Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [70]
The privet that Helen had observed in the shadows now towered before us. Dicky ran his hands along it like one looking for the latch to the hidden door in a bookcase. In a neighboring yard a rocket whistled and popped.
Roberto, a little slow on the uptake, came to a congenial realization:
—Why Dicky, you old crasher. I’ll wager you don’t even know whose house this is.
Dicky stopped and pointed a finger in the air.
—It is more important to know when and where than whom or why.
Then, like a tropical explorer, he parted the hedge and poked his head through.
—Eureka.
The rest of us followed Dicky through the branches, emerging surprisingly unscathed onto the back lawn of the Hollingsworth mansion where the party was in full swing. It was unlike anything I had ever seen.
The back of the house stretched before us like an American Versailles. Through the gentle grid work of the French doors, chandeliers and candelabra cast a warm yellow glow. On a slate terrace that floated like a dock over a manicured lawn, a few hundred people mingled gracefully. They paused in their conversations just long enough to pluck a cocktail or a canapé from the circulating trays as music from a twenty-piece orchestra, invisible to the naked eye, drifted aimlessly toward the Sound.
Our little crew climbed over the terrace wall and followed Dicky to the bar. It was as large as what you’d find in a nightclub with all manner of whiskey and gin and brightly colored liqueurs. Lit from below, the bottles looked like the pipes of a supernatural organ.
When the bartender turned, Dicky smiled:
—Five juniper and tonics, my good man.
Then he leaned his back against the bar and took in the festivities with all the satisfaction of a host.
I saw now that Dicky had plucked a small bouquet of flowers from the cutting garden and stuffed them into the breast pocket of his tuxedo. Like Dicky himself, the corsage looked bright and reckless and a little out of place. Most of the men on the terrace had already lost their boyish attributes—the rosiness of their cheeks, the wispiness of their hair, the Puckish glint in their eye. The women, draped in sleeveless dresses that fell to the ground, had jewels and wore them with taste. All were engaged in conversations that looked effortless and intimate.
—I don’t see anyone I know, said Helen.
Dicky nodded while nibbling on a celery stalk.
—That we are at the wrong party is not exactly out of the question.
—Well, where do you think we are? said Roberto.
—I had it on good authority that one of the Hollingsworth boys was throwing a fandango. I’m fairly certain that this is the Hollingsworths’ and it is definitely a fandango.
—But?
—. . . Perhaps I should have asked which of the Hollingsworth boys was fandangoing.
—Schuyler is in Europe, isn’t he? asked Helen, who without ever trusting in her own intelligence always seemed to have something sensible to say.
—So there you are, said Dicky. It’s settled. The reason Sky neglected to invite us is that he is presently abroad.
He handed the gin and tonics around.
—Now then. Let’s to the band.
From the neighbor’s lawn another rocket whistled and then burst overhead in a small spray of sparks. I let the group get a few paces ahead. Then I veered off through the crowd.
Since first meeting Dicky at the King Cole bar, I had tagged along with his traveling circus a few nights. For a group freshly spilled from the country’s finest schools, they were surprisingly aimless, but that didn’t make them bad company. They didn’t have much spending money or social status, but they were on the verge of having both. All they had to do was make it through the next five years without drowning at sea or being sentenced to jail and the mountain would come to Muhammad: dividend-paying shares and membership at the Racquet Club; a box at the opera and time to make use of it. Where for so many,