Truman laughed; he remembered that day, how, after walking out of one of their favorite restaurants, Babe found the day had turned sultry, so she removed the colorful scarf she’d tied around her neck, and wrapped it around the handle of her Hermès bag, tying it in a jaunty bow.
Some photographer—there were always photographers waiting for her, for them, for the two of them together—snapped a shot, some magazine ran it, and soon every woman from Manhattan, New York, to Manhattan, Kansas, was tying her scarf around the handle of her purse.
“You’ll be remembered for much, much more than that,” Truman assured her.
“I doubt it. I’ll only be remembered for the way I look, the way I dress. That’s always been enough—it was what I wanted, when I was younger. I worked hard at it, cultivated the photographers, begged the designers for the clothes I wore when I couldn’t afford them. It was both a way to be remembered and a way to bag a man. A wealthy man. The two grand lessons my mother taught me in life.” And for the first time, Truman detected a real bitterness in her tone as she talked about her mother. “Mission accomplished, but now, now that I’m at the—that I’m facing this, I’m appalled. I’ve wasted my life. And that’s why I’m angry.”
“And I’m angry that you think that. Babe, the way you live, the way you cultivate yourself, your homes, it’s not a waste. Beauty, graciousness—these things are necessary. For the soul—for my soul, anyway. I know there’s so much more to you, but don’t discount these things.”
“Tell me,” Babe demanded. “Tell me, would you have wanted to know me if I’d not looked the way I do?”
“No.”
Babe winced; he hadn’t even hesitated. But then she was grateful. Truman was the one person who told her the truth. Always.
“But,” Truman said, stirring a little, stretching his legs, although they did not lengthen to match hers, “what’s wrong with beauty being noticed? What’s wrong with attraction based on appearance, if it leads to so much more, as it has done with us? Would you have wanted to know me if I’d not been famous? If I’d not looked interesting? Different?”
“I don’t know,” Babe replied, shrugging. “I suppose not.”
“And see what we would have missed out on?”
Babe nodded. Then she closed her eyes, for the first time, it seemed to her, since the doctor had said “cancer.” Now she did feel herself letting go, falling, falling into a spiral of fear, of uncertainty, of nausea, a cold, metallic taste in her mouth, the beautiful room spinning behind her closed eyelids. “You’ll be here, won’t you? When I have my surgery, the treatments? You won’t forget me?”
“Of course not! I’ll be here, every step of the way, beside you.”
“Good.” And Babe had allowed herself, then, to relax, even to nap; she’d awoken later, alone, but joined Bill and Truman in the drawing room, where they had a cozy dinner in front of the fireplace, just the three of them. And she could almost convince herself everything was as it had been, before.
But Truman had not been with her every step of the way. He had resumed his life, his ruinous loves; he’d continued to cultivate his celebrity, always calling, sending her bouquets of lilies of the valley and thoughtful, scathingly witty notes.
But for the first time in their friendship, he wasn’t there when she needed him.
To her friends, to society as a whole, Babe presented her usual calm, perfectly made-up face. After the surgery and the radiation treatments, during which she lost her hair, but Monsieur Marc, her devoted stylist (she’d stopped going to Kenneth years ago, simply because Monsieur Marc made house calls and Kenneth didn’t), made her fabulous Babe Paley wigs, she resumed her normal life. She entertained as usual, sat on her charitable committees, went out to lunch. Slim and Gloria and Marella and C.Z. and even Pam were kind, and they never once made mention of her illness, for which she was grateful. Yet it was there, of course. This repulsive, distasteful thing that shouldn’t be mentioned, should only be endured in private, yet it stained everything, the table at Le Grenouille, the flowers at Kiluna, the jewelry at Van Cleef, the shoes at Bergdorf’s, with an ugly coating of disquiet. People would sometimes catch themselves in conversation, in her presence—“Yesterday I was thinking, will we really need our yacht five years from now”—and there would be a guilty swallow, an averting of the eyes by the healthy, for having the tactlessness to think five years ahead. When she, Babe, might not have that luxury.
Or her fitter at Bergdorf’s might remark about how thin she was, then catch her breath, stuff some pins in her mouth, and hurry away with tears in her eyes, and Babe would think, How funny. Being thin when one is healthy is an accomplishment. But when one is sick, it’s something else altogether.