cocktail at the top of a midtown skyscraper, and the self-indulgence of a room-service dinner alone with her book.
Did she really want to be taken on another random and exhausting trek through low-rent neighborhoods, plague areas, secondhand bookstores, streets with “interesting” ethnic history, fish and garment markets, pausing infrequently to be presented with a glassful of stupefying iced liquor and a lecture on recent American politics?
It would be company, at least. She lifted the receiver and dialed. It wasarranged that he would stop by the hotel at midday; Mary calculated that this would give them only an hour before lunch, and this time she would have some say over the venue. As a precaution, she invented a call from Charlie which she would expect at five o’clock; in fact, he seldom rang when he was away, but she wanted to have an escape route.
Frank called up from the front desk at ten to twelve.
“I’m a little early. I took the subway. I can wait if you like.”
“No, no. I’m ready.”
The elevator sank eighteen floors and the uniformed attendant hauled open the rolling accordion doors. Frank was standing by the desk, turning his hat slowly round in his hands. Mary moved swiftly across the lobby.
“Hi.” Frank took her by the arm and moved her toward the door.
Mary paused at the curb, expecting him to hail a cab, but he set off on foot, down 45th Street, then right onto Third Avenue.
“How’s Charlie?” Frank said loudly above the traffic noise, as they waited to cross the street.
“He’s fine. He’s had to go to Chicago. Where’s the tour taking us today?”
“I haven’t decided. I like it down here, though. Toward Murray Hill. It’s kind of blank.”
“You like that?”
“I like the fact that it’s impersonal. No one troubles you. That’s what cities are for. Frankfurters, cabs, you know. Loud noises. Come on.”
Frank walked more slowly than the previous day so that they could continue their conversation. He guided her over to Madison, past the J. P. Morgan home, back onto clamorous Lexington with its long blocks of furniture stores, then over again onto Third, where they walked down past the old gin mills. Despite the proximity of many skyscrapers, the city was less overpowering than in the seething boxes farther west; there was a sense of the island sloping downhill to the East River and of the tight grid beginning to shake loose.
“When I first came to New York I had a room in a railroad flat way uptown on 95th, and I used to take the train down Third every morning.”
“Is that when you got the habit of looking into people’s windows?”
“I guess so. They took it down a few years ago. I never imagined how pretty Third Avenue would be beneath the tracks.”
“Pretty?” It seemed to Mary a strange word for the blur of commerce, the undistinguished tenements, where a police siren had begun to shriek in front of a clothing store.
At lunchtime they took a cab back uptown to a chophouse on Lexington of which Frank spoke warmly. Most of the clients seemed to be businessmen in suits, sitting at a long mahogany bar or gathered at tables with blue checked cloths, speaking with low urgency over their powerful drinks.
“So what’s Charlie doing in Chicago?”
“I don’t know. I’ve learned not to ask over the years.”
“Why? Is it confidential?”
“No, not really. Charlie’s job really is to follow the election. We’d been in London for a bit and we were expecting to go to Paris. Charlie was Assistant Private Secretary to the Foreign Secretary at a very young age. They made him a counselor when he was only thirty-six.”
“So he’s what they call a high flyer?”
“It’s an awful expression, but I suppose that’s it. With the election coming up the Embassy political staff in Washington needed someone extra, and Charlie’d done a doctorate on American politics, so he was asked to come for a couple of years. He’d met Senator Kennedy when his
Did she really want to be taken on another random and exhausting trek through low-rent neighborhoods, plague areas, secondhand bookstores, streets with “interesting” ethnic history, fish and garment markets, pausing infrequently to be presented with a glassful of stupefying iced liquor and a lecture on recent American politics?
It would be company, at least. She lifted the receiver and dialed. It wasarranged that he would stop by the hotel at midday; Mary calculated that this would give them only an hour before lunch, and this time she would have some say over the venue. As a precaution, she invented a call from Charlie which she would expect at five o’clock; in fact, he seldom rang when he was away, but she wanted to have an escape route.
Frank called up from the front desk at ten to twelve.
“I’m a little early. I took the subway. I can wait if you like.”
“No, no. I’m ready.”
The elevator sank eighteen floors and the uniformed attendant hauled open the rolling accordion doors. Frank was standing by the desk, turning his hat slowly round in his hands. Mary moved swiftly across the lobby.
“Hi.” Frank took her by the arm and moved her toward the door.
Mary paused at the curb, expecting him to hail a cab, but he set off on foot, down 45th Street, then right onto Third Avenue.
“How’s Charlie?” Frank said loudly above the traffic noise, as they waited to cross the street.
“He’s fine. He’s had to go to Chicago. Where’s the tour taking us today?”
“I haven’t decided. I like it down here, though. Toward Murray Hill. It’s kind of blank.”
“You like that?”
“I like the fact that it’s impersonal. No one troubles you. That’s what cities are for. Frankfurters, cabs, you know. Loud noises. Come on.”
Frank walked more slowly than the previous day so that they could continue their conversation. He guided her over to Madison, past the J. P. Morgan home, back onto clamorous Lexington with its long blocks of furniture stores, then over again onto Third, where they walked down past the old gin mills. Despite the proximity of many skyscrapers, the city was less overpowering than in the seething boxes farther west; there was a sense of the island sloping downhill to the East River and of the tight grid beginning to shake loose.
“When I first came to New York I had a room in a railroad flat way uptown on 95th, and I used to take the train down Third every morning.”
“Is that when you got the habit of looking into people’s windows?”
“I guess so. They took it down a few years ago. I never imagined how pretty Third Avenue would be beneath the tracks.”
“Pretty?” It seemed to Mary a strange word for the blur of commerce, the undistinguished tenements, where a police siren had begun to shriek in front of a clothing store.
At lunchtime they took a cab back uptown to a chophouse on Lexington of which Frank spoke warmly. Most of the clients seemed to be businessmen in suits, sitting at a long mahogany bar or gathered at tables with blue checked cloths, speaking with low urgency over their powerful drinks.
“So what’s Charlie doing in Chicago?”
“I don’t know. I’ve learned not to ask over the years.”
“Why? Is it confidential?”
“No, not really. Charlie’s job really is to follow the election. We’d been in London for a bit and we were expecting to go to Paris. Charlie was Assistant Private Secretary to the Foreign Secretary at a very young age. They made him a counselor when he was only thirty-six.”
“So he’s what they call a high flyer?”
“It’s an awful expression, but I suppose that’s it. With the election coming up the Embassy political staff in Washington needed someone extra, and Charlie’d done a doctorate on American politics, so he was asked to come for a couple of years. He’d met Senator Kennedy when his
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