“Oh, yes, oh, yes. I’ll tell you what, Franny! Are you hungry? I know I am! Let’s order chicken salad sandwiches, why don’t we?”
“Chicken salad sandwiches? I didn’t see them on the menu.” I had seen oysters, shrimp cocktail, and extraordinarily expensive cheeseburgers. What is it about New York City and paying so much for cheeseburgers, anyway?
“We’re in one of the finest hotels in one of the finest cities in the world, are we not? Do they not have chicken? Mayonnaise? Bread? Lettuce? Could they not whip up the if anything quite modest meal of my fantasies and in doing so transport me to the past?”
And so they did. And Leander was right: a simple cold chicken salad sandwich on toasted white bread can be delicious. After we finished our sandwiches, the bartender sent us a plate of Belgian chocolates in fluted red paper. Apparently that was what the hotel guests got overnight on their pillows. I ate only one of them because I was full, so I put two of them in my pocketbook, to share with Val later that night.
Afterward Leander and I said goodbye to each other on Fifth Avenue.
“Promise me something,” he said.
“What?”
“That you’ll write to me sometimes when you get back to San Francisco.”
“My sister Valentines says nobody writes real letters anymore.”
“Ah! But that’s your sister Valentine. You, Franny, I have a feeling about you…”
“You do?”
“Yes. I have the feeling that you may grow up to become a writer. So writing letters will be excellent practice.”
I decided that I liked what he said about me growing up to become a writer. Also, he would write back to me, and I just love getting real letters in the mail. Between Leander and Aunt Theo, I’m going to be quite the correspondent when I get back to San Francisco.
I was putting on my nightgown, my Amour Baby-Doll in Wild Rose that Clover bought me the day we went lingerie shopping, when she knocked on my door.
“You home, Franny? May I come in?”
“Sure.”
Clover opened the door wearing her blue-check artist’s smock and a pink chignon in her hair. There were specks of yellow paint on the smock that looked like they hadn’t quite dried yet, so I could tell she had been at her studio.
“Oh, how pretty you look! Wasn’t I right about how important it is to have a pretty nightie? Now, tell me all about your evening.”
I tried to think of something to say other than the question that was on my mind. Eventually I decided to say: “We had chicken salad sandwiches.”
“At the Sherry Netherland? I would have had oysters, myself. Or … shrimp cocktail, maybe.”
“Oh. Are you fond of oysters?”
“Oh, very! The food of the Gods, and so acquatic.”
“Do they make you think of Sag Harbor?” All of a sudden, I remembered her story of the summer she was seventeen.
“Well, yes, I suppose they do, now that I think of it.”
“Would you call them an aphrodisiac?”
“Heavens, Franny, what a strange question! Though to be perfectly candid: come to think of it, yes.”
“Leander says there is no aphrodisiac like innocence.”
“Does he? Well, that sounds like Leander, all right. Anyway, I hope you had fun? And isn’t the Sherry Netherland lovely? The Plaza is so obvious.”
I couldn’t help pointing out: “Val loves the Plaza.”
But Clover only said, “Why not? People do,” and kissed me good night before going on her way.
I lay in bed in my Amour nightie, but somehow, I couldn’t fall asleep. It was as if I had drunk champagne, when it was only soda and bitters. I was all abuzz. And it’s hard to sleep when you are feeling that way in New York, because outside, you know that so much is going on. As they say, it’s the the city that never sleeps …
When I woke up the next morning, I discovered that the Belgian chocolates I’d saved for Val were melted in their pretty red paper cups. It was a shame, but when I told her they were all melted, she said, “Oh, thanks, Franny, but don’t feel too bad about it, you know. It’s funny, I’m just not craving anything sweet right now.”
And then a memory came to me of the time we were at Bemelmans Bar and got Shirley Temples and Clover remarked that once she grew up she didn’t much care for sugar anymore: “It’s just that after a certain point, one finds one’s cravings change. There start to be—other things…”
14
Carnival of the Animals
Just when I’d given up on Val including me in anything ever again, she surprised me. Julian had an extra ticket to this fancy event where his string quartet was playing, and he and Val asked me if I wanted to come along. At first, I didn’t want to act too excited because that would have been kind of embarrassing, but then Clover said, “Oh, that will be so much fun for you, Franny. What are they playing?”
“Oh.” Val shrugged, not all that interested. “You know, that piece—the one with the sounds of all of the animals—Circus of the Animals.”