The Luxe by Anna Godbersen

Author:Anna Godbersen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780061756849
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-05-15T22:00:00+00:00

Twenty One

With the early arrival of Admiral Dewey’s fleet in the New York harbor yesterday, and the frenzied preparations for the two parades—one by sea on Friday, and one by land on Saturday—it would seem that the city will finally have something to talk about besides the engagement of society scions Mr. Henry Schoonmaker and Miss Elizabeth Holland.

––FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL PAGE, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27,1899

“COME ON, RINGMASTER!” CRIED TEDDY CUTTING, shaking his fist in the air.

“Move, you old nag!” Henry added in a somewhat less generous tone. He was sitting beside his friend in the steep and rickety wooden grandstand seats at Morris Park, drinking Pabst from bottles with blue ribbons on them, eating salted peanuts, and generally acting like a man several notches down in class. The racetrack in the Bronx was much prettier from his family’s box, but on this particular day Henry was avoiding the judgmental specter of his father, and the Schoonmaker box was a show of opulence intended to make its visitors ever-mindful of its owner’s worldly accomplishments. Henry’s worldly goal at the moment was drinking enough beer to be happy and forgetful. “Mooooove!” he cried, in the direction of a mahogany blur of thoroughbred.

Teddy tipped his brown derby back on his head, so that tufts of blond hair emerged from under his hat, and clapped his hands together rowdily as their horse approached the finish line. Ringmaster, with the little red-and-white-clothed jockey on his back, was in second, but as he approached the finish line, he was overtaken. Teddy clapped his hands once in frustration when he saw that his horse had come in fourth. “Well, there goes another twenty bucks,” he said, tossing his racing card under their seats.

“Oh, come on,” Henry replied, moving his black straw boater to a jauntier angle and leaning his elbows on the seat behind him. “It’s not all about money.”

“Says you.” Teddy smiled good-naturedly. “So who’s our money on next? La Infanta?”

“Why don’t we just bet on all the horses next time, and then we won’t have to worry about losing. I for one am just glad that we’re out of the city, and away from all that madness.”

Teddy raised both of his fair eyebrows in Henry’s direction and took a long sip of his beer. Henry ignored the skeptical look and turned up the collar of his tweed jacket. Morris Park, where the Belmont Stakes were run, was situated in a far corner of the Bronx, a borough that still did not feel like part of New York City. It had been annexed on January 1 of that year, along with Brooklyn and Queens, but it still looked sleepy and rural and felt very far away from the rumbling grid of Manhattan, which was currently being taken over by revelers and patriots. The city was busy preparing the fireworks and streams of confetti to welcome home those who had triumphed in battle.

“I meant the celebration,” Henry said, trying to dispel his friend’s accusatory look with a serious expression.

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