LATER JACK WILL go downstairs and clean the mess in the kitchen after changing the sheets and removing the boy’s soiled clothes. He’ll bathe him and scrub his scalp and dress him in fresh pajamas. He’ll make the boy hot tea and broth and feed him with a silver spoon. He’ll sit in a rocking chair by the boy’s bed and wait for him to fall asleep, comforting him with his down-tilts.
Truman will look at him and smile, and just as he closes his eyes, he’ll see them sitting across the room as well, watching him.
One with honeyed pin-curls, lips painted the reddest of reds; the other chestnut-streaked-with-silver and her bourbon-colored eyes, watching as his lids flutter shut.
When he thinks that he’s asleep, Jack will approach, squeezing into the single bed, curling his body around the wasted form, careful not to wake him.
‘He was tired,’ Jack will later say, to those who care to ask. ‘So tired. Like he’d stayed too long at the party and now simply wanted to sleep.’
SEVENTEEN
1978
C.Z.
THE REHAB FOLLIES
WE ALL KNOW that c.z. (God love her) irrationally loves a winner.
This need to succeed, to help those around her triumph, pervades every area of her life. Whether a sluggish filly in whom she senses a champion racer, or a three-legged mutt that she’srescued from the pound, that stalwart spirit of hers is unlikely to give up on even the most pitiful of cases—which without question explains her attitude toward Truman. Her refusal to drop the little shit is in perfect keeping with what we’ve always known to be the bedrock of her character. A reluctance to throw in the towel. A resilience that exceeds ourown.
Perhaps it’s the competitive zeal of the sportswoman within her. Her standing Saturday-morning tennis match is played for points, where the rest of us relish a giggle at the net, whispering about who’s standing a bit too close to their doubles partner three courts down, pondering if eleven forty-five is a tad too early to get away with a Tom Collins.
She’s as fierce a competitor whether bidding at Christie’s for an antique writing desk or for yet another stallion to add to the Templeton livery. No mere hobby, the stables boast seventeen stalls, and breeding and training champions is something the Guests take seriously.
‘I’ve always wanted to win,’ she laughs briskly when we tease her. Or rather, drawing out her vowels in that flat patrician lockjaw, like an elegant bird with her faintly melodic caw—‘Ahhh’ve aahhl-ways wanted to be a win-aaah,’ an elongation that might be mistaken by the untrained ear for a Southern drawl, but to those familiar with it undoubtedly heralds the bright, cracked vowels so particular to the Brahmins of Boston.
She’s up and in full riding kit before breakfast each morning, exercising her horses. She’s likely completed a full day’s regimen before the rest of us have made it out the door for lunch. That’s another thing we find curious—when she’s in New York, in residence at Sutton Place, she’s very particular about luncheon. She eschews spots du jour and classics alike, having her own list of preferences. There are some overlaps in taste. She adores 21 of course, but we think anywhere witha jockey theme out front might hold a special place in C.Z.’s heart.
Oddly, she prefers the Four Seasons to the usual suspects. Built around a stark geometric pool, in a structure made of glass, it surprises us that C.Z. responds to it so favorably, her own environment dominated by an English manor house aesthetic. Patterned rugs that mask the tread of packs of dogs. Decanters on silver trays, displayed in book-laden libraries. Polo mallets and garden shears and wellingtons caked in mud.
When we ask her the appeal of the harsh glass lines of the Four Seasons’ dining room, her eyes look as clear and bright as the materials that compose the space in question.
‘Why, daaaah-ling, it’s so mah-dern!’
In fact, C.Z. had managed to spot straight away what the proprietors were aiming for… progressiveness. Courting the movers and shakers. Bucking the Gallic trend in Manhattan eateries with a decided shift to new American cuisine. But frankly the food was the least of it. It was industry that mattered. The Four Seasons was a place to be seen doing business.
While we were perfectly content being the center of our own petits univers at Vadis or Basque or Cirque, C.Z. loathed the stuffiness of the routine.
‘Nobody’s doing anything here,’ she’d bemoan on the occasions when she joined us. ‘No one’s getting on with life!’
Really, we’d later confer—how much life does one need to get on with over lunch? We’ve gradually discovered from such comments that C.Z. seems enthralled by the very thing that we detest about the Four Seasons. On our infrequent visits we’d swiftly realized that amid all that moving and shaking, we were irrelevant there. No one knew that Babe was allergic to peanuts or that Slim loathed sour cream. Not a soul slowed their pace when walking past our table, hoping they might be so fortunate as to overhear a snatch of our conversation.
‘My gaaahh-d,’ C.Z. had enthused, feeling the energy crackling in the space, which we found rather unnerving. ‘The things going aaahnnnn between these walls!’
‘What walls?’ we’d ask, glum. Just a big, transparent box that made us feel invisible.
For all her traditionalist manners, C.Z. is perhaps the most modern of us in thought. Whatever the shifts in taste and fashion, she embraces them fully, as if a traveler from another age, accustomed to change and accepting it. Lacking in nostalgia.
‘The cool vanilla lady.’ It’s what Truman always called C.Z., and there is something of a regal iciness to her bearing. Yet beneath that very chill, a warmth percolates. For just as she lacks nostalgia, so too does she lack fickleness. Once a friend, always a friend—no matter how far one might have fallen. Once she has committed, C.Z. is invested in you, like one of her champion thoroughbreds. She waaahnts you to win.
We knew that she’d stand by him. It didn’t surprise us a jot. And we don’t blame her for it. Even in his blackest moment, in C.Z.’s eyes Truman has every chance to turn his wreck of a life around—to overtake the pack and reemerge triumphant. And so we knew when we amputated Truman from our lives that she’d stick with him. That she would bandage his stub paws and bolster his wounded pride. She sits at his luncheon tables when no one else will. She invites him to her dinners. She accompanies him to the theater as she’s always done, since the first night they met in one decades ago. Maybe, we’ve thought, it’s that plucky, board-treading ethos that’s behind C.Z.’s resilience. That as much as sportsmanship has molded her approach, so too has her brief time on the stage. (Something we still find hard to believe, knowing her, as we do, in her current incarnation.) A show-must-go-on attitude that Truman of all people understands. He’s got the showman in his bones. The razzmatazz of an old vaudevillian.
‘I really did earn my keep as a boy for a time tap-dancing on showboats with my Daddy. While he was at the card table, I was givin’’ em everything I had! I had a tiny formal suit that my Mama gave me… They used to call me Taps-and-Tails.’
We don’t judge C.Z. for trying to save Truman after the Siegel Show fiasco. But we do plan to observe from afar, poised critics— as the one-time showgirl attempts to coax Mr. Taps-and-Tails back onto the boards. To force him back onto the great stage of life.
IT HAD BEEN an intervention.
After Babe had died the week before, after the funeral snub, the Guests watched the Siegel footage in horror. C.Z. had turned to Winston and said—‘Enough’s enough.’
Having fought his own battles (with the bottle, in his case), Winston agreed. ‘He’ll kill himself in a year, if he goes on like that.’
‘Ahhlll that talent… We have to help him, dahling. Someone has to try.’
That was how Truman found himself snatched from the road outside the house in Sagaponack, stumbling home from Bobby Van’s, and bundled into a car. A victim of abduction. How he found himself sitting in the garden at Templeton in Oyster Bay, being berated by a Hitchcock blonde with exquisite legs and a helluva mou
th on her.
He’d been placed in the shade of the five yews in the garden at Templeton, in an Adirondack chair that had been moved there especially for him. He thought he remembered yews having special meaning in ancient culture, but narrowed it down to either a symbol of life or death, which seemed too fifty–fifty to risk the exploration. He’d rather admired their sculptural forms, first shaped by landscape architect Russell Page, whom C.Z. had shared with Babe, along with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. While intended as variegated abstracts, Truman had long claimed to see shapes in their leafy forms, and over pitchers of C.Z.’s orange mint tea he’d spun yarns about the characters lurking within. The tales got even better over Bullshots—cocktails of vodka, lime juice, Tabasco, and beef bouillon, which C.Z. religiously served to Friday-night guests who’d crashed in the poolside cabana, the Guest children’s former playhouse turned hedonists’ hostel. Saturday mornings it was her habit to leave a pitcher of that unique concoction for her stragglers as she raced off to the Piping Rock Club for her tennis.
While Truman recalled such days with fond nostalgia, on the morning in question his hostess, in an uncharacteristic show of muscle, had refused him anything but tea.
‘I must say, Sisssszzy,’ Truman whined—though he enjoyed the play of returning her nickname to its origins, when her little brother had tried to say ‘sister,’ coming up with her now-famed initials instead—‘methinks the lady is proving a rawther stingy hostess to her guest.’
C.Z., on hands and knees in a nearby flower bed, dug her fingers deeper into the earth. She felt the cool dampness of the soil, the slime of life writhing within. It was here—with the mulch and the earthworms and seedlings and plants—that she was happiest. The simplicity of the task of getting one’s hands dirty in order to see results appealed to her. It was straightforward, just like she was. One put the effort in, one diligently tended to one’s patch, and the fruits of one’s labor would follow.
Pulling a handful of weeds, she rose, brushing the dirt from her gardening togs of T-shirt and short-shorts, revealing her fabled gams. ‘This—’ CZ informed him, sitting on the edge of his chair amid the yews, ‘—is a kidnapping. Not a social call. It’s an intervention. And he who is the subject of said intervention has no rights to requests. Do you hear me?’
‘Yes, boss lady.’
‘Good. Now what would you like for your lahst supper?’ She couldn’t help but indulge him, at least from a culinary perspective. He was about to go cold turkey, like it or not. He’d shed the considerable pounds soon enough, without the booze that led to the bloat. Without the pills that made him lose count of the number of meals he’d had in a day. Without the fried comfort foods he imbibed in not-so-secret lunches at Ouisie’s Azurest Diner. Institutional cooking and going dry—for good, if the program worked—would sort him out soon enough. She could allow him one last treat.
His pupils dilated with shameless gourmandism. ‘Oh, Sissy! Might you happen to have one of those lovely baked hams of yours… ? The kind with the honey glaze and pineapple stuck on top? And that divine macaroni and cheese that you set out on buffets for parties?’
‘I think we could rustle up something similaaah.’
‘Darling Sis! You do spoil me so.’
‘Well… Enjoy it while it lasts, bustaah. Because tomorrow starts a new regime.’
‘The Mistress of Templeton has spoken.’
‘You betcha. Now come on.’
‘Come on where?’
‘Well, I’m either going to pick the bell peppahs from my kitchen gah-den, or go in and change and go for a ride. Which would you prefer?’
‘Honey! Neither!’
‘Well, I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you. I’d come back to find you half a dozen Orange Drinks in… ! So what’ll it be? A pleasant trot or help me hahvest?’
‘Sissy, why don’t you take a little break from me. I just wanna go lie in that warm sun by the pool. I’ll close my eyes and pretend I’m on the most exotic of holidays. And I promise—naught but a water bottle will pass my lips!’
C.Z. relented, though not before popping round to the kitchen to instruct the staff to keep an eye on Mistah Capote, then changed into jodhpurs and boots and headed toward the stables.
Upon her return in an hour’s time, she found Truman dozing like a baby in a lounger, clutching a paisley throw like a security blanket. Beside him on the ground, a chaste bottle of Perrier. It was only later that evening when she’d noticed his slurred speech and increasingly animated tales—coupled with a new-found passion for ‘Adam’s ale’—that she thought to check the large Perrier bottles he’d been consuming all evening, to find their contents cunningly replaced with vodka, providing undiluted hits of hooch in twenty-three-ounce doses.
Ladies and germs, it is therefore with pleasure that we give you, presented by Mrs. Winston Guest, of the Oyster Bay and Palm Beach Guests…
THE REHAB FOLLIES
PROLOGUE
HAZELDEN BOUND
THE PATIENT … … … …. TRUMAN CAPOTE
THE CHAPERONE ……… …. C.Z. GUEST
ALT: 9,000 FEET
AIR SPEED: 300 M.P.H. (260 KNOTS)
ETA: 2 HRS 55 MINS
They’d flown together countless times over many years. Between first Idlewild, later JFK, and Palm Beach International. They’d flown to Mexico to visit Gloria. To Turin to see Marella. To the Caribbean to stay with his darling Babe.
Truman always enjoyed flying. And as many times as they’d indulged the privacy of the Paleys’ CBS plane, or the luxury of the Guinnesses’ jet with its Louis XIV furnishings, there was something about commercial air travel that never ceased to thrill him.
‘I just love those darling gals in their short skirts and capes and their jaunty pillbox hats, pushing their dear little carts—’ (Speaking of which…)
He turned his head to chart its progress down the cabin aisle. C.Z. gave his ribs a jab with her elbow. ‘Don’t even think about it, mistah. You’re being punished. For last night.’
‘But Sissy, I did say nothing but water bottles would pass my lips! I didn’t promise what was in them…’ He grinned sidelong at her… a smile she failed to return.
‘Truman. It isn’t cute.’
‘I didn’t say it was.’
‘I’m delivering you to Hazelden, whether you like it or not, and you’re not leaving my sight until a doctor takes you from me personally.’
‘Well, darling, we may as well whoop it up while we can.’ Leg jigging. Beads of sweat beginning to gather at his temples.
‘Oh nooooooo. I’m going to deliver you to them sober as a judge.’
‘Well, that’s just dumb.’
‘In what way?’
‘If you deliver me to them sober, what’s there to fix?’
In his self-satisfied grin she saw a shade of the old Truman.
‘Oh, Tru. You really need to stop. You’ll— —Something ahhful will happen if you don’t.’
Her warnings ceased as the drinks cart arrived and an indifferent air hostess in a rubiginous waistcoat and tie asked, ‘What can I get you?’
‘Two coffees,’ C.Z. replied for both. ‘Black.’
Truman squeezed her hand, his own trembling. ‘Darling, please. Just this once. I’m not feeling so hot… It’s my heart—I think it’s breaking.’
C.Z. studied his face, spotting the terror in his eyes.
‘Please, Sissy—just one to calm my nerves.’
Relenting. ‘Okay.’
‘Sugar,’ he looked to the hostess, ‘might we have two bourbons with that?’
‘Soda?’
‘Neat.’
She poured two glasses and set them on their tray. Before he could thank her, or tell her how much he simply loved her tie, that it looked just like Annie Hall, which was still all the rage, she’d moved on, functionally serving the next duo of passengers.
‘Well. I guess one can’t expect panache on a flight to Minnesota.’
C.Z. watched
as he greedily took the glass, raising it with two hands to his lips. She noted with dismay how his teeth clattered against the edge.
He drained it in a breathless gulp, and she saw his body calm itself.
‘Thank you, darling,’ he whispered.
He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes with pleasure. His body went so still, for a moment C.Z. feared he wasn’t breathing.
‘Truman—?’
‘Tell me a story, Sissy.’
‘That’s your depahtment.’
‘No it isn’t. We all have stories, darling. And you’ve got a particularly great one. A real showstopper—in five action-packed acts.’
‘Oh… ?’
‘Of course you do.’ He opened his eyes. Reached for her drink… ‘May I?’ When she nodded, he took a demure sip, nursing this one slowly. ‘Tell me about Lucy.’
‘Lucy?’
‘Yes, darling. Tell me all about the beautiful Lucy Cochrane, debutante extraordinaire.’
C.Z. could see where this was going. ‘Truman, you know that story.’
‘Yes, but I want to hear you tell it,’ he preempted her sigh. ‘Please? Soon I’ll be at the Alcatraz of clinics, stuck in those dreadful group chats with Midwestern nobodies droning on about their brute husbands and their kiddies and how they just need a hand-fulla pills to get through the day… Tonight, over this drink, tell me something I want to hear.’ His tone was so entreating, she softened. As ever, he had her in his tiny palm. ‘I’ll begin it for you. Our curtain rises on Lucy Cochrane, the ice vanilla debutante. She’s the finest debutante Boston has ever seen, except for one small glitch…’
C.Z. smiled. ‘Lucy Cochrane could frankly give a rhaaaat’s ahhssss about being a debutante. Lucy Cochrane’s biggest ambition in life is to get herself thrown out of the social register, once and for ahlll.’
And in her expression C.Z. seemed to embody her nineteen-year-old self and to remember the desire for escape.
Swan Song Page 31
