Democracy by Joan Didion Read Free Book Online Page B

on one such call. “This young man you hung up on happens to have a quite interesting grassy-knoll slant on Sal Mineo’s murder, he very much wanted Harry to hear it.” She did not for example comprehend what moved Dwight to send her a clipping of every story in the Honolulu Advertiser in which her or Harry’s name appeared. These clippings came in bundles, with Dwight’s card attached. “Nice going,” he sometimes pencilled on the card. Nor did she comprehend how Janet could have agreed, during the 1972 campaign, to be interviewed on CBS Reports about her and Inez’s childhood. This particular CBS Reports had been devoted to capsule biographies of the candidates’ wives and Inez had watched it with Harry and Billy Dillon in the library of the apartment on Central Park West. There had been a clip of Harry talking about Inez’s very special loyalty and there had been a clip of Billy Dillon talking about Inez’s very special feeling for the arts and there had been a clip of the headmaster at the Dalton School talking about the very special interest Inez took in education, but Janet’s appearance on the program was a surprise.
    “I wouldn’t say ‘privileged,’ no,” Janet had said on camera. She had seemed to be sitting barefoot on a catamaran in front of her beach house. “No. Off the mark. Not ‘privileged.’ I’d just call it a marvelous simple way of life that you might describe as gone with the wind.”
    “I hope nobody twigs she’s talking about World War Two,” Billy Dillon said.
    “Of course everybody had their marvelous Chinese amah then,” Janet was saying on camera. Her voice was high and breathy and nervous. The camera angle had changed to show Koko Head. Inez picked up a legal pad and began writing. “And then Nezzie and I had—oh, I suppose a sort of governess, a French governess, she was from Neuilly, needless to say Mademoiselle spoke flawless French, I remember Nezzie used to drive her wild by speaking pidgin.”
    “ ‘Mademoiselle,’ ” Billy Dillon said.
    Inez did not look up from the legal pad.
    “ ‘Mademoiselle,’ ” Billy Dillon repeated, “and ‘Nezzie.’ ”
    “I was never called ‘Nezzie.’ ”
    “You are now,” Billy Dillon said.
    “They pan left,” Harry Victor said, “they could pick up Janet’s private-property-no-trespassing-no-beach-access sign.” He reached under the table to pick up the telephone. “Also her Mercedes. This should be Mort.”
    “Ask Mort how he thinks the governess from Neuilly tests out,” Billy Dillon said. “Possibly Janet could make Mademoiselle available to do some coffees in West Virginia.”
    Inez said nothing.
    She had never been called Nezzie.
    She had never spoken pidgin.
    The governess from Neuilly had not been a governess at all but the French wife of a transport pilot at Hickam who rented the studio over Cissy Christian’s garage for a period of six months between the Leyte Gulf and the end of the war.
    Janet was telling CBS Reports how she and Inez had been taught to store table linens between sheets of blue tissue paper.
    Harry was on his evening conference call with Mort Goldman at MIT and Perry Young at Harvard and the petrochemical people at Stanford.
    No Nezzie.
    No pidgin.
    No governess from Neuilly.
    “That tip about the blue tissue paper goes straight to the hearts and minds,” Billy Dillon said.
    “Mort still sees solar as negative policy, Billy, maybe you better pick up,” Harry Victor said.
    “Tell Mort we just kiss it,” Billy Dillon said. “Broad strokes only. Selected venues.” He watched as Inez tore the top sheet from the legal pad on which she had been writing. “Strictly for the blue-tissue-paper crowd.”
    1) Shining Star , Inez had written on the piece of paper.
    2) Twinkling Star
    3) Morning Star
    4) Evening Star
    5) Southern Star
    6) North Star
    7) Celestial Star
    8) Meridian Star
    9) Day Star
    10) ? ? ?
    “Hey,” Billy Dillon said. “Inez. If you’re drafting a cable to