Yes, I minded: I minded her coming in with me. But in my room I just stood waiting as she found the Wanamaker ad, carefully tore out a little section on a shoe sale, which I didn’t believe for a moment she would ever attend. Then I walked to the door, opened it, saying, “See you at six, then. Downstairs.”
“Oh, yes; downstairs, of course. Where else?” And she left, moving past me in the doorway, facing me and grinning, and I just rolled my eyes upward, shaking my head.
23
THIS IS THE ENORMOUS 1912 face which will always mean the Great White Way for me. Archie, an out-of-town New Yorker, had planned this; sent our cab west on Thirty-second Street so that as it turned up Broadway, there it was. And as I hung out the cab window staring up at the immense face, the Jotta Girl’s head beside mine staring too, that great big electric left eye winked at us. I clipped this photo from a New York Times story on Broadway’s spectacular new light-bulb signs that seemed to move; the chariot race with revolving wheels, flying hoofs, and cracking whips up ahead on the roof of the Normandie was another. “New York is crazy about them,” Archie said, and I nodded and grinned. “So am I.”
Nighttime Broadway lay ahead, so different from the almost quiet daytime street I’d walked down. Now sidewalks and street were jammed and glittering whitely: this was the Great White Way because it was white, no neon, every automobile and streetcar headlight, every street-level shop window and theater marquee blazingly lighted by clear, spike-ended white bulbs. And Archie sat grinning: this was his town; he’d personally screwed in every shining bulb around us.
Then he disappointed me. The driver swung left, across the street to park heading the wrong way in front of—the Astor Hotel? I didn’t want to go here, into a place still existing in my own time, in which I’d often been, and the Jotta Girl, glancing at me, didn’t either. But in we went, to the elevators, where Archie—Mr. Manhattan—simply nodded at the elevator boy, forefinger pointing straight up. And then we stepped out into this, the Astor Roof Garden; I didn’t know it existed. Roof gardens all over town, Arch said as we were led to a table overlooking Broadway; on hotels and even theater roofs, the plays moving out and up under the sky when the weather was right. Now as we sat down, we could feel the great gas heaters, all around the perimeter. And then, under the glitter of the night sky, we had—what else?—champagne. And talked. Or Archie did; I mostly questioned. This tall, pleasant, red-haired, red-mustached, freckled man was a major in the U.S. Army and—I wasn’t surprised—chief aide to President Taft, as he had been to the preceding President, Theodore Roosevelt. And I nodded, impressed, thinking of their nighttime meeting beside the Flatiron Building. But now Arch had a six-week leave; he needed a rest, though he didn’t look tired to me. First, some time in New York, which he loved. “Then a few weeks in Europe.”
“Oh? When are you going?”
And it was this easy: “Wednesday, this coming Wednesday; on the Campania. She’s small and a bit slow, but I like that, and she’s a Cunarder, so I expect I’ll enjoy the sea voyage; I am never seasick. I have a friend, Francis Millet, the well-known painter”—a little pride in his voice—“who is off on the midnight sailing of the Mauretania tonight. Wouldn’t wait for me; doesn’t like New York, if you can imagine that.”
“Midnight sailing?” The Jotta Girl sounded interested.
“Oh yes. They’re enormous fun, you know. Come along, why don’t you. Both of you. You’ll enjoy it, they’re like an enormous party.”
Rube . . . are you sure this is Z?
Champagne up there in the sky; then we walked catercorner across Broadway, Archie not saying where we were going. But—not running across the street, hardly even looking, just walking between the few slow-moving cars trundling along—when I saw the huge stone griffin over the entrance, I knew; this was Rector’s.
Inside, it was big, lavish, crystal-chandeliered, luxurious, and crowded. We had to wait, but they knew Archie, and we didn’t wait long.
At our table—more champagne on the way—the Jotta Girl and I looked at our napkins, embroidered with the griffin; at the tablecloth marked with the same, at our glasses and silverware engraved with the Rector griffin. And part-time New Yorker Archie watched us, delighted.
Then he entertained us with Rector stories: the former jockey, now rich, who occasionally had his giant servant carry a small cannon to the roof, where he shot it off to celebrate various occasions, such as his wedding; the rich miner from the West who showed up annually, always with a vest pocket full of pearls which he’d finger and play with on the tabletop. The giant apples imported from France in season, all grown with a paper griffin pasted to their skin so they ripened with the Rector trademark.
Elegant people all around us, including one beauty who caught me staring. A fine orchestra, and it occurred to me, half listening as Archie talked, how many songs of this time have been remembered ever since: they played “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” . . . “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now” . . . “Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland” . . . “Oh, You Beautiful Doll” . . . Then, right in the middle of “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” Archie just finishing about the apples from France, the orchestra cut off in midnote and swung abruptly into “I’m Falling in Love with Someone,” and Arch leaned discreetly across the table to whisper excitedly, “There he is! By the door!”
I looked, saw a man in evening clothes, in his early fifties, I’d say, who stood nodding, smiling, bowing slightly, acknowledging a spatter of applause. Then he turned to walk to the orchestra. “He’s going to thank them now,” Archie said. “He always does.”
“Who is he?”
That startled Archie. “Why, Victor Herbert! The moment they see him enter, they invariably stop and play one of his compositions. And invariably he walks over to thank them—see him? Very gracious man.”
We ordered dinner, the Jotta Girl nudged me to pour more champagne, and after we’d tasted, I asked Archie if he knew Alice Longworth.
Of course! Everyone knew Alice, she was leader of a set, of which he was pleased to be a minor member.
Oh? What was she like?
“A madcap. Quite insane. Her husband, Nick, is a member of the House, but she finds that no barrier to her impulses. If one is awakened at three in the morning by pebbles dashed against one’s window, it will be Alice down below forcing you up and dressed to join some sort of impromptu party. We’ve played golf with Alice driving a ball through the empty streets of Washington at some unlikely hour. I am in hope that she and Nicky will come up to New York for at least a day before I must sail.”
I think dinner—rack of lamb for me—was maybe the best I’ve ever had. Then—this was my evening—I ordered brandy, and when I asked Archie about his two Presidents, he got serious. Had enormous regard and respect for President Taft, liked him immensely, an honor to serve as his aide. But his real love, I could tell from his voice, was President Roosevelt.
What about Roosevelt, what did he admire so? Well, T.R. was himself always. Took a walk once with the French ambassador, reached the Potomac, and sent his two Secret Service guards home. Then—a fine summer day—the two men stripped down, swam the Potomac, swam back, sat on a rock in the sun, drying, got dressed, and walked back to the White House. Independent. And a spirit of fun.