Tales of the City 03 - Further Tales of the City

pardon me, Liz Smith.”
    “He practically groped me in the greenhouse.”
    “Where is Fielding, anyway?”
    “On a ship or something. Handing out Dramamine. Too awful for words.”
    Peter Cipriani passed by and dropped a magazine into Arch’s lap. “Speaking of too awful for words, have you checked out Madame Giroux this month?” The magazine was Western Gentry, and the object of Peter’s disdain was one Prue Giroux, the society columnist. Arch turned to the inside back page and began to read aloud to his guests: “ ‘This morning, while talking to the charming and delightful black man who parks cars in the garage next to L’Etoile, it occurred to me how truly blessed we are to live in a town that’s just chock full of so many interesting races, creeds and colors.’ ”
    Tony Hughes moaned and rolled his eyes. “The stupid twat thinks she’s Eleanor Roosevelt now.”
    Arch continued: “‘As a simple country girl from Grass Valley…’”
    More groans from everyone.
    “‘As a simple country girl from Grass Valley, it gives me such joy and fulfillment to count myself among the friends of such well-known black people as Kathleen Cleaver, wife of the noted militant, and such distinguished Jewish persons as Dr. Heinrich Viertel (author of Probing the Id) and Ethel Merman, whom I met when she came through The City plugging her fabulous new disco album.’”
    This time there were shrieks. Tony jerked the magazine out of Arch’s hands. “She didn’t say that! You made that up!” Arch yielded the floor to Tony, who obviously wanted to continue the reading.
    Almost unnoticed, Arch slipped away from the table to deal with a situation which may have reached crisis proportions: Cleavon had not shown up with the coffee. And Chuck Lord had not returned from the bathroom.
    Purple with rage, Arch listened outside the bathroom door, then flung it open ingloriously.
    Cleavon was seated on the black onyx sink, holding one nostril shut while Chuck Lord spaded cocaine into the other. Showing not the slightest trace of remorse, Chuck smirked and returned the paraphernalia to the pocket of his Alexander Julian jacket.
    Arch eyed his guest murderously. “Come back to de raft, Huck honey. You are missed.”
    When Chuck was gone, Cleavon climbed down from the sink and sucked the crystals noisily into his sinuses. His employer was livid but controlled. “We are ready for coffee now, Cleavon.”
    “Yo,” said the servant.
    Out in the dining room, Peter Cipriani brayed a drunken riddle to the returning Chuck Lord: “Hey, Chuckie! What’s twelve inches and white?”
    “What?” came the wary reply.
    “Nothing,” shrieked Peter. “Absolutely nothing!”
    Arch Gidde could have died.

True Prue
    P EOPLE SAID THE MEANEST THINGS ABOUT PRUE GIROUX .
    Her willowy good looks, they said, had gotten her everything she had ever wanted but respect. When people spoke of her divorce from Reg Giroux, it was Reg who had always been “the nice one.” He had also, by the strangest coincidence, been the one with the forty million dollars.
    Prue had some of that now, thank God. Plus a Tony Hail townhouse on Nob Hill. Plus enough Galanos gowns to last her through all of the Nancy Reagan Administration, even if—knock on wood—it lasted eight years.
    The real secret of her power, however, lay in her column in Western Gentry magazine. It didn’t matter, Prue had discovered, if your blood wasn’t blue and your wealth was all alimony. So what if you slipped up and pronounced Thaïs “Thayz” or applauded after the first movement or held a black tie function in midafternoon? If you wrote a social column, the bastards would always let you in.
    Not all of them, of course. Some of the old-line San Mateo types (she had taught herself not to say Hillsborough) still regarded Prue from a chilly distance. The young lionesses, however, seemed grimly aware that their niches would never be secure without at least nominal recognition by the society press.
    So they invited her to lunch.
    Not to dinner usually, just to lunch. When, for instance, Ann Getty threw her February soiree for Baryshnikov at Bali’s, it wasn’t really necessary to include Prue in the proceedings; the guests simply phoned her the juicy particulars the morning after.
    Prue didn’t mind, really. She’d come a long way, and she knew it. Her penchant for dubbing herself “a simple country girl from Grass Valley” was no affectation. She was a simple country girl from