—Ho, boy, she said at last. If you get thrown out of one of those schools, to get into another you need to come from a pretty old family. But to get thrown out of two and go to a third? You need to have arrived on the Mayflower! So what’s this Woolly character’s real name?
—Wallace Wolcott Martin.
—Of course, it is. Charity, why don’t you go in my office and bring me the black book that’s in my desk drawer.
When Charity returned from the room behind the piano, Emmett was expecting her to have a little address book. Instead, she was carrying a large black volume with a dark red title.
—The Social Register, explained Ma Belle. This is where everybody’s listed.
—Everybody? asked Emmett.
—Not my everybody. When it comes to the Social Register, I’ve been on it, under it, behind and in front of it, but I’ve never been in it. Because it was designed to list the other everybody. Here. Make room, Gary Cooper.
When Ma Belle dropped onto the couch at Emmett’s side, he could feel the cushions sink a few inches closer to the floor. Glancing at the cover of the book, Emmett couldn’t help but notice it was the 1951 edition.
—It’s out of date, he said.
Ma Belle gave him a frown.
—You think it’s easy to get ahold of one of these?
—He doesn’t know, said Charity.
—No, I suppose not. Listen, if you were looking for some Polish or Italian friend whose grandparents landed on Ellis Island, then, first of all, there wouldn’t be no book in which to look. But even if there was a book, the problem would be that those sort change their names and addresses like they change their clothes. That’s why they came to America in the first place. To get out of the rut their ancestors put them in.
With a show of reverence, Ma Belle laid her hand on the book in her lap.
—But with this crowd, nothing ever changes. Not the names. Not the addresses. Not a single damn thing. And that’s the whole point of who they are.
It took Ma Belle five minutes to find what she was looking for. As a young man, Woolly didn’t have his own entry in the registry, but he was listed as one of the three children of Mrs. Richard Cobb, née Wolcott; widow of Thomas Martin; member of the Colony Club and the DAR; formerly of Manhattan, currently of Palm Beach. Her two daughters, Kaitlin and Sarah, were both married and listed with their husbands: Mr. & Mrs. Lewis Wilcox of Morristown, New Jersey, and Mr. & Mrs. Dennis Whitney of Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.
Duchess hadn’t said which sister they were staying with.
—Either way, said Ma Belle, you’ve got to go back to Manhattan to catch the train. If I were you, I’d start with Sarah, since Hastings-on-Hudson is a shorter ride and has the added benefit of not being in New Jersey.
* * *
When Emmett left Ma Belle’s, it was already half past twelve. In the interest of saving time, he hailed a cab, but when he instructed the driver to take him to the train station in Manhattan, the driver asked which one.
—There’s more than one train station in Manhattan?
—There’s two, pal: Penn Station and Grand Central. Which do you want?
—Which one is bigger?
—Both is bigger than the other.
Emmett had never heard of Grand Central, but he remembered the panhandler in Lewis saying that the Pennsylvania Railroad was the largest in the nation.
—Penn Station, he said.
When Emmett arrived, he figured he had chosen well because the fa?ade of the station had marble columns that towered four stories over the avenue, and the interior was a vast expanse under a soaring glass ceiling with legions of travelers. But when he found the information booth, Emmett learned that there were no trains to Hastings-on-Hudson leaving from Penn. Those were on the Hudson River Line out of Grand Central. So instead of going to Sarah’s house, Emmett boarded the 1:55 for Morristown, New Jersey.
When he arrived at the address that Ma Belle had given him, he asked the cabbie to wait while he went to knock on the door. The woman who answered said that yes, she was Kaitlin Wilcox, in a reasonably friendly manner. But as soon as Emmett asked whether her brother, Woolly, happened to be there, she grew almost angry.
—Suddenly, everyone wants to know if my brother is here. But why would he be? What’s this all about? Are you in league with that girl? What are you two up to? Who are you?
As he made his way quickly toward the cab, Emmett could hear her shouting from the front door, demanding once more to know who he was.
So it was back to the Morristown depot, where Emmett took the 4:20 to Penn Station, then a cab to Grand Central, which, as it turned out, had its own marble columns, its own soaring ceiling, its own legions of travelers. There, he waited half an hour to board the 6:15 for Hastings-on-Hudson.