I didn’t much want to speak to her, however, but I was unwilling to excuse myself (because, frankly, given what Matt and I were about to do, I really didn’t want to leave the bar without that black Russian!) so I found myself forced into playing Madame’s mumble game.
The mumble game was a handy little party tool Madame had taught me when I was a mere twenty-something newlywed. I was attending one of my first grand social functions and my nerves were about as steely as an underdone bread pudding.
“Listen for the HOT words,” she’d said.
“What do you mean, HOT words?” I’d asked, wringing the neck of my wine spritzer to within an inch of its life (wine spritzers and Asti Spumantis were about the extent of my cocktail repertoire back then).
“The hot words are the ones you can readily understand amid the mindless chatter and cacophony of party music,” she’d said. “They contain the actual meaning.”
“Oh, yes!” I cried with the zeal of a college sophomore. “My rhetoric professor talked about that! Isn’t that Marshall McLuhan? Hot and cold words? The medium is the message—”
“I’m not talking academic analysis, dear,” Madame had said with a dismissive wave. “I’m talking social intercourse. When you hear an annoying string of mumbles, don’t bother asking the people to repeat themselves. Mumbles are pointless parsley. Empty dressing. Listen for the meat, the heat—the words you can unequivocally hear. Respond to that. And don’t be excessively nice. These people are born bitchy. Show some backbone.”
So here I was almost twenty years later, continuing to practice what Madame had preached.
“Mumble mumble WOULD HAVE USED A DIFFERENT mumble,” continued the thirty-one-year-old debutante with the unused Ivy League degree and the blinding pair of Bulgari earrings that could readily have paid for my daughter’s entire culinary education. “…LIKE THE mumble mumble AT MY MOTHER’S mumble mumble. THAT WAS A SPECTACULAR mumble. UNFORGETTABLE. NOT THAT THIS ISN’T.”
“Well,” I said, “this IS a CHARITY auction, so I guess the important thing is that we REMEMBER to be GENEROUS.”
“OH, WELL, mumble, mumble. MY HUSBAND’S COMPANY mumble, mumble FORTUNE 100 AND HIS mumble is GENEROUS WHEN IT COMES TO mumble!”
“FABULOUS!” I told her. “Because, you know, THE NEW YORK TIMES is here.”
“Oh, really?” she said with the same level of feline disinterest my Java would show toward a thick piece of bloody prime rib. “Are they?”
Yeah, sure, the entire Sunday Arts & Leisure section. Metro is holding their coats in the lobby.
“Clare!”
The call of Madame. Thank goodness. “Will you excuse me—”
I might have gotten away if the woman hadn’t dug her French manicure into my forearm.
“Did they send a PHOTOGRAPHER, do you know? THE TIMES?”
Curious. No mumbles there. Every single syllable perfectly pronounced.
I gave her a wide-eyed I-just-don’t-know shrug, un-hooked myself from the white-tipped claws, and with Black Russian firmly in hand, made a beeline for Madame.
Really, since the stock market’s turn-of-the-century plunge this sort of scene felt a lot more desperate. More like verbal hockey than a mumble game. Maybe I should take my inspiration from the Pittsburgh Penguins smacking it around on the Civic Arena ice of my youth—or as my prodigal father might put it—What I wouldn’t give to high-stick some of these people.
Don’t get me wrong. Conversations at these things weren’t always so vacuous. Ask a Cooper Union professor to name his top ten favorite buildings in the world, and you’ve got an entire course in architecture appreciation in one thirty-minute conversation.
Or ask a dignified older couple how they met and before your eyes they’ve melted into twenty-year-olds reliving a chance meeting in postwar Paris or a nervous blind date in Central Park.
Ask a heart surgeon from Cedar Sinai to name the most important medical breakthroughs over the last five years; a Chase banker which types of small businesses are applying for loans this year; or a Berk and Lee publishing executive what books are on his or her nightstand, and presto! you have a fascinating quarter hour.
All I’m after is a person who is a lively participant in this world. The PAP is what I can’t abide. Park Avenue Princess. (And Prince, of course; the male version is just as bad.)
This type is either (1) new money and therefore filled with a missionary’s zeal to prove they have lots of it along with the high connections and refined tastes that go with it, or (2) old money and so content with their pedigree and trust fund they feel no need to make any effort on their end of the conversation.
The number twos are pretty much self-evident: They don’t speak. They just nod.
As for the number ones, Madame advised me to watch for name dropping and carping. According to her: “These people are operating on the theory that simply criticizing is criticism. That the more books, plays, artists, clothing designers, and restaurants they simply abhor (for no thoughtfully articulated reason), the more you will see them as being hard to please and therefore having the best of taste.”
Among the PAPs, there are also those who secretly realize they’ve failed at any real-world accomplishment beyond stockpiling loot and drawing down annuities, so they’ve solved their problem of having nothing to talk about by making conspicuous consumption their profession.
The following topics tend to dominate their conversations: pursuit of the perfect fill-in-the-blank (spa, tan, resort, hotel, golf course, restaurant, clothing designer, plastic surgeon, therapist, prescription drug); the care and feeding of your fur; and who’s purchased what house in the Hamptons.
Given that set of slap-happy topics, I for one didn’t have the bank account to play anything but the mumble game!
As I made my way over to Madame, black Russian in hand, I admired how regal she looked tonight. Her energy level was as amazing as ever, too. Despite her condition, she had decked herself out in a floor-length Oscar de la Renta with the loveliest lacework at the neck and sleeves. The mourning black wasn’t out of place here. Most of the women had worn it tonight, including me.
I hadn’t been to a function like this in years, of course, and tried to squeeze into an old cocktail dress—as embarrassing as that was. Madame took one look at me on her doorstep and snapped her fingers. Before I knew it, her personal maid was helping me don an off-the-shoulder Valentino of gauzy silk, twisting up my hair into a neat chignon, and adorning my exposed neck with a delicate antique necklace of emeralds, diamonds, and rubies crafted to appear as tiny linked rosebuds.
Now, at least, I looked as if I fit into a thousand-a-plate charity gig. This was crucial, considering what Matt and I had planned.
After we’d met Madame at her Fifth Avenue penthouse—and she’d dressed me with the glee of a vintage Barbie collector—we’d rode up here together in her private car and helped her check in.
“It will be a late night,” Madame had told us. “And I’d much rather take an elevator to my room at the end of the evening than a car downtown. Besides which, brunch is always a delight in Peacock Alley.” (One of the Waldorf’s classy-as-they-come restaurants. Really, their chestnut soup is to die for.)
Madame’s decision to check in for the night was actually very good luck for Matt and me. With access to a Waldorf-Astoria room key card, our plan was now foolproof. Or so we’d hoped.
“Clare, we’re at table five,” said Madame as I approached her.