The Swans of Fifth Avenue(75)
But Gloria and Babe and Marella and Slim and Pam weren’t any different. They held on—clung—to their disciplined lives, their shared belief that sophistication and elegance counted for something; counted for everything, in their world. Their clothes might have changed some; Gloria was one of the first to introduce the Pucci pantsuit into society, and Babe’s skirts grew imperceptibly shorter. They all flocked to Halston, their former millinery magician at Bergdorf’s, when he opened his own salon and introduced long, flowing, caftanlike dresses made of jersey, sometimes one-shouldered, sometimes halter-backed. Still tasteful, but smacking, slightly, of the younger fashions.
They clung to their former hairstyles with strange devotion; if their skirts were looser, no longer requiring girdles (although of course, they still wore them), then their hair remained rigid, unyielding. Not for them the long, stringy styles of the flower children or the precision boy cuts introduced by Vidal Sassoon. They still looked forward to their twice-weekly visits to Kenneth’s, depended on them, really; found refuge in the soothing music, teacups, champagne flutes, stylists still clad in the suits and ties that Kenneth himself wore. They were pampered, but, more important, they were prized, still. In the reliable townhouse in which few young women would be seen, the Babes and Marellas and Glorias of Manhattan still found themselves desired, and desirable. And so they retained the kind of hairstyles that required setting, hairspray, sleeping in a hair net or curlers every night. Hairstyles that, unlike the rest of Manhattan, were impervious to the winds of change.
But Truman, oh, Truman. How he changed! How he adopted the fashions, tragically, of the youth movement (he never wore love beads, but, good God, those caftanlike suits he wore! The Nehru jackets!). The feuds he got into! Of course, he and Gore Vidal had never liked each other, but now they were actually engaged in a lawsuit (Truman repeating a story he insisted that Gore had told him, of Bobby Kennedy decking Gore in the White House; Gore was suing for libel). And he’d always had a love/hate relationship with Norman Mailer, which devolved into hatred, pure and true, when Mailer won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for The Armies of the Night—awards that Truman hadn’t won for In Cold Blood. So Truman accused Mailer of ripping him off, of doing what Capote had done first, and more brilliantly; of writing another “nonfiction novel.”
And the things he’d said about Jackie Susann! That the Valley of the Dolls author was a truck driver in drag—even if he had a point, it was a vicious thing to say. Especially on The Tonight Show.
Truman. On The Tonight Show. Talking to Johnny Carson on the West Coast, Dick Cavett on the East. Truman had gone Hollywood, of all things. Truman had gone global; he was everywhere and nowhere, peripatetic. He was in Rome, he was in Switzerland, he was in Palm Springs, he was in Venice. He was on the cover of Time, he was writing articles for Rolling Stone. He was dropping acid with The Who.
What he wasn’t doing, as far as anyone could tell, was writing his next book.
“So what are you writing next?” asked Johnny, asked Dick, asked the world.
“It’s brilliant. My masterpiece, called Answered Prayers, after that saying by Saint Teresa of Avila—‘There are more tears shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.’ Isn’t that brilliant! It’s going to be a darkly comic observation of society, real society. I’ve had a first-class seat to it all, and darlings, the things I’ve seen! I’m a modern-day Proust.”
“When will you be done?”
“Oh, soon, soon! It’s all up here.” Truman tapped his now-bald head, wrung his fat little hands dripping with rings, twisted up his baby-soft lips in a smirk, shifted his caftan-clad lard about in the chair. “I’ve spent years observing this world. Years!”
Curled up in an overstuffed armchair, an empty ebony cigarette holder in her hand, Babe eyed Truman on the television screen. Her hands itched to fill the holder with a cigarette and light up, but she swallowed, breathed as deeply as she could, and took a sip of water, chewing resolutely on an ice cube instead.
When she set the crystal glass back down on its coaster, however, she missed; the glass hit the tabletop with a loud crack, and water spilled everywhere. Babe gasped, and let out a small cry.
“What? What is it, Babe?” Instantly Bill was by her side, kneeling on the floor, looking up into her face. She grimaced, and laughed.
“Nothing, I just made a little mess, that’s all.”
“Oh.” Bill looked relieved; he ran his hand through his very thin, very silver hair, and exhaled. “I thought—I thought, well, never mind. I’ll get a towel.” He turned to see what was on the television. “Truman? What’s he up to tonight?”
“Oh, the same thing, I’m afraid. He’s wasting his talent, still talking about that book of his. Bill, do you think he’s written a single word of it?”
“No, I don’t. He talks a good game, but he lacks discipline. He didn’t used to. It’s really a damn shame.”
“Yes, it is.” Babe turned back to gaze at the television screen; now Truman was repeating an oft-told story, one that she’d laughed at many times, along with all her friends. “Well,” he drawled, his voice even higher, more exaggeratedly fey; she’d noticed this lately, how he seemed intent on becoming a caricature comprised of his most studiously affected elements, the lisp, the drawl, the limp wrists. Back when she first met him, these had simply been part of a more sharply etched, richly detailed picture. Now he was a walking—mincing—Hirschfeld cartoon.