“Well, even better than that,” Mother continued. “Emily is friendly with Eleanor Roosevelt and she told me Franklin had the most wonderful suite at Westmorly Court. It’s walking distance from the campus. And she said the boys could take over Franklin’s lease when he graduates this spring!”
“Well, that sounds good to me,” Father said, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “Smart business is an efficient business. Right, Harry?”
My grandfather had always used that phrase. It was the self-made millionaire in him. He didn’t like to waste time and he liked the maximum return on his investment.
Securing a place that was good enough for a Roosevelt was basically a fait accompli.
The suite I shared with Edward was considered the finest on campus. Westmorly Court was located in a strip of real estateknown as the Harvard Gold Coast. Here, we found every luxury imaginable for two young freshmen. Aside from modern plumbing and electric lights, the building, with its elegant brick facade and white-trimmed Palladian windows, boasted an ornate marble swimming pool, billiard room, squash court, and even a solarium on the roof.
While our two mothers had exchanged letters in advance on how to best decorate our chambers before our arrival—sheets ordered from Wanamaker’s in Philadelphia, two Oriental carpets from Hardwick & Magee’s, and bedroom furniture specially crafted in South Carolina—I was more concerned with living in a suite situation with someone I’d never met before.
Edward ended up being everything I was not. That first night, as we each sat in the pair of Morris chairs Franklin Roosevelt had kindly left behind in our fireside study, he reached into his breast pocket and withdrew his pipe.
“Get your nose out of that book, Harry!” he insisted. “We need to get out of this room and have some fun.”
I had only twenty pages left in the book I was reading, but it was clear Edward was not going to let me stay in the room and finish it.
“A couple of us are thinking about going to the Vendome in Boston. There’s a soiree there tonight and there will be some ladies…” Edward’s eyes lit up.
I laughed. I thought he must be joking.
“It’s our first night here,” I said.
“Exactly!” Edward snapped his fingers. “Let’s make it a good one!”
Despite being lanky, he was surprisingly strong. He pulled me up from the chair and nudged me to get dressed in my bestdinner jacket and tie. Within the hour, we were both slick with pomade and our cheeks braced with cologne.
That evening I learned one essential thing about Edward. He adored women. He enjoyed flirtatious chatter. And while I was shy, I watched him with amazement from the velvet sidelines of the Hotel Vendome’s ballroom; he was as fluid with conversation as he was in drinking champagne.
The next morning, I found Edward stepping out of the bathroom in his robe. “Hey, Harry,” he said, grinning through the haze of his hangover. “Maybe next time don’t bore the ladies with all those quotes and esoteric book references. Bit of a deadweight, you know?” He gave me a little punch to my shoulder. “They’re from Beacon Hill, not Oxford. They prefer to dance the cakewalk rather than chat about William Shakespeare!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THEENGLISH LANGUAGE IS A BEAUTIFUL THING WHENthe tongue surrenders to every syllable, every vowel. It sparkles with its own electricity, it possesses its own magic, when it’s spoken aloud.
That first night with Ada, the sheer thrill of language was something that we found connected us even beyond our shared love of books.
“What’s your favorite word?” Ada asked me that evening after our dinner. She stood in the hotel lobby, looking even more beguiling to me after our wonderful conversation at dinner than when we’d met hours earlier.
“No one’s ever asked me anything like that before,” I said, trying to buy myself some time. There were so many glorious words in the English language, but when I looked at Ada standing there, the word “celestial” flew out.
My answer seemed to tickle her. “What a rather unlikely word to come from a gentleman’s mouth,” she giggled. “Honestly, I adore that word, too.”
“And now, don’t tease me a second longer,” I protested. “If this is a game, you have to share yours.”
She contemplated her choice for a moment, and I could sense her mind moving quickly between more than one.
“Phosphorescence,” she declared finally in a decisive tone. “I like how musical it sounds and I love what it means.”
“An excellent choice.” I smiled, bemused. I didn’t want to leave her there in the lobby. I wanted to play word games with her all night.
“There’s that wonderful line by Emily Dickinson where she says ‘to find that phosphorescence, that light within, that’s the genius behind poetry…’”
I wanted to tell her that she was beaming now. That I understood exactly just what Dickinson was talking about when she said “the light within.” Ada Lippoldt was phosphorescent. She glowed as though there were a candle burning beneath her skin.
She looked at me again. But now my gaze traveled from her eyes to the perfect archer’s bow of her lips.
“Mr. Widener,” she said, pulling me back to our conversation. Her voice was a reminder to me to resume my good manners.
