For in front of an enormous limestone townhouse, a stunning building with columns and pediments and majestic windows and a festive yellow-and-black awning in front, was a line of limousines, Town Cars, and cabs. She wondered if the president himself might be here, for in Washington, the only time you saw a crush like this was when the president or vice president was out and about, trailed by the Secret Service.
There wasn’t a lot of honking; the drivers seemed patient enough, willing to wait. And emerging from the awning, popping out like BBs from a toy gun, were women. Gorgeous, stylish women far better dressed than she was, in designer dresses and furs; Kay immediately folded her arms across her chest, ashamed of her plain shift dress and cloth coat, acutely aware of her lack of jewelry and makeup. And on the heads of these women were concoctions worthy of Marie Antoinette: piles and piles of hair, most of it fake, bedecked with ribbons or feathers or jewels or sometimes all three. Walking with their necks stiff, their coiffures somewhat protected from the wind and drizzle of a late-autumn morning by loose-fitting plastic scarves and hoods, nevertheless each woman hurried to her waiting car, and the parade moved on. And on, and on; the line of black cars was endless.
Kay ducked her head and ran across the street, under the awning, and made her way through giant wrought-iron doors. Inside, she had to stop once more and take it all in, for she wasn’t in a hair salon at all and wondered if she’d gotten the address wrong. She was in a mansion; a candy fantasy of a mansion with a grand staircase, polished floors from another, more opulent era—but the walls were papered in bright contemporary patterns of flowers and trellis, and around every corner Kay could spy cozy little nooks with ornately tented ceilings providing privacy, Turkish stools on which little manicurists perched, antique chairs, chandeliers, endless halls and rooms.
Climbing the stairs slowly, her hand on the railing, Kay tried not to be run over by manicurists and stylists charging up and down, their faces tense, perspiration on their brows, scissors and nail files bristling in their pockets. When she got to the top of the stairs, she gave her name to a frazzled-looking receptionist, who paged rapidly through a thick book.
“Graham? Graham?”
“Yes, Mrs. Katharine Graham.”
“Right. We have you with Marco, one of our new stylists. May I take your coat?” And the young woman frowned at Kay’s worn tweed coat.
“Thank you.” Kay handed it to her, and once again felt ashamed of her plainness. For even the receptionist was dressed better than she was, in a gorgeous pink dress, her hair done up in the new fashionable bubble style, pin curls tickling her etched cheekbones.
“Come this way, please, Mrs. Graham.” Another, equally stylish young woman, with false eyelashes as thick as caterpillars, was beckoning Kay up another flight of stairs. “Are you going to the party tonight? Truman’s party? We’re so busy!”
“Well, yes, I am. Actually, I’m—I’m the guest of honor.” Kay felt rather silly saying this out loud; she didn’t really know why she did. She guessed that she was a bit proud of the fact, after all.
“What?” The young lady stopped dead in her tracks, causing Kay to bump into her, and another woman, dressed in a wild Pucci print dress, to run into Kay. “You’re the guest of honor? For Truman’s party?”
Kay felt her cheeks burn, and she ducked her head again, feeling stares upon stares on her plain, unstylish figure. “Yes.”
“Oh, no!”
Kay raised her head and wondered what she’d done wrong. “I’m sorry?”
“Oh, no, this will never do! You can’t be seen by Marco! Come, come, Kenneth will see to you himself.”
“But I don’t want to be a bother; it doesn’t really matter who does my hair—”
The young woman gasped. So did the Pucci-clad lady behind Kay who, upon further examination, turned out to be Kitty Carlisle Hart.
“Of course it matters! Kenneth would be crushed if he wasn’t allowed to do your hair for the ball!”
And so Kay had no choice but to follow the young woman up still another flight of grand stairs, to a bright yellow room with the golden glow of an inner sanctum. And before she knew it, she found herself—plain dress somehow removed, so that she was now clad in a beautiful orange-and-pink poncho—in a black patent-leather chair that resembled a throne, with a young, puckish man with thinning hair, in a dark suit and tie, like a banker, hovering over her with his hands full of combs and brushes and enormous hair clips. On her right sat a very young woman clad in a similar poncho, probably a model, for her face looked familiar. On her left sat a woman with her hair half covered in elaborate ringlets, powdered white; the other half of her head was dyed jet black and hung limply, obviously not yet done.