Tinker’s Portrait
The novel opens with Katey and her husband Val attending the exhibition by Walker Evans. The portraits from the New York City subways during the 1930s trigger Katey’s memory of the time. Particularly, Tinker’s portraits that are one year apart showing the drastic change in his appearance:
“He came back to my side to take a second look at this portrait of a twenty-eight-year-old man, ill shaven, in a threadbare coat. Twenty pounds underweight, he had almost lost the blush on his cheeks, and his face was visibly dirty. But his eyes were bright and alert and trained straight ahead with the slightest hint of a smile on his lips, as if it was he who was studying the photographer. As if it was he who was studying us. Staring across three decades, across a canyon of encounters, looking like a visitation. And looking every bit himself.”
Eve’s Beauty
Katey describes her best friend Eve in great detail as a stunning beauty from the Midwest. The accident badly injures and disfigures Eve later in the story initiating a reconstructive surgery to correct the damage. The protagonist vividly captures her beauty before the accident by observing her facial appearance and height:
“She was indisputably a natural blonde. Her shoulder-length hair, which was sandy in summer, turned golden in the fall as if in sympathy with the wheat fields back home. She had fine features and blue eyes and pinpoint dimples so perfectly defined that it seemed like there must be a small steel cable fastened to the center of each inner cheek which grew taut when she smiled. True, she was only five foot five, but she knew how to dance in two-inch heels—and she knew how to kick them off as soon as she sat in your lap.”
Washington Square Performance
During their New Year’s Eve escapades that end up with meeting Tinker Grey, the two friends attend the event at Washington Square. There is an elaborate performance about to take place by the official band but another fraternity brother interrupts it. He is described as an overweight young man donning a diaper and a megaphone in his hand. The young man later interrupts the official performance in a confident manner akin to a ringmaster:
“I took out another cigarette, preparing to enjoy the show, but my attention was drawn back in the other direction by a rather startling development. On the bench beside the wino, the diaper-donning New Year had begun to sing “Auld Lang Syne” in a flawless falsetto. Pure and heartfelt, as disembodied as the plaint of an oboe drifting across the surface of a lake, his voice lent an eerie beauty to the night. Though one has to practically sing along with “Auld Lang Syne” by law, such was the otherworldliness of his performance that no one dared to sound a note.”
Anne’s Taste
Katey’s gravitation towards Tinker is because of his sense of style and taste that makes him fit in the high society. The plot twist in the narrative happens when Katey realizes that his taste is quite similar to that of Anne’s. This realization leads to other developments that will shine a light on the relationship between the two. The statement paints this moment of insight that possibly his whole life is a product of Anne’s doing:
“I found myself in the foyer of a bright sunlit suite. On one side of the central living room was a closed paneled door, which presumably led to a bedroom. In the foreground a blue and yellow couch and two club chairs were gathered around a cocktail table striking an effective balance between masculine and feminine styles. Beyond the sitting area stood a banker’s desk with a vase of lilies on one corner and a black-shaded lamp on the other. I began to suspect that the perfect taste on display at Tinker’s apartment was Anne’s. She had just that combination of style and self-confidence that one needed in order to bring modern design into high society.”
