People Like Us
Page 45
“Ages,” she said.
“Ages,” replied Gus. “You know Ruby.”
“Hellohoware?”
“Well, Gus, tell me everything,” said Matilda.
“I’ve been in prison.”
“Oh, I know. I think you’re a national hero.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Listen, Gus, Maisie Verdurin is having one of her dinners on Thursday, and it might be her last for a while, because no one’s going to be buying paintings for a while, with the crash and all. Would you like me to arrange it so we can go together?”
“Can’t on Thursday,” said Gus.
“Then come to the country for the weekend. I’ve got Justine Altemus and Herkie Saybrook. They’re an item, I hear, although Lil denies it vigorously. He’s so much better for her than the TV announcer. Sweetzer always said, ‘Stick with your own kind,’ and he was right. You’ve simply got to come, Gus. We’re going to Rochelle’s on Saturday night.”
“Can’t this weekend,” Gus replied.
“Not off on one of your mystery trips, are you?”
“No, my mystery trips ended with the bullet I put in Lefty Flint.”
“Oh, I get it,” said Matilda. “Branching out? New directions? That sort of thing?”
“Something like that,” answered Gus.
“Well, all right,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Us single ladies do what we can.” She moved back to Ezzie’s table.
Gus and Ruby looked at each other.
“You did that well, Gus,” said Ruby.
“I can’t get back into all that. I never fit in in the first place,” said Gus. “It just kept my mind off what was going on in my life that I couldn’t do a damn thing about at the time.”
“What are you going to do now that you’re back?” asked Ruby.
“I’m just here to sell my place, go to the dentist, close out a chapter. I’m moving on.”
“Where?”
“Maybe just a block away. It doesn’t matter. All that I know is that this ain’t it.”
Michael, the waiter who served the front part of the restaurant, came up to take their orders. “Welcome back, Mr. Bailey,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“Nice to see you, Mrs. Renthal,” he said.
“Thank you, Michael.”
“Let me tell you the specials for today.”
Ruby and Gus looked at each other.
“Listen, Michael,” said Gus.
“Yessir.”
“We’re not going to stay.”
He looked over at Ruby. She was smiling at him.
“Why are you smiling?”
“That’s just what I was going to say,” she said.
Ruby rose from her seat. She looked over to Chick Jacoby at the bar and blew him a kiss. Then she walked out the door, followed by Gus.
For a while they walked down Lexington Avenue without speaking. At the corner of 72nd Street, Gus raised his hand and signaled a taxi. When the car stopped in front of him, he turned to Ruby and they looked at each other fondly.
“S’long, Ruby,” he said.
“Bye, Gus,” she answered.
“Will you be okay?”
“Oh, sure. And you?”
“Sure.”
“Luck.”
“Same.”
As Gus got into the taxi, Ruby turned and walked across the street.
To Virginia Dunne Finley with love
By Dominick Dunne
Fiction
ANOTHER CITY, NOT MY OWN*
AN INCONVENIENT WOMAN*
PEOPLE LIKE US*
A SEASON IN PURGATORY*
THE TWO MRS. GRENVILLES*
THE WINNERS
Nonfiction
FATAL CHARMS*
THE MANSIONS OF LIMBO*
* Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group
Look for the latest New York Times bestseller by
DOMINICK DUNNE
ANOTHER CITY,
NOT MY OWN
Gus Bailey, journalist to high society, knows the sordid secrets of the very rich. Now he turns his penetrating gaze to a courtroom in Los Angeles, witnessing the trial of the century unfold before his startled eyes. As the infamous case and characters begin to take shape and a range of celebrities from Frank Sinatra to Heidi Fleiss share their own theories of the crime, Bailey bears witness to the ultimate perversion of principle and the most amazing gossip machine in Hollywood—all wrapped in a marvelously addictive true-to-life tale of love, rage, and ruin.…
“THOROUGHLY ABSORBING.”
—Time
“MISCHIEVOUSLY GOSSIPY.”
—The New York Times
“ALLURING … YOU CAN’T PUT IT DOWN.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“DELICIOUSLY WICKED.”
—Vogue
Available in bookstores everywhere.
Published by Ballantine Books.
The Ballantine Publishing Group
www.randomhouse.com/BB/
Also by
DOMINICK DUNNE:
The classic story of scandal, money, and murder in a high-society Manhattan family …
THE TWO MRS. GRENVILLES
“STEAMY.” —Newsday
*****
A wicked novel about the seamy side of Hollywood’s jet set—and the outsider who learns too much …
AN INCONVENIENT WOMAN
“JUICY.” —The Dallas Morning News
*****
A compelling tale of a wealthy, powerful clan with murder in its past and scandal in its future …
A SEASON IN PURGATORY
“MESMERIZING.” —The New York Times
Available in bookstores everywhere.
Published by Ballantine Books.
The Ballantine Publishing Group
www.randomhouse.com/BB/