Rules of Civility

by Amor Towles

  That should have been my first clue that something was in the works.

  The car and driver weren’t Tinker’s. They were Wallace’s. When Wallace heard about Eve’s wishes, he had given her the car for the day as a present so that she could go from store to store. And she had made the most of it. In the morning, she had worked her way down Fifth Avenue on reconnaissance. Then after lunch, she circled back with Tinker’s money and launched a full-fledged attack. She bought the blue dress at Bergdorf’s, the new shoes at Bendel’s and a bright red alligator clutch at Saks. She even paid for the lingerie. She was fully outfitted with an hour to spare so she’d come looking for me because she wanted to have a drink with an old friend before she turned twenty-five in the clouds over Rockefeller Center. And I was plenty glad she did.

  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. Everything. How are the girls at Mrs. Martingale’s?

  —I haven’t seen them in months.

  This was a white lie, of course, since Fran and I had flapped around a bit. But there was no reason to tell that to Evey. She never liked Fran that much anyhow.

  —That’s right! she said. I’m so glad you’ve gotten your own place. How is it?

  —It’s pricier than the boardinghouse. But now I can burn my own oatmeal and plunge my own commode.

  —There’s no curfew. . . .

  —Not that you’d know it by my bedtime.

  —Oh, she said with mock concern. That sounded sad and lonely.

  I picked up my empty glass and waved it at her.

  —How are things at the Beresford?

  —A little hectic, she said as she poured. We’re about to have the bedroom remodeled.

  —That sounds fancy.

  —Not really. We’re just sprucing things up a bit.

  —Will you stay there during the renovation?

  —As it happens, Tinker will be visiting clients in London. So I’ll just take a room at the Plaza and push them to get the work done before he’s back.

  A birthday without presents . . . a business trip to London . . . a bedroom renovation . . . liberal use of the nominative plural . . . The whole picture was coming into focus. Here was a young girl drinking champagne in a brand-new dress headed for the Rainbow Room. Under the circumstances, you’d think she’d be giddy. But there was nothing giddy about Eve. Giddiness implies a certain element of surprise. A giddy girl can’t tell what’s happening next. She senses that it might be something marvelous, that it might happen at any moment, and this mix of mystery and anticipation lightens her head. But there weren’t going to be any surprises for Eve. No unfamiliar gambits or sly combinations. She had drawn the squares and carved the pieces. The only thing she was leaving to chance was how big the stateroom on the boat was going to be.

  Back at the 21 Club, when asked If you could be any one person for the day, then who would you be? Eve had answered Darryl Zanuck, the studio chief. Her answer had seemed so funny at the time. But sure enough, here she was floating over us on the arm of a crane, double-checking the set, the costumes, the choreography before cueing the sun to rise. And upon reflection, who could fault her for it?

  A few tables away, two good-looking boors were getting loud. They were reminiscing about their misdeeds in the Ivy League and one of them unmistakably made use of the word whore. Even a few of the men had begun to stare.

  Eve didn’t look over her shoulder once. She couldn’t be bothered. She had started talking about the renovation and just kept on talking—the way a colonel ignores the sound of mortar shells as the infantry ducks for cover.

  The two drunkards suddenly stood. They reeled past us with bursts of laughter.

  —Well, well, Eve said dryly. Terry Trumbull. Was that you making all that racket?

  Terry came about like one of those little boats that children learn to sail in.

  —Eve. What a great surprise. . . .

  If it weren’t for twenty years of private schooling he would have stammered it.

  He gave Eve an awkward kiss and then looked inquiringly at me.

  —This is my old friend, Kate, Eve said.

  —Pleasure to meet you, Kate. Are you from Indianapolis?

  —No, I said. I’m from New York.

  �
�Really! Which part of town?

  —She’s not your type either, Terry.

  He turned to Eve looking like he was about to parry, but then thought better of it. He was sobering up.

  —Give my best to Tinker, he said.

  As he retreated, Eve watched him go.

  —What’s his story, I asked.

  —He’s a friend of Tinker’s from the Union Club. A few weekends ago, we all went to a party at their house in Westport. After dinner, while his wife was playing Mozart on the piano (God help me), Terry told one of the serving girls he needed to show her something in the pantry. By the time I showed up, he had her cornered by the bread box and was trying to take a bite out of her neck. I had to fend him off with a potato masher.

  —He’s lucky it wasn’t a knife.

  —A stabbing would have done him good.

  I smiled at the thought of it.

  —Well, the serving girl sure lucked out that you showed up when you did.

  Eve blinked like she’d been thinking of something else.

  —What’s that?

  —I say the girl was lucky you were there.

  Eve looked at me a little surprised.

  —Luck had nothing to do with it, Sis. I followed the bastard to the pantry.

  Suddenly, I had an image of Eve prowling the halls of WASP New York, potato masher in hand, occasionally leaping from the shadows to put all manner of boorish behavior in its place.

  —You know what? I said, with renewed conviction.

  —What?

  —You’re the bestest.

  When it was nearly eight and the champagne bottle was stuffed upside down in the ice bucket, I pointed out that Eve had better get going. She looked at the empty bottle a little forlornly.

  —You’re probably right, she said.

  She reached for her new clutch and signaled the waiter in the same motion, the way that Tinker would have. She took out an envelope that was filled with brand-new twenty-dollar bills.

  —No, I said. It’s on me, birthday girl.

  —Okay. But on the twenty-fourth, I get to return the favor.

  —That would be great.

  She stood up and for a moment I could see her in all her glory. With the dress falling gracefully from her shoulders and the red clutch in her hand she looked like a full-length portrait by John Singer Sargent.

  —Till doomsday, she reminded me.

  —Till doomsday.

  As I was waiting for the waiter to bring the check, I wandered over to the display cases in the middle of the room. To someone with knowledge of such things, perhaps the gun case was an impressive showing of rare firearms. But to the inexperienced eye it just seemed shabby. The guns looked like they’d been dug up from the banks of the Mississippi while at the bottom of the case Civil War bullets sat in a pile like deer droppings.

  The butterfly display was easier on the eyes, but it too evidenced a certain amateurishness. The insects were pinned on the felt in such a way that you could only see the topside of their wings. But if you know anything about butterflies, you know that the two sides of their wings can be dramatically different. If the top is an opalescent blue, the underside can be a brownish gray with ocher spots. The sharp contrast provides butterflies with a material evolutionary advantage, because when their wings are open they can attract a mate, while when their wings are closed they can disappear on the trunk of a tree.

  It’s a bit of a cliché to refer to someone as a chameleon: a person who can change his colors from environment to environment. In fact, not one in a million can do that. But there are tens of thousands of butterflies: men and women like Eve with two dramatically different colorings—one which serves to attract and the other which serves to camouflage—and which can be switched at the instant with a flit of the wings.

  By the time the check came, the champagne was catching up with me.

  I gathered my bag and set my sights on the door.

  The brunette in the suit walked past me toward the bathrooms. She gave me the cold unfriendly stare of an old enemy at an unpopular peace. Wasn’t that just perfect, I thought. How little imagination and courage we show in our hatreds. If we earn fifty cents an hour, we admire the rich and pity the poor, and we reserve the full force of our venom for those who make a penny more or a penny less. That’s why there isn’t a revolution every ten years. I stuck out my tongue at her retroactively and wove toward the door trying to look from behind like a movie star on a train.

  At the top of the staircase, the steps suddenly looked narrow and steep. It was a little like the view from the top of a roller coaster. I had to take off my heels and cling to the banister.

  As I descended with a shoulder to the wall, I realized that the photographs lining the stairwell were pictures of the Endurance frozen in the Antarctic. I stopped to look at one of them more closely. In it, the riggings on the ship had been cleared of their sails. Food and other necessities had been unpacked onto the ice. I wagged a finger at Commander Shackleton reminding him that it was his own damn fault.

  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 been met. And that’s when I saw Anne Grandyn for the third time. After a moment’s hesitation, I stuffed the book in my purse and went after her.

  Predictably, she kept a purposeful pace. Emerging from the park at Fifty-ninth Street, she crossed against the traffic and skipped up the steps of the Plaza Hotel. I did the same. As a uniformed bellhop spun the revolving door, it occurred to me that it was probably an unwritten rule of polite society that one should never follow an acquaintance into a local hotel. Though couldn’t she be meeting friends for a drink? As the door spun, I decided to rely on scientific method.

  —Eeny, meany, miney, moe . . .

  Inside, I took up a position in the shade of a potted palm. The lobby was a beehive of the well dressed, some arriving with luggage, some heading for the bar, others coming up the stairs from the shoeshine or salon. Under a chandelier that could have shamed an opera house an ambassador with a grand mustache made way for an eight-year-old girl and a pair of poodles.