He was at the top of his game, he knew. He’d never doubted he’d be there, not even when he’d been fired from The New Yorker. And he loved a darling man, who loved him in return—in his own gruff way.
But it wasn’t enough, and late that night, as Truman turned away from a softly snoring Jack, there was a dancing flame inside of him that would not be extinguished, could never be extinguished no matter how many sleeping pills he took. No matter how many times he told himself that it could be lit again by the morning sun. But there was always more. More beauty to be seen, more places to travel, more acclaim to be won. More love to earn, to barter, to exchange or withhold. To miss, always.
Outside, looking in. Why did he always feel that way, every moment of every day?
Even when he was at the center of attention, standing at a lectern reading, slicing into a cake with the cover of his book depicted in the icing—it was never completely his. There were always other things going on; two heads bent in conversation in a dark corner of the room; a secret smile between lovers; a peal of laughter prompted by a joke he hadn’t heard. People exchanging telephone numbers—not his. A whispered “I’ll get a taxi for us all,” and suddenly a group of four had vanished with a hurried waggle of their fingers in his direction, blown kisses in perfumed air that never quite reached his cheek.
Leaving him behind. He was always left behind.
So he had to try harder. Be more. Be better, more sparkling, more vibrant—a spotlight shining up to the heavens, lighting the dark, drawing everyone to his brilliant beacon. If he only dressed a little more outrageously—why not a velvet cape to go with a velvet suit? If he only danced a little more vigorously—doing the Charleston when everyone else was doing the two-step. If he only leapt into a room, arms outspread, legs kicking up behind him, instead of merely walking into it.
If he only told the best stories, dished the most delicious gossip, dropped the grandest of names.
Then, perhaps. Then. Would he truly belong?
Would Mama come get him so that it would be the two of them, finally? And he would be loved, embraced, and see only pride and understanding in those eyes, those shining, shining eyes, brown, almost black, peering out of a face sculpted out of marble, high cheekbones, aquiline nose, a slender neck, a swan’s neck, black, black eyes like a swan, feathers ruffling, arms beckoning.
Babe’s eyes. He began to relax, finally, thinking of Babe’s eyes, and how they looked at him, and only him; how they shared a hurt deeper, maybe, than his own.
And how they might shine with love. True love. True Heart.
Truman.
And finally, thankfully, he was asleep.
—
BABE, IN HER LOFTY pied-à-terre at the St. Regis hotel, Fifty-fifth and Fifth Avenue, the epicenter of glittering Manhattan, was not.
Bill, in bed beside her, had taken up the entire mattress with his tall, restless body. Hard, unyielding—and a stranger to her now. Two children together, and that was enough; she didn’t mind that. Two with him, two with Stanley; Babe was a mother of four. Yes, that was enough.
But Babe, idealized and idolized, perpetually on the “Best Dressed” lists, always mentioned in columns that began, “The most beautiful women in New York,” was not desired by her own husband. Oh, yes—coveted, perhaps. Prized. Displayed, like one of his Picassos. “Mr. and Mrs. William S. Paley,” dazzling together at charity events, balls, highly sought after at dinner parties.
But Babe was not desired. Holding herself still, so stiff and light she wondered if she even made an imprint on the mattress, she knew only rejection, colder than the air conditioner blowing stale Manhattan air over her body. Bill hadn’t reached for her tonight, as he hadn’t last night, nor any night that she could remember. It wasn’t as if sex was something she craved; frankly, sex with Bill was strictly a one-sided affair. She couldn’t even remember it, to tell the truth—no real details, no exquisite rapture, no lovely, sated feeling after. But rejection is rejection is rejection, as Gertrude Stein might have said. And the truth was that Bill Paley rejected his own wife’s body, if not her needs. Babe! Beautiful Babe! Rejected like a common wallflower by her own husband, whose roving eye was legendary.