Did anyone in Manhattan that summer of 1975 recognize the players in this work of fiction? Sarah Whitelaw, the devoted, almost geishalike wife of George, who narrates the bulk of the piece, the story within the story? Did anyone take note of the fact that Sarah massages George’s feet while he talks, that this outwardly perfect domestic scene is, in fact, completely loveless, just an arrangement? That Sarah looked an awful lot like Babe Paley, with her “tobacco-colored” hair?
If anyone did take note of this, they didn’t say a word. The story itself was too good, perhaps; they were only dazzled with Truman’s writing. And nobody ever accused Bill Paley of being as introspective as the George Whitelaw of the story.
Babe read the story, along with Slim and Marella and Gloria and C.Z. and Pam; they all sent Truman telegrams of congratulations and exhaled. Perhaps Truman wasn’t so far gone as they’d all feared. After all, he was writing again! And despite the explicitness of the story—the language! the sex!—the story was good. Or so the critics said.
Still, Babe did fold the magazine in half when she was done, a small rumble of discomfort worrying her. But it was only a tremor, so easily obscured by the greater earthquake of her failing health, more surgeries, barbaric procedures that poked and probed and irradiated and otherwise treated her previously admired, couture-clad body like a science project; medicines that gave her headaches, medicines to relieve the headaches, medicines that took away her appetite. She conserved herself now; she remained in bed for long periods at a time so that she could emerge and carefully, oh, so painstakingly, apply her makeup—an entirely different prospect now, not just to conceal and enhance but to turn her into an entirely different person. She felt like Lon Chaney, rather: the man of a thousand faces. She was an expert at turning a sick old woman into a reasonably vibrant middle-aged one.
She would emerge, makeup perfected, wig in place, wearing a superbly styled outfit, the accessories just right, the jewelry carefully chosen so as not to call attention to her emaciated wrists, neck, fingers—she wore a lot of whimsical brooches these days, like her favorite bumblebee brooch designed by Verdura with a fat coral body and glittering diamond wings—and go to lunch with her friends, and smile breezily at the cameras, and assure the world, her world, that Mrs. Paley was just fine, thank you so very much for asking.
Because to let the world know otherwise simply wasn’t an option. It never had been. She had an image to uphold. She and Bill. Mr. and Mrs.
So no, Babe didn’t trouble herself too much with “Mojave,” other than to be grateful that her friend—for he was still her friend, despite the distance, the distractions, her illness—was working again.
But were she and Truman as close as before?
Babe would have answered yes, unhesitatingly. Truman would have declared, “Of course we are, I love Babe more than anyone in the world, she’s my dearest, dearest friend!” But it was an affirmation based on the past, not the present. The present wasn’t recognizable or palatable to either of them; she was too ill, he was too self-destructive. Like so many, they chose not to recognize themselves in the mirror, but in old photographs, scrapbooks, shared memories.
That summer of 1975 was one of relative peace. Saigon had fallen in April, so the war was over. Nixon had been gone almost a year. Already people were talking about the Bicentennial; the swans were on numerous committees charged with planning the upcoming galas.
Slim had divorced her dull English lord, had absolutely no money, but still managed to enjoy life, peering at it through her ridiculous, outsized glasses, living in hotels and at friends’ country homes and yachts. All her friends were sympathetic, although one time Babe shocked Truman by saying, “Slim really never made it, did she?” And Truman knew exactly what she meant; Slim had wasted her assets, never really married well—or, rather, wasn’t quite able to stay married well—and now she was in her sixties, firmly in the “kooky aunt” category, sad to say.
Marella and Gianni were still married; Marella had pulled away from Truman, ever so slightly, in recent years, cloaking herself in her princess robes, no longer inviting him to stay or dine. So, of course, he told anyone who would listen all about Gianni’s affairs with Italian starlets. He didn’t even bother to see if this was true or not; he just told everyone it was. And people simply lapped it up! Same way they lapped up what he’d started saying about Ann Woodward, that sow, who still hung around at the tattered edges of his world, popping up, soused to the gills, at parties now and then. He’d started telling people that she’d been married before Billy, poor dead Billy, and so she was a bigamist as well as a murderess.