“Babe, dear, be careful.”
“Why? What do you mean?” Babe handed her five dollars with a slightly scolding frown. “Always five dollars, Slim, dear. It’s nothing to you, but quite a lot to them.”
“Thank you. I know how private you are. I know how discreet, always—it’s not like you to gossip, and we all love you for it. It’s what makes you Babe and the rest of us mere humans. So with Truman, just—be careful. That’s all. Be careful what you talk about. We all should.”
“Slim, you are sweet.” Babe smiled and kissed her friend on the cheek. “I so appreciate your concern. But Truman—why, he’s family. I rely on him more than I do Betsey or Minnie, even. He’s a true friend. I have to say, one of the dearest friends I’ve ever had.”
“Yes, well, I hope so, Babe. For your sake, I hope so.”
“Slim, Slim, Slim.” Babe shook her head and tucked her arm through her friend’s as they walked toward the ladies’ room. “So kind, so concerned and thoughtful! Are you and Leland coming out to Kiluna this weekend? I do hope you’ll wear that divine gown I saw you trying on at Bergdorf’s. You looked stunning. Like a tall glass of champagne.”
Slim smiled. “Babe, they broke the mold with you.”
“Well, I certainly hope so!”
And the two women laughed. They were still laughing when they joined the others in the lobby. Truman was surrounded by C.Z., Marella, Pam, and Gloria; he was in the midst of one of his stories. But when he saw his two favorites approaching, their heads bent together in intimacy and laughter, he stopped right in the middle of a sentence. Hopping up and down, rubbing his hands, his voice raised to stratospheric heights, Truman squealed.
“Ooh, what’s so funny? What are you two talking about without me? Tell me! Tell me, do!”
“Nothing, True Heart. So don’t strain yourself. It’s nothing.”
“Really?” Truman looked up, first at Slim, then at Babe. His wide eyes narrowed; his jaw set. “Really, honey? Because you know me. You know I just can’t stand secrets, unless I’m the one telling them!”
Slim didn’t join in the general laughter. She looked worriedly at Babe, who didn’t return her gaze.
She couldn’t. Babe Paley was staring at Truman with the indulgent, yet hungry look of a proud mother.
Or was it a lover?
La C?te Basque, October 17, 1975
…..
“You know, I tried to warn her.”
Slim ground out another cigarette; the crystal ashtrays were overflowing now with lipstick-stained butts, piles of ash spilling over the edges onto Monsieur Soulé’s fine linen tablecloth. There was even a small burn mark, which Gloria had covered up with a wineglass. The sun was lower in the sky; so was the champagne in the bottle (the third bottle, to be precise).
“What, darling? What do you mean?” Gloria tried to stifle a yawn; she couldn’t remember sitting in one place for so long, not even at La C?te Basque. Her ass, quite honestly, was a little numb. And she had to pee.
Instead, she raised her glass once more, and it was miraculously filled. Oh, being rich was simply lovely, when it came right down to it. Hold out a glass, and it was filled. Hold out an arm, and it was thrust into a satin-lined fur coat. Hold out a finger, and it was encrusted with jewels.
Yet even as Gloria smiled to herself, her eyes half closed, the memories of her childhood and early youth were not far away. They never were; they were always lapping at the edges of her consciousness, persistent waves of fear and loathing and humiliation: Solo el que carga el cajón sabe lo que pesa el muerto.
Just the other day, trying on a new pair of Ferragamo pumps, her narrow foot stretching out luxuriously in the supple leather, testing the cushioned sole, she’d felt a burning, stabbing pain in the pad of that foot, so acute that she’d cried out, startling the Bergdorf salesman. It was the phantom pain of having to walk barefoot on bad days, or in the thinnest huaraches on good, on the burning gravel streets of the village in Mexico where she had been born, sixty-three years earlier: Veracruz, to be precise. But she hadn’t said the name of her hometown aloud for years, decades. She’d hypnotized it out of her mind, for fear of blurting it out at an inopportune moment, one reason why she rarely drank much—del plato a la boca se cae la sopa, her father had often reminded her when she was a girl. But other details, stories, of her youth remained. That searing pain, for instance; how her feet never could get clean, how the gravel would disintegrate into a rough powder, grinding into her soles until they became ugly, thorny pads, not feet at all.