The ma?tre d’ looks at me and at Barbara and at me again. He leans forward and says, under his breath, “There seems to have been some mistake.”
“No mistake. A celebration dinner, a case of your best champagne at least.”
“Miss Macallister, I don’t think you understand.”
“What’s to understand? Are we not dressed in the approved style?”
“No, your dress—your dress”—he’s trying to avert his eyes from Barbara—“your dress is—well enough—but we have other rules, madam, for the comfort of our customers—”
“Oh. Oh, dear. I see what you mean. How careless of me.” I turn to the group behind me. “My darlings, there seems to be some trouble. Apparently somebody in our party isn’t quite up to snuff when it comes to the strict moral standards of the Palmetto Club. I expect it’s you, M—。”
Everybody laughs. I spin back to the ma?tre d’， who’s caught a glimpse of the faces assembled behind me and turned a fine shade of strawberry pink.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Billings. We quite understand your predicament. In fact, I feel certain that none of us will trouble you for entry into this”—I cast a supercilious glance around the lobby—“this fine old establishment, ever again. Will we, ladies?”
“Certainly not,” says M—。
“And we’ll pass the word to our friends, as well. God forbid the Palmetto should be forced to admit just anyone.”
At that instant, the telephone rings atop Mr. Billings’s fine mahogany podium. He lifts the receiver and says Palmetto Club, quavering voice. Then—Yes, sir. Then—No, sir. Then—Right away, sir.
He sets down the receiver and clears his throat.
“If you’ll follow me, ladies,” he says, and he leads us through the archway into the club, where the world-famous Bobby Blue Orchestra tunes up to the rhythm of a dozen popping champagne corks.
Iris
April 1940
Rome, Italy
When Ruth stumbled out of her bedroom and asked where Iris was going, Iris told her a lie.
“Just for a walk,” she said.
Ruth looked her up and down, from the top of her dark, curling head, to her pink lipstick to her blue dress with the Peter Pan collar, crutches, stockings, leather slingback shoe, and plaster cast held an inch or two above the floorboards. When she returned to Iris’s face, she wore that tiny smile at the corner of her mouth. Ruth tightened the belt on her purple silk kimono. “Is that so?”
“I need a little fresh air, that’s all.”
“Sure you do. What about a hand with those stairs?”
Iris hesitated. “All right.”
Ruth lent her a steadying hand down the stairs and held the doors for her. Iris thanked her and started off down the sidewalk.
Ruth called after her, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”
Iris couldn’t remember a time when Ruth wasn’t the prettiest, the cleverest, the most athletic of the Macallister twins. It simply went without saying!
Although people said it anyway. They’d remarked on it all the time, when Ruth and Iris were growing up. The twins would sit side by side at the dinner table or on the beach or astride their ponies, and Ruth’s blond hair would catch the light and just shimmer, or she would open her mouth and say something brilliant, or she would leap off somewhere gracefully and long leggedly, and Iris would be left behind with her frizzy curls the color of dirt, her tied tongue, her pale and chubby limbs.
A couple of months before the day that would mark the end of their old lives, Ruth and Iris had gone out sailing with their father and Grandpa Walker, who was their mother’s father. （Harry had been forced to stay at home and polish the silver, on account of some misdemeanor.） Iris had always liked her grandfather. He didn’t talk much—leaving most communication to the women in his life—but he was calm and thoughtful and seemed to find the same things funny that Iris did. He had been in the garment business and made a killing during the war, and he and Granny Walker had invested some of their spoils in a rambling, half-timbered, brand-new pile in Glen Cove, Long Island, so their daughters could learn to sail and play tennis and meet all the right sorts. And it worked! The oldest had duly married a nice stockbroker from a good family—Harry and Ruth and Iris were born—the stock market set records practically every day. Nobody could say that the Walkers’ investment hadn’t made a solid return, indeed.
Anyway, there they were, the halcyon end of summer of the halcyon final year of the Roaring Twenties. They’d been out cruising in Long Island Sound for a few hours, all the way down to Orient Point and back again. Ruth was an enthusiastic sailor—absolutely fearless. She shimmied up the mainmast and leaned out over the side as they heeled; she managed sheets confidently and relished the shivering of the sails as they changed tack. Her hair whipped in the wind; her bare skin glowed in the sunshine. As they approached the harbor, the breeze picked up, stronger and stronger until it was almost a gale. The boat tore through the water at a steep angle, foam flying from the bow, and Ruth screamed with delight. Iris sat paralyzed in the stern and prayed they wouldn’t capsize. Next to her, Daddy held the tiller with a firm, delicate touch and told her not to worry.