The Swans of Fifth Avenue

by Melanie Benjamin

  Bill grinned and relaxed. He had to hand it to Truman; he was the only fairy in New York who knew how to talk to men. Real men.

  “Oh, Truman, you naughty, naughty boy!” A dishy blonde—not that Carol, but someone who looked a lot like her—wriggled up to them. She was wearing a very low-cut, very tight red satin dress. Immediately, Bill thought that if Babe saw her, she’d wrinkle her nose and decide the fabric was too shiny, the cut too extreme, the overall effect cheap. Sometimes he couldn’t help but see women through his wife’s superior eyes, but it never clouded his overall vision.

  “What, Mona?” Truman gazed at the girl with a calm, bemused expression.

  “You know, she’s me! I mean, I! Holly Golightly! I’m her! I know you based her on me!”

  “Mona, my dearest, most vapid girl, I assure you that I did not. Holly Golightly is entirely my own creation.”

  “Oh, no!” The girl inched closer, and looked up at Bill. Her eyes widened, and she squirmed, as if someone had just dropped an ice cube down her back. “Now, I want you to tell this gorgeous man here—”

  “Bill Paley, Mona Cartwright. Mona Cartwright, Bill Paley.”

  “Oooh! So nice to meet you, Mr. Paley! Anyway, Tru-Tru, I want you to tell Mr. Paley that I am the model for Holly Golightly! The things I’ve told you, over too many cocktails—and then I read them on the pages of your story! The South American—that Brazilian! You know I told you all about that!”

  “Mona, you may believe what you like. If it helps you sleep at night, by all means, go to bed thinking you’re Holly Golightly. Now, be a good little Marilyn and wriggle off somewhere else.”

  “Truman!” Mona leaned over to kiss Truman on the cheek—and flash Bill her creamy, heaving cleavage. Then she did sashay off, with only one sleepy-lidded backward glance.

  “Honestly.” Truman turned to Bill with a chuckle. Even a less keen observer of the human condition than Truman Capote couldn’t have helped to notice the hunger, the desire, in Bill Paley’s eyes as they followed the blonde through her maneuvers. Truman noted, but made no reference to it. He simply stored it away. For now.

  “Everyone wants to be in a book,” he drawled exaggeratedly. “I’ve simply been deluged by women who believe they’re the model for Holly. Carol Marcus, Gloria Vanderbilt, Gloria Guinness, Marella, Slim, even. They all think that some part of Holly is based on them.”

  “I don’t want to be in a book,” Bill said with a grunt. “I have no desire. I think it would be terrible, actually. To have people read something and think it’s about you.”

  “Well, you’re an exception, then.”

  “An exception to what?” Babe had suddenly inserted herself between her husband and her friend. With one arm behind Bill’s back and the other tucked into Truman’s arm, she surveyed her party with a beatific, satisfied smile.

  “An exception to mere mortals. Bill, that is. He claims he’d hate to be written about in a book.”

  “Oh, Bill!” Babe tilted her impeccable head up to him and laughed. She was exceptionally beautiful tonight; she seemed to have her own spotlight following her around, illuminating her features, making her eyes even darker, her cheekbones even more pronounced, her hair even silkier. Just to look at her—Bill smiled the satisfied grin of ownership; Truman, the incredulous grin of appreciation. Their gazes met behind Babe’s back; Bill’s eyes widened, as did Truman’s. So they had something else in common, too.

  “But I think he’s right,” Babe continued, unaware of the slight jousting occurring on either side (Bill’s arm encircled her waist; Truman gripped her arm more tightly). “I would detest being in a book. Promise me that, Truman? Promise me you won’t ever do that? I know every woman here tonight thinks she’s Holly Golightly. But I—” And she shuddered.

  “I don’t know how I could,” Truman said, and he knew it to be honest and true, as honest and true as Holly Golightly herself. “Any words of mine could never do you justice, Babe, dear.”

  Babe blushed, a rarity. Bill could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen his wife blush, and each one was because of Truman. With Bill, she was so composed, always. Composed, and dignified, and untouchable. Impervious to abandonment or real emotion.

  But that little blonde…now, there was a woman who a man—a real man, like Bill Paley, not some little homo like Truman Capote—could make blush. Pretty pink, from her cheeks to her little round—

  “Bill, dear, I know you must be famished. They’ll bring in a buffet in a moment, full of your favorites, I made sure of it. I also reserved a table for you and for Jock and Betsey, so you don’t have to talk to anyone you don’t want to—”

  “Never mind. I’m not hungry. And I think I’ll disappear now, Babe. I had a hard day.”

  Bill, his eyes following that little blonde as she sashayed her way around the room, did not even glance at his wife’s face. “Truman, will you see Babe home? I give her to you. For now. And congratulations again. I’m sure it’s a terrific book, and Babe will make me read it someday.”

  Truman laughed and grasped Bill’s hand in his own surprisingly strong grip. Babe, after an imperceptible intake of breath, kissed her husband on the cheek and whispered sincerely, a worried expression in her brown eyes, “You go home and go right to bed, poor darling! I’ll sleep in the drawing room when I come in, so I won’t disturb you.” Then she watched her husband stride through the room, his arms swinging in that commanding way of his, his grin, as he was greeted by everyone in his path, incandescent enough to light the room all by itself.

  Truman turned Babe around, toward the bartender, just in time. Just in time for her not to see Bill Paley follow a writhing, red-satin-clad bottom out of the Oak Room of the Plaza.

  “Now the fun will really start,” he whispered in her ear, delighted to see her wary eyes turn girlish, just at the promise of his voice. “Now we’ll have the best time ever, just the two of us!”

  And Babe, hastily erasing the frown that had puckered her forehead, put her hand in Truman’s, trusting him.

  Bill didn’t give either of them another thought. He was too busy convincing the little blonde to go upstairs, allowing her her maidenly protests, playing the game as well as any other man in his position, with his wealth, his appetites, his power. It didn’t take very long.

  It never did.

  CHAPTER 9

  …..

  Babe was up before Bill the next morning, as usual. After a short but heavenly night’s sleep on the drawing room sofa (she’d been able to take her teeth out, thank the Lord!), she’d risen with the sun, determined to call her florist’s private number and arrange a special early delivery. Then she’d rushed into the bathroom, made up her face, and rung for some coffee, delivered to her, naturally, by St. Regis room service, the waiter pushing in a mahogany cart with her own Wedgwood coffeepot and cup and saucer, and a silver vase with a peony in it, not a rose. As soon as she and Bill redecorated this small apartment and made it their city residence, she’d gone down to the kitchen and introduced herself to all the staff, thanking them in advance for their care and consideration. And asking them, if they pleased, never to put a rose on her tray. They understood, surely, that she and Bill wanted to think of this as a real home, not a hotel, and she so looked forward to doing just that, with their help.

  And of course, she asked her secretary to record all their birthdays, and she never missed a one, sending a card with a little extra gift of money to each. She and Bill both were generous tippers, each week sending out little envelopes full of cash to those who made their lives easier. When she was out shopping, she often brought something back—something small, like a flattering lipstick or a silk-flower pin or a cigarette case—for a maid, or a particularly attentive bellman.

  Thus, the peony and her own china, not the official St. Regis pattern. And the newspapers ironed, without her even having to ask.

  “Thank you so much,” she told the waiter, a new boy with a complexion like a lobster, so skinny his Adam’s
apple was as pronounced as his nose. “Andrew, isn’t it? I so appreciate it.”

  And Andrew—Andy to his friends and family, but not here, not at the St. Regis where nicknames were not allowed—blushed, his face turning even more mottled and scarlet; he tripped over his own comically large feet on the way out, and thought to himself, as he took the service elevator back down to the kitchen, that he’d never seen a more beautiful gal than Mrs. Paley first thing in the morning. He thought of his own mother, probably just getting up in their apartment in Queens. In her scruffy old quilted housecoat, her hair still in curlers, no makeup on, her eyes puffy from sleep, creases on her face as if she’d slept on chicken wire instead of a lumpy mattress. Drinking her coffee out of a heavy mug while she watched the small TV in the kitchen, picking away at the chipped Formica on the table.

  But Mrs. Paley! She looked as if she didn’t need sleep at all! She was wearing some kind of silk gown with a tie around her waist, and slippers that looked like real shoes, only with little puffs of fur on the end, and her hair was all done, and he thought, although he wasn’t sure—because he never could tell about these things, just ask his girlfriend, Sue—that she even had lipstick on. And her eyes weren’t the least bit red and puffy, not at all! Not a crease of sleep on her face, either.

  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.

  And then Bill raised his head above the sycophants and saw her, Babe, standing tall beneath a chandelier, a silver fox stole over her shoulders, and he chose her. She saw it in his eyes, the way they widened, the way his shoulders squared, his head snapped up, and there was nothing more she wanted but to be possessed by him, reassured of her worth in a world where feminine beauty and refinement were currency. Someone whispered that he was Jewish, but in that heady moment of being acquired by someone as powerful and handsome and wealthy as he was, it didn’t matter. Or—perhaps it did; her mother had picked out Stanley Mortimer. Gogs would never have picked out Bill Paley. That was Babe’s decision alone; perhaps the first she’d made in her life.

  But was that love?

  She hurt when Bill hurt, that was true. Once, she’d walked over to a new swim club being built across the road from Kiluna North, in lily-white New Hampshire. She thought the children could join; it would do them go
od to make friends. She introduced herself as Mrs. William S. Paley, filled out the forms, was polite and sincere in her hope that the Paleys could enjoy the club. But she never heard back; later, a neighbor told her it was because Bill—and his children—were Jewish. But that she, Babe, could join if she liked.

  She’d never told Bill this. She had seen him so wounded, so forlorn, when similar rejections had occurred. His blue eyes would fill with tears and his chin would tremble as if he were a little boy and not one of the most powerful men in all of broadcasting. Then the hurt would drain away to wrath, to steely determination, another house or another Picasso or another television station, or another designer dress that Babe didn’t really want but that Bill insisted on, insisted on her looking so unattainable that those who rejected him would surely gnash their teeth in despair, to look at what he owned. Whom he owned.

  Whom he married, that is.

  But love?

  She’d never felt her heart race in anticipation, knowing she would see Bill. Yet every time she was going to meet Truman, she felt so excited, so certain of delight that her skin tingled with adrenaline and she found herself laughing, all alone, even before he arrived. She always looked her best for Bill, but she went out of her way to find some new twist or flare to delight Truman: bells on her skirt, a whimsical brooch on an otherwise tasteful, expensive blouse. Because to make Truman gasp, to make him clap his hands, dance with joy, be struck dumb with awe, was simply the greatest delight she knew.

  Pleasure, she realized, joy, anticipation—none of these had anything to do with how she felt about her husband, or even her children. But they had everything to do with how she felt about Truman.