Tell-All

smashing chairs, lamps and bibelots in their raucous fight for survival. The muscles of Lilly’s slim elegant arms strain to subdue the attacker. Her Lili St. Cyr lounging pajamas flapping and torn. Her Valentino hosiery devastated. Her elegant white teeth bite deep into the Webb’s devious, scheming neck. The combatants tread on Lilly’s fallen Elsa Schiaparelli hat while Katherine can only watch in abject horror, shrieking with doomed panic.
    As in the opening scene, we dissolve to a long dinner table where Lilly sits, now regaling her fellow guests with the story of this struggle. The candlelight, the wood-paneled walls,the footmen. Lillian stops regaling long enough to draw one long drag on her cigarette, then blow the smoke over half the diners before she says, “If only I hadn’t chosen to diet that week …” She taps cigarette ash onto her bread plate, shaking her head, saying, “My glorious, brilliant Katherine might still be alive.…”
    Beyond her first few words, Lillian’s talk becomes one of those jungle sound tracks one hears looping in the background of every Tarzan film, just tropical birds and howler monkeys repeating.
Bark, squeak, meow
… Katherine Kenton .
    Oink, moo, tweet
… Webster Carlton Westward III . A man who did nothing except fall deeply in love—passionately in love—he must now play the villain for the rest of this silly motion picture we call human history.
    Miss Kathie’s movie-star flesh has barely cooled, and already she’s been absorbed into the Hellman mythos. Miss Lilly’s own name-dropping form of Tourette’s syndrome .
    While the footmen pour wine and clear the sorbet dishes, Lillian’s hands swim through the air, her cigarette trailing smoke, her fingernails clawing at an invisible burglar. In her dinner party story, Lilly continues to spar and struggle with the masked gunman. In their grappling, they fire a shot, which Hellman dramatizes by slapping her open palm on the table, making the silverware jump and the stemware ring together.
    From my place, seated well below the salt, I merely listen to Lilly spin more gold into her own self-promoting dross. On my knee I bounce a jolly plump infant, one of the many orphans sent for Miss Kathie to review. Under my breath, I say a silent prayer that I might die after Lilly. To my left and right, from the head to the foot of the table, Eva Le Gallienne, Napier Alington, Blanche Bates, Jeanne Eagels , we all say the same prayer. George Jean Nathan of
Smart Set
magazine draws a fountain pen from his chest pocket and scribbles notes on a napkin. Edwin Schallert of the
Los Angeles Times
spies him, taking notes about Nathan’s notes. Bertram Block jots notes about Schallert’s notes about Nathan’s notes.
    The possibility of dying before Lillian Hellman … dying and becoming merely fodder for Lilly’s mouth. A person’s entire life and reputation reduced to some golem, a Frankenstein’s monster Miss Hellman can reanimate and manipulate to do her bidding. That would be a fate worse than death, to spend eternity in harness, serving as Lilly Hellman’s zombie, brought back to life at dinner parties. On radio shows and in Hellman’s autobiographies.
    It was Walter Winchell who once said, “After any dinner with Lilly Hellman, you don’t crave dessert and coffee—what you really need is the antidote.”
    Even the most illustrious names, once they’re dead long enough, are reduced to silly animal sounds.
Grunt, bark, bray
… Ford Madox Ford … Miriam Hopkins … Randle Ayrton .
    Seated to my right, Charlie McCarthy congratulates me on the success of my book. As of this week,
Paragon
has been at number one on the
New York Times
best-seller list for twenty-eight weeks.
    Seated across the table, Madeleine Carroll inquires in that rich British accent of hers, asking the name of the child in my lap.
    In response, I explain how this tiny foundling had been adopted by Miss Kathie, and now I have become its legal guardian. I’ve inherited the town house, the rights to
Paragon
, all of the investments and this child, who sputters and smiles, a perfect blond angel. Its name, I explain, is Norma Jean Baker .
    No, none of us seem so very real.
    We’re only supporting characters in the lives of each other.
    Any real truth, any precious fact will always be lost in a mountain of shattered make-believe.
    I signal, and a footman pours more wine. In my mind, I’m already crafting a story wherein Lillian Hellman thrashes and