“Even if we did find it,” said Sybil, “how would we eat? I hate to be mercenary, but I’ve been doing some awfully slim eating the last few years.”
Tim grinned at her. “I’ve got three months’ terminal leave pay and a couple of penny banks I managed to fill before the war. That ought to see us through the thesis, at least. Afterward, maybe we’ll wind up in a nice little house on the edge of some college campus with built-in bookcases and an open fireplace.”
“And I’ll have other professors’ wives to tea and flirt with the undergraduates.”
“Any undergraduate caught flirting with you,” said Tim, “will be automatically flunked.”
“Gracious,” said Sybil, “that sounds dreadful. Do you do it with a cat-o’-nine-tails?”
“It depends. But let’s not dwell on the rosy future. The question before the meeting is, do we dwell at all?”
“So what do we do about it? Aside from lying in bed and drinking champagne. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”
“Well,” said Tim, “I’ve got a car. Not much of a car, but a car.”
“But, darling!” cried Sybil, sitting up again, “how marvelous. You know, people in England don’t just have cars. Cars impress us the way titles do you. And they’re much more useful.”
“And much easier to pick up second-hand.”
“Possibly. So we have a car. How thrilling. And what do we do with it?”
“Well, I thought we might drive around the country for a few days and see what we can find in the way of a desk and a roof.”
“And a bed.”
“Mm, yes. Maybe we could use the desk, in a pinch.”
“I hope it’s the roll-top kind. Wouldn’t it be cozy?”
“Sounds like a song title. Rolling in the roll-top. Anyway, that’s the plan.”
“And a lovely plan it is, my sweet. When do we start?”
“Whenever you like. I thought it might be fun to have an evening on the town first.”
“Oh, wonderful. A real bang-up binge.”
“Why not? A fellow doesn’t meet a new wife every day.”
“You might think it was every day,” murmured Sybil with a trace of a pout, “considering the distance between us.”
Chapter Three
Double Feature With Fireworks
Their evening on the town started at the Stork Club in order to get that orthodox procedure out of the way. They drank a dry martini each and saw Walter Winchell’s very own table. “Like Dr. Johnson’s at the Cheshire Cheese,” said Sybil. Then, for a change of pace, they looked in at Tim Costello’s on Third Avenue and saw James Thurber’s very own drawings on the wall. “Like Tom Webster’s at the Falstaff,” said Sybil. They had dinner at a little French restaurant where they held hands and ate crêpes suzette. “Like Prunier’s,” said Sybil. Afterward there were night clubs; Larue, which reminded Sybil of Quaglino’s, and Leon and Eddie’s, which reminded her of the Palladium Crazy Gang, and finally Downtown Café Society. “What does this remind you of?” asked Tim, watching Meade Lux Lewis take a piano apart. “Nothing on earth,” said Sybil. “I thought not,” said Tim. “It’s supposed to be out of this world.”
At three in the morning, this bit of badinage sounded a great deal funnier than it would have at three in the afternoon. It even sounded funny to another couple standing next to them at the crowded bar and presently they were buying each other drinks. It seemed perfectly natural, as the boogie-woogie and the lights faded, for the other couple to suggest that they all go on together to the Breeze Club.
Tim looked dubious, but Sybil cried rapturously, “The Breeze Club! Why, even in London, we’ve heard of that. Something like the old Four Hundred.”
The other couple didn’t know anything about the old Four Hundred, but the Breeze Club was one swell place, they said. Open till noon.
“Don’t you have to be known to get in?” asked Tim.
Sure, but that was all right, the other couple was known. Next thing, the four of them were in a taxi, bowling north. It was a long ride to the Breeze Club, which was way uptown on the East River, and a damp and chilly ride as well. Tim felt himself growing soberer and soberer, not to mention sleepier, and the whole enterprise growing less and less attractive. Still, Sybil seemed to be enjoying herself enormously, and he decided he owed her all the fun that could be squeezed out of this one night. “Tim, darling,” said Sybil, “stop yawning.”
The Breeze Club was packed and confusing. Getting into it was confusing to begin with, because you entered at street level and then went down in a satin-lined elevator. The place got its name, presumably, from its site at the river’s edge, but there was no breeze in evidence just then. In fact, a breeze could hardly have fought its way through the atmosphere, cloyed with perfume and opaque with smoke. Tim began to feel woozy as soon as they got inside. He had a dizzying sensation of being swallowed up in the milling, chattering crowd, mostly in evening dress. Who were all these people, he wondered, Who wanted to stay up till noon?
“Oh, look,” exclaimed Sybil, pointing toward an adjoining room, its doorway hung in heavy crimson. “Roulette! I adore roulette.”
“Better not adore it tonight,” said Tim. “We’re almost broke.”
Sybil didn’t seem to hear him. She was staring with wide, excited eyes at the crowded roulette table. Then she turned to him and said, “I’ve got to spend a penny first. I’ll meet you at the bar.”
She slipped away into the crowd, leaving him with a sudden sense of panic lest he lose her. He looked around for the other couple, but they apparently had seen some people they knew and drifted off. A drink, he thought, might help him shake off this feeling of being on the edge of a maelstrom, and he threaded his way to the bar. The bartender fixed him a Scotch and soda, picked up the dollar Tim laid on the wet mahogany and said, “Thanks for the tip. The drink’ll be two fifty.”
Tim sipped the whisky, trying to get his money’s worth of pleasure out of it, and stared across the room, wondering from what direction Sybil would come. Then he saw her and blinked. She was carrying something, something decidedly large. For a second, it looked like a coffin, then it looked like a door. It was a door, he discovered as he hurried toward her, a green-painted, wooden, slotted door.
“Look at this bloody thing,” said Sybil. “Absolute gimcrack.”
“I’m sure it is, dear,” said Tim in bewilderment, “but why have you got it?”
“I wanted to show it to you.”
“Why?”
“Because I seem to have broken it, and she wants ten dollars for it.”
“Who wants ten dollars for it?”
“She does.”
For the first time Tim was aware of somebody chirping at his elbow. It was a woman, small and middle-aged, who might have looked motherly in different circumstances. Just then, she looked stepmotherly. “She walks right into the powder room, she does,” this small woman was saying, “and rips this door right off its hinges.”
“They open the other way in England,” said Sybil.
“I don’t care how they open in England,” said the small woman. “How would you feel, mister, if somebody walked into your powder room and tore a door right off its hinges?”