Swan Song

by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott

  As Slim peeled off, taking the floor with Swifty, Babe made her way to the curved box where Bill sat tête-à-tête with Gloria. Even more solicitous than usual, Babe reasoned, as poor Gloria had been forced to come alone.

  Babe joined them, placing a hand on Bill’s shoulder. He patted it, failing to break his conversation with Mrs. Guinness—or his gaze from her slender neck, around which her gemstone necklaces coiled like Cleopatra’s asps.

  The lone photographer Truman had permitted inside the ballroom approached.

  ‘May I… ?’ he inquired politely, indicating his camera. As they posed Babe noticed Bill lean toward Gloria a fraction of an inch, rather than back toward her. It was Gloria’s arm that wrapped casually around Bill’s waist as they posed, while the Paleys’ four hands remained visible on the table. Both Gloria and Bill had removed their masks, though Babe’s white Aldo remained on, adhering to Truman’s edict.

  ‘Darling,’ Babe said mid-snap, ‘where’s your mask?’

  ‘Where’s what?’ Bill, through a set smile.

  ‘And one more…’

  ‘Your mask.’ Babe spoke through the second shot as well, prompting the photographer to cut his losses and move on to the Agnellis.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘We’re supposed to wear them until midnight, so that we feel free to mingle.’

  Gloria shrugged, fingering the necklaces that Bill seemed so beguiled by.

  ‘Mine gave me the most appalling headache.’ Bill—‘Mine itched.’

  They resumed their conversation.

  Babe rose, mask in place, venturing onto the dance floor. Finding the first man she didn’t recognize, she tapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Care to take a turn?’ she asked, doe eyes batting from behind the mask slits that had been designed specifically to showcase them.

  ‘You bet.’ The stranger took one look at the masked Mrs. Paley and abandoned prior pursuits. Babe beamed as they drifted past the ringmaster himself, partnering Princess Radziwill.

  ‘You see, darling,’ Truman enthused to Lee, watching Babe, approvingly, ‘it’s all working out, exactly as I planned. That young man could be anybody! A cat burglar… an armed guard…’ He nodded to Luciana Pignatelli, chatting with Marella to one side of the ballroom. She wore a headdress of plumes as well, but in the center of her lovely forehead, just between her eyes, hung a diamond the size of a golf ball. ‘You know that Luciana borrowed that baby from ole Harry Winston, who was delighted to let it out for the night, in hopes of attracting a buyer. Six hundred grand is the word on the street, though I suspect ole Harry’ll charge more than that!’

  The orchestra, in homage to their host, launched into a jaunty swing rendition of ‘A Sleepin’ Bee’ from his Broadway hit House of Flowers, the lyrics for which the author had composed. Truman danced around Lee, trying out a few of his old tap steps, drawing the attention of the floor. ‘Mr. Truman Capote, ladies and gentlemen,’ Duchin announced as the crowd applauded. Truman bowed before pulling Lee back into a jaunty two-step.

  ‘Princess dear, isn’t this just the most sensational party you’ve ever been to?’

  Lee laughed. ‘If you do say so yourself.’

  The official photographer moved in close, snapping shots of Lee and Tru dancing. The silver paillette waves of her gown shimmered beneath the lights. The author’s tortoise specs barely reaching past her shoulders.

  ‘What was I saying—? Oh yessss—so ole Harry agreed to let Luciana borrow their sixty carats as long as she agreed to be escorted by their henchmen, and I said it was okay by me, as long as they sent strapping ones and they agreed to wear masks.’

  Lee looked to see, swarming around Luciana, in a poor attempt to remain incognito, a trio of men in dominos, the bulge of their handguns evident beneath their rented tuxedo jackets.

  One of them caught Lee staring, and at the sight of her seemed to forget his duties altogether, moving closer to watch as she danced with the host.

  At midnight dinner was announced and Lee and Tru joined the others at the buffet, where Babe felt a quiet vindication as she watched ladies assiduously avoid the spaghetti. Couples paired off as couples tend to do at dinners where seats have not been assigned.

  Standing alone in line for the chicken hash, Gloria heard a droll voice behind her:

  ‘Well, he almost managed it.’

  She turned to find Jack—Truman’s Jack, who was hardly ever seen at public affairs. He was wearing a tuxedo (which he’d seldom be caught dead in) that suited his lithe dancer’s frame.

  ‘Jack!’ Gloria embraced him. ‘You clean up well.’

  ‘On the rare occasion.’

  As the Plaza chefs spooned out plates of the creamy hash, Jack shook his head. ‘Heart attack on a plate that stuff. He’ll never listen.’

  ‘You can take the boy out of Monroeville…’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Where’s “Pa”?’ (Truman’s nickname for Loel).

  She gave a brave smile as they moved, plates in hand, through the anteroom. ‘Loel said that masks were childish.’

  ‘Can’t say I disagree with him. Truman told me mine was vile.’ Jack nodded to his discarded mask, a black strip of fabric peeking from his pocket. She laughed as he tossed the scrap into a palm in passing.

  As they reentered the ballroom with their plates, Jack turned to Gloria—‘Would you do me the honor of acting as my dinner partner? Appears mine’s a bit preoccupied.’ He nodded to Truman, bouncing between tables, too excited to sit.

  Gloria beamed, delighted with her dapper plus-one. ‘The pleasure, Mr. Dunphy, is mine.’

  They chose a table at the back of the room—as far from prime as possible—where they might observe the proceedings with the judgment that bonded them whenever they spent time together, which was infrequent, Jack keeping a rigid schedule, the Guinnesses none at all.

  ‘What did you mean,’ Gloria asked, ‘when you said he almost managed it?’

  ‘Well, he managed to get the whole damn world here, practically. This “new elite” he’s always banging on about, based on merit—on talent, or intellect, or beauty. Point is, he assembles his ideal cast, gets every goddamn one to wear a mask, anxious to see what they’ll do when they meet, hoping to shake’ em into the ideal social cocktail… and look what happens.’

  Jack grinned as Gloria surveyed the room, spotting precisely what he knew she would. Tables self-divided by interest, class, or creed. Entertainers with entertainers. Politicians with politicians. Artists with artists. Intellectuals with intellectuals. The actors mixed between stage and screen, the writers fiction and non, but that was as far as it went. The society folk sat apart—dividing and subdividing within, the nomads apart from domestic, and even within that, dividing by region. The Italians stuck together, though Marella and Gianni crossed camps with the New Yorkers and the Swiss. Even the Kansans had a table apart, an elite within an elite for having double status as the products of Truman’s fiction. Gloria and Jack exchanged a glance and burst out laughing.

  ‘I’ve never seen such shameless ghettoizing in all my life!’

  ‘Yes,’ Gloria agreed. ‘But they have one thing in common, these disparate souls…’

  Jack smiled, his love greater than his cynicism. ‘Truman.’

  She nodded, feeling it herself. ‘He is quite something.’

  ‘That he is.’

  ‘Un verdadero original.’

  ‘I dare say there’s never been anyone like him.’

  ‘And never shall be again.’

  They sat for a long moment, watching Truman flit between tables, causing even the most resistant of revelers to melt. Basking at their moment in the warmth of his gaze.

  ‘Mrs. Guinness,’ Jack rose, ‘would you care to cut a rug?’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask.’ Gloria grinned. ‘We were both, in other lifetimes, professionals, were we not?’

  By the time the former taxi and ballet dancers made their way to the floor, Duchin’s orches
tra had finished their first set of standards and been replaced by Benny Gordon and the Soul Brothers, who from the get-go served their function—providing a ‘dirtier funk.’ As Tru and Slim had anticipated, the energy shifted, and within a song or two the Brothers of Detroit had Manhattan’s elite twisting and frugging away.

  Gloria and Jack Shook a Tail Feather, Jack unleashing with an abandon seldom seen in him. (He would later reveal this was the last night he ever danced, rendering the occasion all the more preserved in memory.) Gloria was delighted, not having danced with such pasión since a past she’d long erased from record. She shouted over the brass and pounding beats and primal shrieks of Benny Gordon, ‘Jack, you really do know how to move!’

  Truman and Lee Frugged. And Slim and Betty Frugged, sharing Jerry Robbins, who proved a match for even Jack. Lee Frugged so vigorously, her dress shed its silver paillettes, sending them scattering across the smooth parquet floor. Gloria Frugged until the weight of the twin chokers on her fragile neck induced the most dreadful of migraines.

  When Benny and the Brothers played the ‘Camel Walk,’ a downright filthy shuffle, they urged the tony crowd to reject the tame twist: ‘Put your hands on yo knees, get a hump in yo back and do the walk, the Camel Walk…’ The sight of Mrs. Paley bent low and hunched, revealing the subtle slit that had been creeping up her thigh all evening—not mere beauty, but carnality—caused Benny Gordon to stop singing altogether and stare at Babe with awe. ‘WOW. Yeeeessss, ssssirrr. That is one fine lady.’ Emboldened by the flattery, Babe Camel Walked with Jack and Tru and her handsome stranger, who, mask removed at midnight, was revealed to be an editor at Random House, barely out of college. When the Soul Brothers finished their set, they all bowed with reverence to their muse, one Barbara Paley.

  Babe walked back across the ballroom, flushed. Tousled. Eschewing the Prime Paley balcony, she took a cool coupe of champagne from a passing tray and wandered out toward the mezzanine.

  It was there, alone, that she marveled in what had just transpired. She, Barbara Paley, had been considered desirable. Not beautiful. Not stylish. Something else… Something deliciously base. The eyes that had fixed their gaze on her were ones that craved. Coveted. The stuff of thirst and need and breathlessness, not tepid admiration.

  It was then that she sensed someone approach from behind.

  Reaching for her.

  It would have to be a stranger. Someone who didn’t know her, who didn’t box and label her. It would have to be…

  But then, she knew his hands.

  It was how he used to reach for her—before he had stopped without warning.

  The hands gripped her shoulders and turned her. She started to speak, but the lips stopped hers. Biting, eager—teeth sinking into flesh. He grasped her waist roughly, crushing the white camel hair of her dress. Her eyes met his, seeing the hunger he’d long ceased to feel for her. A look reserved for his whores.

  ‘Bill…’

  ‘Don’t talk.’

  Again his mouth stopped hers, drinking her breath, as he reached low, slipping his hand into the slit in her dress, running a greedy hand up the length of her thigh.

  EXITING THE POWDER room, Marella, accompanied by Luciana Pignatelli (followed by her armed guards from Harry Winston, who barely stopped short of trailing her into the Ladies) thought that she spotted shadows in the recess of the mezzanine… though it could simply have been a trick of the light.

  The light in the old hotel was dim—dingy, Marella thought. It seemed the kind of place that spirits lurked in corners. She felt guilty to admit it, but she frankly did not grasp the allure of the venue. Used to balls in actual palaces, this Plaza of Truman’s seemed quaint at best. And placing balloons beside Baccarat? Was it a child’s birthday? She loved her Vero, however, and was pleased that this made him happy.

  They returned to the Agnelli table to find Gianni and his cadre of amici had grown restless. ‘Can we not find somewhere that’s open to eat properly? And get a game of cards in?’ There were debates as they struggled to come up with a venue in Manhattan that would suit their needs. They could think of a dozen in Rome; still more on the Riviera. Princess Luciana was delighted to move on as well, having exhausted Truman’s venue in her quest for available men and grown tired of her wardens.

  Gianni turned to Marella. ‘Angelo, are you coming, or would you prefer to stay with Lee and Babe and Gloria? I appreciate you might not want to upset your Piccolo Vero.’

  Marella wanted to ask him to stay, not lose him to a card game. Instead she smiled and said, ‘Amore mio, we haven’t danced all evening. Will you dance with me before you go?’

  His weathered face softened. ‘Of course, angelo.’ He reached for her hand and led her onto the floor, where Duchin had cooled things down after Benny, providing the contrast Truman and Slim had so carefully planned. The band was playing a slow, sultry rendition of Lerner and Loewe’s ‘If Ever I Would Leave You.’ That dreadful Camelot, Marella thought, relieved at least that Jacqueline had declined Truman’s invitation.

  Gianni enveloped her in his arms and slowed his pace for her.The restlessness on display moments earlier seemed to be replaced by a tempered calm. She placed a hand over his heart, as she had done before. She looked up at him; he smiled.

  ‘What is it, angelo?’

  ‘Your heart.’

  ‘What about it… ?’

  ‘It is so beautifully still.’

  ‘You make it so.’

  She closed her eyes and leaned into him. Truman’s simple Plaza seemed, on second thought, the most magnificent of palaces.

  ‘Gio-vanni… !’ a voice cawed, interrupting the moment. Clipped English consonants. Open vowels. Marella opened her eyes to find that Churchill woman, in her ridiculous bell-shaped gown. Part hideous crow, part Victorian matron in mourning.

  ‘Hello, Pamela,’ Gianni said genially.

  ‘Giovanni Agnelli. It’s been ages—simply ages. Hello, Marina!’

  Marella nodded, not bothering to correct her.

  ‘Would you mind terribly if I cut in… ? Dear Leland wants to leave soon, our whole party actually. And I did so want to sneak a quick turn around the floor with an old friend.’

  Marella stepped aside, graciously yielding her partner.

  ‘Thank you, dear,’ said Pam, upper lip snagging the cuspid. ‘I’m sure I’d do the same for you.’ As she stepped forward, expectantly, Gianni reached for Marella’s hand, pulling her back to his side.

  In his pleasing baritone he said, ‘I am sorry, Pamela. But I am dancing with my wife.’ Perfectly genial. Perfectly polite. So polite, it took a moment for Pam to fully comprehend. She flashed that English-rose smile, gave the tiniest nod of concession, and retreated to her table.

  Gianni offered his arms to Marella once more. She stepped in, allowing them to envelop her like wings. He held her gaze and repeated, ‘I am dancing with my wife.’

  Marella rested her head on his chest, against his even heart.

  It wasn’t ‘I love you,’ but it was close.

  SHE LEFT WITH gianni and the italian amici, but not before Harry Winston’s security guards followed them into the corridor and removed the sixty-carat diamond from Luciana’s forehead. It was boxed in a velvet casket, then placed in a locked briefcase and carried out of the Plaza and into an armored van by two of the hired guards.

  Lee followed them as far as the staircase, making arrangements with Marella for lunch the following day. She waved, then turned back toward the ballroom. Though she’d claim otherwise, she wasn’t entirely surprised to find the Harry Winston guard who had been staring at her all evening standing in her path, awaiting her return.

  She walked up to him, expressionless.

  He studied her through his black domino.

  ‘I’m Lee,’ she finally said, but sensed that was a detail that didn’t really matter.

  She held his gaze as she slid past him. An invitation of sorts. He followed her onto the parquet floor, where they danced in charged silen
ce for the rest of the evening.

  At our various luncheons the following week Truman would enthuse:

  ‘Listen, I have it on good authority that that Harry Winston watchman was fou amoureux with the Princess Radziwill. Poor man simply couldn’t take his eyes off her. It’s a good thing for his two amigos, or Luciana woulda absconded with that diamond like a bandita in the night!’ We’d unearth other unexpected treasures in those lunchtime post-mortems that next week and long after. Yet several stories down the line, Truman couldn’t help but return to the topic of Lee, made all the more poignant when we learned she’d left Stas, and hindsight turned to speculation. ‘You know,’ Tru would lean in confidentially at table after table, ‘Lee never uttered a peep, but I reckon that was the moment she knew that she’d move on from poor ole Stas. Oh, it wasn’t about the watchman per se. It was about something she realized that she was missing and needed. Maybe that’s when it hit her that in marrying Stas she’d married a version of her daddy.’

  Apart from Lee and her watchman, another couple embodied the promise of Truman’s social experiment. Tru felt particularly vindicated that this involved his precious Kay-Kay, who confided in him that the most memorable dance partner of her evening came late in the game. It wasn’t George Plimpton or William Styron or Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Not Cecil Beaton or Andy Warhol or surly Norman Mailer, picking fights in his rumpled raincoat.

  It was Truman’s UN Plaza doorman, Sidney. He had worked up the courage to ask Kay for a dance, which was so pleasant it turned into three. When they parted, Sidney kissed Kay’s hand, like he had seen gentlemen do in the pictures, and said with utmost sincerity—

  ‘Thank you, Mrs. Graham, for the best night of my life.’

  Kay would later report to Tru that she was deeply moved.

  IT WAS TOWARD the end of the evening that Truman spotted a woman loitering outside the ballroom, peering in. Plain black street dress. Mousy.

  Something about her reminded him of a copyboy from long ago who’d indulged in stolen lunches downstairs in the Oak Bar. Who’d crept up to the sacred space, peered inside, and seen phantasmagorias within. How he would have loved for someone to have been kind to him. To have invited him in…