Bill opened the small refrigerator—of course, a Frigidaire—and pulled out several packages of thick white butcher’s paper; he unrolled each and surveyed the contents. Pastrami? Thin Genoa salami? Slices of Angus beef, bloody red at the center?
He chose the Genoa salami, wrapping the other packages up tenderly, putting them to bed back in the refrigerator. Then he opened a jar of brown deli mustard.
Cognizance of his Jewishness was right up there with his cognizance of his stomach. It was always in his thoughts, his plans, his schemes. Not paramount, and not in any sort of religious sense. He couldn’t remember when he’d last been to temple. But every time a door closed, the slam he heard was a word, and the word was Jew. Real or imagined, there it was. Clubs he could never join. Schools his children could never attend. Women he could never have.
Yet one of those women had said yes. Was it love that prompted this act of bravery on Babe’s part? Or was it money, all his piles of money?
Yes. No. Maybe.
Bill Paley was nothing if not pragmatic, and so was his wife. It was that pragmatism that drew them together in the first place. Oh, God, yes, Babe was beautiful and stunning and fabulous and all that—she lived up to her advertising, that was for sure. But when they met, she newly divorced, he nearly so (well, that counted, right? His intention was to be divorced, anyway. He’d just not gotten around to telling his first wife), whatever passed for physical attraction between them was utterly trumped by shared pragmatism. With her society pedigree, she could get him into places he couldn’t go alone. And he could give her financial stability for her children, and entrée into something more exciting than that staid society she was groomed for. Radio and television, the entertainment industry. This was new, and exciting, and Babe was curious.
He noticed that right away about her—her curiosity. He appreciated it, to a point. He also had no intention of having a second marriage like his first, a marriage in which the wife taught the husband, and didn’t care who knew it; in fact, took pains to let others see how much she had taught him, how much more she knew about art and politics and all the rest. That had been Dorothy Hearst Paley’s fatal flaw, one she recognized too late.
Babe was more astute. She soothed where Dorothy had nagged; she waited where Dorothy would leave impatiently on her own. She anticipated—everything. His hunger, his moods, a tickle in his throat that worried him, and that she couldn’t possibly know about, but she did.
His boredom. She anticipated that, as well, and did her best to alleviate it. Truman, for example; she’d brought Truman into their lives, and damned if he didn’t like the little queen, after all.
He certainly made life more interesting, that was for sure.
Bill opened the refrigerator again and grabbed an onion, peeled the skin, sliced it paper-thin, so quickly his eyes didn’t have time to water. He thought of that first night at Kiluna, when he’d arrived, stunned, to find that Babe wasn’t waiting for him downstairs, a drink in her hand, and at first he was angry, petulant as a child. Truman stayed the weekend, along with the usual suspects, Slim and Leland, Gloria and Loel, Minnie and Jim Fosburgh. During dinner Truman had been amusing, arch, gossipy, but not too; he’d told funny stories about John Huston and Humphrey Bogart, and he’d made Babe laugh. Not in that polite way she did whenever Bill told her a funny story, but hearty guffaws that made her shoulders shake, her eyes tear up. And Bill hadn’t seen Babe laugh like that in, well—ever.
After dinner, when usually they’d all retreat to the drawing room and play quiet games, Truman insisted on dancing. He’d actually brought some records—all CBS, which Bill of course noticed, and gave him points for—and they’d played them out on the terrace. Truman was an astounding dancer: lithe, light on his feet, knowing all the latest moves.