I ignored it, rapping twice on what looked like a service door, and when it opened, we were met by a burst of laughter and a blast of tinny horns. The Lyric was popular that year, setting a trend for more secretive speakeasies. They tipped out to the NYPD just as the more open clubs did, but the fun was in pretending that they didn’t. That added element of danger helped make up for the Lyric’s obscurity, and that summer, it was doing a brisk business, people crammed in cheek to jowl even when they weren’t on the imported dance floor.
At the bar, I ordered us two corpse revivers before turning back to Nick, who was gazing around at the warm red brick, the tapestries on the walls, and the curved ceiling over us from which sprouted, mushroom-like, orange Tiffany lights. The velvet booths weren’t as full as they would have been on a weekend, but it was still a notable assemblage. From where I stood, I could see a few hungry young lawyers from the district attorney’s office, a silver-haired Russian plutocrat with two Ziegfeld girls on his arms, and Donna Brunswick, less popular than she had been but still dressed to the nines in what might have been real gold snakeskin.
“Quite a place,” he said, and I grinned.
“You thought I was just mad over subways?”
“I admit I’m not sure quite what to expect.”
“From me?”
Nick’s eyes flickered to one side briefly, a little as if he were looking for the exits.
“From New York, maybe,” he said, and I took his hand, kissing his palm before I gave it back.
“Well, don’t worry,” I said. “I can show you around.”
He liked the corpse reviver well enough that he had two others, and by then he was carefree enough to come dance with me. He was more graceful than I thought he would be, and after the first few turns, he was confident enough to enjoy himself without the standard protestations of inexpertise.
By the end, he was closer to me than he intended to be, and warm and flushed, I pulled us into one of the more humble booths towards the back. The high sides blocked out most of the sound, and I came to sit on the same side with him, tucking myself neatly under his arm. Whatever he wore, it smelled good, fresh and a little unrefined, but that seemed to suit me right this moment.
“I don’t get you,” he said, not moving away from me. He rested his warm cheek on the top of my head, folding his hand over mine where it curled around my drink, a sidecar this time.
“What’s not to get?” I asked gaily. “I play golf. I go to parties. I like you.”
“Do you?” he asked, so surprised and earnest that I laughed.
“Yes, I do. Otherwise I wouldn’t be making the time. Do you like me?”
“Well, I don’t know you.”
“Oh, what does that have to do with liking me?”
I thought he might kiss me then, but instead he pulled away, looking slightly abashed.
“I don’t know you,” he said, “but I think I would like to.”
I took a sip of my drink to buy some time because that wasn’t a line I heard very often. I wasn’t sure I liked it, but with Nick’s eyes on me, I decided I did.
“I think I might let you get to know me,” I said, and he smiled with real pleasure.
In the end, we stayed at the Lyric for a few hours, and then we were both hungry so we stopped for a short while at a restaurant for a shared plate of corned beef hash and eggs. Nick told me a little about the war, nothing dark at all, but the day the sun came up silver instead of gold over Cantigny, the peeping of chicks inside an abandoned helmet. I wasn’t much of a soldier’s girl, but I liked listening to him, more solemn than I usually was over our meal.
After that, there were only a handful of hours left before Nick needed to be back at his work, which made me laugh because it had been some time since I had been with anyone who needed to worry about something like that.