No Ivory Tower by Stephen Davenport

Author:Stephen Davenport
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: West Margin Press
Published: 2019-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE PERSON WHO opened the door for Rachel at the River Club two days later, when she appeared for her monthly Friday lunch with Milton Perkins, was a geriatric version of every butler who has ever appeared on Masterpiece Theater. He looked even more surprised to see the likes of her at the front door than he had the month before. “It’s me again,” she said brightly, hoping for a rise, but, poor man, he didn’t seem to hear her. He commanded her to wait in the lobby while via some invisible semaphore apparently available only to Anglo-Saxons he informed some other vassal that she was at the front door, and that second vassal in turn informed Mr. Perkins, and then: “Mr. Perkins will come downstairs and speak to you here.”

“Why? That would just interrupt his martini,” Rachel said and handed him her coat. She wanted very much to brush the crumbs off his lapels and the vest that covered his rounded tummy, but she kept her hands to herself and climbed the stairs. The eyes of the gray-haired Yankees, each in his golden frame, followed her as she ascended. She decided they approved.

In that capacious dining room, Milton Perkins was already at his table. He saw her coming, and his eyes lighted up and he stood to greet her. “I knew you’d be on time,” he said, his voice full of approval. Gray suit and vest, a crisp triangle of a handkerchief in his chest pocket, blue eyes, gray hair, parted exactly in the middle. The person who had forgotten a critical executive committee meeting was nowhere in sight. Milton Perkins was still a very handsome man.

He pulled out her chair for her, then pushed her in, just as her father had done for her mother at dinner every night of their lives. The table was covered in thick white cloth, the silver gleamed, the glassware sparkled, the napkin Rachel placed on her lap had an actual weight, and a tall, gorgeous Latin American waiter handed them the menus bound in red leather. Milton Perkins ordered a dozen oysters for each of them and asked Rachel what she wanted to drink. “Water, I guess,” she said offhandedly, and pulled the list of things she wanted to talk about out of her suit jacket pocket, placing it on the table, as the waiter lingered.

Milton Perkins didn’t even glance at the list. “Water?” he said. “It’s Friday afternoon.”

“But I always come here on Friday and I always—”

Perkins grinned. “What do you think, Carlos?” he asked the waiter. “Would a martini do?”

Carlos looked down at Rachel and raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t about to persuade a fellow dark-skinned person to obey the boss.

“Well, it is Friday afternoon,” she murmured looking up apologetically at Carlos’s heartbreaking eyes, “and I am taking the weekend off.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Carlos said. He kept his face toward her so Milton Perkins couldn’t see the skepticism in his eyes. Then he picked up the two menus and marched regally off.

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