Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [47]
Behind a panel in the passenger door there was a bar. It had two decanters, two tumblers and a sweet little ice bucket. Eve poured me a jigger of gin. She poured herself a double.
—Whoa, I said. Don’t you think you should be pacing yourself?
—Don’t worry. I’ve been practicing.
We clinked glasses. She took a mouthful of the gin and ice chips. She crunched the ice as she looked out the window reflecting on something. Without looking back she said:
—Doesn’t New York just turn you inside out?
Located in a little townhouse off Fifth Avenue, the Explorers had been a second-rate naturalists and adventurers club that went bankrupt after the Crash. What little it possessed of value had been spirited away in the night by the well meaning to the Museum of Natural History. The rest—a misassembly of curios and keepsakes—had been left behind by the creditors to gather the dust it had deserved in the first place. In 1936, some bankers who had never been outside of New York bought the building and reopened the club as a high-end watering hole.
When we arrived, the street-level steak house was just filling up. We climbed the narrow staircase lined with old photographs of ships and snowy expeditions to the “library” on the second floor. The library had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves holding the club’s carefully assembled collection of ninteenth-century naturalist texts that nobody would ever read. In the middle of the floor there were two old display cases, one with South American butterflies and the other with pistols from the Civil War. While all around in low leather chairs brokers, attorneys, and captains of industry mumbled sagely. The only other woman in the place was a young brunette with short-cropped hair sitting in the far corner under the moth-ridden head of a grizzly. Wearing a man’s suit and a white-collared shirt, she was blowing smoke rings and wishing she was Gertrude Stein.
—Right this way, the host said.
As we walked, I could see that in her own way Eve had mastered her limp. Most women would have tried to make it disappear. They would have learned to walk like a geisha—taking small invisible steps with their hair turned up and their gaze turned down. But Eve didn’t hide it at all. In her blue floor-length dress, she swung her left leg awkwardly in front of her like a man with a clubfoot. Her heels marked the wooden floor in rough syncopation.
The host showed us to a table right in the middle of the room. He put us front and center so that Eve’s allure could be appreciated by all.
—What are we doing here? I asked when we sat.
—I like it here, she said looking around at the men with a discerning gaze. Women drive me crazy.
She smiled and patted my hand.
—Except for you, of course.
—What a relief.
A young Italian with hair parted in the middle appeared from behind a swinging door. Evey ordered champagne.
—So, I said. The Rainbow Room.
—I’m told it’s pretty fab-dabulous. The fiftieth floor and all that. They say you can see the planes landing at Idlewild.
—Isn’t Tinker afraid of heights?
—He doesn’t have to look down.
The champagne arrived with unnecessary ceremony. The waiter placed a standing ice bucket at Eve’s side and the host did the honors with the cork. Eve waved them off and filled the glasses herself.
—To New York, I said.
—To Manhattan, she corrected.
We drank.
—Any thoughts for Indiana? I asked.
—She’s a sorry nag. I’m through with her.
—Does she know?
—I’m sure the feeling’s mutual.
—I doubt it.
She smiled and refilled our glasses.
—Enough about all that. Tell me something, she prodded.
—What?
—Anything.