In a jazz bar on the last night of 1937,
watching a quartet because she couldn't afford to see the whole ensemble,
there were certain things Katey Kontent knew:

the location of every old church in Manhattan
how to sneak into the cinema
how to type eighty words a minute, five thousand an hour, and nine million a year
and that if you can still lose yourself in the first chapter of a Dickens novel then everything is probably going to be fine.

By the end of the year she'd learned:
how to launch a paper airplane high over Park Avenue
how to live like a redhead
how to insist upon the very best
that the word 'yes' can be a poison
and the Rules of Civility.

That's how quickly New York City comes about -
like a weathervane - or the head of a cobra.
Time tells which.