“What game? What does Gloria do?” Truman immediately sat back down, serious.
“It’s nothing. It’s amusing. But she’ll tell me, a week before we go, ‘Babe, dear, this year we’re going to be completely casual. No dressing for dinner. For anything! We’ll be windblown and fancy-free!’ So that’s how I’ll pack. Only casual clothes, leaving most of the jewelry behind. And then, the first night, there I’ll be in linen pants and a silk blouse, and Gloria will arrive in the latest Balenciaga gown, draped in jewels from ear to ear. Stunning, of course. And she’ll announce that we’ve been invited to a very formal dinner onshore. And I’ll feel like a hobo. Then the next year, I’ll fool her. I’ll bring only formal clothes, and sit down to dinner so elegant, you could die. And Gloria will show up in pants and a blouse, her hair tied back with a scarf, and she’ll say, ‘Why so formal, Babe? It’s a yacht, not Maxim’s! Where do you think you’re going?’?” Babe laughed, a good, hearty chuckle, completely at odds with her porcelain perfection.
But Truman detected the exasperation in her eyes. And his own gleamed with catty delight.
“That’s priceless! And horrid! Yes, it shows how insecure she must be, despite all of Loel’s fabulous wealth.”
“Gloria’s my friend,” Babe reminded him. His heart thrilled to her voice; it was so low, gentle, soothing. Nothing could ruffle it, he thought. Nothing could ruffle her.
But then the clock on her mantel struck seven soft, discreet chimes. And suddenly Babe Paley was not unruffled. Panic flared in her eyes as she turned in horror to the clock. Her hands reached out in the first abrupt, involuntary gesture he had seen from her.
“Oh! It can’t be seven! It simply can’t be!”
“So?”
“But Bill will be home any minute. And I’m not ready to greet him.” Babe slid down from the bed and walked—gracefully, with her shoulders squared and straight, her long legs as strong yet supple as a ballerina’s—to her dressing room. Truman jumped down off the bed and capered after her.
“Oh, Babe! What an Aladdin’s cave!” He looked around in awe; Babe Paley’s dressing room was nearly as big as her bedroom, and decorated in the same pattern of chintz from ceiling to floor. Her vanity was enormous, draped in beautiful pink fabric that echoed the chintz, and covered with crystal perfume flacons, powder puffs, mirrored trays, bottles of makeup devoid of any trace of fingerprints or smudges, silver-plated brushes (both hairbrushes and makeup brushes), several mirrors of different sizes—handheld, upright, lighted. Babe was seated on the vanity stool, studying herself in the largest mirror with the intensity of an artist assessing his just-finished painting.
“You look perfect,” Truman soothed her, sensing his role.
But Babe shook her head. “I always remove my makeup and reapply it just for him. But now I don’t have time.”
“There’s no need,” Truman insisted, putting his hands on her shoulders and peering into the mirror, gazing at the apparition before him. She must be forty, he thought. But her face did not give away such sordid secrets.
Babe was not a natural beauty, although you sensed that she had the potential to be. But something—some insecurity, Truman felt, instantly determined to locate its source—prevented her from showing it. No, Barbara Paley’s style, her beauty, her legendary polish, was artificial, cultivated over a lifetime of discipline and discernment, and she did not take pains to hide the fact. She was heavily made up, eyebrows perfectly groomed and brushed and colored, those glittering, deep-set eyes coated in subtle, complementary eye shadows and liners and mascara. Those high, sculpted cheekbones were further enhanced, with the precision of a professional, by blush, several shades artfully blended together. And her skin, while luminous, was that way due to foundation, thickly applied yet somehow not appearing to be; buffed completely, no lines of demarcation, dewy-looking, fresh.
But still, it was makeup. Beautifully, painstakingly applied; you could gasp at the mastery of it, and appreciate the skill and time necessary. Babe was no blank canvas; her face was a work of art, and she, not God, was the artist. Her hair, too, so perfectly, yet naturally, sculpted and waved to give the appearance of insouciance, thick and brown but with silver streaks weaving through it, catching the light, so chic, and unexpected. Yet again, one sensed the effort that went into it, while marveling at the result.