“What?”
“One bullet. That’s all it took. One bullet for Papa.”
Ship didn’t answer, although he did look at her with concern. He remained sitting there, still not touching her, for a very long time, and Slim was glad. It was good to have a man within reach, even if she didn’t feel the need for physical contact. It was good simply to know he was there, bigger than you, stronger, more solid—different from you. In the very best of ways.
But Ship, for all his athletic bulk, was not bigger than Papa. No man was, no man would ever be, and Slim knew that she would be somehow less, herself, without him in the world.
The world itself would be less: the sun not as bright, the wind not as strong, the tides not as dependable. Gravity, too, would shift, and for a long while after his death, she walked about unsure if her feet would always find the ground. Papa had created his own gravitational pull on her, and without him she wondered if she might suddenly float up to the clouds, away from everything and everyone else, ordinary and unaffected by the absence of this man. And she knew that if she did float away, she wouldn’t mind.
Slim never saw Mary Hemingway again. They talked sometimes on the phone, as Mary went through Papa’s papers; Papa’s wife appeared to have forgotten all her past grievances toward Slim, and asked for her advice, trusting that she knew Papa almost better than anyone else did.
One day, one lonely day in Manhattan when Kitty was away at school and her phone had been silent for days, and the sky was low and gray and everything in her wardrobe seemed to be ancient, out of date, out of style, just like she was, and she couldn’t stand to look in the mirror and the bottom of the martini shaker was a sight she couldn’t bear, either, and so she made sure she never did, Slim received a package in the mail.
It was a small box, wrapped in brown paper, her name and address written in a sure, strong hand. She pulled off the paper, opened the tiny box.
The note on top read For Slim. I didn’t need this, after all. Love, Mary.
Beneath the note lay one bullet, polished, gleaming.
Just one bullet.
Slim picked it up, marveling at its cool smoothness, wondering if Mary had polished it just for her. She held it in her hand for a long time, thinking of Papa doing the same, before putting his bullet in the chamber, uncocking the safety, and pulling the trigger.
Then Slim tossed the bullet into the air and snatched it neatly with one hand. She tucked it in her pocket, went to her closet and took a good long look. Finally, she selected a peacock-blue Christian Dior cocktail dress that made her eyes look almost violet and turned her skin to ivory. She quickly dressed, spent a few minutes at the vanity applying makeup, just enough—she was no Mary Hemingway. She didn’t need someone else to turn her into the woman that Hemingway had desired.
She was the original.
Slim reached for the phone, dialed a number. “Truman? My True Heart? Miss Slimsky is on the prowl. When can I pick you up?”
Slim grinned, put the phone down, and grabbed her handbag. Opening it, she tucked the bullet inside, then she snapped it shut and sailed out into the evening.
The city was just beginning to come alive, people’s voices louder and more animated, taxis honking more insistently, music pouring out of revolving doors. The sights, the scents, and the sounds of the city at dusk never failed to make her heart beat faster, her skin tingle with anticipation of something wonderful, something unexpected, unheard of, always around the corner.
Some new story, just waiting to be written.
Manhattan was her hunting ground. And Slim was armed and ready.
BY MELANIE BENJAMIN
Alice I Have Been
The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb
The Aviator’s Wife
The Swans of Fifth Avenue
PHOTO: © DEBORAH FEINGOLD
MELANIE BENJAMIN has written the New York Times bestselling historical novel The Aviator’s Wife, the nationally bestselling Alice I Have Been, and The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb. She lives in Chicago with her husband, and far enough from her two adult sons not to be a nuisance (she hopes). When she isn’t writing, she’s reading.
melaniebenjamin.com
Look for Melanie Benjamin on Facebook
@MelanieBen
To inquire about booking Melanie Benjamin for a speaking engagement, please contact the Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at
[email protected].
If you enjoyed “Reckless Hearts,” read on for an excerpt of Melanie Benjamin’s next enthralling historical novel
The Swans of Fifth Avenue
available in hardcover from Delacorte Press in January 2016
LA CÔTE BASQUE, OCTOBER 17, 1975
“He killed her. It’s as simple as that.” Slim’s hands shook as she spilled a packet of menthols all over her plate. “Truman killed her. And I’d like to know who the hell it was who befriended that little midget in the first place.”
“It wasn’t I,” Pamela insisted. “I never did like the bugger.”
“Oh, no, it wasn’t me—I warned you about him, didn’t I?” Gloria asked rhetorically, those Latin eyes flashing so dangerously, it was a good thing there were only butter knives on the table.
“I don’t believe it was me,” Marella murmured. “No, no, it was not.”
“It sure as hell wasn’t me.” Slim spat it out. “And if he’s not convicted for murder, I’m going to sue him for libel, at the very least.”
The table went silent; this was almost as much of a bombshell as the reason they were gathered in haste, eyes hidden behind dark glasses, as though that could disguise their famous faces. Odd, Slim thought, how they’d all had the same idea: to hide, as if they were the ones at fault when, really, it was Truman who should hide his face. Now and forever.
But defiantly, they had agreed to meet at the scene of the crime: the restaurant that had spawned the literary scandal of the century, as it was already being called. Slim Hawks Hayward Keith, Marella Agnelli, Gloria Guinness, and Pamela Churchill Hayward Harriman—not a shrinking violet in the bunch—had descended upon La Côte Basque, always the place to see and be seen, especially today.
“Where’s C.Z.?” Gloria asked suddenly. “The honorable Mrs. Guest should be here, too. It only seems right. After all, she was here when it all began. Like it or not, she’s one of us.”
“C.Z.’s probably off digging a hole somewhere. Do you know what she did when I called and asked her if she’d read it? She laughed. She laughed! ‘Oh, Slim,’ she said. ‘If you didn’t know by now that Truman Capote couldn’t keep a secret, then you’re a much bigger fool than I am!’ Of course, he didn’t say a thing about her.”
“But what about—?” Pamela asked, and they all glanced at the empty chair at the end of the table. “Wasn’t C.Z. outraged on her behalf, at least?”
Slim finally lit the blessed, blessed cigarette and took a long draw. She leaned back in her chair and exhaled, narrowing her eyes at Pamela. Strange, how Truman could bring them together, how he’d made allies out of enemies with his pen. “She wasn’t, not that I could tell.”
“But Dillon, that odious man in Truman’s story—it is Bill, isn’t it? It’s supposed to be Bill Paley?”
Slim took a big breath, but couldn’t meet her friends’ collective, searching gaze. “Yes. It is, I know it is. Don’t ask me how; I just do.”
Pamela, Gloria, and Marella gasped. So did the other tables nearby; when the four women entered the restaurant together, all heads had turned their way. Some in astonishment, some in outright glee. Others in admiration. But all in curiosity.
Marcel, their favorite waiter, cautiously approached the table with the customary bottle of Cristal. He showed it to them, and Gloria wearily waved her hand in assent; he popped the cork, but without the usual flourish. He knew.
Everyone knew.
The latest issue of Esquire had hit the stands that morning, the cover a profile picture of a fat and pasty-looking Truman Capote, t
he headline trumpeting the acclaimed author of In Cold Blood’s newest, hotly anticipated short story. “La Côte Basque 1965,” it was called. It was now one P.M. Liz Smith was probably already on the phone, frantically asking their maids if Madam was in or out.
Well, this madam is out, Slim thought to herself. And she might very well stay out, for the rest of the day. Hell, the rest of the night. Where was Papa when she needed him? For she would have hopped the next plane to Cuba, if that were still permissible. And if Hemingway were still alive, daiquiri in one hand, rifle or fly reel in the other, his big, virile, lecherous grin on his face at the sight of her, wondering when the hell he was going to get around to writing a book about her, the most fascinating woman he’d ever met.
Ah, but that was another story, from a different time. A different life.
Today, the story was different. And it wasn’t really her story at all, Slim realized; she had been used, yes. But in the end, her secrets, mainly, remained intact. Still, that did not dampen her sense of betrayal, her bitterness at what her True Heart—her stomach soured at the memory of that pet name!—had done.
The murder Truman Capote had committed, plain as day, by telling the stories he had told. Stories that he did not have a right to tell.
Stories they never should have told him in the first place.
“No one will return his calls now. No one will invite him anywhere. He’s finished in society. Dead—as dead as—” Pam dabbed ostentatiously at her blue eyes, which, Slim couldn’t help but observe, remained resolutely dry.
There was a lull in the conversation, a cloud that dropped over their table, dulling the brilliant light, throwing shadows on the gleaming cutlery, the sparkling crystal.
“Does anyone really remember when they first met him? Or did he just appear, like the plague?” Slim was in a reflective mood; one she did not allow herself often, and one that did not sit well with her companions, generally. Lunch at La Côte Basque was not for soul-searching.
But today was different. Today, they’d opened the pages of Esquire magazine and seen themselves—not merely themselves, but their kind, their tribe, their exclusive, privileged, envied set—eviscerated, skin flayed open, souls laid bare, ugliness acknowledged. Secrets betrayed and lives destroyed. By the viper in their nest; the storyteller in their midst.
But Truman Capote wasn’t the only one who could tell tales, they decided over another glass of Cristal.
“So tell me,” Slim cooed, her tongue comfortably loose, her throat deliciously numb. “How the hell did that southern-fried bastard get here in the first place?”
The four inclined their still-gorgeous necks, put their perfectly coiffed heads together in consultation. Beads and feathers quivered on gesticulating arms. Jewels and gold flashed on punctuating hands as they tried to piece it all together. From the very beginning. The story of how Truman Capote came to betray all his swans—but one especially. The one they all loved the most. Even Truman.
Especially Truman.
The problem with this particular story, however, was that Truman was the one who had told it to them in the first place.
Melanie Benjamin, Reckless Hearts
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