Rules of Civility

It’s late March, and Katey has a new studio apartment. She’s taken to playing contract bridge after buying a primer and teaching herself. She now takes turns playing imaginary people around the table, including a rabbi and a gangster. As she’d doing so, Tinker calls. She hasn’t heard from Tinker or Eve in nearly two months. Tinker has to go to his office and stay late, and he doesn’t think Eve should be alone. He explains the difficulty of the last few weeks. The doctors said that it would get worse before it got better, and it has. Katey agrees and leaves for his apartment at the Beresford.

Katey flashes back to when Eve was still in the hospital and unconscious the first few days. Eve received visits from the girls at Mrs. Martingale’s boardinghouse, her father (Mr. Ross), and Tinker. Eve eventually woke up and became a steelier version of herself. Her father and mother insisted she return to Indiana, but Eve refused. Mr. Ross tried to reason with her as she couldn’t get up and down the boardinghouse steps with her leg. Finally, Tinker offered his apartment at the Beresford. Before Mr. Ross left without his daughter, he spoke to Katey and gave her the envelope with the 50 ten-dollar bills in it; Katey uses this money to secure her studio apartment and put the rest aside. Eve then moved in to Tinker’s apartment, and the three spent a lot of time together taking care of Eve and dining. Katey came to realize that when she helped Eve dress, Eve was staring at herself in the opposite mirror. Eve later asked Katey if she’d stop coming by. It was no longer a game between them but a matter of survival. Katey recognized this and agreed to stop seeing them.

The narrative then switches back to the present. Katey arrives and is greeted by Hamilton, the youngest of the doormen. She goes up and greets Tinker, who is visibly relieved that she’s arrived. He again tells her that he will be late. Katey promises to stay as late as she needs to. He takes her in to see Eve while Katey takes note of the stylish décor of Tinker’s apartment. Eve is reclining on a sofa in a white dress. When she gets closer, she can see the scars from the accident. Tinker apologizes for not being able to stay, and he leaves. Katey tries talking to Eve, but Eve is annoyed. She tells Katey that she doesn’t expect her to give platitudes about her scars, and she doesn’t want small talk. Eve also gripes about feeling trapped. Eve tells Katey she can leave, but Katey refuses. Instead, she and Eve drink, and then she reads at Eve’s suggestion. Eve then asks her to read something different (Tinker has bought her all female writers and they bore her). Katey chooses Hemingway and starts from the middle, which delights both her and Eve. Eve finally falls asleep, and Katey looks around the apartment.

She again notes the décor, plus four studies by Stuart Davis on the wall, deducing that someone else has decorated Tinker’s apartment. Her deduction is later underscored when she finds Tinker’s room (he has moved into the maid’s room) and sees a different, rougher painting of dockworkers on display there. She also finds a book on Washingtonia written by a young George Washington that contains 110 maxims on civility. According to its inscription, Tinker’s mother gave him the book when he was 14 years old. Katey also finds a letter from Mr. Ross to Tinker, thanking him for his gentlemanly conduct with Eve. Katey replaces everything where she found it and goes back to find Eve, but Eve is no longer in bed or on the sofa in the living room. Katey panics briefly, and then finds Eve on the terrace. Eve reassures Katey that she won’t jump, because she’s Catholic, and admits that she loves the skyline view. Katey helps Eve back to bed, and then makes herself “closed-kitchen” eggs; her father used to make them when everyone went to bed because he worked night shifts. Tinker comes home, and Katey makes him eggs. The two have sherry and talk. They each describe the items they’d like to have with them if shipwrecked on an island: Tinker a jackknife and flint, Katey a pack of cards and a copy of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden . Tinker tells Katey he may take Eve to Palm Beach because the weather will do her some good. Tinker kisses Katey before she leaves, and he takes Eve to Palm Beach the following morning without a word.