The Swans of Fifth Avenue(39)
The lights flickered back on, and the few others in the theater rose and filed out, gaping at the two of them, Truman crying, Babe bewildered. She was terrified someone would recognize her; she instinctively ducked her head, averting her famous face. But then she realized that no one would recognize her, not here, not in this neighborhood, and the realization was both a stab of annoyance and a warm bath of safe anonymity. For a giddy moment, Babe longed to run up and down the aisle screaming and waving her arms, or to do something equally scandalous and out of character. No one would ever know it was she.
But she was brought back to reality by her gasping, sobbing friend, clinging to her arm as if he were drowning.
“Truman, what is it, dear? What’s wrong? It’s a happy ending! Truman, it’s a happy film!”
Truman shook his head, the tears still streaming, his face very red, anguish in his eyes. Finally, he collected himself a little; he took a deep breath, let out an enormous sigh, and mopped his eyes with a handkerchief.
“The first time I saw this, my heart broke, it just gave way inside me. Because, you see, that was always my dearest wish, too. To be a real boy for my mother, so she would love me, so she wouldn’t be ashamed of me and say hateful things to me and try to pretend I was something I wasn’t. I just wanted to be a real boy, you see. Not always, you understand—oh, no! But when I saw this movie, all I could think of was how pleased Mama would be, how she’d finally love me, if only I was.”
“Oh, Truman!” Babe’s own heart twisted in sympathy; she wanted to fold him up in her arms and take him home and give him the childhood he so deserved, the love that he had missed. She wanted to be his mother, and his lover, both in one day, and the different emotions, jaggedly different, biblically different, made her disoriented, dizzy once more.
“And now, today, what you said to me earlier. Babe, right now, this minute, I wish I could be a real boy for you, my heart. So I could give you what you need, all you need and desire. So I can give you what Bill won’t, that bastard. That’s what I want so much. Only this moment, you understand. But it’s true, it’s real, it’s the realest thing about me when I’m with you.”
Babe blinked, surprised tears in her eyes. She looked down at Truman’s manicured little hand in hers, and she looked at the rest of him, the short legs, barely touching the floor; the tweed trousers he was wearing, his soft belly just beginning to strain against his cashmere sweater vest. She thought of the hidden rest of him, the parts she’d never seen, and was overcome with desire to see them, touch him, arouse him, challenge him to do the same to her, to overcome his true nature, to be a real boy—a real man.
But then he wouldn’t be Truman, would he? For that otherness, that uniqueness—goodness, let’s just say it, Babe, all right, his queerness—was the gossamer, quirky thread stitching everything else together, the intellect and talent and confidence and thirst for beauty. His seriousness—that’s what she always told people she admired most about him. How serious and dedicated he was about his work, about people, about life.
But if that was all he was, he wouldn’t have made it into her orbit. It was the “other” quality that made it safe for Bill to approve of their friendship, to invite him into their lives as fully as he had. Truman straight just wasn’t Truman. And even she, Babe Paley, goddess among mere mortals, couldn’t bring herself to believe that she could be the one, the only woman in his life, while he continued to sleep with men on the side. That just wasn’t possible, and she knew it.
“Truman, dear, don’t distress yourself about me. It’s just a thing my analyst said, a passing fancy, and a measure of how much I love you. A physical affair couldn’t bring us any closer.” And as Babe said this, she recognized it as the absolute truth.
“I know.” Truman’s eyes were dry now, but his hand was still in hers. It remained there as they got in the taxi, and—sensing that neither wanted to go back to the world that expected too much of them, at times—Babe impulsively asked the driver, “How much will you charge to drive out to Long Island?”
It didn’t matter what he answered, of course. Babe would pay it, without question.
—
AND SO, RETREATING, Babe and Truman entered the house at Kiluna feeling rather like runaway children, which they were. The staff was surprised to see them but rose to the occasion, as Babe had selected and trained them to do. She and Truman had a cozy, intimate little dinner of quail and potatoes before the fire in the library, and they didn’t say much at all; Babe was content merely to be with him, after all the emotional upheaval of the day, resting her eyes on his sensitive pink face; feeling his hand reach for hers on occasion, but also rejoicing when he let it go and was lost in his own thoughts, but still, somehow—with her. That he felt that comfortable, that natural, so that he didn’t strain to impress or amuse; that was a gift.
“Good night, dearest,” Babe told him as they went up the stairs, hand in hand; they stood in the hallway outside her room. “Everything should be ready for you in your usual room.”
But Truman shook his head.
“No, not tonight, Babe. Tonight, I’m sleeping with you. In your bed, next to you. It’s what I want, to be close to you in the only way I can be.”
For a moment, Babe couldn’t think straight; a swirl of thoughts buzzed about her head and she actually swatted at them, as if they were flies. What did he mean? He’d just said he couldn’t have an affair with her. Did he mean, just to sleep? In her bed? Then she’d have to sleep in her makeup, for he could never see her without it. She’d have to keep her teeth in. She wouldn’t be able to set her hair. What would Bill say, if any of the servants whispered?