The Swans of Fifth Avenue(17)
“And did they? Taste sweet?”
“No. They were lifeless, stunned. Flat as old champagne. It was the greatest disappointment of my childhood.”
Tell me about—your favorite pet as a child.
“My dog, Bobo. I loved that dog! He was a black poodle. He wasn’t supposed to sleep with me, but I always snuck him up when no one was looking. Betsey knew, and once, because I’d borrowed a sweater from her and ruined it, she told Mother. Bobo was banished outdoors after that, for good. I guess he ran away. Like most dogs do.” Babe, whose gaze had been so grave and thoughtful, suddenly smiled. “I haven’t thought of Bobo in years. We have English bulldogs now. Bill thinks they’re very chic. Purebred, of course, kept in heated and air-conditioned kennels. I don’t even know all their names. Someone else takes care of them, and brings them in once a day to be petted, maybe walked, if I’m about to take some exercise. It’s not the same, though, at all.” And her eyes widened, as if realizing this for the first time. “We have dogs. But we don’t have pets.”
“We had so many animals back in Monroeville! Sook had a fat old bird she kept in a cage in the kitchen. I always had a lizard or two in a shoe box. Cats simply draped themselves about the house, on the porch, the windowsills, the eaves and rain barrels. Most everyone had an old hound dog, just because. That’s how the South is. I don’t know that I had a favorite, though. I finally persuaded Jack to let me have a dog about a year ago. Now the dog loves Jack more than he loves me—typical!” Truman laughed, but there was a hollowness to it that made Babe impulsively grasp his hand in sympathy.
“Why do they always love the one that doesn’t love them?”
Truman shrugged. “Bitches. We’re all the same, after all.”
Tell me about—your guiltiest pleasure.
“Sex,” Truman said immediately, his eyes sparkling. His pink tongue darted between his white teeth, and he licked his lips, as if tasting candy on his own flesh.
“That doesn’t count,” Babe retorted, squirming slightly even as she managed to look very prissy. Like the most fabulously dressed Puritan, her Roman nose tilted very high, her fastidiously lipsticked mouth pursed. Truman noticed her discomfort. And said nothing, for the time being.
“All right, then,” he drawled. “Chocolate milk shakes. I adore chocolate milk shakes, with whipped cream and sprinkles.”
Babe’s eyes widened. “I do, too! Ice cream of any kind! Oh, we should go to Berthillon in Paris sometime!”
“Paris would be too magnifique with you! We could go to the Latin Quarter and see the most divinely decadent shows, and then go backstage and talk to the girls and boys. I love talking to them. They have the most fascinating stories, you know.”
“I, well—” Babe frowned. Of course, she could never do that! Bill would have a fit! What if someone recognized her and took her picture? What on earth would people say? Oh, but it would be fun, wouldn’t it? Although entirely out of the question.
Tell me about—your most amazing accomplishment.
“It’s not yet happened.” Truman tilted that stubborn chin, steeled those blue eyes. “But it will. The Pulitzer. Of course.”
“Of course,” Babe agreed, thrilled. That her friend, her intimate new friend, would win a Pulitzer Prize! That she should know someone—be sitting by the side of her pool at Round Hill with him, their bare feet cooling off in the silky water—who was an intellectual, a writer of such stature! How had this happened? No one in her life, save her father, had ever been what you could call an intellectual. Not even Bill, for all that he had accomplished. Bill moved through life like a shark, fueled by sheer instinct. His instincts were sound—miraculous, even—but still. One of his most endearing traits was that he was the first to admit he did not have the kind of mind of, say, an Ed Murrow. That was why Bill worshipped Murrow so, had tried to emulate him to the point of wearing the same trench coat and hat, London-made, when they first became friends during the war.
But Truman, with his shrewd eyes, his interest in everything yet an ability to home in on the most intriguing, unusual aspect, his talent for understanding people and what made them tick, his vast knowledge of literature and craft, his precise, yet expansive vocabulary—Truman was an intellectual, she was certain of it. An intellectual with a love of gossip and high society and low life, to be sure. But still an intellectual. And he was her friend.
Hers, not Bill’s. She’d seen him first.
“My greatest accomplishment?” Babe repeated the question. “My children, of course.”
“No. That’s bourgeois. No woman should mistake nature for an accomplishment. It’s distasteful, this emphasis on reproduction. It’s biological, and that is all. Besides, I’ve never met your children, so how can you be so proud of them?”
Babe colored. “I am. All mothers are.”
“Yet you let others care for them? You leave them all week, while you’re in the city or traveling, and they stay out at Kiluna with their keepers?”
“It’s better that way, Truman. More stability. And there’s no room for them in the apartment, you know.”
“And whose idea was that? To live in such a tiny little space with no room for anybody else?”
“Bill’s,” Babe admitted, her throat suddenly tight, unwilling to allow the disloyal words. “Bill wanted that. It’s close to his office.”