by Amor Towles
Funny. I had looked upon this encounter with such dread. But now that it was here, I was finding it kind of interesting; helpful; even encouraging.
—Katey, he said, or rather implored. I’m trying to tell you. That part of my life is over.
—Same here.
—Please, don’t say that.
—Hey! I said cheerfully, cutting him off again. Here’s one for you: Have you ever been camping? I mean, actually camping in the woods? With the jackknives and the compasses?
This seemed to strike a chord. I could see his jaw muscles tense.
—You’re going too far, Katey.
—Really? I’ve never been there. What’s it like?
He looked down at his hands.
—Boy, I said. If your mother could only see you now.
Tinker rose abruptly. He banged his thigh into the corner of the table, disturbing the tranquility of the cream in its pitcher. He laid a fivedollar bill by the sugar, showing appropriate consideration for our waitress.
—Coffee’s on Anne? I asked.
He staggered to the door like a drunk.
—Is this too far? I called after him. It doesn’t seem so bad!
I put another five dollars on the table and got up. As I walked toward the door I staggered a little too. I looked up and down Second Avenue like a wolf that’s escaped from its cage. I checked my watch. The hands were splayed between the nine and the three, like two duelers back-to-back who have counted off paces and are about to turn and fire.
The night was young.
It took Dicky five minutes to answer the banging on his door. We hadn’t seen each other since we crashed the party at Whileaway.
—Katey! What a terrific surprise. Terrific and . . . hieroglyphic. He was dressed in tuxedo pants and a formal shirt. He must have been tying his tie when I began knocking because it was hanging freely from his collar. It made him look dashing in an untied-black-tie kind of way.
—May I?
—Absolutely!
When I had gotten off the subway uptown, I had stopped for a drink or two at an Irish bar on Lexington. So I slid past him into the living room a little like a will-o’-the-wisp. I had only been in Dicky’s place when it was crowded with people. Empty, I could see how orderly Dicky was under his gay exterior. Everything was in its proper place. The chairs were arranged in alignment with the cocktail table. The books in the bookcases were organized by author. The freestanding ashtray was just to the right of the reading chair and the nickel-plated architect’s lamp just to the left.
Dicky was staring at me.
—You’re a redhead again!
—Not for long. How about a drink?
Obviously expected elsewhere, Dicky pointed toward the front door and opened his mouth. I raised my left eyebrow.
—Why, yes, he conceded. A drink is just the thing.
He went to a fine Macassar cabinet along the wall. The front panel came down like the writing surface of a secretary.
—Whiskey?
—Your pleasure is mine, I said.
He poured us both a dram and we clinked glasses. I emptied mine and held it out in the air. He opened his mouth again as if he was going to speak but emptied his glass instead. Then he poured us both more suitable portions. I took a swig and spun around once as if to get my bearings.
—It’s a lovely place, I said. But I don’t think I’ve seen the whole thing.
—Of course, of course. Where are my manners? Right this way!
He gestured through a door. It led into a little dining room lit by taper-style sconces. The colonial table had probably been in the family since New York was a colony.
—Here lies the refectory. The table’s designed for six, but seats fourteen in a pinch.
At the other end of the dining room was a swinging door with a porthole. We went through it into a kitchen that was as clean and white as heaven.
—The kitchen, he said turning his hand in the air.
We went through another door and down a hallway, passing a guest room that was obviously unused. On the bed were summer clothes neatly folded, ready to be stowed for the winter. The next room was his bedroom. The bed was neatly made. The only loose piece of clothing was his tuxedo jacket, which hung over a chair in front of a little writing desk.
—And what’s in here? I asked, pushing open a door.
—Uhm. The lavatorium?
—Ah!
Dicky seemed sweetly reluctant to include it on the tour; but it was a work of art. Wide white tiles with a heavy glaze ran from floor to ceiling. It had the luxury of two windows: one over the radiator and one over the tub. The tub was a freestanding porcelain number six feet long with claw feet and nickel plumbing rising from the floor. On the wall a long glass shelf was lined with what appeared to be lotions, hair tonics, colognes.
—My sister has an affinity for Christmas gifts from the salon, Dicky explained.
I ran my hand along the rim of the tub as one would along the hood of a car.
—What a beauty.
—Cleanliness is next to godliness, Dicky said.
I emptied my drink and put the glass on the windowsill.
—Let’s give it a spin.
—What’s that?
I lifted my dress up over my head and kicked off my shoes.
Dicky looked as wide-eyed as a teenager. He emptied his drink in a gulp and put it teetering on the edge of the sink. He began talking excitedly.
—You’ll not find a finer tub in all New York.
I turned on the water.
—Its porcelain was fired in Amsterdam. Its feet were cast in París. They were fashioned after the paws of Marie Antoinette’s pet panther.
Dicky ripped off his shirt. A mother-of-pearl stud skittered across the black-and-white tiles of the floor. He pulled off his right shoe with a tug, but he couldn’t get the left one off. He hopped up and down a few times and stumbled against the sink. His whiskey glass slipped from its perch and shattered against the drain. He held the shoe up in the air with a victorious expression.
I was naked now and about to climb in.
—Suds! he shouted.
He went to the shelf of Christmas gifts and studied it frenetically. He couldn’t decide which of the soaps he should choose. So he grabbed two jars, stepped to the rim of the tub, and dumped them both in. He stuck his hands in the water and whisked it into a froth. The rising steam gave off a heady smell of lavender and lemon.
I slipped in under the bubbles. He jumped in after me like a truant jumping in a watering hole. He was in such a rush that he didn’t realize he was still in his socks. He took them off and slung them against the wall with a splat. He reached behind his back and produced a brush.
—Shall we?
I took the brush and tossed it onto the bathroom floor. I slid my legs around his waist. I put my hands on the rim of the tub and lowered myself onto his lap.
—I’m next to godliness, I said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Tempest-Tost
On Monday morning, I was in the back of a limousine with Mason Tate on our way to interview a grande dame on the Upper West Side. He was in a foul mood. He still didn’t have a cover story for the premier issue, and every week that passed without one seemed to lower his threshold for dissatisfaction. Proceeding up Madison Avenue, his coffee had been too cold, the air too warm, the driver too slow. To make matters worse, as far as Tate was concerned this interview, set up by the publisher, was a colossal waste of time. The doyenne’s upbringing was too good, he said, her intelligence too dull and her eyesight too dim to promise any skinny of interest. So if being asked to accompany Mr. Tate on an interview was normally a compliment, today it was a form of punishment. I wasn’t out of the doghouse yet.
We turned onto Fifty-ninth Street in silence. On the steps of the Plaza stood the hotel’s officious captains dressed in long red coats with big brass buttons. Half a block away, the epauletted officers of the Essex House wore
a sharply contrasting shade of blue. This would no doubt make things so much easier should the two hotels ever go to war.
We turned onto Central Park West, and having passed the doormen of the Dakota and the San Remo, we came to a stop at Seventy-ninth Street in front of the Museum of Natural History. From there I could see the canopy of the Beresford where Pete was opening the back door of a cab. He offered his hand to the rider, much as he had offered it to me in the past—like the night in March when Tinker had needed to go to the “office,” or the night in June when I had cadged a ride from the Dorans in my misbegotten dots.
And a thought occurred to me.
My better judgment told me to keep my mouth shut. This probably isn’t the place, she said, and it certainly isn’t the time. He’s persona furiosa and you are non grata. But on the marble pedestal towering over the museum’s steps, Teddy Roosevelt reared on his bronze horse and shouted, Charge!
—Mr. Tate.
—Yes? (annoyed)
—You know the piece you’ve been trying to find for the premier issue?
—Yes, yes? (impatient)
—What if instead of the doyennes, you were to interview the doormen?
—What’s that?
—None of them have the upbringing, as it were, most have the intelligence, and they see everything.
Mason Tate stared straight ahead for a moment. Then he rolled down his window and threw his coffee out into traffic. He turned to me for the first time in fifteen blocks.
—Why would they talk to us? If we printed something they told us, it would come back to bite them in a day.
—What if we spoke to ex-employees—the ones who have quit or been fired?
—How would we find them?
—We could run an ad in the papers offering high pay for doormen and elevator boys with at least one year’s experience at five of the most exclusive apartment buildings in the city.
Mason Tate looked out his window. He produced a chocolate bar from his jacket pocket. He broke off two squares and began chewing slowly, methodically, as if his goal was to grind the flavor out of them.
—If I let you place this ad, you really think you would find something of interest?
—I’d stake a month’s pay on it, I said coolly.
He nodded his head.
—Make it your career and you’ve got a deal.
On Friday, I walked to work a little early.
The advertisement had run for three days in the New York Times, the Daily News, and the Post Dispatch instructing applicants to come to the Condé Nast building today at 9:00 A.M. Word of my “wager” with Tate had circulated quickly, and a few of the boys in the bullpen had taken to whistling taps whenever I passed. Under the circumstances, you could hardly blame them.
At the time, the buildings along Fifth Avenue still looked like they had sprung from the ground overnight—disappearing into the clouds like beanstalks.
In 1936, the great French architect Le Corbusier published a little book called When the Cathedrals Were White detailing his first trip to New York. In it, he describes the thrill of seeing the city for the first time. Like Walt Whitman he sings of the humanity and the tempo, but he also sings of skyscrapers and elevators and air-conditioning, of polished steel and reflective glass. New York has such courage and enthusiasm, he writes, that everything can be begun again, sent back to the building yard and made into something still greater....
After reading that book, when you walked along Fifth Avenue and you looked up at those towers, you felt like any one of them might lead you to the hen that laid the golden eggs.
But earlier that summer, another visitor who came to the city had a slightly different take. He was a young man named John William Warde. Around 11:30 in the morning, he climbed out on a ledge of the seventeenth floor of the Gotham Hotel. He was promptly observed and a sizable crowd assembled below. Men paused, hanging their coats over their shoulders on the hook of their fingers. Women fanned themselves with their hats. Newspaper reporters gathered quotations and the police kept the sidewalk clear, sensing that at any moment . . .
But Warde just stood there on the ledge trying the patience of the reporters, the police, and the populous alike, prompting skeptics in the crowd to say that he neither had the courage to live with nor end his misery. At least, that’s what they said until he jumped at 10:38 P.M.
So I guess the New York City skyline inspires a little of that too.
The Condé Nast lobby was still empty, promising a quick and anonymous ascent. But as I crossed to the elevator bank, Tony at the security desk waved me over.
—Hey Tony. What’s up?
He gestured with his head to the side of the lobby. On a chrome-and-leather bench sat two ragged men, hats in hand. Unshaven and downcast, they looked like the god-forgotten sorts who listen to sermons in the Bowery missions just to get the soup. They looked like they wouldn’t know skinny if it was wrapped in cellophane and sold at the five-and-dime. What sort of groveling, I wondered, would I have to do to convince Miss Markham to take me back?
—They were waiting outside when we opened up, Tony said, adding out of the side of his mouth: The one on the left there sort of smells.
—Thanks Tony. I’ll take them up with me.
—Okay, Miss K. Sure thing. But what do you want me to do with the rest?
—The rest?
Tony stepped from around his desk and opened the stairwell door. It was crowded with men of every size and shape. Some, like the two on the bench, looked like they had ridden into Manhattan on the back of a freight car, but there were others who looked more like British man-servants in retirement. There were Irish, Italians, and Negroes looking sly or sophisticated, brutish or aim-to-please. They sat on the stairs winding two by two up to the turn at the second floor and out of sight.
Upon seeing me, a tall, well-dressed man on the first step stood to attention like I was a commanding officer entering a barracks. A moment later, every man on the stair was on his feet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Neverland
It was a Saturday night in mid-November. Dicky, Susie, Wellie, and I had come to the Village to meet the others at a jazz club called The Lean-To. Dicky had heard through the grapevine that downtown musicians gathered there late at night to play impromptu sets, and he figured if the musicians were going, it was a reliable sign that the place had yet to be spoiled by blue bloods. The truth of the matter was that the owner was an old Jew with a thick heart and a thin skin who lent money to musicians without interest. They would have gathered at The Lean-To if it swallowed the Social Register whole. But the end result was the same: If you stayed late enough, you got to hear something that was fresh and unfiltered.
The club was a little fancier than when Eve and I had frequented it. There was a coat-check girl now and little red-shaded lamps on the tables. But then, I was getting a little fancier too. I was wearing a choker with a one-carat diamond that Dicky had wheedled off his mother in honor of our three-week anniversary. I don’t think Dicky’s mother particularly liked me, but for his entire life Dicky had been carefully fashioning a persona that was surprisingly hard to say no to. In general, he was fun loving and free of spite, but when you replied yes to even the smallest of his requests (Do you want to go for a walk? Do you want to get an ice-cream cone? Can I sit next to you?), for a moment he would light up like a bingo winner. I doubt Mrs. Vanderwhile had said the word no to him more than three times in his life. I wasn’t finding it so easy to say myself.
The eight of us were gathered around two four-tops that Dicky had pushed together with the help of the hostess. As we waited for another round, Dicky conducted the conversation with an olive spear filched from my martini. The topic: hidden talents.
Dicky: Wellie! You’re next.
Wellie: I’m unusually buoyant.
Dicky: Of course you are. Doesn’t count.
Wellie: I’m ambidextrous?
Dicky: Closer.
Wellie: Uhm. On occasi
on . . .
Dicky: Yes? Yes?
Wellie: I sing in a choir.
Gasps.
Dicky: Touché, Wellie!
TJ: It’s not true, is it?
Helen: I’ve seen him. In the back row at Saint Barth’s.
Dicky: You’d best explain yourself, young man.
Wellie: I sang in the choir as a boy. Occasionally, when they’re short a baritone, the choirmaster gives me a call.
Helen: How sweet!
Me: Will you give us a sample, Howard?
Wellie (uprightly):
Most Holy Spirit! Who didst brood
Upon the chaos dark and rude,
And bid its angry tumult cease
And give, for wild confusion, peace
Oh hear us when we cry to thee
For those in peril on the sea.
Awe and applause.
Dicky: You scoundrel! Look at the girls. They’re weeping. In ecstasy. It’s a dirty trick. (Turning to me) And you, my love? Hidden talents?
Me: What about you, Dicky?
All: Yes. What about you!
Susie: Don’t you know?
Me: I don’t think so.
Susie: Go on, Dicky. Tell them.
Dicky looked at me and blushed.
