Rules of Civility (26 page)

 

Dinner consisted of club sandwiches at six on a bluestone patio overlooking a salt marsh. But for a few men scattered among the cast-iron tables, the patio was empty. It was decidedly unglamorous, but not without its charms.

—Will you be having anything to drink with your sandwiches, Mr. Wolcott? the young waiter was asking.

—Just some iced tea for me, Wilbur. But feel free to . . . have a cocktail, Katey.

—Iced tea sounds perfect.

The waiter navigated the tangle of tables back toward the clubhouse.

—So, do you know everyone's first name? I asked.

—Everyone's first name?

—The front desk guy, the gun guy, the waiter. . . .

—Is that unusual?

—My postman comes twice a day and I don't know
his
name.

Wallace looked bashful.

—Mine's . . . Thomas.

—I've obviously got to pay more attention.

—I suspect you pay plenty.

Wallace was absently polishing his spoon with his napkin and looking around the patio. He had a serene gaze. He put the spoon back in its proper place.

—You don't mind, do you? That . . . we're having dinner here?

—Not at all.

—It's part of the fun for me. It's like when I . . . was a kid and we spent Christmas at our camp in the Adirondacks. When the lake was frozen, we'd skate all afternoon; and then the caretaker, an old Dubliner, would serve us cocoa from a zinc canister. My sisters would sit in the main room with their feet by the fire. But my grandfather and I, we'd sit in these big green rockers on the porch and watch the day draw to a close.

He paused and looked out on the salt marsh, pinning down a detail in his memory.

—The cocoa was so hot that when you got outside in the cold air a skin would form on its surface. It floated there a shade darker than the cocoa and it would come up in a single piece at the touch of your finger....

He gestured toward the whole patio.

—The cocoa was sort of like this.

—A little reward that you've earned?

—Yes. Does that seem silly?

—Not to me.

The sandwiches came and we ate without talking. I began to understand that with Wallace there were no awkward silences. He felt unusually at ease when nothing needed to be said. Occasionally ducks flew from over the trees and settled on the marsh with a flapping of wings and outstretched feet.

Perhaps Wallace was feeling relaxed in the run-down environment of his club—having exhibited his mastery of firearms and earned his iced tea. Or perhaps it was his memories of his grandfather and the Adirondack dusk. Perhaps he was just getting comfortable with me. Whatever the reason, as Wallace reminisced, the stall in his sentences had all but disappeared.

 

Back in Manhattan, when we were leaving Wallace's garage and I thanked him for a terrific afternoon, he hesitated. I think he was weighing whether to ask me back to his apartment, but he didn't. Maybe he was concerned that by asking, he might somehow spoil the day. So he gave me a kiss on the cheek like a friend of a friend. We exchanged good-byes and he began to walk away.

—Hey Wallace, I called.

He stopped and turned.

—What was the name of the old Irishman? The one who poured the hot chocolate.

—It was Fallon, he said with a smile.
Mr.
Fallon.

 

The next day at a little shop on Bleecker Street I bought a postcard of Annie Oakley. She was in full western regalia—a deerskin shirt, white-fringed boots, and two pearl-handled six-shooters. On the back, I wrote:
Thanks Pardner
. In Thursday's four o'clock post, I received a note saying:
Meet me tomorrow on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum at High Noon
. It was signed
Wyatt Earp
.

Wallace skipped up the museum steps dressed in a pale gray suit with a white cotton handkerchief peeking squarely from his breast pocket.

—I hope you're not trying to woo me by taking me to see some paintings, I said.

—Definitely not! I wouldn't . . . know where to start.

Instead, he took me to the museum's collection of guns.

In the dim light, we drifted shoulder to shoulder from case to case. Naturally, these were guns that were famous for their design or provenance rather than for their firepower. Many had elaborate engravings or were fashioned from precious metals. You could almost forget that they were designed to kill people. Wallace probably knew every last thing there was to know about the guns, but he didn't overdo it. He shared some colorful arcana and a little bit of lore. Then he suggested we go to lunch exactly five minutes before the novelty of the experience was due to wear off.

When we came out of the museum, the brown Bentley was waiting at the bottom of the steps.

—Hello, Michael, I said, congratulating myself on remembering his name.

—Hello, Miss Kontent.

Once in the car, Wallace asked where I'd like to have lunch. I suggested that he treat me like an out-of-towner and take me to his favorite spot. So we went to the Park, a restaurant on the ground floor of a prominent midtown office tower. In the modern style it had high ceilings and walls without ornamentation. Most of the tables were occupied by men in suits.

—Is your office close to here? I asked innocently.

Wallace looked embarrassed.

—It's in the building.

—What a stroke of luck! That your favorite restaurant is in the same building as your office!

We ordered martinis from a waiter named Mitchell and reviewed the menus. To begin, Wallace ordered aspic, of all things, and I had the house salad—a terrific concoction of iceberg greens, cold blue cheese and warm red bacon. If I were a country, I would have made it my flag.

While we waited for Dover sole, Wallace began drawing a circle on the tablecloth with his dessert spoon, and for the first time I noticed his wristwatch. It had the inverse of the usual design—white numbers on a black dial.

—Sorry, he said putting down the spoon. It's an old habit.

—Actually, I was just admiring your watch.

—Oh. It's . . . an officer's watch. It had a black face so that at night it would be less likely to . . . draw fire. It was my father's.

Wallace was quiet for a moment. I was about to ask him a little more about his father when a tall, balding gentleman came to our table. Wallace pushed his chair back and stood.

—Avery!

—Wallace, the gentleman said warmly.

Having been introduced to me, the gentleman asked if I could spare Wallace a moment. Then he led him to his own table where another older man waited. From their demeanors, it was plain that they were seeking Wallace's counsel. When they finished talking, Wallace asked a few questions and then began making observations. You could tell there was no stall in his speech now either.

When I had looked at Wallace's watch it was almost two. Alley had agreed to cover me until our daily three o'clock with Mr. Tate. If I skipped dessert, I still had time to taxi back and switch into a longer skirt.

—This looks very
entre nous
.

Slipping into Wallace's chair was the horse-riding, gun-toting Bitsy Houghton.

—We don't have more than a minute, Kate, she said conspiratorially. We'd better get to it. How do you know Wally?

—I met him through Tinker Grey.

—That good-looking banker? Isn't he the one who got in the car wreck with his girl?

—Yes. She's an old friend of mine. Actually, we were all in it together. Bitsy looked impressed.

—I've never been in a car wreck.

Though from the way she said it, you got the sense she had been in other kinds of wrecks—like in an airplane or motorcycle or submarine.

—So, she continued, is your friend as ambitious as the girls claim? (As ambitious as the girls claim?)

—No more so than most, I said. But she has got spunk.

—Well, they'll hate her for that. Anyway. I dislike meddlers more than cats. But can I give you a tip?

—Sure.

—Wally is grander than Mount Rushmore, but he's twice as shy. Don't wait for him to smooch you first.

And before I could speak, she was halfway across the room.

The next night, as I was doubling myself on a four-heart bid, there was a knock at my door. It was Wallace with a bottle of wine in one hand and a briefcase in the other. He said he had just had dinner with his attorney in the neighborhood—an explanation that must have required a rather generous definition of neighborhood. I closed the door and we shared one of Wallace's unawkward silences.

—You've got a . . . lot of books, he said at last.

—It's a sickness.

—Are you . . . seeing anyone for it?

—I'm afraid it's untreatable.

He put his briefcase and the wine on my father's easy chair and began circling the room with a tilted head.

—Is this the . . . Dewey decimal system?

—No. But it's based on similar principles. Those are the British novelists. The French are in the kitchen. Homer, Virgil and the other epics are there by the tub.

Wallace wandered toward one of the windowsills and plucked
Leaves of Grass
off a teetering stack.

—I take it the . . . transcendentalists do better in sunlight.

—Exactly.

—Do they need much water?

—Not as much as you'd think. But lots of pruning.

He pointed the volume toward a pile of books under my bed.

—And the . . . mushrooms?

—The Russians.

—Ah.

Wallace carefully returned Whitman to his perch. He wandered over to the card table and circled it the way one circles an architectural model.

—Who's winning?

—Not me.

Wallace took the chair opposite the dummy. I picked up the bottle.

—Will you stay for a drink? I asked.

—I'd . . . love to.

The wine was older than me. When I came back to the table, he had taken up the south hand and was rearranging the cards.

—Where's the . . . bidding?

—I just bid four hearts.

—Did they double?

I plucked the cards out of his hand and swept up the deck. We sat for a minute saying nothing and he drank to the bottom of his glass. I sensed that he was about to go. I tried to think of something captivating to say.

—By any chance, he asked, do you know how to play honeymoon bridge?

 

It was an ingenious little game. Wallace had played it with his grandfather on rainy days in the Adirondacks. Here's how it works: You place the shuffled deck on the table. Your opponent draws the top card and then has two options: He can keep the card, look at the second one, and discard
it
facedown; or he can discard the first card and
keep
the second one. Then it's your turn. The two of you go back and forth in this manner until the deck is exhausted, at which point you each hold thirteen cards, having discarded thirteen—giving the game an unusually elegant balance between intention and chance.

As we played, we talked about Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, about the Dodgers and the Yankees. We had a lot of laughs. After I won a small slam in spades, I took Bitsy's advice and leaned forward to kiss him on the mouth, but he was just about to say something and we ended up clacking our teeth. When I leaned back, he was trying to put a hand around my shoulder and he almost fell out of his chair.

We both sat back and laughed. We laughed because somehow we suddenly knew exactly where we stood. Ever since the visit to the hunt club, a small uncertainty had buzzed between us. It was a sense of chemistry that had been a little elusive, a little imprecise. Until now.