Fatal Charms: And Other Tales of Today by Dominick Dunne

Author:Dominick Dunne [Dunne, Dominick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-fiction, Essays & Short Stories, Dominick Dunne
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2013-11-25T13:04:27+00:00

The Women of Palm Beach

PALM BEACH people talk about Palm Beach people constantly. It is a subject that never seems to exhaust itself, and any one of them, at any event where they are gathered, can give you an instant precis of any other one’s life. “She’s Mollie Netcher Bragno Bostwick Wilmot. She lives next to Rose Kennedy, and last year a tanker ran aground on her seawall and practically landed in her living room.” … “The man in the receiving line, third from the end, is Paul Hynsky. He’s on the town council. His father was a Russian grand duke who married Audrey Emery, Paul’s mother, and his second cousin was the last czar of Russia.” … “The lady with the long blonde hair who never misses a dance is Sue Whitmore, the Listerine heiress. She was practically born at the old Royal Poinciana Hotel. She single-handedly runs the International Red Cross Ball every year, which is the only one of the big charity parties the chic people go to.” … “There, with the deep tan and the mustache, is Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. I don’t have to tell you who he is, except that his house, for some reason, is called the Vicarage.” … “That elderly lady being helped across the dance floor by Charlie Van Rensselaer is Mary Sanford, Laddie Sanford’s widow—you know, the polo player. They call her the Queen of Palm Beach. Don’t say I called her elderly.” … “The guy with the pale pink lipstick and the plucked eyebrows and the big diamond ring in the color photograph in the window of Kohn’s on Worth Avenue is Arndt Krupp, the German munitions heir. Last year he gave a big party for the Queen of Thailand, but nobody’s seen him this year.” … “She’s Lilly McKim Pulitzer Rousseau. Everybody loves Lilly. She’s Ogden Phipps’s stepdaughter, and she used to be married to Peter Pulitzer, years before all that awful Roxanne business, and they were the most beautiful couple in Palm Beach. Now she’s married to Enrique Rousseau, one of the Cubans, and Enrique’s ex-wife is now married to Charlie Amory, who used to be married to Chessy Patcevitch. I hope you can keep all this straight.” … “That’s Bill Ylvisaker. He’s the polo group. Sundays everyone goes to Wellington for the polo.” … “The tall man sitting next to Estée Lauder is Joe Sobotka. He’s one of the better extra men down here. Sometimes you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for good extra men for these parties.” … “The beautiful redhead in the gold dress is Fern Tailer Gimble Denney, Tommy Tailer’s daughter, Edith Baker’s granddaughter, and the man she’s talking to is Alfonso Fanjul. One of the Cubans. Sugar money. Rich, rich, rich.” … “At the next table, in the T-shirt, carrying her gardening book, is C. Z. Guest, Mrs. Winston Guest, the famous gardener. She’s become rather independent down here. And sitting next to her, in the black bathing suit with the long blonde hair, is her daughter, Cornelia, who’s always in the papers.

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