“Perhaps … but we’ll talk of that another time. Tell me about him.”
“About whom?”
“The husband. The … well, you know what they say.”
“Ah … quite broken up,” said Mr. Washburn evasively, and I withdrew, moving toward the bar in the next room where, among other things, they were serving a Pommery ’29 worth its weight in uranium. I knocked off two glasses before Jane arrived, looking very young and innocent in a plain white dinner dress, her hair drawn severely back ballerina-style. She was like the daughter of a country minister at her first grown-up party, only she looked perhaps too innocent to be the real thing. She caused a mild stir, her appearance at least: this gang hadn’t absorbed her yet, made her a legend the way they had Eglanova who now stood, between Alyosha and Louis in the doorway, like some bird of paradise poised on the edge of a hen coop. In the excitement of Eglanova’s entrance, Jane and I met near the bar and toasted one another in Pommery.
“How did you like it tonight?” she asked, breathless and young, like a bride in an advertisement (and, like the model in question, well paid for her characterization).
“Wonderful party,” I said, enjoying myself for the first time, publicly at least, since my wild ballet season began. “Best stuff I’ve ever tasted. And the air-conditioning! Wonderful job … like an autumn day.”
“You misunderstood,” said Jane firmly, with the bright monomaniacal stare of a dancer discussing the Dance. “I meant my performance.”
“I’m afraid I didn’t catch it. I was at the office most of the night, before I came here.”
She rallied bravely. “You … didn’t see me tonight?”
“No, I had to get some pictures off to the papers … the new ones of you, by the way,” I added.
“I got eight curtain calls.”
“That’s my girl.”
“And three bouquets … from strangers.”
“Never take candy from strange men, little girl,” I chanted as we moved toward a tall French window which looked out on an eighteenth-century garden, all of five years old.
“I wish you’d seen it. Tonight was the first night I really danced, that I forgot all about the variations and the audience and that damned cable … that I really let go. Oh, it was wonderful!”
“You think you’re pretty good, huh?”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that!” She was anxious: nowadays in the theater good form (or actors’ notion of good form) is everything. Everyone dresses carefully and quietly, no practical jokes, no loud voices and, above all, no reference to self … just smile and blush if you are congratulated for having won a Donaldson Award, look blank when someone mentions the spread on you in Life, murmuring something about not having seen it yet. In a way, I prefer the grand old egotists like Eglanova: she hardly admits that there is another ballerina in all the world … and even Louis has been known to ask reviewers: “Who is this Youskevitch you talk to me about?” But anyway Jane had a storm of modesty which quickly passed and then, the Dance taken care of for the rest of the evening, we cruised the party.
About one o’clock we separated with an agreement to meet back at her apartment at two-thirty on the dot. Neither of us is very jealous … at least not in theory, and I wandered about the drawing room, saying hello to the few people I knew. I was pretty much lost in this crowd. It’s not the gang I went to school with, the sons of those dull rich families who seldom entertain and who traipse off to Newport, Southampton, Bar Harbor and similar giddy places this time of year; nor is it the professional newspaper and theater world wherein I sing for my supper … rather, it is the world of unfixed money: obscure Europeans, refugees from various unnamed countries, the new-rich, the wilder old-rich, the celebrated figures in the arts who have time for parties and finally the climbers, mysterious and charming and busy, of all ages, sexes, nationalities, shapes and sizes. It takes a long time to straighten everybody out. I haven’t even begun to see my way clear yet but I probably will in a few more years. Some people of course never do add things up right. Lady Edderdale is still among the more confused, after thirty years of high life.
Beneath a portrait of the lady of the house (the work of Dali) stood Elmer Bush with whom I have a nodding acquaintance … through no fault of mine I am not his bosom buddy: his column, “America’s New York,” is syndicated in seventy-two newspapers as well as being the New York Globe’s biggest draw on the subway circuit. He was of course too important ever to visit the office, so the only time I met him was at first nights when he would always come up to Milton Haddock and say: “It looks like a bomb from where I sit. What do you think, boy?” and Milton would grumble a little and sometimes I would be introduced and sometimes not.
“Hello there, Mr. Bush,” I said with more authority than usual since I was, after all, sitting in the middle of the best piece of news in town.
“Why if it isn’t old Pete Sargeant himself,” said Mr. Bush, his face lighting up as he saw his next column practically composed already. He gave a polite but firm chill shoulder to a blond middle-aged star of yesteryear who had obviously got the Gloria Swanson bug; then we were alone together in the middle of the party.
“Haven’t seen you in a coon’s age!” said Elmer Bush, showing a row of capped teeth: he has the seventh highest Hooper in television with a program called “New York’s America” which is, they tell me, a combination of gossip and interviews with theater people … I never look at television myself because it hurts my eyes. Anyway, Elmer is big league, bald and ulcerous, the perfect symbol of metropolitan success for an earnest hard-working boy like me trying to get ahead in “the game.”
“Well, I’ve been pretty busy,” I allowed in my best bumpkin manner.
“Say, what about that murder you got in your company?” and the benign features of Elmer Bush (“just a friend of the family in your own living room giving you some real stories about real people in the news,” … just old horse-shit Bush, I thought) shone with friendship and interest.
“Some mess,” I said, because that’s exactly what he would have said had our roles been reversed.
“Well, it keeps the show in the news … that’s one thing. Hear my broadcast about it Wednesday night?”
“I certainly did,” I lied. “Just about the best analysis I’ve seen so far.”
“Well, I didn’t really try to analyze it … just straight reporting.”
Had I blundered? “I mean the way you put it, well, that was some job …”
“Get the facts,” said Mr. Bush, smiling mechanically. “When are they going to arrest the husband?”
“I don’t know.”
“He did do it?”
“Everyone thinks so. He certainly had a good enough reason.”
“Bitch?”
“Very much so.”
“I saw the man who’s on that case yesterday. What’s his name? Gleason? Yes. Used to know him years ago when I was covering the police courts. He was mixed up in the Albemarle business … but that was before your time. Anyway, he made it pretty clear to me, unofficially of course, that Sutton would be arrested in the next twenty-four hours and indicted as quick as possible … while public interest is high. That’s the way they work.” And he chuckled. “Politicians, police … the worst hams of all. But I still don’t know why they’ve held off so long.”
“Pressure,” I said smoothly, as though I knew.
He pursed his lips and nodded, everything just a bit more deliberate than life, made sharp for the television camera. “I thought as much. Not a bad idea to string it out as long as possible either … for the good of all concerned. Are you sold out? I thought so. Take a tip from me! This will put ballet on the map.” And with that message he left me for a dazzling lady who looked like Gloria Swanson and who, upon close inspection, turned out to be Gloria Swanson.