in the middle of the stands. Off to our right a tall, thin man in a plaid shirt stood and waved. It was Grubb in the company of hapless Johnny.
When we got to Grubb’s seat, he put his arm around Fran and looked at me.
—It’s Katherine, right?
I was vaguely impressed that he knew my name.
—She’s cold, Fran said. And mad she doesn’t have coffee.
Grubb grinned. From inside a knapsack he produced a lap blanket that he tossed to me, a Thermos that he handed to Fran, and then like a hack magician he felt elaborately around