Free Pipsqueak by Brian M. Wiprud Page A

bunch of ties in the box. My towel dropped, I coughed up the Scope, and he let go. The rest is history. (Mr. and Mrs. Vogel from across the street probably still bend the postman’s ear about it.) Anyway, the suits fit like tailor-made—tails, tux, pinstripe, and cruise—and I’ve kept them around for twenty-five years and only had occasion to wear them each once in that time. Since it wasn’t summer, and I wasn’t waving a hanky from the deck of the
Piscataway Princess,
my choice was reduced to the pinstripe. In the pocket, I found a cocktail napkin from my dad’s funeral.
    Angie’s closets were not devoid of fashion. She found a black, calf-length, off-the-shoulder bridesmaid dress loaded with pleats. (Yes, a black bridesmaid dress. This is New York, after all.) With the matching black pumps, the ensemble wouldn’t have gotten her much more than a shrug at the Gotham Club. But it was her jeweler’s eye for accessorizing that got her the nod: elbow-length black satin gloves, seamed stockings, crushed velvet wrap. With a curling iron, she sculpted her shoulder-length blond hair. After much angst, she’d decided that even a small hat was too much, so acorn-sized red costume earrings and matching lipstick ended the ordeal. Standing before the mirror, she smiled, then turned to me with a frown. “I look terrible. Don’t I look terrible?”
    It only took fifteen minutes to convince her otherwise, and another fifteen to get us out the door and into a cab.
    “You look good, Sugar Plum.” Angie squeezed my arm. “Though maybe it needs to be let out in the middle a little.”
    I sucked it in ever so slightly, about to protest.
    In ten minutes our cab delivered us to the Gotham Club, an outwardly unremarkable venue in the low 50s, and we went in.
    Beyond red velvet drapes we emerged into a cavernous blue-tiered ballroom, concentric rows of candlelit tables making a bull’s-eye of the obsidian-tile dance floor. There was enough headroom to bone up on your model rocketry, though they’d opted to use the extra space to keep the velvet industry solvent via curtains billowing down from the apex to the floor. Diamond-shaped sconces dimly defined ledges in the plush walls that were balconies.
    The muted light was yellow, dampening colors so that a navy suit wasn’t that far off from the red pillowy walls.
    Thick and red as pimientos, every woman’s lips were laden with lipstick. Sharp eyes darted to competing fashions. Hair spray—layers and layers of hair spray—stung the nostrils. With a laugh and the self-conscious wave of a cigarette holder, one woman put a hand on a man’s forearm to make a point.
    Chiseled jaws, beetle-wing hair, and a dreamy look were the men’s ideal. Hands wanted to go into pockets, but it ruined the look of the double-breasted jackets. A few had attempted the pencil-thin mustache, but the Gable mojo only worked for the swarthy ones, and looked itchy anyway. Breezy, but uneasy too, they checked their surroundings for familiar faces.
    Swank cliques, positioned in archetypal clumps, cast sardonic looks on the inauthentically attired.
    “Timex . . .” Miss Cat Glasses whispered to Miss Corsage.
    “Chess King . . .” Mr. Tux said to Mr. Briarwood.
    “. . . tie clips that don’t go the whole width, you know what I mean?” Mr. Boutonniere muttered, his pals chortling commiseratingly.
    “Your hat, sir?” A finger was tapping my shoulder. I pivoted toward the coat check. “Check your hat?”
    “Yes.” Angie swapped my fedora for a ticket, smiling tightly. “I could see the cheapskate look coming into your eyes.”
    “Wisenheimer.” I put out my arm and Angie hooked her gloved hand through my elbow. We walked to a railing overlooking the tiers and dance floor.
    “Have I told you how exquisite you look tonight?”
    “Yes, but it never hurts to hear it again.” Angie gave me a skeptical smile, the one that knows the compliment is contrived but appreciates the thoughtfulness anyway. She