"Esther M. Friesner - Helen Rembembers the Stork Club" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

sideways glance through a jungle of false eyelashes and three coats of mascara: He's pouting. Let him
pout. Let him learn patience and the womanly art of waiting. Slowly she uncoils her bones from the
sweet, soft embrace of the lounge chair and smiles. тАЬShall we go?"

She doesn't step into the cab he hails and there's nothing he can do about it: She's the one in charge these
days, much good it's done her. тАЬLet's walk,тАЭ she says. тАЬThere's something I want to show you.тАЭ He trots
along beside her as docilely as dear little Aggie ever did on walkies. Aggie always wanted to be fed, too.

She brings him to a little pocket park on East 53rd Street near Fifth Avenue. It's night, but it's a New
York City night and that's a beast of a neon stripe. Shadows are not allowed to haunt the richer parts of
this city any more than stars are allowed to lend its aging face the charity of their light. Helen takes her
escort by the hand and sighs.

"This is where it used to be,тАЭ she says, gazing into the park, into the past. тАЬThis was where we came to
the Stork Club. Everybody who was anybody, plus tourists and out-of-towners, but the real people, the
ones who shared the secret, we knew our own. It was Sherman Billingsley's place and sometimes he'd
throw a Balloon Night. He'd fill the room with balloons and stuff each one with a dollar bill, a ten, a
twenty, a hundred, or maybe just a slip of paper with a prize for you to claim. My God, some of those
starlets would body-check like hockey players just to get their claws on one! Walter Winchell was there,
and Ethel Merman, and the whole Who's Who of Hollywood and Broadway and even Washington, D.C.
When that terrible little man assassinated President Kennedy I cried because I kept remembering how I'd
met him here, how young and sweet and handsome he was, how gracious, how funny, and now ... how
lost."

She tries not to cry over that memory. She tells herself she's had centuries of practice at holding back
tears. So many loves lost to her, so many friends, her own children, all gone. And the tears come
anyway, because now she has to weep over the realization that she's no longer able to mourn for anyone
but herself.

She brushes away the tears with bare knuckles, ruefully recalling vanished evenings when she'd sooner be
caught dead than without gleaming satin gloves sheathing her arms from elbows to fingertips. тАЬI always
wore my finest gowns to go there, something by darling Oleg or SchiaparelliтАФmy favorite was midnight
blue silk, strapless, with a tulle overskirt scattered with tiny stars. All right, all right, they were rhinestones,
but still.... тАЬA sigh. тАЬThis is prettyтАФтАЭ She gestures at the little park. тАЬтАФbut it's not the same. Am I so
wrong to miss the elegance? The chivalry? The way we took pains to be beautiful for each other? I had a
white fox fur stole that lay against my cheek soft as summer clouds and when my date lit up my cigarette
for me, no one glared at us as though we drowned kittens for a living."

Helen's escort stands behind her while she speaks and rests his hands on her shoulders. They're strong
hands, and when they tighten their grip ever so slightly, so tenderly, she smells the vanished breeze from
the Middle Sea and Paris's sunwarmed skin. When this beautiful boy murmurs, тАЬI know what you mean,тАЭ
his sympathy is almost more than she can bear. Every fiber of her heart aches with something neither joy
nor sorrow but the terrifying essence of both at once when he adds, тАЬI understand. I do."

And by his lights, he does, because the next words out of his mouth are: тАЬThey won't let you smoke
anywhere in this city anymore. It sucks."

He understands, he does, in exactly the same way that gaudy rhinestones on an old blue dress are
boundless galaxies of stars. Helen steps out from under hands that are only a rental of companionship,
pulling a phantom fox fur stole a little closer up around her face. тАЬLet's go,тАЭ she says, her words only a bit