The Heat of the Sun

Sinkingly, I wondered how to tell Trouble that this big shabby fellow across the table
required my attention too, when salvation came in the form of a colourful apparition, flapping towards us across the crowded diner.
    Seldom had I been so glad to see Aunt Toolie.
    She looked exhausted. She had not removed her none-too-clean mink, and her cheeks were as bright as the hair piled beneath her cloche. Quickly, she gave us each a pecking kiss (‘School
reunion? How charming!’), fingered Trouble’s lapels (‘A man of taste, I see’), and landed in the seat alongside me (‘No, no, couldn’t eat a thing . But you
boys carry on’), before nudging me, glancing sidelong at my plate (‘Darling, if you’re just going to leave that...’) and snapping imperious fingers for a waiter
(‘Ketchup! Where’s the ketchup?’).
    I said, ‘I thought you were meeting Miss Day.’
    ‘She left a message,’ Aunt Toolie replied, shoving a knife into the ketchup bottle. ‘Expects me to find her at the Captain’s Log – that dive! Oh, but such a day!
This morning I had Maisie and Daisy threatening to break up their act – why, why can’t those girls see they belong together? I put my foot through the kitchen floor. Then all afternoon
there was Copley Wedger – you know Wedger’s, the department store? Rich as Croesus, that fellow, absolutely top drawer ,’ she added, for the benefit of our table companions,
‘and he was stomping about in a rage – though not in the kitchen, thank God. I said, “ Darling, Agnes loves you .” Now there’s hope over expectation, for a start.
“ A girl likes to play hard to get, that’s all .” Did he listen? He was incoherent, though admittedly a bottle and a half of bourbon had something to do with that.’
    ‘Agnes Day’s a Catholic schoolgirl,’ I explained to Le Vol. ‘Well, lapsed. Quite a lot, actually.’
    ‘You’ll help me find her?’ Pleadingly, Aunt Toolie gripped my hand. ‘If ever a girl was running after the wrong crowd, it’s Agnes. It’s time I brought my
moral influence to bear.’
    ‘Le Vol and I—’ I began, but Le Vol, to my surprise, waved aside my objections, polished off the last of his eggs, wiped his mouth, and declared that of course we must find
this remarkable young woman.
    Rising, I held out a hand to Trouble. ‘See you tomorrow?’
    ‘Sharpless! Don’t you think I’m coming too?’ He sprang up, and something in his manner alarmed me. He was too excited, too eager.
    I tried to apologize to Le Vol as we picked our way through the crowd.
    Aunt Toolie grabbed me in the doorway.
    ‘Darling,’ she muttered, ‘I expect you to be on form tonight. Agnes has a new flame, I’m convinced of it. We’ve got to put a stop to it. Copley mustn’t know.
There he is, all six floors of luxury departments and a doddering paterfamilias possibly drawing his last breath even as we speak , and that wretched girl gallivants after any piece of
lowlife that gives her the time of day!’
    ‘And this from the Queen of Bohemia?’ I said, incredulous.
    ‘What do I care about Bohemia? I care about love.’
    Aunt Toolie had no time to say more. Gathered in the street, our little party linked arms at Trouble’s insistence and scuffed off through the snow. Others on the sidewalk had to move out
of our way as we snaked merrily around a fire hydrant, then out into the street between automobiles.
    That was the beginning of an odyssey that lasted until after midnight. Trouble took charge. At the Captain’s Log he bounded up to the door, rapping confidently; inside, he greeted the
barman with a hail-fellow-well-met air and turned to us, beaming, to ask what we wanted.
    The place was packed. I craned my neck through the gloom. In one corner, jammed on a narrow podium, a college-boy band – slickers in white ducks – blared out ‘Riverboat
Shuffle’. Couples stomped in time; others huddled in booths; many embraced; the air was dark and smoky. Uneasily, I inspected the nautical decor: the nets that hung from the ceiling, the
snaking hawsers, the ships’ helms, the foxed engravings of Cunard liners. Aunt Toolie, shouting in my ear, said that Agnes could not be here yet; Trouble balanced four elaborate cocktails on his way back from
the bar, whipped them past obstructing shoulders, and deposited them into our hands. Dutifully I tried to talk to my aunt about Agnes, but before I could get far she was hugging a party of flapper
girls she knew from