its origins at cocktail parties, at a time when at parties young women were not supposed to talk to each other at all, not ever. Received opinion then held that women in the presence of men became instant enemies, as wholly dedicated to rivalries with each other as they were to pleasing men.
But Dudley and Celeste kept meeting at upper East Side parties, during those lavish wartime years of fashionable complaints over rationing, restrictions. They seemed to be on all the same guest lists, those two; and, for whatever reasons, they were drawn to each other in the way that those destined to be permanent friends sometimes are. And they did talk, breaking the rule.
One source of mutual attraction may have been sheer oppositeness: red-haired California Celeste; and tall, very Bostonian Dudley, with her thick short curly dark hair, and sea-blue eyes. Her Back Bay voice.
Dudley’s first husband, Hammond Spaulding, was killed soon after the outbreak of the war, not in combat but in a frightful (partly because so avoidable) training accident at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina: a defective cannon backfired, killing Hammond, a marine lieutenant, just out of Yale. That “incident” was hardly mentioned in the newspapers (only the
Yale Alumni Magazine
made much of it) in those days of unadulterated marine heroics.
Dudley remained in shock, or nearly, for almost a year, shock darkly tinged with rage.
And then she picked up and went down to New York; she got a receptionist job with some friends of her father’s, a job she did not much like, but still a job, on lower Park Avenue. And she began to go out.
Meeting Celeste, Dudley thought Celeste was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, with her pale red hair, pale skin, her impressive sculptured nose and her huge dark, dark eyes. Celeste, coming into parties, would have been conspicuous even had she not learned that trick of the momentary pause just at her entrance. But she had learned that trick, and she almost always wore black—although one of her most successful dresses of that time was a green so dark that it too looked black, a fine green silk. She was highly visible.
She looked very shy, though, almost frightened, and Dudley, observing her, began to suspect that the pause at the entrance to parties was as much for retrenchment, for self-assurance, as for display.
“That’s the most beautiful dress.” Dudley to Celeste, in a floral powder room, on East Seventy-second Street, just off Park.
“I like it too, thank you.” Wide-eyed Celeste. “But I think I wear it too often.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think so. You’re a friend of the Bradfords?”
“I must be, they keep inviting me here.” Celeste’s edgy laugh. “Actually I think they’re mostly grateful. I found this place for them.”
Dudley: “I’d imagine they are.” Her own edgy laugh. “In this day. However did you?”
“Well, that’s what I do now. Apartments.” Shy dark eyes, now somewhat evasive.
“Oh.” Unasked, Dudley volunteers, “I’m a sort of receptionist. Apartments sound better, I must say. You’d be out and around.”
“Oh, not really. Or maybe too much out and around. I should try staying home.”
They both laugh.
Another powder room, this one boldly striped French wallpaper, on lower Fifth Avenue.
Celeste: “Oh dear. I have on the dress again. I seem to always, when I run into you.”
“No, actually you don’t. Last week you had on that black, with the ruffles. At the Ameses’. How’s the apartment business?”
“Slow.” Again powdering her nose, Celeste then remarks, half to Dudley, “Oh, if only I had somewhat less nose, you know?” A look from the huge black-brown eyes.
Wanting to say, But you’re so beautiful, your nose is beautiful, Dudley did not say that (although she may have conveyed that message to highly intuitive Celeste). She only observed, “We all seem to think we have something wrong, have you noticed?”
Celeste, thoughtfully: “Yes, women
But Dudley and Celeste kept meeting at upper East Side parties, during those lavish wartime years of fashionable complaints over rationing, restrictions. They seemed to be on all the same guest lists, those two; and, for whatever reasons, they were drawn to each other in the way that those destined to be permanent friends sometimes are. And they did talk, breaking the rule.
One source of mutual attraction may have been sheer oppositeness: red-haired California Celeste; and tall, very Bostonian Dudley, with her thick short curly dark hair, and sea-blue eyes. Her Back Bay voice.
Dudley’s first husband, Hammond Spaulding, was killed soon after the outbreak of the war, not in combat but in a frightful (partly because so avoidable) training accident at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina: a defective cannon backfired, killing Hammond, a marine lieutenant, just out of Yale. That “incident” was hardly mentioned in the newspapers (only the
Yale Alumni Magazine
made much of it) in those days of unadulterated marine heroics.
Dudley remained in shock, or nearly, for almost a year, shock darkly tinged with rage.
And then she picked up and went down to New York; she got a receptionist job with some friends of her father’s, a job she did not much like, but still a job, on lower Park Avenue. And she began to go out.
Meeting Celeste, Dudley thought Celeste was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, with her pale red hair, pale skin, her impressive sculptured nose and her huge dark, dark eyes. Celeste, coming into parties, would have been conspicuous even had she not learned that trick of the momentary pause just at her entrance. But she had learned that trick, and she almost always wore black—although one of her most successful dresses of that time was a green so dark that it too looked black, a fine green silk. She was highly visible.
She looked very shy, though, almost frightened, and Dudley, observing her, began to suspect that the pause at the entrance to parties was as much for retrenchment, for self-assurance, as for display.
“That’s the most beautiful dress.” Dudley to Celeste, in a floral powder room, on East Seventy-second Street, just off Park.
“I like it too, thank you.” Wide-eyed Celeste. “But I think I wear it too often.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think so. You’re a friend of the Bradfords?”
“I must be, they keep inviting me here.” Celeste’s edgy laugh. “Actually I think they’re mostly grateful. I found this place for them.”
Dudley: “I’d imagine they are.” Her own edgy laugh. “In this day. However did you?”
“Well, that’s what I do now. Apartments.” Shy dark eyes, now somewhat evasive.
“Oh.” Unasked, Dudley volunteers, “I’m a sort of receptionist. Apartments sound better, I must say. You’d be out and around.”
“Oh, not really. Or maybe too much out and around. I should try staying home.”
They both laugh.
Another powder room, this one boldly striped French wallpaper, on lower Fifth Avenue.
Celeste: “Oh dear. I have on the dress again. I seem to always, when I run into you.”
“No, actually you don’t. Last week you had on that black, with the ruffles. At the Ameses’. How’s the apartment business?”
“Slow.” Again powdering her nose, Celeste then remarks, half to Dudley, “Oh, if only I had somewhat less nose, you know?” A look from the huge black-brown eyes.
Wanting to say, But you’re so beautiful, your nose is beautiful, Dudley did not say that (although she may have conveyed that message to highly intuitive Celeste). She only observed, “We all seem to think we have something wrong, have you noticed?”
Celeste, thoughtfully: “Yes, women
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