Read The Other Typist for Free Online Page A

it we were out the door.
    The agenda for the evening was dinner and dancing. At first I was inwardly curious about the dinner part—I envisioned the kind of restaurant I had never been to, one with creamy white tablecloths and napkins and exciting things on the menu I had never tasted, like oysters Rockefeller. But the meal turned out to be diner food at a greasy spoon owned by a friend’s second cousin. The twins proudly informed us they received 20 percent off the total bill every time they dined.
    The conversation, I’m afraid to report, was rather inane throughout most of the evening. The twins were both the quiet sort—so quiet, in fact, there was something a bit unnerving and unnatural about their silence. Always happy to assume center stage, Helen tried to fill most of the dead space with chatter, but despite the fact she had a number of memorized lines and embellishing accents at her disposal, I could tell she was running thin on material after only thirty minutes of the twins’ stoniness. She was wearing an old-fashioned and rather fussy frock, and when she reached across the table her sleeve accidentally got caught in the puddle of murky gravy on her plate. The result was an extremely unbecoming brown stain running the length of her blousy forearm. She bemoaned this tragedy with great dramatic flare, and hinted—not too subtly, I might add—that as a gentleman Benny might think to assist her in the dress’s replacement. Benny either did not catch on to her insinuations or else did an excellent job of appearing not to. After dinner, we piled into a taxi-cab and gave the driver the address of some sort of dance hall to which the twins claimed to have been specifically invited.
    As had been the case with the restaurant, the dance hall was not as I’d (very optimistically, I now realize) pictured. The dance, they’d explained during the taxi-cab ride, was being put on by their club. Upon hearing this disclosure, Helen had turned to me, the delighted gleam of bragging in her eyes, and had hissed,
That
’
s right, Rose; they belong to a social club!
The words
social club
loomed large in the air. Involuntarily, I pictured the lush oak-paneled rooms I had so often glimpsed through a high open window here and there while walking the city blocks near Grand Central. Behind those oak-paneled rooms I imagined marbled hallways and thickly carpeted sitting rooms and—with any luck—a swell ballroom with decadent refreshments and young couples dancing. And perhaps all these imaginings
are
what lies behind the oak-paneled rooms, but I cannot claim to be able to verify that, for the place we were destined to go was a cheaply lit café near Broadway as it crossed over Sixth Avenue and plunged deeper into the West Side. The “social club” in question turned out to be a volunteer sporting league, whose central organization was based in Hell’s Kitchen.
    Inside the café, there was a small elevated platform meant to serve as a grandstand for the orchestra. Four musicians were all that made up the entire “orchestra,” but they played with tremendous enthusiasm, perhaps in part to make up for their lack of greater numbers. We found a table in a corner and sat down to take in the scene. A quick survey revealed a pathetic but sincere effort on behalf of the dance’s organizers. Someone had draped black oilcloths over the café tables and set out mason jars that had been first scrubbed clean and then outfitted with little white candles that were now alight and burning brightly. The same someone had probably also hung the long strands of colored crepe paper that were draped in awkward abortive swags high up along the walls. There were only two couples dancing to the music in the middle of the room, and they were dancing a conservative and dowdy foxtrot. Even in my premature state of spinsterhood, I was aware this dance was beginning to go out of fashion. I peered over at Helen in an attempt to gauge her dismay, but her face