Tamping down such thoughts—for this was a moment of hard-earned joy—he had entered the shop as a man on a mission, navigating the aisles like a seasoned pro. He’d paused in the fancy dress section, where he plucked a simple black domino mask from the rack. He had held it to his eyes and turned and grinned at Babe. ‘Thirty-nine cents! Take that, Cartier!’
As he donned this simple mask months later, looking in the mirror of his Plaza suite with its flocked wallpaper, studying his own reflection alongside Kay’s, he felt, we can only imagine, vindicated. And with that long-awaited gesture the revelries began.
WE ARRIVED AT the plaza in groups, as planned, buzzing with camaraderie. We praised one another’s sartorial choices—and were surprised to find that we meant it. There were no Extra Women or Spare Men. We were more than single, fragile beings, capable of pain or the terror of being alone. We were part of a lovely, shimmering whole.
We piled out of cars ebullient, heedless of the rain, which continued to fall in sheets. We huddled together beneath umbrellas, moving past the crush of photographers and onlookers gathered beyond the barricades, proceeding through the front doors, and along the path Truman had planned for us. We walked through the marble lobby, shaking droplets from our evening coats, dabbing our soggy furs. Pulses beating faster, we followed one another past the graceful Palm Court, up a staircase to the mezzanine and down a corridor, where a camera crew awaited. Who should be granted the TV exclusive but Bill Paley’s CBS, broadcasting live from the lobby. This was drama, Bill insisted, exploiting the contrast between Haves and Have-nots.
What none of us could have anticipated—as we stepped two-by-two through that arc of an archway and made our way down the long passage—was what would happen when we reached the end. Lee was the first in procession, gliding past white tapers, flickering on either side of an endless hall of mirrors. As she reached the threshold, she paused at the final glass, lowering her head to secure her mask. When she lifted her chin and examined her reflection, something curious occurred. Just as Kay had undergone a transformation from lone duck to one of a bevy, for Lee it was the opposite. In that moment she saw herself. No one else. It was her mask, shaped like wings, taking flight. Her tawny locks framing her face, tucked behind her ears to showcase diamond drops, which swung like delicate pendulums. There was no Jackie ahead of her or beside her, nor any of the rest of us. Only Lee. And in that moment, a photographer snapped a photo, directly into the mirror, capturing steady kid-gloved hands in control of crystal wings. Lips set determinedly, a breath before they broke into a satisfied smile.
It happened to each of us in turn. As we approached the staircase, drawing us ever closer to Truman’s monochrome vision, we shed the collective skin that grafted us together, and slithered into newborn, separate beings. Babe stepped into the cameras’ gaze, hurrying ahead of Bill, pulling her white mink closer. Dodging one lens, she moved out of frame, only to skittishly escape another; her lovely head ducked as if seeking shelter from a gale, while Bill, the grinning mogul, shook hands and nodded to colleagues, seasoned media pro. Behind him, Gloria took her time, moving like the dance hall temptress of her youth, indulging the hip-sway, setting in motion the cylindrical beads hanging from her dress, rattling like muted maracas. She moved so languorously, the cameras nearly missed the Agnellis sailing past—Gianni moving at his usual clip, Marella keeping pace. By the time the lenses turned, they only caught the flash of Marella’s ostrich plumes, a trail of vapor in their wake.
Slim and Betty hung back, prowling, surveying the scene with big-game savvy. Slim on the arm of Jerry Robbins, who as ever seemed to float, not walk; Betty with Husband Dos, Jason Robards. Robards was already looking for the nearest bar, though the panthers hardly noticed, Betty scanning the crowd for that lowlife Sinatra, Slim for her darling Leland.
C.Z. navigated the hall with her usual lack of fuss, dutifully stopping to speak to Charlotte from the Times and Suzy from Women’s Wear Daily—themselves in evening dress, stenographer pads, glasses, and pearls—praising Truman’s triumph in her lyrical lockjaw.
‘He really is a mahhvel. We’re all so damn proud of him.’
‘Yes, but isn’t this a party for Mrs. Graham?’ Charlotte challenged.
C.Z. smiled. ‘Dahling. It is a pahty for Mrs. Graham, but don’t for a moment kid yourself… It ahhhlso is a pahty to celebrate a genuine publishing sensation. Champagne will flow like the Nile—or I suppose in Truman’s case like an endless Ahlabama stream.’
She rejoined Winston, taking his arm, climbing the staircase to Truman’s Mount Parnassus. They approached the first check-point, presenting cards that accompanied original invites—then a second, a table set up just outside the entrance. Ms. Elizabeth Davies sat collecting the cards that had been sent only days before, a final tactic to discourage counterfeiting. She had Truman’s master list, but no need to reference it. She had all 540 names memorized—verbatim.
C.Z. greeted her warmly. ‘Evening, Lizzie. Any gatecrashers… ?’
‘Not yet. But the night is young.’
C.Z. noticed a tall, burly fellow guarding the entrance. Sidney, the doorman at Truman’s United Nations Plaza, in full monkey suit, wearing a black domino mask identical to Truman’s.
‘Sidney!’ C.Z. enthused. ‘You look so handsome. Whaat a pleasure!’
‘Evening, Mrs. Guest. Two of Mr. Truman’s bouncers called in sick, so me and Carmine said we’d step in.’ He shrugged, sheepish; far from the bully required for the gig.
‘Somehow I think you’d be better at dancing than bouncing.’ She bestowed a friendly peck on his cheek, which caused said cheek to color. Out of habit, Sidney opened the door for the Guests, who continued into the ballroom.
C.Z. caught her breath as they entered the space. A dazzling blur of motion. Monochrome images—some static, others a ghostly blur, moving too fast for retinal capture. Too spry for shutter speed and aperture. As her eyes adjusted, flashes of color emerged, all the more vivid for their sparseness: scarlet waiters’ coats like the whirl of matadors’ muletas. The gold decorative reliefs flecking columns and ceilings, the swags of damask curtain. The jade of the vines coiled like rattlers through the candelabras. It was, she thought, the vision of a writer.
As they waited in the reception line, she could hear him up ahead, that pipsqueak squeal, greeting each guest—‘Well, welcome, sugar! Thank you so much for coming! Have you met my dear friend Mrs. Katherine Graham? Now Kay-Kay, this is so-and-so…’
Duchin’s band was in full glorious swing, the dance floor beginning to fill. Homages to luminaries who peopled the room inspired the orchestra’s set, as was the custom with such an elite roll-call of guests. They riffed on Camelot tunes—which might have been a nod to lyricist Alan Lerner, or for the Kennedy faction; My Fair Lady—again for Lerner, or Cecil Beaton, whose Ascot designs had been Truman’s inspiration for the evening’s theme. The band launched into an upbeat rendition of ‘On the Street Where You Live’ as the receiving line inched toward their host.
C.Z. found herself recalling a night decades earlier, when a strange-looking boy approached her at the theater bar during the interval on opening night of that very play, minutes after that tune was played. How she’d regarded him with indifference and he’d made up his mind to woo her. The couple ahead moved along and C.Z. stepped into Truman’s eyeline… Both smiled. No need for words.
‘People stop and stare, they don’t bother me…’ Truman took her hands and crooned.
‘For there’s nowhere else on earth that I would rahhhther be…’ C.Z., finishing the lyric, endearingly flat.
‘My cool vanilla lady.’
‘It’s gorgeous, Truman.’
‘You’re a vision. A beeeeautiful flower, like I’ve always said.’
‘You look pretty dahhhn handsome yourself.’
‘Aw, shucks,’ he beamed.
‘Listen—you’ve gahtta promise me something, Mistah Capote…’
‘What’s that, Sis?’
‘You enjoy this. Every lahst second.’
‘Oh, I am, Sissy! Trust me.’ He grinned.
She leaned in close, brushing his cheek, whispering in his ear— ‘There has nevah been another party like this and there nevah will be again.’
She winked at him, and he at her before the Guests moved on, admiring Kay in her Balmain, then advancing into the space. Corps of waiters circled with coupes of champagne, but they made a beeline for the bahhr, where C.Z. had suggested to Truman weeks before that he might extend his monochrome palette, by serving martinis with white cocktail onions and blahck olives rahhther than green. As they watched them being shaken with factory-line efficiency, C.Z. heard a familiar voice at her elbow—
‘Well, well. If it isn’t Lucy Cochrane.’
She smelled the cigar before she turned. Recognized the subtle lisp. She had a vision in her mind of a slim man with sandy hair, rabbit teeth when he smiled.
‘Darryl…’ She pivoted to face him. The only bit that remained of the man she once knew was the absurd set of gnashers, hidden beneath the hood of his lip. The hair on his head was white, thinning, and seemed to have migrated to his brows and mustache, which were twice as thick as they once had been. Gray-tinted glasses obscured his eyes. She embraced him.
He looked beyond her to Winston. ‘This the fella who ruined your career?’
‘I never had a career.’
‘It was only a matter of time, Lucy. Matter of time.’ He extinguished his cigar and extended his hand to Winston. ‘Zanuck. Pleasure’s all mine.’
Winston gave his hand a firm shake. ‘Lucy’s told me all about you.’
Zanuck looked surprised. ‘I thought everyone now called you B.C. or A.D. or something ludicrous. I’m pleased to hear that Mr. Guest uses your given name.’
‘He’s a keepah.’
Darryl smiled. Duchin’s band launched into a gentle swing. ‘Give an old man a dance?’ Zanuck offered his hand, pudgier than the last time she’d taken it.
She took a sip of her martini, leaving it in the care of Winston. She followed Darryl onto the floor, foxtrot in progress.
‘So. Mr. Zanuck.’
‘Miss Cochrane.’
‘Mrs. Guest.’
‘You know I’ve never forgiven you.’
‘For what?’
‘For leaving before I made you a star.’
‘I think you did just fine,’ she laughed.
She followed Zanuck’s gaze to the iridescent mass of balloons Truman had hung amidst the Baccarat chandeliers.
‘It isn’t the Rainbow Room,’ Zanuck said.
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘But it’s something else.’
He studied her, bringing a hand to touch one of the fountains of plumes that spouted from her head, recalling their Ziegfeld counterparts.
‘Third blonde from the left. That’s what you told me.’ They shared a quiet chuckle. ‘You haven’t changed a jot, lovely Lucy Cochrane.’ She didn’t bother to mention that he had. ‘Have you been happy?’
She looked over his shoulder, and in one panoramic sweep spotted Tallulah Bankhead, Betty Bacall, Henry Fonda—and a dozen showfolk who had spent their lives doggedly chasing the tail of that pursuit. Then her eyes landed on Winston at the bar, faithfully guarding her drink. So stable. So secure. Her eyes found Zanuck’s through the charcoal shades.
‘Very happy.’
He smiled. ‘Good for you, Lucy Guest.’
As the song neared its crescendo, Zanuck—in a display of the grace of which he was capable—whirled C.Z. back to the bar to rejoin Winston, who handed her her glass. Beside him, Jason Robards, ordering a double Scotch, Betty and Slim and Jerry Robbins.
‘Betty,’ Daryl nodded in Bacall’s direction.
‘Daryl,’ said Betty, detached.
With a last look at C.Z., Zanuck made his exit.
‘How was that?’ Slim raised a brow to C.Z.
‘Just a waltz down memory lane.’
‘You do know,’ Betty said to C.Z., ‘you were about the only one Zanuck never tried to maneuver onto his casting couch… ?’
‘Maybe that explains why I nevah got any pahrts!’
‘And good thing you didn’t,’ Winston draped a protective arm around her shoulder. ‘Now, could a poor old husband get a dance in edgewise?’
‘Dah-ling,’ C.Z. intoned, ‘I thought you’d nevah ahsk!’
As they joined the masked throng for the remainder of a rumba, Slim and Betty looked on, sipping their martinis. It was extraordinary, Slim thought, as she surveyed the scene, to see just how many bigwigs had gone along with Truman’s scheme. The artists were one thing—they’d show up for the opening of a bus stop. But to see economists like Ken Galbraith, or newsmen like Ben Bradlee, walking past people like— —
It was then that she spotted them.
Slim nudged Betty. ‘Incoming.’
At a distance—Sinatra, black cat mask with whiskers, a waif on his arm with butterfly eyes. Heading for the prime table by the stage, claim staked by the bottle of Jack Daniel’s set there by the servers, Frank having a devoted following among the waitstaffs of Manhattan. Mia’s Directoire gown would send whispers round the room of yet another little Sinatra on the way (false as they turned out), though she looked a child herself; saucer-eyed, as if she’d stumbled out of the sandbox.
Betty lit a cigarette. ‘As if that’ll last.’
As Slim snickered in agreement, they both saw it.
Him.
A beat after Frank… Leland. Making his way toward Sinatra’s table, led by Pam Churchill— Pam Hayward. For that’s what she was now, no use in denying it. Slim watched her navigate an enormous ball gown, an antebellum monstrosity, with what seemed enough tulle to smother an army … Slim turned back to the bar, pleased for the first time to be wearing that goddamn mask, if only to hide the tears. She shouldn’t have come. She’d thought she was over the theft, even if she wasn’t over Hay.
She felt a tug at her arm. Jerry. ‘What is this? A funeral? C’mon, Lady Keith.’ Ignoring her protests, he took her hand and dragged her onto the dance floor, holding her in his arms. Lovely Jerry—so powerful, yet full of grace. Jerry, who made anyone he danced with look like a million bucks. In appreciation and homage to the broad-of-all-broads, Duchin segued into Rodgers and Hart’s ‘The Lady Is a Tramp.’ Was that all she was, Slim wondered—one of the boys? Was that why she had lost him in the end? She felt their eyes on her—Pam’s. Frank’s. Leland’s eyes. She faltered. As if reading her mind, Jerry spun her in a series of turns, just past the stage, whispering in her ear, ‘Don’t look at them, look at me.’ He dipped her low to the floor, suspending her in his sure grasp to applause. As Jerry pulled her back into his arms, he kissed her cheek.
Slim felt herself flush at the attention. ‘I think I need some air.’
They made their way toward the door, where Truman and Kay had only just finished greeting their receiving line of guests.
Tru scampered toward Slim, pulling her away. ‘Oh Big Mama, isn’t it all too beeautiful?! Come look at this.’ He led her into a side atrium, where waiters readied the buffet, delivering trays from the kitchens. One station offered breakfast: eggs, biscuits and Southern gravy. Another, the famed chicken hash, aroma of cognac mingling with the tang of spaghetti and meatballs beside it.
‘Steer clear of that sauce.’ Babe appeared in the archway, joining them.
‘Have you come to have it axed, Babyling, hoping I wouldn’t notice?’ Truman, feigning vexation.
‘Just to make sure they had their best servers on the case. And plenty of soda water, in case of emergencies.’
Tru lovingly fingered the paste jewels extending down the front of her white sheath. ‘Weuulll… if someone trips and spills tomato sauce down the front of you, we’ll simply pretend the stains are extra rubies.’ Basking in the warm glow of the candlelight, he launched into a jig. ‘Oh, aren’t we having a marvelous time? Isn’t it just the most wonderful party?’ As he led them back into the ballroom
, meeting and greeting along the way, they passed a unicorn in a tuxedo.
‘It’s fabulous, Truman!’ the mythical beast enthused. The unicorn lifted his mask, revealing Billy Baldwin, Babe’s decorator.
‘Billy!’ Tru squealed. ‘You’ve simply outdone yourself!’
Ahead, two fur cats approached—one black, one white—masks fully encasing the craniums of a fashionable man and woman. (‘The de la Rentas,’ Babe informed Slim as she plucked a champagne glass from a passing tray.) A giant swan headdress sailed above the sea of bodies—two eiderdown necks entwined. (‘Bill Cunningham’s wife,’ Slim informed Babe, handing her empty coupe to a waiter.) Mink rabbit ears bobbed by, matching a mink-trimmed gown. (‘That darling Candice Bergen,’ Tru would later divulge, ‘in Marisa Berenson’s ears, no less! Marisa missed a fitting, so Halston gave’ em away!’) He relished such tidbits and doled them out in snippets. Scampering ahead, then darting back now and again, Pan seeking his nymphs.
‘Honey!’ he’d hiss confidentially. ‘That one in the stripes is the one who threatened to slit her wrists if I hadn’t allowed her to come!’—then disappear once more.
Babe and Slim watched as Truman grabbed Kay’s hand, leading her out onto the floor, where the dancers were ablur with motion. Duchin’s band was swinging, he leaning down from his piano on high, chatting with friends as he played. In the low light, beads and baubles glistened like stars, forming restless constellations, reordering themselves with each change of partner as the orbit of bodies swayed.
Observing from on high, as if rivaling the gods on Olympus, were those guests quick enough to have nabbed one of the half dozen boxes that lined the side of the room, secure behind ornate railings. Babe was not in the least surprised that the Prime of these had been commandeered by Gianni, Stas, and Bill, serving as a base from which Agnellis, Radziwills, and Paleys might operate.
‘Whaddaya say, Slim?’ Irving ‘Swifty’ Lazar approached. ‘Fancy a cha-cha?’
Swan Song Page 36