“Jingle bells!” Truman cried, so delighted he clapped his hands. The creature had sewn jingle bells into the hem of her couture gown!
“Shhh!” Babe put her finger to her lips, sharing the secret with a conspiratorial grin. And so she chimed, softly, faintly, Tinker Bell in Givenchy, wherever she glided—to and from the bar, handing Bill his drink, getting one for Truman, offering them both a silver plate of hors d’oeuvres that had magically appeared, making sure the fire was just the right temperature, turning on lamps that shone with the most amazing, flattering light—faintly pink, not white. Finally settling down at her husband’s feet, her skirt rustling a musical crescendo, to remove his shoes, massage his insteps, and suggest, “Now tell me about your day, my darling. I want to know every detail. You look as if you’ve been through the wringer, poor baby.”
Bill Paley, his tie off, his Italian shirt opened at the neck, a Manhattan in one hand, a crisp, bacon-wrapped fig in the other, didn’t respond. He didn’t even glance at the gorgeous creature kneeling at his feet. He did, however, study Truman with heavily lidded, reptilian eyes.
And Truman, watching the scene, frowned. His goddess, turned into a mere housewife.
If this was what her mother had trained her for, then God damn her soul.
CHAPTER 4
…..
“Darling! You don’t know! You simply can’t understand how glorious they were, those girls! They still are! But when they first arrived, you simply can’t appreciate the sensation they made, all three of them—Betsey, Minnie, and Babe!”
“Then tell me, my pet, my divine one,” Truman cooed, sitting, with his legs tucked beneath him, on a fragile-looking yet sturdy Oriental chair.
“Truman, I do have a job, you know. Although God knows Hearst pays me pennies to do it.”
Diana Vreeland, fashion editor, thrust her chin out and smiled her monkey smile, a big, scarlet-rouged grin that made her ears stick out even more prominently than usual. Her yellow teeth, framed by viciously red lips, tore into the words with gusto. Her black hair, so lacquered you couldn’t see the individual strands, was brushed severely back and held in a blue-black snood. An incongruous wide satin bow corralled the front of her hair back from her forehead. As she spoke, her long, tapered fingers flew and beckoned and pronounced, punctuated by pointy red talons.
Truman was in her office at Harper’s Bazaar. On her desk, on the credenza, flickered the jewel-toned, richly scented Rigaud candles every rich woman he knew favored. There were photos, drawings, bits of fabric in every hue and weight, hats, gloves, all pinned to the walls. As he sat, he had the distinct impression that hovering outside were armies of emaciated mannequins clad in the latest styles, waiting to be told “Yes—divine!” or “God, no, that’s ghastly!” An entire world of fur and satin and cashmere and chiffon and silk, hemlines of dizzying lengths, exquisitely impractical shoes, nervous designers and languid models, all awaiting Mrs. Vreeland’s pronouncement. Which she would surely give; she gazed at the world with those myopic, glittering, slanted eyes and passed judgment, editing, always editing—even life itself.
“But I wasn’t quite aware then, you know,” Truman reminded her. “I wasn’t yet fully formed. An embryo, that’s what I was! You must tell me. I have fallen in love, you see. Fallen in love with the most glorious creature and I simply must know more about her.”
“Fallen in love?” Diana raised a perfectly arched eyebrow.
“Oh, yes! Truly! Not in the physical sense, of course, but if I could, she would be the One. Even as the idea is simply revolting. But, somehow, less revolting with Babe.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Diana snorted.
Truman’s eyes, usually so wide and sparkling with mischief, hardened. He set his jaw in a way few people ever saw—few of his society friends, anyway. Others were very well acquainted with that shrewd, determined look: His lover, Jack Dunphy. His friend from Monroeville, Nelle Harper Lee. His mother, Nina/Lillie Mae, certainly, had been on the wrong end of it in her lifetime. As had various schoolmates who went one step too far in their teasing and bullying. As had Humphrey Bogart, when he challenged Truman, on the set of Beat the Devil, to an arm-wrestling contest.
Humphrey Bogart, his wrist nearly snapped off his arm, never teased Truman Capote again.
“Yes, I do know what I’m talking about, as a matter of fact,” Truman replied evenly.
Diana Vreeland shrugged. She refilled her cigarette holder from a silver box on her desk, struck a match, lit the cigarette, puffed, and leaned forward.
“Darling, it was like this,” Diana began in her sandpaper bleat. And Truman smiled, closed his eyes—the better to imagine—and listened to
The Story of the Three Beautiful Cushing Sisters