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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.