Winning is Everything (5 page)

6 

Party time!

There was work to be done, and Ron got right to it. At college he had been the best social director his fraternity had ever known. His theme affairs—Roman Orgy, Roaring Twenties, Pirate, and Pajama parties—had been the talk of the campus. There was no reason to believe he couldn’t follow the same formula, come up with another string of successes in Manhattan.

He combed the dark and musty basement of his apartment house and found an old metal tub. He dragged it up to the apartment, scrubbed and scoured it, removed the rust, and if it wasn’t quite shining new, at least it no longer looked rancid.

He found a dozen bags of not-the-freshest potato chips (on sale) and ordered, from a local delicatessen, several huge blocks of ice and a couple of trays of sandwiches to be delivered to the apartment the night of the soiree.

On Wednesday, their first day off, Ron and Gary went shopping.

Ron flew through the Salvation Army outlet like a tornado, praying he’d run into no one he knew, as he pointed at second-, third-, and twenty-fourth-hand furniture.

One day, Ron promised himself, one day I’ll have Billy Baldwin picking out furniture for me….

For now, however, Ron handed over $215 for three out-of-shape box springs and $105 for three lumpy mattresses. They also bought eight torn and scratchy window shades ($40), a dining table ($27), four wobbly chairs ($16), a shambles of a couch ($35), and a covered-with-stains coffee table ($12).

“Two hundred and twenty-five dollars each to look like we just moved into Catfish Row?” Gary complained to Ron.

“Relax,” said Ron as he handed the money plus the twenty-dollar delivery charge to the lady behind the counter. “It’s a beginning, isn’t it? How will we ever appreciate the lap of luxury if we don’t start at its feet?”

“Luxury doesn’t have feet,” said Gary.

“Don’t worry,” said Ron. “This furniture’ll be fine for now. Till our ships come in. Trust me.”

Ron pocketed the five dollars change handed him by the cashier, thanked the woman for her time, and then gave Gary a shove, propelling him toward the front door.

They took a subway uptown to Fifty-ninth Street and walked over to Bloomingdale’s.

“The sheets for our third-rate beds,” Ron explained as they walked through the seventh floor of the bustling department store, “have to be first-rate. The mattresses may be for shit, but if they’re covered well, any guest who sleeps over will never guess we bought them at the Halloween shop.”

Gary gasped at the $84 bill.

“Basics means booze,” said Ron, practically dragging Gary through the liquor store near their apartment house. “Comprenez-vous? Scotch, bourbon, vodka, gin, and mixers. For now, however, we’ll just stick with picking up a couple of gallons of the world’s cheapest vodka and, while we’re at it, something civilized and sophisticated to mix it with … like four and a half gallons of the Hawaiian Punch … on sale across the street at our local A&P.”

“Why don’t we just get a couple of six-packs and declare bankruptcy?” protested Gary.

“Don’t be more of a peasant than you already are, kid,” said Ron, loading up Gary’s outstretched arms with vodka bottles and removing his last fifty-dollar bill from his wallet. “New York is a booze town. You want beer, go to Heidelberg.”

As soon as the boys got home from work on Thursday, they began to prepare.

Ron took the recently delivered block of ice and lowered it into his metal tub. Then he emptied a gallon of vodka and a gallon and a half of Hawaiian Punch together, stirred the concoction with his hand, and tasted his witches’ brew.

“That’s truly awful!” he told Gary. “If anyone’s still walking at the end of this affair, I’ll give ‘em a few tickets to the next one!”

At three minutes to eight, Ron checked that the candle lighting was subdued, that the less-than-elegant food was properly displayed, that the vile vodka and fruit drink concoction was ready for consumption, and that he was ready to begin his New York career as a party-thrower of note.

People began arriving at the door not five minutes later. In droves. Ron stationed himself at the front door, collecting admission money as scores of partygoers drifted in.

Ellenor Robinson arrived early.

“Hi, there! These are my roommates!” she said to Ron.

“You mean the rest of the Seattle-ites?” asked Ron, looking at the four other girls.

“That’s them!” said Ellenor, introducing them one by one. “This is Marcy and Linda and Mary and ‘The Other Linda.’”

“Hello, hello, hello, hello.” Ron smiled winningly at all four girls, and while collecting their money, tried to figure out how they all got to be so tall, so blond, so clear-skinned, so well-tanned. He wondered how anyone told them apart.

There was soon a long line of people waiting in the hallway. They had no way of knowing how much better off they were than the eighty or so overheated partygoers packed inside the apartment.

By eleven-thirty hosts and hostesses from the afternoon shift at the fair started arriving, picking up the pace of celebration and the sense of sardine-packaging as well.

Gary was stationed at the metal tub, doling out the volatile punch into blue paper cups.

Kip walked over to the metal tub, thrust his empty paper cup at Gary, and asked, “Weren’t you part of the replacement team that just started work, like me, this past Monday?”

“Right!” said Gary, topping off Kip’s cup. He looked up and guessed that Kip was the kind of guy anyone would like.

“Not even here a week, and you guys are already hosting parties,” said Kip. “Now, that’s what I call working fast.”

“Well …” Gary smiled as he took an empty cup from someone else. “When your roommate is the social director of the Western world, you get into the swing of things, and fast.”

“Nice place you got here,” said Kip.

“You should see it when there aren’t three hundred people in it,” said Gary. “Looks a lot bigger.”

“Great view,” said Kip, pointing out toward the living-room window.

“Yeah,” Gary agreed. “On a clear day you can see New Hampshire.”

“You mind if I ask what a place like this goes for?”

“Not at all,” said Gary. “Five-fifty a month.”

“Sounds expensive,” said Kip.

“It is,” Gary agreed.

Kip smiled and walked over to look out the window.

Gary sensed Kip might be someone who might just turn out to be a friend. He seemed, after all, to be everything Gary himself ever wanted to be.

Once everyone had arrived, Ron left the front door and worked the room, making sure everyone was getting drunk and having a good time. He had talked three hosts into bringing their guitars to the party to provide free entertainment.

Ron persuaded one of the guitarists to take out her musical instrument and start strumming in the living room. He coaxed another into one of the bedrooms to start stringing and singing there. He stationed a third in the second bedroom, and soon there were songfests going on in different rooms of the apartment.

“Choose your mood!” cried Ron, walking through the living room, stuffing potato chips into people’s mouths, a high sybaritic priest awarding wafers. “Folk songs and political protests in the far bedroom … musical comedy in the near bedroom, and rock ‘n’ roll in here. Pick a tune or visit all three … no extra charge!”

The guitars were a nice touch, kept things moving, Ron told himself. But next time he’d have to get real music; a phonograph to start people dancing … next time … perhaps a string of tiny white Christmas lights strung whimsically from one side of the ceiling to the other … His eyes glazed with plans: hors d’oeuvres, hot and cold, truffles and caviar. A midnight supper on the veranda, Lester Lanin’s society orchestra, champagne and coachmen, candelabra everywhere—a white-tuxedoed piano player at a white baby grand playing Gershwin; next time charge five dollars … no
, fifty
—five hundred! Next time …

“Pardon me,” a small voice interrupted Ron’s flight of fancy. “I’d like my money back, please.”

Ron whirled around and found Ellenor Robinson standing there, looking beautiful and overweight. Damn, Ron thought as he smiled down at her, if she were only thirty pounds slimmer, she’d really be something. “What’s the trouble, young lady?”

“You promised me a good time,” said Ellenor, obviously as inebriated by now as everyone else. “Well, I’m not having one!”

“No?” asked Ron.

“No!” said Ellenor firmly. “I’m having the time of my life!”

“Really?” Ron was suddenly interested in this conversation.

“You guys sure know how to toss one hell of a blast, boy.”

“Thank you.” Ron bowed.

“There’s one small problem, though.”

“What’s that?” Ron wanted to know.

“One of the Kennedy brothers got sick in your bathroom, all over the bathtub. The place is uninhabitable.”

“God damn …” said Ron, hurrying to the other side of the apartment to inspect the damage.

Five minutes later, he was still cleaning, wondering what he, Le Prince, was doing mopping up the bathroom, amidst so much recycled Hawaiian glop.

There was a loud rap on the bathroom door and the softest of feminine voices said, “We gotta get in there; could you open the door?”

“Hold your horses!” said Ron, dousing the room with generous droplets from Gary’s after-shave. He opened the door and found two of Ellenor’s roommates, Linda and the Other Linda, standing there.

“Aha!” said Ron. “Seattle society comes to shower.”

“Not quite,” said the Other Linda. “We’ve come to powder our noses.”

“Go to it, goils …” Ron stuck the mop behind the door. “Everything’s washed up, spic-and-span.”

“That’s good,” said Linda, stifling a giggle. “Because someone else just got sick all over the bed next to the window.”

“My
bed?” cried Le Prince in alarm, as he again lunged for the mop.

The bedroom was empty when Ron dragged his mop into it, everyone having flown the moment the sickly guest began gagging. Ron applied himself to the task at hand, mopping, sponging, absorbing. He stripped the lumpy bed of its sheets and hung the mattress halfway out the window.

The party went on….

And was soon too crowded even for discomfort. Ron’s room was empty, unapproachable even with the heady aroma of Old Spice clouding the stench of illness. The line of sickies waiting to get into the bathroom grew longer than the line to get to the Hawaiian punch. The air conditioner had long ago belched out its last hint of cool air and was now choking itself to death.

One of the singing guitarists passed out on the floor in the corner, narrowing the choice of entertainment down to political protest and musical comedy.

After receiving his one hundred and seventy-ninth complaint about the heat in the apartment, Ron half-jokingly suggested that everyone strip down to their underpants.

Several people did.

After helping pass around what was left of the food, Ellenor spent the rest of the evening watching Kip. She watched as girl after girl walked up to him, seemingly casual, to engage him in conversation, and wondered why this kind of unrestrained popularity hadn’t made him more conceited. Finally, by three o’clock in the morning, Ellenor wondered if perhaps she shouldn’t go over herself, wondered if by now she might not be less nervous around him than before; wondered if she couldn’t show him her true pleasant and intelligent nature; wondered if there wasn’t just the slightest chance he might react favorably to her; wondered if her dress wasn’t too tight and didn’t make her look as overweight as she knew she was.

Sure, she decided. It could happen. He might be happy to chat with her. It was at least worth a try. What did she have to lose, besides her ego and self-esteem?

The punch had given her courage, and she decided this was as good a time as any to show him she wasn’t always tongue-tied and shy.

“Hi!” Ellenor squeezed herself between two other girls and was mortified when her salutation was suddenly followed by a most unpropitious hiccup.