Protestant,” Susan Gutterman explained.
“Oh, you’re of mixed blood.”
“May I bring you something to eat?” Susan Gutterman said.
“I haven’t finished my pop. We haven’t met but I know who you are,” said Mrs. Bliss, turning to a woman just then passing by. “You’re Carmen Auveristas, Tommy Auveristas’s wife.” Like all the other South Americans at the party she was a knockout, not anything like those stale cutouts and figures with their fancy guitars, big sombreros, spangled suits, and drooping mustaches thicker than paintbrushes that the Decorations Committee was always putting up for the galas on those Good Neighbor nights in the gussied-up game rooms. And not at all like the women who went about all overheated in their coarse, black, heavy mourning. Was it any wonder those galas were so poorly attended? They must have been insulted, Mrs. Ted Bliss thought. Portrayed like so many shvartzers. Sure, how would Jews like it?
“And I know who you are,” Carmen Auveristas said.
“Your husband’s very nice. Such a gentleman. He kissed my hand. Very continental. Very suave.”
“Have you met Elaine Munez?” Mrs. Auveristas asked.
“Your daughter, Louise, let me up. She tried to sell me a paper. Oh,” she told her fellow guest, the cop-and-paper-boy’s mother, “she must have called up my name on her walkie-talkie. That’s how the servant knew to give me my name tag. I was wondering about that.”
“May I bring you something to eat?” Elaine Munez said flatly.
“No, thank you,” she said. “I ate some supper before I came. I didn’t know what a spread you put on. Go, dear, it looks delicious. I wish I could eat hot spicy foods, but they give me gas. They burn my kishkas.”
The three women smiled dully and left her to stand by herself. Dorothy didn’t mind. Though she was having a ball, the strain of having to do all the talking was making her tired. She sat down in a big wing chair covered in a bright floral muslin. She was quite comfortable. Vaguely she was reminded of Sundays in Jackson Park when she and Ted and the three children had had picnics in the Japanese Gardens. In the beautiful room many of her pals from the Towers, there, like herself, in the penthouse for the first time, walked about, examining its expensive contents, trying out its furniture, accepting hors d’oeuvres from the caterers, and giggling, loosened up over highballs. Dorothy amused herself by trying to count the guests, keeping two sets of books, three—the Jews, those South Americans she recognized, and those she’d never seen before—but someone was always moving and, when she started over, she’d get all mixed up. It was a little like trying to count the number of musicians in Lawrence Welk’s band on television. The camera never stayed still long enough for her to get in all the trumpet players, trombonists, clarinet players, fiddlers, and whatnot. Sometimes a man with a saxophone would set it down and pick up something else. Then, when you threw in the singers…It could make you dizzy. Still, she was content enough.
Closing her eyes for a moment and concentrating as hard as she could—she was wearing her hearing aid; this was in the days when she owned only one—she attempted to distinguish between the English and Spanish conversations buzzing around her like flies.
Tommy Auveristas, kneeling beside her armchair, startled her.
Quite almost as much as she, bolting up, startled him, causing him to spill a little of the food from the plate he was extending toward her onto the cream Berber carpeting.
“Son of a bitch!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! It’s my fault,” Mrs. Bliss volunteered. “If we rub it with seltzer it should come out! I’ll go and get some!”
“No, no, of course not. The maid will see to it. Stay where you are.”
Mrs. Bliss pushed herself up out of the armchair.
“ Stay where you are! ” Auveristas commanded. “I said the girl would see to it. Where is the
“Oh, you’re of mixed blood.”
“May I bring you something to eat?” Susan Gutterman said.
“I haven’t finished my pop. We haven’t met but I know who you are,” said Mrs. Bliss, turning to a woman just then passing by. “You’re Carmen Auveristas, Tommy Auveristas’s wife.” Like all the other South Americans at the party she was a knockout, not anything like those stale cutouts and figures with their fancy guitars, big sombreros, spangled suits, and drooping mustaches thicker than paintbrushes that the Decorations Committee was always putting up for the galas on those Good Neighbor nights in the gussied-up game rooms. And not at all like the women who went about all overheated in their coarse, black, heavy mourning. Was it any wonder those galas were so poorly attended? They must have been insulted, Mrs. Ted Bliss thought. Portrayed like so many shvartzers. Sure, how would Jews like it?
“And I know who you are,” Carmen Auveristas said.
“Your husband’s very nice. Such a gentleman. He kissed my hand. Very continental. Very suave.”
“Have you met Elaine Munez?” Mrs. Auveristas asked.
“Your daughter, Louise, let me up. She tried to sell me a paper. Oh,” she told her fellow guest, the cop-and-paper-boy’s mother, “she must have called up my name on her walkie-talkie. That’s how the servant knew to give me my name tag. I was wondering about that.”
“May I bring you something to eat?” Elaine Munez said flatly.
“No, thank you,” she said. “I ate some supper before I came. I didn’t know what a spread you put on. Go, dear, it looks delicious. I wish I could eat hot spicy foods, but they give me gas. They burn my kishkas.”
The three women smiled dully and left her to stand by herself. Dorothy didn’t mind. Though she was having a ball, the strain of having to do all the talking was making her tired. She sat down in a big wing chair covered in a bright floral muslin. She was quite comfortable. Vaguely she was reminded of Sundays in Jackson Park when she and Ted and the three children had had picnics in the Japanese Gardens. In the beautiful room many of her pals from the Towers, there, like herself, in the penthouse for the first time, walked about, examining its expensive contents, trying out its furniture, accepting hors d’oeuvres from the caterers, and giggling, loosened up over highballs. Dorothy amused herself by trying to count the guests, keeping two sets of books, three—the Jews, those South Americans she recognized, and those she’d never seen before—but someone was always moving and, when she started over, she’d get all mixed up. It was a little like trying to count the number of musicians in Lawrence Welk’s band on television. The camera never stayed still long enough for her to get in all the trumpet players, trombonists, clarinet players, fiddlers, and whatnot. Sometimes a man with a saxophone would set it down and pick up something else. Then, when you threw in the singers…It could make you dizzy. Still, she was content enough.
Closing her eyes for a moment and concentrating as hard as she could—she was wearing her hearing aid; this was in the days when she owned only one—she attempted to distinguish between the English and Spanish conversations buzzing around her like flies.
Tommy Auveristas, kneeling beside her armchair, startled her.
Quite almost as much as she, bolting up, startled him, causing him to spill a little of the food from the plate he was extending toward her onto the cream Berber carpeting.
“Son of a bitch!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! It’s my fault,” Mrs. Bliss volunteered. “If we rub it with seltzer it should come out! I’ll go and get some!”
“No, no, of course not. The maid will see to it. Stay where you are.”
Mrs. Bliss pushed herself up out of the armchair.
“ Stay where you are! ” Auveristas commanded. “I said the girl would see to it. Where is the
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