Tansi’s remark surprised me. So she still entertained the idea of marriage, this middle-aged woman? Good God. Why? The maiden lady as temptress; the hideaway virgin as vamp; oxymorons for the dreaded cocktail hour. Why would she want to be married? She’d made it forty-five years without male interruption. Frankly, I cherished my own much-touted spinsterhood, embraced it like an anthem, a badge of arrival.
Inside, I let myself be squired to this gaggle of important souls, then to that one. The mayor. The lieutenant governor. Betty Grable. Lex Baxter. Ricardo Montaban. I drank champagne, only one; just one. My habit, for many years now. Souls nodded at me, some virtually genuflected so I assumed I was somehow their paycheck, and I smiled and resisted the urge to hiccough. Photographers circled, bumping and questioning, following Rock or Liz or Mercy or Sal. But not Jimmy, who hadn’t arrived. “He told me he’d be here,” Tansi pouted. “I begged him.”
And then he was there. A group of men moved, and there was Jimmy, sitting on a side chair, a drink in his hand. No tuxedo on him, to be sure, but a black turtleneck, very tight, and he’d shaved. Creased blue linen slacks, falling just right over black penny loafers. I thought he looked collegiate, a little East Coast preppie, a runaway from Phillips Exeter.
But he also looked tired, droopy. Perhaps the need to select appropriate clothing for the formal affair had exhausted him, I mused. I headed over, but found it difficult to maneuver my tiny self through well-wishers and progressively drunker and drunker guests. Japanese waiters floated by with huge trays of drinks and platters of hors d’oeuvres. I glimpsed assortments of caviar, shrimp, wedges of cheese, shimmering yellow and white under the lights; diced avocados on bits of toast slivers; even a cascade of white-hazed deep purple grapes, looking individually polished. I wondered why it all looked so unappetizing, this cornucopia of spoils. And then it hit me. It looked like a movie set prop, a plaster of Paris construction, fake food arranged and painted and shellacked. Nothing looked savory, tempting-a culinary landscape that seemed paste and sawdust and sprayed-on enamel. You weren’t supposed to eat it-just admire.
I spotted Lydia, standing nearby, watching Jimmy but not approaching him. She looked pale and shaky, and at one point Jimmy glanced her way, frowned, and Lydia, panicking, rushed out of the room.
A photographer asked Jimmy to stand for a photo; he didn’t answer. The man, his burdensome camera pressed against his chest, repeated the request, probably believing Jimmy didn’t hear him over the din. A chamber ensemble to his left was playing Chopin, and not very well. No response. Jimmy stared at the floor, his fingers drumming the arm of the chair. But he did extract a Chesterfield from a pack, flipped open a matchbook, and lit it. He expelled smoke into the air, in the direction of the photographer. I realized he had heard the request. The photographer, unhappy, was already moving away.
“Jimmy,” I said, approaching. “You were rude to him.”
He smiled thinly. “I guess I’m rude a lot lately.”
“Why?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve made three movies in about a year. I’m losing my energy.”
I tried unsuccessfully to avoid the obsequious Jake, who more than once sidled up to me, smiling, asking irksome questions: “Can I do anything for you?” “Is Tansi taking good care of you?” “Do you know you can call me?” “You’re not using the car the studio has made available to you?” Then, finally, “You haven’t spoken to anyone in New York about the…the Jimmy matter?” Everything seemed to lead up to that last question, and he waited, pensive as a schoolboy caught cheating at multiplication tables.
“Well,” I said to him, “I did speak to a close friend at The New York Times.”
A gasp, a bubble forming at the corner of the mouth. “Miss Ferber.”
“Mr. Geyser, I’m jesting. My lips are sealed.” Nodding, he hurried away.
Then Tansi was at my side, bustling, nervous. Unfortunately a few strands of her careful coiffure were breaking free, and I realized Tansi, antsy as a barnyard hen, couldn’t help picking at her hairdo. “Edna, come with me.” I followed. In the hallway we spotted Mercy, who was sneaking out, a sheepish grin on her face, and Tansi fumbled for her cigarettes. She had trouble striking a match. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said to both of us, “but Jack Warner just told me he got a second letter from Carisa this afternoon.” She paused, inhaled, coughed, and waited.
“What did the new letter say?” Mercy asked.
“Just one line.” Tansi took a deep breath. “It said, ‘Tomorrow nothing will be confidential-or will it?’”
“What?” I asked.
“The scandal magazine. She’s definitely going to that slime bag Robert Harrison of Confidential to expose Jimmy.”
“Expose what?” I asked, exasperated.
“Does it matter? Lies, innuendo, misconceptions. Once rumor is out there the damage is done.”
I was naive. “Just how important is this Confidential? I’ve never read it.”
Tansi started to explain, but was a little frenzied, and she sputtered to a stop. Mercy, coolly, “It’s a sleazy pulp that thrives on gossip and sin, appealing to America’s prurient interests. I’ve read some copies left in dressing rooms. Titillation, suggestion. Cruel and deliberate. Big-bosomed girls like Jayne Mansfield. Adultery among the stars, unwed mothers, fornication; you name it. Their current crusade is the lavender crowd.”
“The what?”
“Homosexuals. Like ‘The Lavender Closet,’ that sort of thing.” She paused. “They call them the hands-on-hips boys. Girly men. It’s gutter stuff.”
Tansi found her voice. “They don’t like Liberace with his red-ruffled shirts and all that gold and black brocade he sports.”
I smiled. “Well, then they have a modicum of taste, despite their scandal-mongering. But is there more to the Jimmy story than the allegation of an unwed baby with Carisa?”
Silence. Tansi and Mercy looked at each other. Mercy cleared her throat. “Jimmy has done some indiscreet things.”
“Like what?”
Mercy sideswiped the question, lowering her voice as some people passed by, leaving the party. “America is a scary place these days. Hollywood is a whipping boy for old-style Aimee Semple McPherson evangelists-den of iniquity, sin city, you name it. Eisenhower blandness covers us. McCarthy and his witch hunt. The infernal black list.”
“And,” said Tansi, “it’s like everyone is waiting for the next explosive scandal.”
“And that might be Jimmy,” I said, flat out.
A bustle behind us, as Jimmy flew out of the room. He said nothing, though we stared, expectant. His face was scarlet, and from where I stood, I could see the veins in his neck, swollen and purple.
“Warner must have told him about the new letter,” Tansi said, scared.
“Party’s over,” Mercy said.
“Jimmy,” I called out to him.
He bumped into some men smoking cigarettes, and then, almost blindly, he rushed out of the hallway, headed to the street.