“I had no idea there were so many cozy little places in New York,” she said between two forkfuls of spaghetti. “This restaurant is hardly bigger than the village tavern back home. And everybody knows everybody else.”
As they laughed over their glasses of red wine, they didn’t see the men at the bar turn and look at them.
“Who are those three?” Franco de Lucca asked, gazing across the room at Marie, spellbound. Her hair had come loose from its knot during dance class, and now it fell down over her shoulders like a cape. With her high cheekbones, gray eyes gleaming with their own inner light, and trim figure, she looked more aristocratic than any of the Italian countesses his mother had ever arranged for him to meet or tried to marry him off to.
Somehow she reminded him of Serena. Her carefree, almost childlike laughter, utterly unaffected and bubbling over with happiness. Happiness . . . the very idea was almost strange. Franco felt a pang in his chest. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed that way.
The restaurant owner replied, “The one with the red shawl is Pandora, the dancer. She’s mad. The other two gals must be dancers as well, or painters or something like that. Shall I ask them to come over?” He was already halfway out from behind the counter, eager to get into Franco’s good books.
Franco shook his head, almost imperceptibly.
“Not now, I don’t have time. I have to be getting to my next meeting. She doesn’t look American,” he said thoughtfully, still staring at Marie.
The other man went back behind the bar, disappointed, and returned to washing glasses.
“If you ever change your mind, all you have to do is go to one of those artist cafés in Greenwich Village. You’ll find Pandora and her gang there anytime.”
Franco waved his hand dismissively, as if to say what do I care for those three! All the same he took careful note of what the other man said.
Every district Pandora led them through was like a little world unto itself. The faces on the street changed, the clothing, even the languages they heard. Uptown, where Ruth and Steven lived, the avenues were shaded by tall trees and fringed with flowerbeds, but here the streets were crowded with peddlers and their pushcarts. There were fewer motor cars but the subway could be heard underfoot, making an infernal racket. And there were people everywhere.
At first the crowds made Marie nervous or even afraid, but she soon realized that everyone around them considered it perfectly normal. She was fascinated. New York was a cocktail, a city like no other, and she was already a little drunk.
It was after seven in the evening when the three women sank onto a bench down by the harbor, exhausted. Marie knew Ruth must be worried about her and Wanda as well.
Marie’s feet ached so much that it was hard to resist the urge to take her shoes off. Her eyes were red, her throat was dry, and her muscles were sore. But none of that mattered compared to the fun she’d had.
“Do you know that I’ve seen more of the city today than I have in all the weeks I’ve been here?”
“Well, you just have to go out with the right people,” Wanda said, pleased with herself. “I think Pandora knows more about New York than all the guidebooks put together.”
“You’re right,” Marie agreed fervently. “But tell me—how do you know it so well?”
“New York is like a village—and if you’ve spent your whole life here . . .” Pandora said offhandedly. She seemed pleased with the compliment nevertheless. “I have to say that I enjoyed our little outing as well. It was almost like seeing everything for the first time again. I say we do this again next week after class.”
Wanda’s face glowed when she heard that.
For a while they just sat and watched the bustle of the harbor. Two fishing boats and a ferry went past, then a string of barges. Farther out on the water, a gleaming silver ocean liner was making its stately way into port.
“How can one city have so many different faces?” Marie asked in amazement. “I’ve read in my guidebook that they call New York a melting pot, and it’s true, isn’t it? What is it—why are you laughing?” she asked Pandora.
“I just think it’s funny that the guidebooks have taken up that term. A friend of mine was the first to use it—Israel Zangwill,” she declared proudly. “He wrote a play two years ago about a Russian musician whose dearest wish is to write a symphony showing every facet of New York. Israel has the young Russian standing up on top of a high-rise and looking down at the city.”
Pandora stood up, climbed onto the bench, and struck a dramatic pose.
“There she lies, the great Melting Pot—listen! Can’t you hear the roaring and the bubbling? There gapes her mouth—the harbor where a thousand mammoth feeders come from the ends of the world to pour in their human freight.”