Sam gave Lucia an Orthophonic Phonograph for a birthday present.
Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” was almost the only record we ever played
on it. We turned that on, about once an hour when we were at home.
“The tune matches New York,” Lucia said. “The New York we know. It has
gaiety and colour and irrelevancy and futility and glamour as
beautifully blended as the ingredients in Crêpes Suzette.”
I said, “It makes me think of skyscrapers and Harlem and liners sailing
and newsboys calling extras.”
“It makes me think I’m twenty years old and on the way to owning the
city,” Lucia said. “Start it over again, will you?”
[Illustration]
Seven in the morning.
Lucia was calling from downstairs. “Pat, did you have a good time last
night? I brought some food in; come down and have grapefruit and eggs
with me; I have something exciting to tell you.”
“All right, but it’s so very early, Lucia.”
I got up. My mouth tasted of too many cigarettes the night before. But
after a few minutes (and the calisthenics and a shower) I felt all
silkily smooth and fresh. There was a gay February sunrise outside.
I put on a dull green jersey dress and beige stockings and brown
alligator shoes; and put my money and make-up and a green handkerchief,
in my alligator purse; and fitted a beige hat down over my right eye and
up over my left. I tied a beige and green scarf around my throat, and
got out fresh chamois gloves, and carried them downstairs with my green
coat and my purse.
Lucia was looking very beautiful in the same sort of clothes. “Your
grapefruit is over on the mantelpiece,” she said. “There wasn’t room for
it on the coffee table. Eat it while I finish the eggs.”
“Why did you get me up an hour early, darling?” I said.
“I woke up early and felt conversational.”
“That isn’t why,” I yawned.
“All right, look at this,” she said. She had on a gorgeous new emerald
ring.
“Oh, Lord,” I said. “You _are_ going to marry Sam!”
We both laughed. “And I was expecting felicitations, Pat.”