From The Queen’s Gambit , by Walter Tevis (1983) —
“She stopped and turned to Beth. ‘There is no hint of a
Protestant ethic in Mexico. They are all Latin Catholics,
and they all live in the here and now.’ Mrs. Wheatley
had been reading Alan Watts. ‘I think I’ll have just one
margarita before I go out. Would you call for one, honey?’
Back in Lexington, Mrs. Wheatley’s voice would sometimes
have a distance to it, as though she were speaking from
some lonely reach of an interior childhood. Here in Mexico City
the voice was distant but the tone was theatrically gay, as though
Alma Wheatley were savoring an incommunicable private mirth.
It made Beth uneasy. For a moment she wanted to say something
about the expensiveness of room service, even measured in pesos,
but she didn’t. She picked up the phone and dialed six. The man
answered in English. She told him to send a margarita and a large
Coke to 713.”
Mirror, Mirror
