Gossip by Beth Gutcheon Read Free Book Online Page A

our line. Once in a while she took me to lunch, clanking with heavy gold bracelets and piling up Kent cigarette butts stained with scarlet lipstick in her ashtray. When at last I sent her my résumé, she called me and said in her marvelous ruined voice, “Your grandmother will never forgive me.”
    When I told Mme. Philomena I was leaving, you’d have thought she’d caught me selling her toiles to the competition. “I have nurtured you! I’ve spent years training you!” she howled in French. When she was not exercising her Gallic charm, she often looked like a man in a bouffant wig. That day she wore heavy green eye shadow and had a run in her stocking. Apparently I was a hurt bird she’d been plying with worms, and now I’d had the ingratitude to take flight. It was good, I thought, that she hadn’t taken up nursing.
    Mme. Olitsky assured me that Mme. P would get over it. “She doesn’t like it any better when her protégées stay too long—she likes them to move on and shine, so she can claim she made them.” Mme. Olitsky took me to lunch on my last day and gave me a little book called Your Future in the Fashion World, wishing me luck and signed with affection. The book covered every job except selling.
    T hat same year, 1972, Dinah’s oldest son was born. She called me at six in the morning. “Eight pounds six ounces,” she crowed. “I was a star! All natural, not even aspirin!” I went to the hospital after work with a plush panda and a helium balloon. Dinah was glowing, and the room was filled with flowers and tributes. Her sisters were with her when I came in.
    â€œHave you seen the baby?” they cried. “Doesn’t he look just like Daddy?”
    I had seen him through the nursery glass, and he did.
    â€œRichard is furious,” said Dinah, beaming. “He claims I must have conceived by parthenogenesis.” Just then Richard walked in, looking goofy with joy, kissed her and handed her a milk shake, which she fell upon with happy greed.
    Simon Snyder, the impresario of “New York Eye,” appeared and declared, “My god, it looks like a funeral home,” as a nurse came in with another arrangement of flowers.
    â€œThe biggest ones are all from press agents,” Dinah said. “These must be from an actual friend. Oh isn’t that nice, Constantia Lord! That’s really so sweet of her! Do you know Constantia?” she asked me. “You’d love her. I’ll introduce you.”
    â€œI do know her, but I’d love to see her again.”
    Dinah paused for an infinitesimal beat. “You do know her? How?”
    â€œWe happened to be staying at the same house in Southampton one weekend,” I said. Another beat.
    â€œWhose house?” Simon demanded. He had seated himself on Dinah’s bed and was passing around the chocolate truffles he’d brought her.
    I reluctantly named a much-photographed hostess of the day. “Really,” said Dinah again. “That sounds amusing,” making it sound as if she’d rather be trussed and grilled over open flame.
    â€œShe’s a very good customer.”
    â€œIs she.” I knew she was waiting for more information.
    â€œThere was someone she wanted me to meet,” I said.
    â€œI’ll bet. Monty, the chinless wonder?”
    As a matter of fact, it had been the hostess’s son Monty, who was a very sweet man though unlikely in my view to provide her with grandchildren.
    â€œHe’s a marvelous bridge player,” I said.
    â€œBridge!” Dinah laughed her famous laugh. “Bridge! You spent a weekend in Southampton playing bridge with Monty Mayhew? Lovie, you do surprise me.”
    There was quite a stretch after that when every time she called me, Dinah would say, “Am I taking you away from your bridge game?”
    D inah’s marriage to Richard Wainwright had surprised many, including me.