Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [50]
When I got down to the street I was about to turn across Sixty-ninth to head over to the Third Avenue el when I saw the brown Bentley at the curb. The door opened and the chauffeur got out.
—Miss Kontent.
I was confused, and it wasn’t just the booze.
—It’s Michael, right?
—Yes.
It struck me suddenly that Michael looked a lot like my father’s older brother, Uncle Roscoe. He’d had big mitts too. And a cauliflower ear.
—Did you see Eve? I asked.
—Yes. She asked that I see you home.
—She sent you back for me?
—No, Miss. She wanted to walk.
Michael opened the back door. It looked dark and lonely inside. Being June, it was still light out and the air was temperate.
—Do you mind if I ride in front? I asked.
—That wouldn’t do, Miss.
—I suppose not.
—To Eleventh Street?
—That’s right.
—How would you like to go?
—What do you mean?
—We could take Second Avenue. Or we could circle through Central Park and then head downtown. Perhaps that would compensate for not riding in front.
I laughed.
—Wow. That’s a heck of a suggestion, Michael. Let’s do it.
We entered the park at Seventy-second Street and headed north toward Harlem. I rolled down both windows and the warm June air showed me undue affection. I kicked off my shoes and tucked my legs under my chassis. I watched the trees go by and by.
I didn’t ride cabs very often, but when I did, the goal was the shortest distance between two points. The idea of taking the long route home had never come up, not once in twenty-six years. It was pretty fab-dabulous too.
The next day, I got a call from Eve saying she’d have to cancel our date on the twenty-fourth. It seems that Tinker, taking Eve “by surprise,” had shown up at the Rainbow Room with another ticket for the steamer to Europe. Tinker was going to see clients in London and then they were going to drop in on Bucky and Wyss who’d taken a house on the Riviera for the month of July.
About a week later, when I met Fran and Grubb for a hamburger that had been advertised as a steak, she gave me the following tidbit, torn from the social columns in the Daily Mirror:
Word from the mid-Atlantic has reached us that heads came about on the Queen Vic when C. Vanderbilt, Jr.’s annual midcrossing black-tie scavenger hunt was won hands down by newcomers T. Grey, the ever so eligible NYC banker, and E. Ross, his more glamorous half. Striking the upperdecks dumb with amazement, Grey & Ross succeeded in securing among fifty designated treasures: a scimitar, a sifter and a wooden leg. Though the young scavengers would not reveal the secret of their success, observers say they had the novel approach of canvassing the crew instead of the passengers. The prize? Five nights at Claridge’s and a private tour of the National Gallery. Alert museum security to pat down this canny pair before they skedaddle.
CHAPTER TEN
The Tallest Building in Town
On the twenty-second of June, I spent the afternoon taking depositions for young Thomas Harper, Esq., in a room without windows or ventilation at an opposing firm on Sixty-second Street. The subject of the deposition—the line manager of a failing steel mill—was sweating like a laundress and repeating himself even when it made no sense to do so. The only questions that seemed to really get him talking were those that revolved around how bad things were. Do you know what it’s like, he asked Harper, to spend twenty years trudging through a business, showing up every morning when your kids are asleep, watching every detail on the line with the tick of the clock, only to wake up one day and find it’s all gone?
—No, said Harper flatly. But could I turn your attention to the events of January 1937.
When we finally finished, I had to go to Central Park to get some air. I picked up a sandwich at a corner deli and found a nice spot near a magnolia tree where I could eat in peace in the company of my old friend, Charles Dickens.
As I sat there in the park, I would occasionally look up from the pages of Pip’s progress to watch the strolling-by of those whose expectations had already