Chapter 16 Breakfast at Tiffany's-16

because if you're going to have a roommate, and she isn't a dyke, then the next best thing is a perfect fool, which Mag was, because then you can dump the lease onthem and send them out for the laundry. One could see that Holly had a laundry problem; the room was strewed, like a girls gymnasium. " -- and you know, shes quite a successful model: isn't that fantastic! But a goodthing," she said, hobbling out of the bathroom as she adjusted a garter. "It ought to keep her out of my hair most of the day. And there shouldn't be too much trouble on the man front. Shes engaged. Nice guy, too. Though theres a tiny difference inheight: Id say a foot, her favor. Where the hell -- " She was on her knees poking under the bed. shed found what she was looking for, a pair of lizard shoes, she had to search for a blouse, a belt, and it was a subject to ponder, how, from suchwreckage, she evolved the eventual effect: pampered, calmly immaculate, as thoughshed been attended by Cleopatras maids. She said, "Listen," and cupped her handunder my chin, "Im glad about the story. Really I am."

That Monday in October, 1943. A beautiful day with the buoyancy of a bird. Tostart, we had Manhattans at Joe Bells; and, when he heard of my good luck,champagne cocktails on the house. Later, we wandered toward Fifth Avenue, where there was a parade. The flags in the wind, the thump of military bands and military feet, seemed to have nothing to do with war, but to be, rather, a fanfare arranged in my personal honor. We ate lunch at the cafeteria in the park. Afterwards, avoiding the zoo (Holly said she couldn't bear to see anything in a cage), we giggled, ran, sang along the path toward the old wooden boathouse, now gone. Leaves floated on the lake ; on the shore, a park-man was fanning a bonfire of them, and the smoke, rising like Indian signals, was the only smudge on the quivering air. Aprils have never meant much tome, autumns seem that season of beginning, spring; how I felt sitting with Holly on the railings of the boathouse porch. I thought of the future, and spoke of the past. Because Holly wanted to know about my childhood. She talked of her own, too; an impressionistic recital, though the impression received was contrary to what one expected, for she gave an almost voluptuous account of swimming and summer, Christmas trees, pretty cousins ​​and parties: in short, happy in a way that she was not, and never, certainly, the background of a child who had r un away.

Or, I asked, wasn't it true that shed been out on her own since she was fourteen? She rubbed her nose. "Thats true. The other isn't. But really, darling, you made such a tragedy out of your childhood I didnt feel I should compete." She hopped off the railing. "Anyway, it reminds me: I ought to send Fred somepeanut butter." The rest of the afternoon we were east and west worming out of reluctant grocers cans of peanut butter, a wartime scarcity; a half-dozen jars, the last at a delicatessen on Third Avenue. It was near the antique shop with the palace of a bird cage in its window, so I took her there to see it, and she enjoyed the point, its fantasy: "But still, its a cage."

Passing a Woolworths, she gripped my arm: "Lets steal something," she said, pulling me into the store, where at once there seemed a pressure of eyes, as though we were already under suspicion. "Come on. Dont be chicken." She scouted acounter piled with paper pumpkins and Halloween masks. The saleslady wasoccupied with a group of nuns who were trying on masks. Holly picked up a mask and slipped it over her face; we walked away. It was as simple as that. Outside, we ran a few blocks, Ithink to make it more dramatic; but also because, as Id discovered, successful theft exhilarates. I wondered if shed often stolen. she said. "I mean I had to.

If I wanted anything. But I still do it every now and then, sort of to keep my handin." We wore the masks all the way home. I have a memory of spending many hither and yonning days with Holly; and its true, we did at odd moments see a great deal of each other; but on the whole, thememory is false. : what is there to add? The less the better, except to say it was necessary and lasted from nine tofive. Which made our hours, Hollys and mine, extremely different. Unless it wasThursday, her Sing Sing day, or unless shed gone horseback riding in the park, asshe did occasionally, Holly was hardly up when I came home. Sometimes, stopping there, I shared her wake-up coffee while she dressed for the evening. She was forever on her way out, not always with Rusty Trawler, but usually , and usually, too, they were joined by Mag Wildwood and the handsome Brazilian, whose name was Jose Ybarra-Jaegar: his mother was German. As a quartet, they struck an unmusical note, primarily the fault of Ybarra-Jaegar, who seemed as out of place in their company as a violin in a jazz band. He was Intelligent, he was presentable, heappeared to have a serious link with his work, which was obscurely governmental, vaguely important, and took him to Washington several days a week. How, then, could he survive night after night in La Rue, El Morocco , listening to the Wildwoodch-ch-chatter and staring into Rustys raw baby-buttocks face? Perhaps, like most ofus in a foreign country, he was incapable of placing people, selecting a frame for their picture, as he would at home; therefore all Americans had to be judged in apretty equal light, and on this basis his companions appeared to be tolerable examples of local color and national character. That would explain much; Hollys determination explains the rest.