The World Is Our Oyster

Daniel leaned back, running his eyes over Caroline’s jawline. He loved the way she kept her hair in an old-fashioned chignon rather than getting a bob, like those flappers.

Caroline turned her face toward Harry and smiled. “I love a good bonfire,” she said.

Daniel ran a finger down the inside of her arm.

Flames spiraled upward, fueled by a settling log that sent embers shooting skyward like fireflies.

“Enjoy it now,” said Harry. “Be too hot in a month, six weeks at the most.”

Daniel’s older brother Bird sketched, the tones on the page growing darker as the fire died. In a few broad strokes, he caught the scene before him: Caroline’s long neck and firm jaw, Daniel’s hand on her arm, and Harry twisting so that he could look down at her.

Flipping to the next page, Bird glanced up in time to see Daniel frown at him. His fingers moving with a confidence the artist himself lacked, he captured his younger brother’s disapproval.

“You can’t expect to develop better social skills if you observe rather than participate,” Daniel said, sotto voce.

Bird nodded and went on sketching a group of friends who lay sprawled across the lawn on the Warren’s estate.

Another log crumbled, a sliver rolling toward Harry, who kicked it back.

“Are you still drawing, Bird?” Caroline asked. “Daniel hates it when Bird draws,” she said to no one in particular.

“That’s not true. I just think he might socialize more, especially when he’s with a group of really fun people.”

“I think he’s a great artist,” said Harry, twirling a croquet mallet as if it were a matchstick. He had carried it all afternoon after winning the last game, played on a wide expanse of lawn behind the turreted house. He pushed himself off the ground and picked up his blanket. “We’d better go up or we’ll oversleep our train.”

Time drove the eight friends up the hill towards the Tudor edifice looming out of the dark, the women wrapped in blankets. Except Caroline, who draped a blue scarf around her neck as she walked between Daniel and Harry, the latter now swinging the mallet back and forth like a scythe.

When they got in the house, Bird stopped to examine his work while the others went upstairs. A few minutes later, he paused in front of his brother’s door and tapped twice.

In seconds, Daniel jerked the door open. “Would you stop making noise? And why are you still walking around? The rest of us have gone to bed.”

“I want to show you something.” Bird hesitated. “Something important.”

Daniel opened his eyes in surprise and stepped back. “Five minutes, then I’m asleep on my feet. And it had better be important.”

Clad in a wool sweater a size too large, Bird perched on the edge of a four-poster bed and held up his pad.

“What? You want me to …”

“Look at it.”

“Look? I see … I see Caroline and …” His voice trailing off, Daniel reached for the pad and held it under the lamp. “This doesn’t mean anything.” His voice, no longer sleepy, rang out in the high-ceilinged room. “It’s nothing. They …” Without warning, he ripped out the page and crumpled it, hurling it into the wastebasket. “Nothing at all. You’re trying … you’re making something out of nothing. Go to bed.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Sorry I bothered you.”

As soon as Bird’s footsteps retreated down the hall, Daniel sat on the bed and stared at the wastebasket. Finally, he bent over, pulled out the wad of paper, and held it in the palm of his hand. He spread out the edges until he had the sheet as flattened as it could be and stared down at the scene his brother had captured.

Him, off to one side, his mouth turned down as he glanced sideways. Caroline, her blue scarf wrapped around her throat, looking up, laughing at Harry’s animated face.

* * *

In late April, Daniel picked Caroline up and informed her that they were going to Brooklyn.

“Brooklyn? What’s … why?” She laughed and wrapped the blue scarf around her shoulders.

“Cold? Shall I put the top on?”

“No. I don’t want the wind blowing me away, that’s all. What put Brooklyn in your mind?”

“Harry called. He’s starting some kind of airplane company and they have a hangar at a place called Barron Island. I told him we’d motor out and take a look. There’s a hand-drawn map he dropped off in the glove box. You can be my navigator.” He stopped talking while he negotiated traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Caroline waited until they got off the bridge before raising her voice so that Daniel could hear her over the car’s engine. “When did this happen? I thought …I mean, Harry is the eldest.”

“True,” he said. “But look at Bird and me. Who would guess that he’s my older brother? Can you see him working in Father’s real estate business?”

Caroline threw back her head and laughed again, blonde hair shining from under a straw cloche hat. “No, but Harry’s not Bird.”

They had not seen Harry since the weekend in March. Although Daniel had not avoided his friend, neither had he made a point of calling him. Instead, he focused on working hard and taking Caroline to restaurants like the Puncheon Club on Forty-ninth Street, where they feasted on oysters and champagne. Each phone call or event or evening with friends or family confirmed how perfect they were for each other. Though he could not deny that Harry generated charisma, Daniel viewed the last month as clear proof that he could rival his buddy in glamour and excitement. The Puncheon Club? What could be better?

On the next-to-last Friday in April, Daniel’s telephone rang; when he put the receiver to his ear, Harry’s voice boomed across the wire.

“Daniel? It’s me, Harry. Where have you been? Haven’t seen you in ages. Anyway, doesn’t matter, come out to Brooklyn and see …”

“Brooklyn? Are you serious? What’s in …”

“My new plane. And my business and my business partner, whom you won’t believe. Jones, Dillon Jones, he of the most beautiful wife in New York City.”

“How did you and Jones …”

“Long story. I’ll tell you later. But I want to take you up. Tomorrow. And bring Caroline.”

So less than 24 hours later, Daniel and Caroline were speeding along Flatbush Avenue in Daniel’s new Oldsmobile, large enough for a family.

“There, I think you go there,” said Caroline, pointing straight ahead.

Daniel slowed the car and followed Flatbush until it turned into a dirt road with weeds growing along the sides. “Are you sure?” he asked as he swerved to avoid another deep rut.

“This map says to follow Flatbush all the way to the airstrip. Harry has the word marsh written along both sides and Be careful.”

Daniel kept driving, the smell of salt water pervading the atmosphere, marshes encroaching on the road.

“I’m not sure this is … oh, wait, look.” Caroline pointed toward the sky, tipping her head back to look almost straight up.

Daniel took his eyes off the road long enough to see an airplane overhead. “It’s him, all right. War surplus. Must be a biplane.”

Caroline said nothing while her gaze followed the spindly machine as it flew lower and lower. Suddenly, she squealed and waved with one arm.

“What are you … I hope my tires survive this road.” Daniel frowned and tried to look at the plane now flying almost directly over them.

“I can hear Harry,” Caroline said to Daniel, then shouted toward the sky, “Hello, Harry.”

“Hello,” he said, his voice floating down from above them like the voice of some friendly god.

They followed the road until it came to a dead end and then turned toward Harry’s lowering plane, pulling into the airstrip in time to see him climb out of the cockpit.

“What do you think about my new doll?” he said as he lunged across the grassy yard, one hand ripping off his leather cap.

“I love it. What kind did you say…?”

Harry nodded at Caroline, then turned to his plane. “It’s a DH4. Britain canceled a huge order at the end of the war, so we got two cheap and plan to buy more.”

Daniel held up a hand. “Wait. What for? I thought Dillon wanted to build …”

“Yes, he does. We do. We want to start our own airplane company. But first, we’ll run a delivery service out of Brooklyn. Business mostly — you know, packages. Promise short fly times for important packages. That sort of thing. Meanwhile, we’ll design our own planes and save money for a place to build them.”

Daniel listened to Harry but watched Caroline, following every flicker in her expression, the way her smile grew wider and her laugh louder as Harry threw out his ideas, piling one on top of the other.

“You’re ambitious.” Caroline tossed one end of her blue scarf over a shoulder while the other stood out against her light-colored dress. “Let’s take a look at your … what did you call it? Doll? Your new doll?” She fell into step beside Harry as he took off for his plane.

Feeling like a third wheel at his own birthday party, Daniel took two long strides to keep up with Harry and Caroline and slipped between them, saying, “It’s like … it’s like …”

Caroline looked up at him with a half-smile on her lips, as if waiting for the punchline.

And suddenly he had it, that clever comment he had wanted to find. “It’s like we Americans always have to reach for the sky, isn’t it? You with your planes, me with skyscrapers. Never the ground for men like us.”

“I like that — reaching for the sky,” said Harry, close enough to his plane to place a hand on the fuselage. “I think I’ll see if I can work it into a slogan. You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, not at all.” Daniel glanced at Caroline for approval.

For the next hour, Harry showed them every detail of the plane and the empty hanger. Then he regaled them with a long story about how he and Dillon had run into each other in downtown Manhattan and spent the whole day talking planes. “And by the time we said goodbye, I had agreed to join his company.”

“I should learn to fly,” said Daniel, never having thought of doing so until that very moment.

“I can’t see you doing that until they make sturdier planes. Is this fabric?” Caroline ran a finger along the wing.

Harry laughed and winked at Daniel. “Yes, it is. They make metal ones and that’s what we’ll design, but for now, this is it. Want to go up?”

“I’ll give it a try, absolutely,” said Daniel, throwing back his shoulders as he glanced at the spindly wings.

Harry slipped a white scarf from his neck and tossed it to his friend. “Take my scarf. Pilots don’t wear these for looks. Well, not only for looks.”

As Daniel stepped up to the plane, Caroline tugged the blue scarf off her neck. “Here, take mine, Harry. That way, neither of you gets cold.” She wound the blue fabric around his neck.

Daniel pulled his scarf tighter and climbed in while Harry started the propeller before scrambling into his own seat.

His heart pounding at the vibration of the plane, Daniel scanned the horizon, the sun drenching everything in a lush golden light, and his mind expanded with possibility. Maybe he would buy a plane someday. Why not? Nothing in this fabulous modern world would be impossible.

As they circled to land, he glanced over the side and saw her: slim, blonde, long legs visible as the wind from the plane blew her dress back. She seemed so perfect for him. The ideal woman.

* * *

He had been too busy to see her all week but called almost every day, leaving messages when she was out. Thing was, he had graduated last spring and gone to work for his father at Pierce Enterprises; if people thought his father would let him off easy, they did not know the man. If anything, he pushed his son harder than anyone.

“If you want to own it someday, you have to know the business inside and out. It’s not only the family who depends on it, you know. We have employees. You’ll be responsible for their families, too.”

So Daniel worked overtime all week, showing offices during the day and taking clients to view apartments in the early evening when they got off work. He went in for a couple of hours Saturday morning, but reached for his jacket at 11. He had earned Saturday off, he told himself.

Later, while he tied a perfect Windsor knot in his necktie, he covered his evening plans: Caroline’s at seven, dinner at Sardi’s, dancing at Roseland’s Ballroom. Giving his shoes one last pop, Daniel headed downstairs. Minutes later, he greeted Caroline’s parents and chatted with them before escorting her out to his car. He knew, even without the looks cast between Mr. and Mrs. Miller, that they expected an announcement soon. He smiled and opened the car door for Caroline.

“I’m taking us to a new place called Sardi’s. Up on West Forty-fourth. Have you heard of it?”

Caroline leaned toward him. “No. Where did you hear about it?”

Daniel’s pulse raced as her perfume wafted over him, and he wanted to pull over and take her in his arms right there. Instead, he said, “Mr. Grogan. He said they have a caricature of Tom Haley on the wall.”

“My parents took me to see his act my junior year. Do you think he’ll come in tonight?”

“You never know. I hear it’s popular with the Broadway crowd,” he said, swinging the Oldsmobile into a parking space.

As they waited for the maître d’ to seat them, Daniel heard someone say “Mr. Pierce” and glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see his father. Catching himself, he looked towards the speaker and held out his hand. “Mr. Swann. Good to see you again. And it’s Daniel.”

“Daniel then. I have the evening off and thought I’d see who shows up. Most of my friends come after the shows. Will you be around then? I could introduce you.”

“I don’t think so. We’re eating early so we can get to Roseland’s. Allow me to introduce you to my friend Caroline Miller.”

“How do you do?” Swann said, eyeing Caroline appreciatively and giving Daniel a knowing wink when she looked down.

“I hope your apartment lives up to expectations.”

“Indeed, it does. I’ll be giving you and your father plenty of referrals. Excuse me for now, though. My table is ready.”

Caroline smiled up at Daniel. “I didn’t know you knew him. You never said anything. I saw him in That Fallow Girl last month. Fabulous.”

“He bought an apartment in one of our buildings. Couple of weeks ago. Father handled the actual sale.”

“He must have been impressed with you. To remember you like that.”

“Yes, well.” Daniel smiled at the compliment. “I always try to do things right,” he said, lifting his eyebrows at the waiter.

“Ready, sir?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Once seated, with Caroline facing the room so that she could see who came in, they ordered hors d’oeuvres and drinks and chatted about their week, mostly hers since his was work. Daniel relaxed for the first time in days, enjoying the sight of his girlfriend and the memory of her parents’ expectant looks.

“What do you think about going to Roseland’s? It’s supposed to have a great orchestra.” When he got no reply, he followed her gaze across the room, the glow in her eyes leading him to expect another Broadway star.

But no. Not another star. Or even a famous patron. Harry. Laughing, talking Harry surrounded by friends and his sister Becky.

“Damn,” he said under his breath. “Damn.”

Harry looked up and caught his gaze. “Daniel,” he said, his voice carrying across the room. Turning to the maître d’, he pointed to Daniel and waved the group of five forward.

“This is swell, really swell. And you, Caroline. You look great. How are you?” Before she could answer, he introduced his chums, most of whom Daniel knew from school days.

Surely, they’ll find their own table, he thought. They can see that we want to be alone. 

But a redhead named John said, “Here, let’s pull this other table over, make one big one so we can all sit together.”

“May I sit here?” Becky pointed to an empty chair to the right of Caroline. “I want to get to know you better.”

Their night — what Daniel thought would be a perfect night — proceeded with seven of them squeezed in wherever they could find a chair. After ordering drinks and dinner, John told old college jokes and Harry regaled them with stories of what he referred to as his one true love.

“I tell you, I thought I would fall out of the plane, but I was determined to learn how Rickenbacker outmaneuvered half a dozen Bosch at a time.”

“With bullets flying at them,” said a girl whose name Daniel had forgotten.

“All the more motivation,” said John, stabbing his potatoes.

The evening went as many had gone the year before, only they had been spent in the Yale dining hall or Harry’s rooms, or maybe the quad if the weather was warm. But an evening with old college buddies is not what Daniel had in mind, and, as much as he liked his friends, he had had all of them he wanted for the evening. Which is why, after taking one last sip of wine, he said, “Great to see you again. I wish we could stay longer, but Caroline and I have plans tonight.” Standing, he reached for her scarf.

“Oh, but they’ll want to join us.” Caroline turned to face Harry. “Roseland’s. Have you been?”

Daniel felt his face flush. What could she be thinking? They had not seen each other in a week. The night was supposed to be theirs.

“No,” Harry said, answering Caroline as his eyes flitted up to Daniel. “Maybe another time. We’re …”

“Who did you say it was, Daniel?” Caroline turned and looked at him.

“Fletcher Henderson, I bet,” said Becky. They’re supposed to be the cat’s meow.”

Caroline lifted her face to look up at Daniel. “Oh, do make him say he’ll come. Please.”

Her face softened and her eyes lit up in a way that made Daniel’s heart pound.

“Of course, we’ll come. Who’d miss it?” John spoke up and waved for their bill.

“I don’t know,” began Harry, “it’s late and …”

“Late? This flyboy job is turning you into an old man.”

They paid the bill while everyone threw barbs at Harry.

“Sorry,” said Harry on the way out. “I can see we’re in the way.”

“You are, old boy, but at least you tried.” Daniel gave his friend a wry smile and moved close enough to throw his arm around Caroline as they walked.

* * *

Around two that morning, Daniel pulled the car up to the curb in front of Caroline’s building and turned off the engine. He sat, not bothering to open the door and waved the doorman back when he stepped forward.

They had argued on and off all evening, any time the others left them alone at the table.

“Why did you invite them?” Daniel demanded the first time the others went to dance. “It’s our night.”

“It’s still our night. It’s that, well, they’re your friends. I thought you would want them to come along.”

“Why would I want old college buddies to join us our first time together in a week?”

“Oh, don’t be such a Mrs. Grundy. I like to have a good time.”

Though they dropped the conversation when the others rejoined them, he asked her again as they sat under the ochre color of the street lamp. The knot in his stomach made him want to avoid the conversation, wait out whatever pull Harry exerted on Caroline. But he had to know. He had expectations. Their families had expectations. “Stop pretending that you invited my friends. You invited Harry to intervene in our evening. Why did you do that?”

She drew in a breath, saying nothing for several seconds. When he kept waiting, she said, “He’s so much … he’s so alive. I don’t know. When he’s around, everyone seems to come awake. It’s … it’s almost as if we sleepwalk through life and then Harry comes along and wakes us up.”

“Are you saying I’m not awake when Harry’s not here? Or are you saying you’re not awake when Harry’s not around? Because I don’t seem to have a problem going out without him.”

She stared out the window, at the few pedestrians making their way home.

“Maybe just me. Maybe I wake up when …”

“Are you saying …” He struggled to find the words. “Are you saying that you’re in love with him? Can that be …? You … you barely know him.”

“I don’t know if I’m in love with him. I do know that I never feel as alive when he’s not around as I do when he is. So, maybe. Yes, yes, I think I am.”

Daniel stared out the window at the dark apartments across the street. Everyone in bed. He could think of nothing to say.

Caroline went on, a note of desperation creeping into her voice. “I can’t help myself. I’ve tried. I really have. Not to disappoint you and … and my family … and, oh, I don’t know. I’m so sorry. For everything. Thank you for a lovely evening.” She drew in a ragged breath and opened the car door, slipping out and running toward the building, the blue scarf trailing down her back.

He had wanted to go round and open her door but his legs seemed to have lost all power. He sat and waited, then when nothing happened — he didn’t know what he expected — he started the car and pulled into traffic.

As he drove through the city, not sure where to go, he remembered the night Bird had come to his room with the drawing and his own refusal to believe what his brother understood perfectly: that the woman he loved was in love with his best friend.

How could he have refused to believe something that now seemed so obvious?

He drove on, alternating between the blinding lights of Broadway and the dusk of winding side streets. For the first time since he could remember, he had no friend to turn to in this new and unimaginable humiliation. He would have to tell his parents at some point, but not after midnight and not when the wound lay bare.

He turned onto Fifth Avenue and drove until he came to Washington Square arch, a kind of formal entrance into Greenwich Village. He followed a line of cars trailing through the park, then headed to his brother’s apartment.

Noting Bird’s tousled hair and drooping eyes, Daniel said, “You were asleep?”

“Do you know what time it is?” But even as he said the words, Bird stepped back to let his brother in.

Daniel stood in the middle of a large, open room cluttered with stained, ragged furniture and all the accoutrements of an artist: two easels with half-finished works on them, tables stacked with drawing papers, some pages blank, some with sketches of Village scenes—children playing in the dirty streets, a cat carrying a mouse, the dark, turgid East River. Paintings lined up against two walls drew Daniel’s eye.

“Sell many?” he asked.

Bird handed him a glass of water before replying. “Quite a few since I got into Gertrude’s studio. These are for a show coming up in a couple of months.”

Impressed that his brother referred to artist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney so casually, Daniel went down on his haunches to examine a large work that captured the weariness of a working man’s face and the joy of dirty children running along the river’s edge. “I forgot how good you are.”

Bird grinned. “Anna’s really helped me focus. I feel as if I have a clear vision now.”

Daniel frowned as he remembered how clear his own vision had been early that very evening, how his entire future seemed to be laid out for him, like a map.

Seeing his younger brother’s drawn face, Bird said, “Why don’t we sit down?”

As the brothers lounged on worn chairs, they sipped Prohibition wine while Daniel explained about the plane and the slogan he came up with and the restaurants he took her to. “The Puncheon Club and Sardi’s, dancing at Roseland’s — all to prove I’m not some hopeless bore.”

Suddenly, Bird let out his high cackle of a laugh. “Odd, isn’t it? I haven’t had this much to drink since I met Anna. And to think, you’re the one corrupting me while you worry about being a bore.”

“I hope it doesn’t cause problems. With Anna, I mean.”

“No, she’s the best.” He poured himself another glass. “I’ll be a little hung over tomorrow, that’s all. Then back to work for the show.”

They sat quietly and sipped their drinks for a few minutes. Finally, Daniel spoke up, some last thought obviously on his mind.

“What if he asks me to be his best man?”

Bird rolled his eyes at his brother’s jump to some nightmare future. “He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t ask her out, let alone marry her.”

Daniel slammed his fist onto the arm of the chair. “If he doesn’t even care about her, then why … why does she …?” His lips trembled and he was afraid he might weep for the first time since he was a boy. He took a deep breath and said, “It’s not that she wants him, you know. It’s that she doesn’t want me.”

Bird nodded and set his glass on a paint-splashed side table. Leaning forward, he gazed into his brother’s eyes, his look steady but not unkind. “You do your best at everything — school, job, even sports. And you’ve gotten whatever you worked for. Why shouldn’t you? You earned it. But you can’t expect to do that your whole life. Look at the world around you. Not everyone gets what they deserve.”

Daniel glanced back at the paintings. His gaze lingered on one of a boy with worn shoes and tousled hair holding up a newspaper, a canvas bag tugging at one shoulder. He could almost hear the unknown boy shouting the headline of the day, all to earn a few coins.

He remembered his frustration at his older brother’s inability to get his life on track, his drinking, and what Daniel thought of as Bird’s impractical career choice. He realized that these paintings and drawings told a different story. “Well, you certainly seem to be doing well. Your work is magnificent, Bird. Really. And I’m glad to see it. I am.”

He got up and strolled to a window overlooking the 6th Street elevated. “People like us see flying machines and buildings disappearing in the clouds and believe the world is our oyster. We only have to pop it open and find the pearl. But the world isn’t our oyster, is it?”

Bird went to stand beside him and watch streetlights glance off train tracks running right by the window. “No, not really.”