Dusk had fallen. The heavens were a deep dark blue, and as I trudged up from the subway, teetering a bit in my high heels, I could hear music streaming down West Twelfth Street. I stood for a while watching the guests arrive by limo and cab and on foot.
They would walk up the steps in twos and threes, laughing and talking, and when the door opened, light would bloom on their faces and I would recognize Shelley Winters or Mike Wallace or Jack Paar. I was nervous about going in but I had been invited, after all, so eventually I pushed my way up the stairs and into the edge of an enormous double living room just in time to see a bare- foot Marilyn Monroe, in a skintight black dress, undulating across the floor opposite Paul Newman, lithe and sinewy in khakis and a T-shirt.
When the two broke apart, there was a spatter of applause; Marilyn giggled and Newman bowed and then moved past me through the crowd to grab a beer from a bar.
Lyons was the gossip columnist for the New York Post. We posted ourselves by the bar and I reeled off the names while Lyons jotted them down on a pad. He would continue to make his rounds all over Manhattan, picking up tidbits of gossip. Before he was through around four a. Meanwhile the party continued to churn around me. My voice sounded unnaturally loud across the swarm of celebrities undulating around me. Marty turned. As I got closer, he gave a chuckle of recognition.
Then he turned to the people with him. Congratulations, Patricia Bosworth. Everybody laughed. Marty offered me a cigarette and lit it for me and I proceeded to inhale deeply and then blow a plume of smoke in the air.
