“Why does he call it new, then?”
“Jerome can answer that better than I can. It means different things to different people. Have you heard of the Talented Tenth?”
Julia confessed her ignorance.
“It’s what they call Negroes like Jerome and Logan who are as educated and accomplished as any white person. Upper-crust types: doctors, lawyers, professors, and such. Strivers. That’s one kind of new, but Pablo calls new what he thinks Negroes have and white folks don’t, some special snap.” She slid her feet in a soft dance move. “What’s new is white people paying attention, like they just now noticed we have something to say.”
Something to say? Negroes had as much to say as anyone else. Julia listened every day to Christophine, though rarely at length or in great depth. Christophine had plenty to say about the price of ivory buttons, the hats pictured in the society pages, or her long walk to the bus stop, but race never came into any of it.
At least that Julia could see. What did she really know of Christophine’s life beyond what they experienced together and the stories she chose to share? Julia felt a twist of chagrin. Had she failed to notice what else lay beneath and beyond those stories? Or had she not even bothered to ask? It was a galling thought.
Was this new “something” why publishers were so keen to publish Eva’s book? Julia remembered Logan Lanier’s bitter mention of coy theatrics with the manuscript, implying Eva was withholding it until money changed hands.
Eva watched Julia’s face. “What?”
“I was just wondering if you’ve given Pablo the manuscript. Logan Lanier thought there might be some trickiness to that.”
Eva turned to find Duveen. He stood near the windows, singing falsetto harmony with a woman captured under his arm. They were piecing together off-key phrases of “When My Sugar Walks down the Street,” Duveen chiming in on the birdies’ chorus with a robust Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!
Eva lowered her voice. “Not yet. I had to hide it.”
“Hide it from whom?”
Eva ran her tongue along the underside of her lip.
“And why?”
Eva raised her glass to her mouth but left it there, untouched, as she watched Duveen abandon the song and shamble closer. “After Pablo gives me the money, I’ll give him the manuscript. Soon.”
Julia puzzled at this news. The furtive transaction sounded like something Willard Wright might concoct for one of his detective stories.
Eva’s eyes never left Duveen as he headed their way. Her hand trembled as she emptied her glass, one small swallow after another. “First Pablo has to make a special account with me at his bank,” she said. “Leonard, I mean my boss, Mr. Timson, takes care of the money he pays me—it’s mine, but he watches over it. So we need somewhere else to put the book money so Leonard won’t know about it right away. Because when he finds out, oh Lordy, he’ll be mad as a wet hen.”
Mention of bank accounts and complicated finances reminded Julia of her own years when Philip had held total control over her funds, simply because women were deemed incompetent at managing money. Many women endured much harsher oversight of husbands or fathers or brothers. Women might now have the vote, but many still had to rely on a man for bus fare to the polls. It was unjust and infuriating: the great victory rendered hollow by mundane realities.
“Why would your boss be angry about the money?” Julia asked, but Eva didn’t answer, intent on tracking Duveen’s return.
He rejoined them and waved Eva’s empty glass at the bar, perhaps hoping someone would notice and bring over a bottle. “I’ve been telling everyone they must come with me up to Harlem. Your new show will curl their cummerbunds.” His belly quivered in a dreadful shimmy.
Eva smiled.
“You should see what this Sheba can do,” Duveen crowed to Austen and Goldsmith. “I mean it. Come with me sometime, Hurd. I’m a crusader. I lead tours to Harlem for repressed rich white folk. I proselytize for the powers of Negro sass and pep—just the tonic our stodgy old civilization needs. Come tonight.”
Austen shook his head, blaming early plans in the morning. Julia might have added that no one here seemed particularly repressed or stodgy. But Duveen insisted, and a date was set for a week from Saturday. Austen and Julia would join Duveen and an out-of-town couple who, he said, had engaged him to escort them into Harlem. Escort? Julia had an absurd image of Duveen leading his timid charges down the street with a well-thumbed Baedeker, as if he alone spoke the language and knew the coinage of the realm. They did know it was New York, didn’t they?
“You too, Arthur,” Duveen badgered his friend. “She’s your new author. Come too.”
Goldsmith deliberated. He considered Eva, who returned his gaze with friendly encouragement, and then, at length, Julia. “Coral’s arranged something for that evening, but perhaps I could get away for a short while.”
“Lemony larkspurs!” Duveen exclaimed. “It’s a party then. Come to my place first. You’ll meet the mighty Max Clark from San Fran. He’s a big player in timber out in Oregon, or is it Ida-hoo? Somewhere wretched and rainy. He wants to dazzle a new wife while he’s nailing down deals. He’ll burn dough faster than matches while she’s watching, so we can scamper along on his dime. We’ll start off with the late supper show at Carlotta’s; then I’ll spin your heads right through breakfast at the Sugar Bowl. Grits and gravy, washed down with their own Seventh Avenue thunder. Regular monkey rum, that stuff.”
Julia fought hard not to laugh at his slang-soaked enthusiasm. From the shadow under her hat’s brim, she caught Eva’s eye. “Pishposh,” Eva mouthed, her lips barely moving.
With a throaty hey and two sharp elbows, Billie Fischer wedged into the conversation. “This?” she said, eyeing Eva. “This is what all the stink’s about?”
She pumped Eva’s hand. “Hello, sunshine. Billie Fischer. Glad you could grace our
