CHAPTER FIVE

As it turned out, two interesting things happened to Gerry that Thursday: she had lunch with Dick Devere and she received an engraved invitation to the party the B.P.’s were giving for Franco two weeks hence.

The day of her lunch was one of those false spring days New York sometimes has in March, just to keep the inhabitants going until real spring rescues them from their eternal bouts with flu and slush. She recklessly left her coat at the office so the whole world could see her new green suit, and Dick Devere was charming. He reeled off the names of what she already knew from reading about them were three of the seven best restaurants in New York, and she let him make the choice because she’d never been to any of them. At the one he took her to they saw two Kennedy ladies and a movie star, several socialites, and of course Penny Potter, Mrs. B.P., who was lunching with her mother. Although Gerry had never met the client, she nodded at Penny Potter, who gave her a totally nonplused look back and a fake smile just in case she was somebody after all. The girl was smaller than she looked in her photographs, and terribly young.

“Are you going to her party?” Dick asked.

“Yes. I just got the invitation this morning. I guess Mr. Libra forced her into it.” She didn’t want him to think she traveled with the jet set.

“I’m going too,” he said. “If you have no one to escort you, I’d be glad to take you there.”

“That would be great.” At least she’d know somebody.

He ordered knowledgeably, in perfect French, and Gerry was glad her French was as good as his. The restaurant intimidated her. She was relieved that she was wearing the green suit, and that even though it came from an unknown boutique it was at least an original. The food was marvelous and so was the wine he chose, and he surprised her by making her laugh almost all through the lunch with amusing stories about people he had worked with on his shows. He evidently had a keen eye for satire, and she thought that if he hadn’t turned out to be a director he could probably have been a writer.

After lunch he said, “I want to do something extremely corny because it’s a nice day.” He had his car parked near the restaurant; an unshowy little yellow Mustang convertible, and he took the top down and drove her to the East Village, where he seemed to know a great many people—shopkeepers, old ladies leaning out of windows, whom he waved at, hippies lounging on benches in the sun, whom he said hello to. Everybody seemed to like him. “This is my second home,” he told her.

He took her into an antique store, where he had a long chummy talk with the proprietor, priced several things he did not buy, and picked out a string of green glass beads which he bought and hung around Gerry’s neck.

“Love beads,” Dick said. “So you’ll be lucky and loved.”

She fingered the beads. She was touched. They were the nicest sixty-cent present anyone had bought her in her whole life. She liked the way Dick seemed to fit in anywhere, and the way people accepted him whether he was in an intimidating restaurant or on Avenue A. He really wasn’t as bad looking as she had thought the first time she saw him. A man didn’t have to be pretty, or even handsome, if he was bright and had charm. And Dick Devere certainly was bright and had charm.

She realized in panic that it was a quarter to four. Libra would kill her. Dick drove her back to the office and shook her hand.

“It was a pleasure,” he said, “and I’ll see you the night of the party, if not before. Give me your home phone number and address.” She did, and he wrote them down in a small leather-bound note pad, using a gold ballpoint pen. He seemed very neat. She wished she knew how to analyze handwriting. His was tiny and impeccable. Did that mean he was repressed—or just that he had a small notebook?

That evening when she got home from the office a florist’s boy delivered a dozen roses with a card saying: ‘Thanks again. Dick.’

It was the same tiny handwriting. She put the roses into her one and only vase, pleased and flattered. He didn’t have to do a thing like that, but wasn’t it marvelous to get flowers from a man, even if he was a client! Somehow she knew there was nothing businesslike about sending those flowers.

She phoned him the next day from the office while Libra was at the gym working off his vitamin shot from Ingrid the Lady Barber, and thanked him.

“I hope they didn’t clash with your apartment,” he said.

“What could clash with an empty apartment?”

“If you’re looking for furniture, I know some very good, cheap antique stores I can take you to. I also know a very cheap, good carpenter who builds things—shelves and shutters and stuff. He’s an artist. I can turn you on to him if you’d like.”

She wrote down the name of the carpenter and made a date to go looking for antiques with Dick on Saturday afternoon. Then she looked at the schedule of where all the clients were, thinking she would invite Silky to lunch tomorrow, and she discovered Silky and the Satins were doing a club date out of town. The news didn’t please her. Now she still didn’t know where Dick and Silky stood.

On Saturday they went to several cheap antique shops, where Gerry bought a metal headboard that had formerly been a gate, two glass bottles that had formerly held opium and marijuana, according to the labels, and a miniature chest to use as an end table, which Dick told her was what they used to sell furniture instead of blueprints in the old days. It was an exact replica of what the chest would be when the customer ordered it full-sized. He told her the carpenter would install the headboard, and didn’t offer to come up and install it himself, so she realized he would never allow himself to be categorized as Good Old Helpful Dick, which in a funny way pleased her. The store said they would deliver that evening, so Dick took her to a dark bar for a three-hour lunch and then drove her home.

“Would you like to come up for a drink?” she asked.

He looked at his watch. “I have to go to a dinner party. I’m in great demand because I’m single and have a blue suit.” He smiled and patted her on the head. “I’ll call you.”

She couldn’t figure him out, but he was nice. He was very cool. She went up to her apartment, glad that the day had been spent so pleasantly, and thinking that a Saturday-afternoon date was as good as a Saturday-night date because at least you didn’t have to be depressed that you didn’t see a soul all weekend.

There were great plans in the office for the B.P.’s party the following week. Lizzie and Elaine were both going to wear new Franco creations, fortunately not the Gilda Look, which was still on the drawing board, and Nelson was going to do everybody’s hair, even Gerry’s. The day of the party Gerry went to Nelson’s salon on her lunch hour and he trimmed off an inch of her hair and set it in ninety-three pigtails so she looked like a cross between Topsy and Medusa. If Libra hadn’t been picking up the bill she would have cried right there. She thanked him profusely, rushed back to the office, and in the lobby Ladies’ Room—which she had been using faithfully since Libra’s rebuff that first day, although he never seemed to notice it—Gerry brushed out all the pigtails until her hair was normal-looking again, if a little crimped. At least it was shiny, and Nelson gave a very good blunt cut. She hoped the crimps from the pigtails would all straighten out by that night; maybe sitting in a steamy hot bath would help.

“Didn’t Nelson do your hair?” Libra asked when she returned upstairs.

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t look like he did anything,” Libra said.

“It’s the Gilda Look,” Gerry lied beautifully, letting a wave of hair slide over one eye.

“So it is. It’s very nice.”

“Thank you,” she said, and returned to work.

She was allowed to leave at six, and hurried home to fix herself up. Dick was coming for her at seven fifteen. The party wasn’t black tie, so she decided to wear the best thing she had: a pink and gold brocade Chanel suit—or copy, rather, from the same little boutique where she bought her other things. It was a hand-made copy, and she figured she would see two or three of the originals in the same room that night, but since nobody was taking off their jackets to show labels it wouldn’t matter. Besides, she was a Girl Friday, not the wife of some millionaire, and if she’d owned diamonds to wear everybody would probably assume they were glass.

Dick picked her up and she made martinis, which he liked, to fortify them for the ordeal ahead. He wandered into the bedroom to inspect the new headboard his carpenter had installed for her, and very casually looked at everything as if he were taking inventory so he wouldn’t fall over anything on a dark night. He was the kind of man who made her feel glad she had made the bed and cleaned up the place. She had a porcelain hand on the dresser, and the love beads he had given her were entwined around one of the fingers. He noticed that, too. She hated martinis so she gave him hers to finish, and then he put both glasses into the sink. You could certainly take him home to mother—the problem would be getting him to go.

The B.P.’s lived in a duplex apartment on Fifth Avenue. There was a doorman, of course, an elevator man, of course, and a line of limousines, both rented and privately owned, along the curb—of course. There was no coat rack in the hall outside the apartment, nor was there a pile of coats on anybody’s bed. A uniformed maid whisked Gerry’s coat away almost before she could get out of it, and a butler with a silver tray asked her what she wanted to drink.

One room was the bar, decorated exactly like a Third Avenue bar, complete to Tiffany lamps and dark, mirrored walls. A bartender in a red jacket was busily in attendance. Gerry figured there must be almost a hundred people at the party, all of them either Beautiful or rich or famous, or all three. She saw her suit going by on two other ladies, both of whom gave her a smile and then avoided her for the rest of the night. Libra was already there, in the corner of the bar, with Lizzie and the comic Arnie Gurney, who had flown in for this party between engagements, and a woman in silver with badly dyed black hair, who must have been Arnie Gurney’s wife.

Libra introduced Gerry and Dick to Arnie Gurney, who said hello and told them five jokes, exactly as Libra had said he would. Lizzie and Arnie Gurney’s wife laughed merrily at all the jokes, none of which Gerry could remember two minutes after he finished telling them. Then Gerry and Dick wandered off to inspect the rest of the party.

The living room was huge and done all in pale silks and English antiques. There were many oil paintings, all fairly famous and obviously real, elaborately framed in curly goldish frames and lit from below. There was a big needlepoint thing on a stand in front of the working fireplace, and the fireplace looked as if it had either never been used or had been scrubbed from top to bottom by a maid. Four butlers and four uniformed maids circulated through the crowd, passing drinks and hot hors d’oeuvres. There was no place to put your drink down, however, because every table was covered with objects: a collection of alabaster, porcelain, gold and silver eggs; a collection of vermeil flowers; and a collection of photographs of famous people and relatives (some were both) in identical sterling-silver frames.

“All that stuff is real,” Dick said, gesturing at the furniture.

“I figured.”

Penny Potter stood in the middle of a circle of admirers, small and frail, wearing a mauvy-colored watered-silk dress that was cut on top like a Nehru jacket, and love beads made of real rubies, diamonds, and pearls. She had at least three falls on; Nelson’s famous Dynel, judging from the hair’s abnormal straightaess. Next to her, dressed in a real Nehru jacket of identical mauvy watered silk, and real love beads, was her husband, Peter Potter. They made a very pretty papier-mâché couple.

Mr. Nelson was there, in his white suede suit, and when he saw Gerry he gave a strangled scream and rushed over to her.

“What did you do to yourself?” he cried in horror.

Her hand went up to her hair. “Me?”

“Where is your coiffeur?” She thought he might take a fit and collapse right there, frothing at the mouth. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Mr. Libra thought the Gilda Look you gave me was divine,” Gerry said innocently. “I just adore it.”

“Don’t give me credit for that mess,” Nelson said indignantly. “You look like you’re going to the beach!”

“I think she looks very sexy,” Dick said. “I compliment you, Nelson. Very simple hair does wonderful things for Gerry’s eyes.”

“The only reason it hangs right is because she had it braided all afternoon,” Nelson said malevolently. “Gerry has hair like straw. You can’t do anything with it. I think she should give up and get a decent wig.”

A tall, beautiful-looking young man wearing a thin coat of makeup came in accompanied by a short, middle-aged man who was wearing a thin coat of make-up carefully disguised as a suntan. Nelson rushed over to them, waving greetings.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Gerry said to Dick. She started to laugh. “I thought he would die when you pretended you thought he’d done my hair the way it is now.”

“Well, I’m peculiar,” Dick said. “I like hair that doesn’t cut my fingers.”

“I’d better go over and introduce myself to the hostess.”

Dick led her through the crowd to where the B.P.’s were standing with their admirers. He already knew the B.P.’s and he introduced Gerry to them. Peter B.P. looked rather pleased to see Gerry, his eyes acknowledging that she was an attractive girl, but Penny B.P. looked bored.

“So glad you could come,” Penny said, looking over Gerry’s shoulder.

“Do you have everything you need?” Peter asked.

“Yes, thank you,” Gerry said.

“After dinner the King James Version will play for dancing, and Silky and the Satins are coming to sing,” Peter said.

“Oh, good!” She looked at Dick, but he was smiling politely and she couldn’t read him.

“Honey, where’s the Senator?” Peter said to Penny. “Has anybody seen the Senator?”

“They’re coming,” Penny said. She turned to resume her conversation with the couple at her left, whom she had introduced to Gerry as Mr. and Mrs. Mumble. Obviously she thought they were so well known that to enunciate their names would be insulting to them. Gerry glanced at Dick and he led her away.

A butler gave them more drinks, and they went into the next room, which was all done in Chinese style, complete to the last detail. Elaine Fellin and Mad Daddy were standing in the corner with some people. Elaine was wearing a twenty-five-hundred-dollar beaded number by Franco, and she looked slightly drunk already. Mad Daddy, in a tuxedo, looked as uncomfortable as a man could get. He didn’t seem to have anyone he wanted to talk to. He glanced around the room furtively at all the people, like a child at a grown-ups’ party who is afraid he will be caught peeking from the stairs. Elaine waved at Gerry.

“Oh, hello,” Elaine said gaily. “Isn’t this a lovely party? I was just telling the Ambassador here about Nina’s French school. They don’t speak a word of English all day. They even do their little arithmetic in French. She’s going to be completely bilingual. Isn’t this room divine? I love Chinoiserie.”

Mad Daddy sighed.

“You should see the other room!” Elaine went on. “It’s all done in Turquerie, just like Lee Bouvier’s apartment, or is it Lee Radziwill?”

“I work for Mr. Libra,” Gerry told Mad Daddy.

“Oh, yeah?” he said, obviously delighted. “Come on, I’ll show you two the Turkey Room.”

They made their excuses to the Ambassador and his wife and left them with Elaine chattering on. Mad Daddy took them directly to the bar. “I’m starving,” he said morosely.

“There’s some caviar,” Dick said, pointing at a tray one of the butlers was carrying. The tray held an impressive ice mold which cupped a large dish of real Beluga Malossol caviar. Dick motioned to the butler to come over.

“I hate caviar,” Mad Daddy said. “I wish they’d have some of those little hamburgers on toothpicks.”

Gerry and Dick helped themselves to caviar. Mad Daddy shook his head.

“I love caviar,” Dick said.

“Me too,” said Gerry.

“I wish I had some pizza,” said Mad Daddy sadly. “What do you think they’re having for dinner?”

“Not pizza,” Gerry said. There was something about this man that she liked enormously. He was like a big kid. “My name is Gerry Thompson,” she said. “And this is Dick Devere, who’s a client of Mr. Libra’s too.”

Mad Daddy’s face lighted up and he shook Dick’s hand. “I don’t know why they invited us to this thing,” Mad Daddy said. “I guess because Libra helped with the guest list. I don’t know anybody here. There’s nobody I even feel like talking to. I wish I was at the movies.”

“Yeah,” Dick agreed with a charming smile.

“Do you know any of these people?”

“Well, as a matter of fact,” Dick said, “I do know a few.”

I bet you do, Gerry thought without rancor. You would.

Suddenly everybody in the room was applauding. She looked toward the door and saw Franco making his grand entrance as guest of honor. He was bald again, not brave enough to wear the wig of his dreams except as a joke, and he was in black tie and ruffles, topped by a splendid Count Dracula cape of black velvet lined in red. He bowed his head slightly in appreciation of the applause, and solemnly smiled greetings at the people he knew. A step behind Franco, evidently his date, was a tall, thin girl in a tiny little dress that looked like a doily. She had luxuriant tawny hair and a classically beautiful face. Gerry recognized her from the picture in Time as the model who had worn the transparent bride’s dress in Franco’s collection.

Franco and the girl accepted drinks from one of the traveling butlers, and made their way to where Gerry and the others were standing. Mad Daddy looked at the girl with obvious pleasure and no lust. Dick just looked cool. Gerry noticed that most of the women were looking jealous and insecure. The girl really was a knockout, if you liked models.

“This is Fred,” Franco said.

The girl, Fred, smiled at all of them. “How do you do,” she said in a thin squeak which immediately dispelled the illusion of an inaccessible princess and turned her right into a kid from the Bronx with good bones.

“How do you like my party?” Franco asked, pleased.

“Very impressive,” Dick said.

“What do you do, Fred?” Mad Daddy asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Fred squeaked. “I’m an heiress.”

“She’s my favorite model,” Franco said. “Did you see her picture in Time with me?”

“Yes,” Gerry said. “You looked very lovely,” she said to the girl. The girl shrugged, bored.

“What do you do?” Fred asked Mad Daddy.

“I have a television show.”

“Oh? I never watch television.”

“You should watch him,” Gerry said. “He’s marvelous. The Mad Daddy Show.”

“Oh, all right,” Fred said pleasantly, as if she was doing them all a favor. Mad Daddy seemed to be cringing. The girl obviously frightened him as much as the socialites at the party.

Libra came plowing his way through the crowd, alone. He patted Franco on the shoulder and gave Fred a look of pure, slavering lust. “Glad you could come,” he said to her.

“Mmm,” Fred said.

Gerry figured that Fred was window dressing for Franco and had really been brought for Libra. She wondered if Libra was considering replacing the deceased Douglas Henry with a model-turned-starlet, but figured with her voice the girl didn’t have a chance. If she could be in a silent movie she could capture the world.

“A very good turn-out of clients,” Libra said approvingly to Franco. “You’re here, Nelson and the B.P.’s are here, of course, Arnie Gurney, Dick, Daddy, the King James Version and Silky and the Satins are coming, and Zak Maynard’s in the other room. You know him,” he said to Gerry. “The super-beauty new male star, a male Fred.” He winked at Fred. “The only ones who aren’t here are Shadrach Bascombe, who’s at training camp getting ready for his next fight, and Sylvia Polydor, who wouldn’t go across the street to go to a party, especially fly from California. Do you know that Sylvia won’t fly? She still hires an entire car of the damn train, just to come here. An entire car! She’s wonderful.”

“Zak Maynard isn’t a male me,” Fred said. “I went out with him once. He’s a moron.”

“Mrs. Einstein ought to know,” Libra said sarcastically. “Come on, Gerry, I want to borrow you and introduce you to Zak.”

Gerry hoped Dick would follow them, and he did. She was flattered. He had evidently gone out with enough Freds not to be impressed any more. She followed Libra into the living room, which was more mobbed than ever, and was pleased when Dick casually took her hand in preparation for her exposure to Zak the super-beauty.

Zak was in the corner talking to Lizzie Libra. He had thick, sexy, golden-brown hair, broad shoulders, slumberous golden eyes, and a young, sensual mouth. He towered over Lizzie by about a foot He looked just like his pictures: cinemascope and pure technicolor.

“Zak Maynard, my new assistant, Gerry Thompson. And Dick Devere, who, if you’re very lucky, might direct you in a show one day.”

Zak enveloped Gerry’s hand in his and threw her a few sparks from the golden eyes. “Hell-o,” he said, looking her up and down. Finally he released her hand and shook hands with Dick.

“I think he’s wonderful,” Lizzie said to her husband. “Why haven’t you ever brought him around to the office?”

“Because he sleeps all day,” Libra said.

“Are you in love with this man?” Zak asked Gerry, indicating Dick.

“I love all the clients,” Gerry said sweetly. “And they love me. I formerly worked at the 4-H Club.”

“I was in the 4-H Club when I was a kid,” Zak said. “I took all the little girls behind the haystack.”

“That was before you started to sleep all day,” Lizzie said.

“Dinner is served,” a butler said discreetly.

They went into the dining room, which was decorated like an arbor, with a roof of leaves lit mysteriously from above and rows of real trees and bushes planted all around the edges of the room. In the center of the dining room was a long table with a flowered Porthault cloth, bearing silver chafing dishes and silver platters artfully decorated with exotic food. The lobster salad was crowned with a whole lobster, there was some sort of fish mousse, salad, rolls, and all the accompaniments for an Indian curry, which was what the chafing dishes contained. The silverware was heavy, bearing the crest of the Potter family, and the napkins were from Porthault too.

After they helped themselves to food a butler directed them into the Turkish Room, where small round tables had been set up, each covered with the same Paisley print that covered every wall of the room and all the chairs, couches, and floor pillows. It was a little dizzying. There were tall, delicate crystal wineglasses on each table, and three of the butlers were busy filling them part way with wine.

Gerry saw Mad Daddy and Elaine sitting at a table which had two empty seats, and she and Dick went there and sat down. Elaine had her drink on the table next to her wineglass, and she really was looking drunk by now. Mad Daddy’s plate contained salad and a roll.

“What is that stuff?” he asked, looking at Gerry’s plate.

“Curry.”

“I hate curry,” he said morosely. “And that fish stuff scares me. I wish they’d have hamburgers or something.”

“You have no class,” Elaine said.

“Maybe I have class,” Mad Daddy said, “but my stomach has the same old class I was born with. Waiter!”

“Yes, sir?” the butler said.

“Do you think I could get a Coke?”

“Of course, sir,” the butler said, looking as if Mad Daddy had asked for hemlock.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Elaine said, taking Mad Daddy’s wine and pouring it into her already empty wineglass. “Do you know what he did once? We went to Pavilion, and he asked them for a club sandwich. I was so embarrassed.”

“They gave it to me, didn’t they?” Mad Daddy said. “They have more class than you do. They aren’t snobs.”

“Don’t you call me a snob in front of those people!” Elaine snapped. Mad Daddy tried to take her wine away but she pulled at it and spilled it on the tablecloth.

“The evening is finally getting interesting,” Dick said.

“I’m not going to fight with you, Elaine,” Mad Daddy said mildly.

“Just take your hands off me, that’s all,” Elaine snapped. She beckoned to the butler. “More wine, please. My clumsy husband spilled his.”

Gerry felt embarrassed for Mad Daddy. She smiled at him and he smiled back. He cut his roll in half to make a sandwich and filled it with some of the salad.

“Oh my God,” Elaine said. The butler appeared with more wine and refilled all their glasses. She drank hers down defiantly. “I hate those people in there,” Elaine said. “And those people in here. They’re all stinking snobs.”

“I think they’re pretty nice,” Mad Daddy said, just to annoy her.

“You would! The big star, getting all the attention.”

“You didn’t mind that I was a star when you met me.”

“Are you going to start on that again?”

“You brought it up.”

“I’m going to bring up my dinner if you don’t shut up.”

“What dinner?” Mad Daddy said.

Elaine gritted her teeth and glared at her husband, evidently trying to decide whether to waste the wine by throwing it in his face. She decided against it, and lapsed into a seething silence. Gerry and Dick ate as fast as they could.

When the dessert was served, chocolate mousse, the sound of a band tuning up was heard from the Chinese Room. It was the King James Version, assaulting the ears with electronically amplified experiments. Then they began to play in earnest and it was not bad at all, especially since they were a room away. It was almost as loud as if they had been right in there with the diners. Gerry hoped the building was soundproof. She looked around the room and saw that Lizzie was still with Zak; Franco was with Libra, the B.P.’s, Fred, and a man whom she recognized as the Senator. Libra must really like Fred if he had maneuvered to have her at the same table with the brass, since most of the couples had split up. Penny B.P.’s mother was sitting with the Senator’s wife, the Ambassador, and the Ambassador’s wife. Arnie Gurney was with some people she did not know, regaling them with jokes, and Arnie Gurney’s wife was across the room looking uncomfortable with Nelson and the two fruits and a terribly jet-set looking girl who was wearing a wedding ring and a diamond engagement ring the size of a pigeon’s egg. There was demitasse after the mousse, and an assortment of fine brandies, and then the B.P.’s led the people at their table into the room where the music was pounding. Almost everyone followed them. Dick and Gerry jumped up instantly, said good-bye to Mad Daddy and Elaine, and hurried to the Chinese Room as fast as they could.

The King James Version had established themselves on a large square of something that looked like lucite, and they were all dressed in biblical robes with long, thick, clean hair. They all looked like young studs, but even though some of the women were as close as they could get to the band, disregarding their eardrums in favor of sex, the five boys had their eyes closed, grooving to their own beat. The lead singer was standing, with his eyes shut and his hands over his ears, screaming into the microphone. There was something almost insulting about the way he had closed himself into his private world; it was not so much as if he were trying to concentrate as that he seemed disgusted by the people who were admiring him. The women who stood in front of him gazing at him raptly seemed charmed by his arrogance, and some of them were even touching him, pretending it was accidental, in order to wake him up.

The B.P.’s were dancing wildly, showing off the new dances which they knew perfectly. Gerry noticed two gossip columnists in the crowd. She felt like dancing, but Dick was just standing there, looking at the group, and he was not even tapping to the beat.

“Don’t you dance?” she asked.

“Only if I have to. Do you want to?”

“Maybe later. I’m going to find the ladies’ room.” She left the room and looked around. A maid came by and Gerry was directed downstairs.

The lower floor of the duplex was lovely, bathed in lambent golden light. The hallway and one room, which was evidently a library, were done in old Spanish style. This apartment was turning into a house of all nations. There were several doors leading into other rooms. One was half open, and she saw that it was done like a child’s room, except that there was a huge king-sized bed in the center of it. Everywhere there were tiny flowers printed on walls and material, and there was a lot of white wicker. There were various dolls and toys lined up on the dresser, and there was a dressing table covered with bottles of perfume and make-up. Since the B.P.’s had no children, she realized they were the children. Their bedroom was the only young thing about them except for their dancing; the party, their friends, and the apartment looked as if they belonged to people at least twice their age. She headed for the bathroom, but realized Fred and Nelson were already in there, Nelson recombing Fred’s hair.

Gerry was just going out into the hall again when she saw Lizzie Libra leading Zak Maynard by the hand. “Oh, Zak,” Lizzie whispered, “you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.” They opened one of the doors and looked in, then, reassured that the room was empty, they entered it and Gerry distinctly heard the sound of the old-fashioned key turning in the lock. Well, well, she thought. It would be nice if that room were decorated with haystacks.

So Lizzie fools around with clients. Well, why not? Libra fooled around with clients. Still, she would have thought Lizzie was above being impressed by these vapid people her own husband had created. Of all people, Lizzie Libra should know what a sham and a fake most of these people were. Lizzie had been around all of them from the beginning of their transformation. But Zak was beautiful and sexy, and probably the question would be more apt if she had asked herself what a young man like him saw in Lizzie.

She finally found that one of the doors led to a bathroom, deceptively done like an office, with brown marble, armoires, a petit-point toilet-seat cover, and a large, upholstered armchair with a TV set in front of it. The walls were paneled in dark wood, and you had to call a committee meeting to find the toilet paper.

She couldn’t stop thinking about Lizzie and Zak, even though she had seen things like that ever since she started working around movie people. But he was twenty-five years old, and Lizzie was at least forty. Yet Lizzie had gotten him just like that—zap! It had been rumored around the Industry that Zak Maynard would screw a snake, and that he’d probably be the first person to find out how, too. Yet there were plenty of younger, prettier girls than Lizzie Libra at this party. And it wasn’t that Zak had to be nice to Lizzie to get to Libra, for if Libra found out he would hardly consider the client going to bed with his wife nice. Libra seemed a strict double-standard man, so much so that he wouldn’t even allow himself to suspect that Lizzie was cheating, because it would upset him too much and take his mind off business.

I wonder what Lizzie has … Gerry thought. Obviously what a man found desirable wasn’t what she as a woman thought he would prefer. It certainly was a mystery. She thought about Dick. Did he think she, Gerry, was desirable? He hadn’t indicated anything, but a woman could tell there was interest there. Dick seemed like the sort of man who wanted the woman to make the first move. Or did he only act that way because he was taken?

“Hello.” The soft voice was unmistakable; it was Silky. Gerry turned around.

“Hi!”

“You’re staring at the mirror like Alice Through the Looking Glass,” Silky said with a giggle. “Are you goin’ to jump right through it?”

“I’d like to,” Gerry said. “This party is a drag.” She wondered if Silky knew she had come with Dick. “Are you going to sing soon?”

“Soon as I see how I look.” Silky peered into the mirror with obvious distaste, and wrinkled up her nose. She was wearing the group’s costume: a white brocade knicker suit this time, and the Buster Brown wig. “Ugh!”

“You look great,” Gerry said.

“From a hundred feet away maybe. I called you earlier, but you weren’t home.”

“I was here. I wanted to call you, too, but you were out of town. How did it go?”

“Great,” Silky said. “Lots of people. Good reviews. Did you see the reviews?”

“I’ve been keeping a scrapbook of them for the office. We’re all thrilled.”

“Did you come with Mr. and Mrs. Libra?” Silky asked, too casually.

“No.” Oh, well, why make it seem more important than it was? “Dick Devere brought me because I didn’t know anybody.”

“Oh,” Silky said, almost too kindly. “That was nice.”

“Look …” Gerry said. “I hope you don’t think I’m being too personal, but if you and Dick are dating or anything I wish you’d tell me and I won’t see him. He doesn’t mean anything to me except as a friend and a client. I’m new here, and if you don’t tell me I can’t help it if I tread on your property by accident, can I?”

“Property?” Silky said thoughtfully. “No man is any woman’s property unless they’re living together. Dick and I aren’t living together. He’s just a very dear friend. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but it isn’t true.”

“I haven’t heard anything,” Gerry said.

“Well, then, there’s nothing to hear.”

She saw Silky’s hand was shaking as she tried to put on her lipstick. What a lot of pride that girl had! She must have been kicked around a lot. Silky’s sweetness upset Gerry more than if she had made a scene.

“I hope we can be friends,” Gerry said. “I like you … a lot.”

Silky turned around and looked at her. “It takes a long time to make a friend,” she said. Then she smiled quickly, that smile that never reached her eyes, and said: “Oh, I didn’t mean that personally. I like you very much. I’m sure we can be friends.”

“Could we have lunch next week?”

“If you don’t mind a coffee shop,” Silky said. “I can’t stand to get dressed up during the day.”

“That would be great. I’m saving money to buy furniture.”

“Furniture?”

“I just got a new apartment.”

“I wish I had an apartment,” Silky said. “Mr. Libra makes us live in that hotel. Not that I don’t like the hotel, it’s a groovy hotel, but I’d like to own something of my own. But we travel so much I guess an apartment would be silly.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Well, I have to go to work now,” Silky said. “Are you coming?” She led the way out of the bathroom. In the hall Gerry saw the four Satins emerging from another bathroom, and Silky joined them without a word. Gerry hurried upstairs to find Dick. She wondered if she shouldn’t try to meet another man here. After all, this was a party; there had to be someone here who wasn’t married or a snob. Now that Silky had arrived, Gerry wondered which of the two of them Dick would decide to take home. No matter what her mother had warned her about New York at night, she was perfectly well prepared to take a taxi home alone. She was sure she wouldn’t be mugged. After all, it was just a party. She hadn’t expected to meet her future husband here. Where she would meet him was a mystery she didn’t seem to be able to shed any light on.

Silky and the Satins had brought their own musicians—this party was going to cost the B.P.’s a bundle. Gerry found a place on the floor between Dick and Mad Daddy. Elaine was off in the corner with Arnie Gurney’s wife; they were both drunk and grouchy and looked like the two Furies, or was it the two Fates? Gerry glanced around the room and saw that the faces of all the women were sparkling with tension and false gaiety. The men didn’t look any happier. Yet this was one of the New York parties they would all sell their souls to get invited to, and if they were left out they considered it a major tragedy. Mad Daddy was looking at Silky and the Satins with respect. At least he seemed, at last, to be having a good time.

When the girls began to sing Gerry glanced at Dick. He was watching Silky with great pleasure, both for her performance and for her, that she was so good. But there was nothing really personal about it. Then Gerry stopped looking at him because whenever Silky sang it gave her such an emotional experience that she didn’t really care what else was going on. For Gerry, at least, whatever Silky sang became very personal. That girl is going to be a star, Gerry thought. Now she was sure of it.

When the singing was over the guests applauded for a long time and seemed genuinely impressed. A few of them went over and told Silky they liked her. The King James Version started blasting away again. Dick grabbed Gerry’s hand.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said.

She saw that Libra had trapped Silky in a conversation and the Satins had disappeared. Libra was probably giving her notes about what they had done tonight, and catching up on what had happened out of town. It was just like him to talk business right here and now without even giving her a chance to say hello to Dick.

“Come on,” Dick said again.

“All right.”

They got their coats at the door and left, without bothering to say anything to their host and hostess, who were dancing wildly and couldn’t care less. The air outside was fresh and very cold. The doorman got them a cab.

“That was a New York party,” Dick said. “The way I know it was a party is that I’ll read it was tomorrow in the newspaper. Otherwise I wouldn’t know what it was. I knew it wasn’t a wake because at a wake there’s only one dead body, but here there were about a hundred.”

Gerry laughed. She was glad he wasn’t impressed with the B.P.’s and their friends. For a while she thought he was.

He told the cab to wait when they got to her building and he walked her to the door. He gave her a look she couldn’t read—was it affection, amusement, affectionate amusement?

“Good night,” he said. “Sleep well. I’ll call you tomorrow.” And then he was gone. She went upstairs. It was two o’clock and she was tired. She set the alarm for eight. Dick was nice, and she felt at ease with him. She liked him. He probably liked her. You couldn’t tell, really, what he was thinking about at any given time. He seemed so cool and self-sufficient, he had good manners, he knew exactly what he was doing. Did he act the way he did because he was so smart, or didn’t he really need anybody? She decided that she intended to find out.