“Well. The one with the terrific—”
“Marcia Louise. I ran into her once, too. She talk your ear off?”
“God, yes. But you know what she told me, though? Dr. Whiting’s dead. She said she had a letter from Barbara Hill saying Whiting got cancer last summer and died and all. She only weighed sixty-two pounds. When she died. Isn’t that terrible?”
“No.”
“Eloise, you’re getting hard as nails.”
“Mm. What else’d she say?”
“Oh, she just got back from Europe. Her husband was stationed in Germany or something, and she was with him. They had a forty-seven-room house, she said, just with one other couple, and about ten servants. Her own horse, and the groom they had, used to be Hitler’s own private riding master or something. Oh, and she started to tell me how she almost got raped by a colored soldier. Right on the main floor of Lord & Taylor’s she started to tell me—you know Jackson. She said he was her husband’s chauffeur, and he was driving her to market or something one morning. She said she was so scared she didn’t even—”
“Wait just a second.” Eloise raised her head and her voice. “Is that you, Ramona?”
“Yes,” a small child’s voice answered.
“Close the front door after you, please,” Eloise called.
“Is that Ramona? Oh, I’m dying to see her. Do you realize I haven’t seen her since she had her—”
“Ramona,” Eloise shouted, with her eyes shut, “go out in the kitchen and let Grace take your galoshes off.”
“All right,” said Ramona. “C’mon, Jimmy.”
“Oh, I’m dying to see her,” Mary Jane said. “Oh, God! Look what I did. I’m terribly sorry, El.”
“Leave it. Leave it,” said Eloise. “I hate this damn rug anyway. I’ll get you another.”
“No, look, I have more than half left!” Mary Jane held up her glass.
“Sure?” said Eloise. “Gimme a cigarette.”
Mary Jane extended her pack of cigarettes, saying “Oh, I’m dying to see her. Who does she look like now?”
Eloise struck a light. “Akim Tamiroff.”
“No, seriously.”
“Lew. She looks like Lew. When his mother comes over, the three of them look like triplets.” Without sitting up, Eloise reached for a stack of ashtrays on the far side of the cigarette table. She successfully lifted off the top one and set it down on her stomach. “What I need is a cocker spaniel or something,” she said. “Somebody that looks like me.”
“How’re her eyes now?” Mary Jane asked. “I mean they’re not any worse or anything, are they?”
“God! Not that I know of.”
“Can she see at all without her glasses? I mean if she gets up in the night to go to the john or something.
“She won’t tell anybody. She’s lousy with secrets.”
Mary Jane turned around in her chair. “Well, hello, Ramona!” she said. “Oh, what a pretty dress!” She set down her drink. “I’ll bet you don’t even remember me, Ramona.”
“Certainly she does. Who’s the lady, Ramona?”
“Mary Jane,” said Ramona, and scratched herself.
“Marvellous!” said Mary Jane. “Ramona, will you give me a little kiss?”
“Stop that,” Eloise said to Ramona.