And how solicitous everyone was! How extremely interested they were in her comfort, simply begging to adjust the thermostat if she was too cold, kicking at furniture in disgust if she gave any indication that a cushion was too hard, or too soft.
She often caught herself in the mirror and marveled at what she saw; her same self, beautifully composed, clad in her usual tailored clothes, tastefully ostentatious jewelry. Because she didn’t feel like herself at all; she felt as if she was constantly holding everything in, walking around like an egg that had been glued back together, walking rigidly, turning her head slowly. She was an egg; a Fabergé egg, perhaps, but her scar—a gaping purple slash across her chest—never felt healed enough to hold everything in. She wondered, every time she moved abruptly, if some part of her, some necessary essence, was oozing out.
And always, the wonder, the terror: Was the cancer truly gone? Or was it merely lying in wait, gathering forces, hungry to assault her again?
The answer came a year later, this past January of 1975. Another tumor, in the other lung. And now her friends couldn’t hide their distress; they burst into tears every time they saw her. Bill wouldn’t leave her alone for a minute, and instead of being grateful or touched by his devotion—finally, after all these years!—she was irritated by it, saw it for what it was: Appreciation, too late, for all she’d done for him. Appreciation fueled by guilt. And fear. Selfish fear. For himself.
And Truman. Her Truman. Spinning out of control.
What would happen to Truman when she was gone? Because it might not be too long now. Babe had a secret. She had stashed some pills away, in a tiny Moroccan pillbox on her dresser. And if the pain ever got too bad, and there was really no relief left to her, she would take them. And spare herself, and those she loved, the ugliness of a drawn-out, protracted death.
But for now, the doctors were still talking about a cure; they were still careful to couch her prognosis in optimistic euphemisms. “There’s every reason to believe you’ll be around for a long, long time.” “We’re getting closer to a cure every day, and you have a lot of days ahead of you, Mrs. Paley.” “I wouldn’t worry if I were you; the chances are greater of being hit by a truck than of dying of this.”
Babe came out of the bathroom. Bill was gone, thank God. She locked her bedroom door so she could finally remove her makeup, take out her damned teeth, which were even more ill-fitting than usual due to her weight loss, and remove her wig, which felt like a leaden, furry animal on her head, suffocating her pores. It was hell on hot days, but she would not give in to a turban. Not yet.
Babe stared at herself in her vanity mirror; without the makeup, her skin still looked surprisingly smooth and youthful, if a bit waxy, and she wondered if there was something in the treatments that made it so. She cackled. “Babe Paley discovers magic new treatment for skin!” She could just imagine the headlines, the hordes of women all lining up to have radiation treatments so that they could look just like her.
Her scars were still there, those scars that only Truman had seen; she ran her fingers across the one on her left jaw, felt the rough skin there.
Then she ran her fingers across her skull. Her bare skull, only a few wisps of hair at the base, wisps she couldn’t bring herself to cut or shave. They were fine, like a baby’s hair. Faded, though; thoroughly white.
She stared at herself for a very long time; the skeletal face, sunken cheeks, startled brown eyes, hairless head. She didn’t even have eyebrows now. Strange, she mused, transfixed by the ghastly, yet oddly innocently compelling, visage gazing back. You come into this world alone, toothless, hairless. And that’s how you leave this world.
Alone.
But Babe Paley did not weep. She only wished, for one terrible, vindictive moment, that her mother could see her face now.
CHAPTER 17
…..
Truman reclined on a daybed, a writing pad perched on his protruding belly, pen in hand. The pad was full of pages and pages of paragraphs, jotted notes, words crossed out, scribbles in the margin—A severe injury to the brain…Kate McCloud—Mona Williams?…And Audrey Wilder sang…Gloria…Carol…La C?te Basque.
At the top of the page, underlined, Answered Prayers.
Bennett Cerf once said that none of his authors was as good at stirring up publicity as Truman was; the publisher adored the way Truman started talking up a book long before it was finished. He had none of the usual guarded secrecy concerning his work in progress that most authors possessed. Talking about something made it real in his mind, even if he didn’t have a word on the page, and so he chattered away happily, dropping hints and tidbits.