The Swans of Fifth Avenue(35)
Babe smiled after Andrew the waiter left; she’d read the awe, the appreciation on his face. And even if he was just a young man, a waiter, she enjoyed that, of course. What woman doesn’t enjoy being appreciated? To know that, first thing in the morning, was very special, indeed. And she savored the moment, lighting a cigarette, inhaling through her ebony holder, watching the closed door through the haze of smoke, half wondering if Andrew would pop back in for another glimpse, on the pretext of forgetting something.
But then she shook her head sternly. Oh, Babe! Stop being such a common girl. And she poured her coffee and dialed the phone.
Three hours later, after Bill had risen, showered, shaved, shoveled his food down his throat, kissed her cheek, and left for work with a grunt, there was a knock at the door. And Babe ran to answer it, her heart beating wildly. What was wrong with her today? She really was acting like a teenager!
“How did you know?” Truman had tears in his swollen, red eyes as he held out his hand; in it was a small vase of lilies of the valley, their sweet, bell-like flowers still creamy white against the dark green foliage. “How on earth did you know?”
“I just did.”
Truman fell into Babe’s arms; she grabbed the vase from him just in time. They walked into the drawing room, Truman’s head on her shoulder, tears streaming down his face.
“I am so blue,” he sobbed quietly as they sat down on a small sofa. “Just so blue. And you knew. You knew!”
“Yes. I knew you would be, the morning after. I had a feeling.”
“It’s so hard. Why does it always have to be so hard?” Truman’s shoulders shook with a suppressed sob. “And Jack doesn’t understand at all. He’s so tyrannical, in his way. He has absolutely no sympathy for me. He just doesn’t know. How—how empty I am! Even after last night—especially after last night, and nights like it. How the hollowness just gets to you. The loneliness. The special loneliness of being in a room full of people who are there just for you. God, he has no idea!”
“I do,” Babe whispered into her friend’s ear. “I do, dearest Truman. Because Bill—oh, I was so furious with him last night! He didn’t even see me, did he? Not once did he compliment me. I had that suit made especially for him, because he once said he liked that color. And he didn’t even eat a bite of all that food I arranged just for him! He didn’t say a word to Betsey and Jock! He has no idea how hard I work to make things just right for him, to give him what he wants, to look how he wants me to—he just takes it all for granted. Why, even the waiter this morning who brought up my coffee took more notice of me!”
“And that’s why I brought you some of my flowers.” Truman pointed to the vase that Babe had set down on an end table—not just an end table, of course, but a priceless Louis XVI commode. “You sent me these flowers because you knew I’d be blue. I brought you some because I knew the same thing. We don’t even have to tell each other, do we, Babe? We just know. It’s so rare, what we have. Come here, my darling girl.” And he held out his arms.
Babe stretched out on the sofa (not just a sofa, naturally, but a Louis XVI settee completely re-covered in an antique silk upholstery re-created and woven just for the Paleys) and put her head on Truman’s lap; he smoothed that throbbing vein on her forehead, pale blue against her creamy skin. She closed her eyes and let a few tears fall. “I hate him sometimes, you know. I really do. I don’t know what time he came home last night. I didn’t check to see if he was in bed when I got home. I don’t do that anymore. I just don’t want to know.”
“But you love him, too,” Truman whispered soothingly. “Just like I love Jack. We hate them, but we can’t live without them.”
“Jack loves you back. Bill doesn’t love me. Jack is prickly and fierce to everyone because he wants to protect you, because he values you. Bill wouldn’t throw me a life preserver if I was drowning.”
“That’s ridiculous. He loves you, Babe. He just doesn’t know how to show it. Not like I do. And you love him, too. Admit it.”
“I want him to love me. Is that the same thing?” Babe’s eyes remained closed. She thought back to when she first met Bill, after having been told, through mutual friends, that he admired her. Babe was newly divorced from a Tuxedo Park blueblood (who had hit her on occasion, but that was what makeup was for, Gogs had sternly reminded her when Babe came running home for comfort; funny, though, how vehemently her mother argued for divorce after the blueblood revealed all his money was tied up in trust). She was, she recalled, emotionally bruised and battered, feeling as if she’d been found wanting in judgment and taste. Even though she had absolutely no memory of ever choosing Stanley Mortimer, only of being forced to sit next to him at debutante party after party, dinner after dinner, until she found herself sitting beside him in a bridal gown at their wedding lunch.
Despite her emotional fragility, Babe Cushing Mortimer had been at the peak of her desirability. Beautiful, more sure of her taste and fashion sense than ever before, still ripe—and with no money to speak of, but a fabulous lifestyle to finance. Because what else could a woman like her, of good breeding, a finishing school education, and coveted looks, do but live well and decoratively? And that took money, of course.
And Bill. Not quite divorced, although later they both conveniently rearranged the timeline and insisted that he had already jettisoned the first wife. But Bill, that evening she first saw him at one of Condé Nast’s hilariously crowded parties, was certainly the most vibrant man in the room, with that blustery grin; Stanley, her first husband, had so rarely smiled. The grinning, brash young head of CBS was also by far the most important man present, even more important than the host; this was evident by the way all the guests circled about him, eager and obsequious, while Condé sat alone in a corner, munching on canapés.