The Swans of Fifth Avenue

by Melanie Benjamin

  “So you don’t blame her?”

  “No! How could I! She did what I told her to do—she looked after Leland while I was away in Italy. She made sure he wasn’t lonely. God, what a damned fool I was! I am!”

  “What was it you told Leland, again, when he called you? It was so perfect, Slim! So completely cutting and truthful!”

  “I told him, when he said he wanted a divorce, I told him—‘Leland, nobody marries Pam Churchill!’ And nobody does! How many affairs has that tramp had?”

  “Dozens. Hundreds. Hence the clap!”

  “But wouldn’t you know it. My husband. The last of the great romantics. He wants to marry the bitch.” Slim got up, kicked at the foot of the coffee table, and went to the bar. She opened a bottle of Scotch, raised an eyebrow at Truman, who nodded, and poured them both two tall glasses, not even bothering with ice.

  “Babe had no choice but to invite her. Pam was a guest of Jock and Betsey’s, and Babe needed an extra woman for dinner one night, and Leland was there, and so—”

  “I know, I know! And it’s not as if Leland didn’t know Pam before! Why that time, that particular dinner, I’ll never understand. And she was so nice to me, when Betty and I were in Europe! She kept sending me flowers, telephoning to see if there was anyone she could introduce us to! That a friend—that someone who called herself a friend—could do that—” Slim’s hands began to shake, and she had to set the Scotch down. She seemed on the verge of more hysterics, but then she took a deep breath, clenched her fists, and picked up the drinks, handing him his.

  “But that’s that, I guess. Some might say it’s only what I deserve. Leland wants a divorce. I’m not going to contest it, not anymore.”

  “So get back at him. Have an affair of your own.”

  “Well, you know. I did. Sinatra. Peter Viertel.” Slim glanced at Truman, bit her lip. “Others. And yes, I guess that—I know that’s part of why he was susceptible to that British whore’s charms. But for Christ’s sake, Truman—that’s what marriage is, of course. You take care of what you need to on the side, but for God’s sake, you stay married!”

  “Naturally. Unless you’re some poor sop from the Midwest, with enchanting midwestern notions about marrying for love. Where was Leland born again? Nebraska?”

  “I do love him, True Heart! I do! That’s the thing! I love the man, and I thought—oh! Oh, my God, that’s it!” Slim looked stricken; she set the glass down without having taken a sip.

  “What?” Truman didn’t wait; he took a long gulp from his Scotch; he was still a bit damp, raw from the rain. Then he grimaced; this was not the good stuff, not the usual Johnnie Walker Black. He didn’t know what it was, but he heroically hid his distaste from Big Mama, who continued to stand, stock-still, as if she’d taken a good long look at her unkempt self in a mirror.

  “Oh, my God. I married the last old-fashioned man in New York, didn’t I? That poor, dumb, softhearted bastard! Leland simply can’t imagine sleeping with someone unless he marries her. He was that way with me, with Maggie Sullavan before me. Even with Kate Hepburn, now that I think about it. Leland wanted to get married and Kate didn’t, because she wanted to focus on her career. And now Pam. He slept with her, and so he has to marry her.”

  “She’s wasting no time making sure that he does, I hear.” Truman took another swig and gestured that Slim ought to do the same. “She’s picking out china at Tiffany’s.”

  “God. China. As if that’s what defines a marriage—the china pattern. The silver. None of that matters in the end. I took care of his children, you know! Those poor kids, Maggie Sullavan’s children, so messed up. I arranged his life. I picked out his socks and shirts and threw his opening-night parties and traveled with him to every tryout of every show, staying up late, ordering sandwiches and coffee when they stayed up all night trying to fix things. That’s marriage. And he’s throwing it all away.” Slim’s eyes watered again, and she even let one big tear roll down her patrician nose and drop into her drink, but she didn’t appear to notice.

  “Now, Big Mama, listen to True Heart.” Truman patted the sofa. Slim sat down. He had the feeling that she was a marionette and he the puppet master. Right now, he could get her to do anything. Which was what he was counting on.

  “You understand marriage. Marriage, as it’s done among our crowd. That stupid little Carol Matthau doesn’t—she’s a dear girl, but she marries for love. Not practicality. She’s just like poor Leland. But you are much more intelligent than that. And I wonder if you have any idea how much you might be able to help out a friend? A couple of them, to be exact?”

  “What? What could I do to help anyone now? Without Leland—I’m nobody. I’m a divorcée with no money of her own. Marella and Gloria and C.Z.—they’ll drop me in a minute.”

  “No, they won’t! I’ll stab them in the heart!” And Truman was absolutely fierce in his conviction that he would do it; that he would champion Big Mama, who loved him. Not as much as Babe; no, never did he think that. Always Slim seemed to be looking at him with one eyebrow arched in anticipation of something. Slim was smart; Slim knew how to protect herself. And so she would never love him like Babe did—but then again, she didn’t need him as much as Babe did. Nor did he need Slim as much. And they knew that about each other, which was both comforting and not.

  “True Heart,” Slim said with a whiskey-soaked sigh. She patted his hand, took a sip of her drink, and hiccuped. “I love you. I really do. Tell me a story. Something amusing. Cheer me up, for I’m blue.”

  “No, you don’t.” Suddenly Truman was sick; sick of these people and their dramas and their selfishness, their favors. Their very wealth and privilege, which they used to get what they wanted, used to get him, ensnare him, make him feel ugly and dirty and sordid—more so than usual.

  “I don’t what?”

  “You don’t love me, Big Mama. Nobody does.”

  “Of course we do! We all love you!”

  “No, you don’t. Nobody does—except maybe Jack. Look at me. I’m a freak to you, all of you, aren’t I? A distraction, an impulse, some big joke. Someone to be used.”

  “No, no—what are you talking about?”

  Truman leaned back into the sofa and hugged a pillow to his chest. He looked up at his Big Mama, now standing before him, stricken, lost. Forlorn. But she was a woman, she would be all right. She’d find someone else to marry, soon enough. She was tough, Big Mama was. Tough as nails; tougher than him.

  Tougher than Babe; the one who did love him, he remembered, his stomach souring at what he’d already done—and what he had been about to do. To Babe, and Babe alone, he was something other than a jester, the flavor—the fairy—of the week.

  “True Heart, what do you mean? Did I say something wrong? I’m sorry, I’m—I’m just not myself today.”

  “No, Slim, no.” He sighed. It was too hard, to tell the truth to these people, to speak honestly, seriously, and not in witty one-liners, bitchy repartee. They simply couldn’t see him any other way; he was too small, too different, too precious to be taken seriously. And good Lord, none of them were in any way literary! No, he would never have been admitted to their circles on the basis of anything so drearily ordinary as talent or truth. So he only shrugged, and smiled wanly at Big Mama.

  And decided that, at least for today, he would not be Bill Paley’s fairy pimpmother.

  “Now, where were we?” Truman patted Slim’s hand. “Weren’t we going to spread that rumor about Pam?”

  Slim pushed her stringy hair back from her face—her profile no longer youthful and firm, the poor dear; she might have a tough time of it, after all, finding someone new at her age—picked up the phone, and handed it to him.

  “You do it, True Heart. More people will believe it, if it comes from you.”

  “Yes,” Truman said slowly, drawling it out, turning up the lisp, the camp, the dazzle. “Yes, Big Mama, you wise, sly thing. Of course. How brilliant of you! Now. Who should we call first? Who’s going to hav
e the privilege—oh, wait, I have it!” He dialed the phone, winking naughtily at Slim.

  “Gloria? Darling! It’s me, Truman! Did you hear about Pam Churchill….”

  And Slim began to giggle.

  Palm Beach, Florida, October 17, 1975

  …..

  C.Z. hung up the phone.

  It had been Truman, of course. Crying, outraged, petulant, remorseful.

  “I don’t understand!” he had raged, but in the next breath, he was sobbing pitifully. “What did they think? I’m an author! I write what I know!”

  C.Z. had let him rage on, whispering only murmurs and soothing, clucking sounds, much as she would to an outraged child. She’d told him that she didn’t hate him, that she understood, that people were really quite naïve, that yes, now that he asked, the writing was spectacular, truly. This new short story was the best thing he’d ever written.

  “La Côte Basque 1965” was not the best thing he’d ever written, however. C.Z. actually had to suppress her laughter as she read the thing. The short story was just a play, really. A dialogue, running commentary, bitchy gossip. Certainly it was nothing like his best work, which for her remained In Cold Blood.

  C.Z. didn’t take too much seriously. She never had; she’d been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but had removed it at her first gurgle and flung it across the nursery. But when she’d read In Cold Blood almost ten years earlier, she, like all of Truman’s swans, had been stunned into an uncomfortable bashfulness around him. Suddenly their gay, gossipy little friend, arm candy, pocket change, was another creature entirely. A giant, a literary sentinel. She wondered how she’d ever imagined that they looked at the world in the same way, thought the same thoughts, shared the same vices and delights and interests.

  Truman simply stopped being Truman. For a while, anyway.

  She remembered the writing of that book, how it had taken years and years. He still, during the time of the writing, went to their parties, took them dancing at the Peppermint Lounge when their husbands refused. He still sat around the fire and gossiped with them. Only once in a while, C.Z. supposed, he would have a far-off look; she would see his lips move, he’d take a notebook out and jot something down, or more often, he’d suddenly become very downcast, and still everyone continued their merry dance about him, like a maypole. But he always snapped out of it and jumped right back in.

  But then the book came out and everyone read it (and they really did this time, as opposed to his other books) and the name Truman Capote began to be spoken in hushed, awed tones, and every television, newspaper, and radio personality with an ounce of self-importance wanted to interview him. Truman had been famous before, of course, and even during the writing of In Cold Blood, the movie of Breakfast at Tiffany’s came out, further catapulting him in the limelight—

  Oh, C.Z. laughed and laughed, a throaty, sexy laugh so at odds with her crisp Brahmin drawl, remembering how she’d seen the movie with him. Not the first time he’d seen it—that he’d shared with Babe, of course—but later, during a matinee, the two of them sneaking into the back row of the dark theater, munching on Cracker Jack. Truman had whispered such catty things, a running commentary of bitchiness, during the whole movie—Audrey Hepburn is a nice enough little thing, but she’s not my Holly. Marilyn Monroe is who I wanted. But poor Marilyn—no one would work with her. Oh, look—isn’t it terrible what they’ve done to Mickey Rooney? It’s offensive. Not to mention a crime, the way he’s chewing the scenery—it’s a wonder he didn’t gain fifty pounds! Patricia Neal—marvelous woman, but why did they have to add her character? I think Fred’s much more interesting if he’s just a common male gigolo, more like Holly. Now, watch for the scene when Audrey has to sing that song. “Moon River”—well, it’s a nice enough little tune, but it’s not the one I wrote in the book, which—I have to say it—was much more appropriate. But look at how nervous Audrey is; she’s shaking as she holds the guitar. You can’t really see it in the final cut, but trust me, I was there on the set that day. And, darling, let me tell you about Audrey’s husband, Mel—

  She’d had to go back and see the movie again, alone, because she hadn’t had a real chance to with Truman by her side.

  So Truman had been famous before—and if he hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have been part of their circle—but nothing like what happened to him after In Cold Blood.

  And no one—not even Babe—felt entirely comfortable with him, once they realized that he had done something truly important and groundbreaking in literature. C.Z. was the first to admit she knew nothing about writing. Other than that the author was someone to be respected and revered—and until then, she’d never thought of Truman as an author, believe it or not. He was simply an ornament, a bauble to be collected, enjoyed, and appreciated, but not really admired.

  C.Z. opened the doors to her spectacular terrace. She felt the setting Florida sun bathe her skin, warm every follicle, open every pore. She inhaled profoundly, remembering how her father always taught her to breathe deeply when outdoors, the better to clear the lungs. She sniffed the salty ocean spray and the candy sweet perfume of jasmine in pots all over the terrace. The blue of her pool was bluer than the ocean, which was just a short stroll across a lawn that was so manicured, it looked as if you might cut your feet on it. But you couldn’t; it was soft, like rainwater, something no visitor could ever understand, given how coarse and sticky Florida grass was everywhere else.

  Days like this, when the air hummed with insects, and flowers were so abundant as to look almost comical, like a movie set from an old MGM musical, reminded her of her youth. She had made mistakes then, as poor Truman seemed to be making them now. Or, rather, had already begun to make them, years ago, once In Cold Blood came out. That was really it, C.Z. decided; that’s when he began to fuck up.

  But who hadn’t fucked something up at some time in her life? She certainly had. How eager had she been, as a young debutante, to distance herself from her privileged life? She remembered how she’d cringed to see her name added to the Social Register—Miss Lucy Douglas Cochrane, and nobody called her that, ever; from childhood she was C.Z., because her idiot brother couldn’t pronounce Sissy—and to see her real name, her proper Bostonian name, printed like that had been like having a brand ironed into her flesh, like she was simply part of a breed. A special, rarefied, privileged breed, but still. So she’d vowed to do something, anything, to be kicked out of it, to be different, to stand alone as brave as a solitary dandelion in a well-tended lawn.

  So she ran. With her money, her youthful bravado, and her good looks—in those days, she did tend to linger in front of mirrors more than she should (and as, she had to admit, most of her friends still did). She admired her profile the most, that sharply etched cameo, all her features both strong and delicate at the same time. Her hair was always a champagne blond (although, yes, she used a rinse now to maintain it). She was tall and leggy, and she made the most of that, first by appearing in the forties as a showgirl in one of the last editions of the Ziegfeld Follies—oh, Christ, how Mama and Papa had seethed! But not to the point of disinheriting her, which, she had to admit, would have brought her home in a flash. C.Z. loved money. She just didn’t love the pretentious crap that went along with it.

  After the Follies—where she had enjoyed being pawed over by stage-door Johnnies—she’d fled to Hollywood; she’d taken some acting lessons, landed a contract at Twentieth Century–Fox but ultimately never appeared in anything. Movie work wasn’t for her, the lights and costumes and makeup and all that. She felt as if her skin couldn’t really breathe; she felt fake and more pretentious than she had as a debutante. Plus, as she soon discovered, being a movie star required discipline. She’d been dismayed to find that no party lasted past nine or ten P.M., as everyone had to go home and get enough rest to appear fresh in front of the cameras early in the morning.

  So off she went to Mexico. That was a time! Bullfights and languid, sultry nights full of festive music and carpets of bougai
nvillea, vivid even under the stars. Drifting and dancing and fishing and drinking, losing herself, shedding her patrician skin, her stiff clothes and calfskin shoes replaced by peasant blouses, skirts, and huaraches. Abandoning herself altogether; C.Z. grinned as she bent over to pull up an impudent dandelion from her lawn, remembering how she had reclined on a dusty couch in Diego Rivera’s study for a couple weeks, letting his lascivious gaze wash over her as he painted her nude form, preserved it for posterity.

  The portrait now hung in her Florida home, in a room no one ever used. For C.Z. had found, to her horror, that she could not completely shed her pedigreed skin, after all. After those wandering couple of years, she’d hightailed it home, back to the safety of money and privilege and class, married Winston Guest, much older but so damn handsome, a polo player of international renown and possessor of a great fortune and even greater pedigree, and she’d resumed the life mapped out for her from birth. Rather happily, she thought. As long as she could still have a little—proper—fun.

  But she’d sown her wild oats, at least. She couldn’t say that for everyone in her acquaintance—Babe, for instance. The poor soul wouldn’t know a wild oat if it were wrapped in a Louis Vuitton handbag. She never had the chance, C.Z. supposed. Something in her personality, something closed off and timid. The wildest oat Babe had ever sown, C.Z. mused, was in allowing herself to become so besotted with Truman that she dropped her guard, for the first and now, probably, last time in her life.

  Oh, Truman! The little devil! C.Z. plopped down in a chaise longue and stared at her long, narrow feet, toenails painted a vivid fuchsia. Dammit. C.Z. still liked Truman, would even if he had used her in that damn story, which he had not. But he had gone off the rails, rather. He’d always been charming, amusing, gossipy, but never downright bitchy. His self-importance, his astonishing self-confidence, had been benign.

  Until In Cold Blood.