Love & Mrs. Sargent Read Online Free PDF Page A

his speech right there and then to announce to the American public the untimely passing of Richard Sargent.
     
    Sheila took over agony column for late Amie Love. Jan. 1946. Made big success. Now syndicated in 946 papers. Author 3 bks. Love and Marriage (1953), Mail and Females (1955), Letters to Sheila (1958) all pub. by Boysen Berdell Associates. More than 5 million in print—counting paperback.
    Richard Jr.’s first novel, Bitter Laughter scheduled this Oct. also Berdell Ass. Want to read?
    Daughter coming out at Casino Club, Dec. this year. On Chi. Deb. Cotillion Committee.
    Pix of Sargent house in House Beautiful, Jan. ‘55. Mrs. S. listed in Who’s Who, Celebrity Register and Chi Soc. Register. Clubs: Arts Club, Saddle & Cycle, Service and Casino, of course! All Chicago. Country club—Onwentsia.
    Scandals—absolutely none.
    Rumors—3:
    She’s popping com with Howard Malvern.
    She’s dickering with TV show.
    She’s going to be voted Mother of the Year.
    All uncheckable.
     
    Peter put the memo away as Mr. Malvern came out of the men’s room. He composed his face into a sort of grim grin to match his host’s.
    “Well,” Malvern said, “all ready for the long voyage?”
    “All set.”

V.
     
    The ballroom in the Orrington fairly rocked with merriment. Sheila squinted through the smoke at the hundreds of red faces contorted with laughter, glistening with sweat. Most of the mink stoles had been thrown back. Hats had come askew. The ladies were frankly fanning themselves with their place cards.
    Sheila was hot too—even hotter up on this raised platform known as the Speakers’ Table. The public address system had developed a maniacal jibbering all its own. It’s making about as much sense as I am, Sheila thought grimly. Her feet ached in their high-heeled pumps. She felt her knees beginning to buckle and wondered idly if she might not introduce a shooting stick into her act next time.
    “Oh, but now look,” Sheila shouted into the angry public address system. “It’s getting late. It’s after three-thirty and I know you’re all busy.. . .”
    Busy! None of these women had children under voting age. They’d been busy talking to husbands concealed behind the Chicago Tribune that morning. Busy enameling their nails, over dressing and just possibly making their own beds. After the meeting they’d be busy slopping up tea or sodas at Cooley’s Cupboard and saying how adorable Sheila was. Back in their houses and apartments they’d be busy throwing a frozen meal into an oven and explaining to their husbands that they really weren’t a bit hungry.
    Sheila wondered how any one of them would cope with a day like hers. She had been up since seven. She had read the first two chapters of her son’s new novel and suggested changes. She had gone over—for the fourth time—the guest list for her daughter’s coming out party, cut out fifty-nine names, added sixteen. (She did not believe in using a “canned” debutante list.) She had dictated answers to forty-odd letters—Mondays were light days, Tuesdays were murderous—and chosen five of them for future columns. She had stated in twenty-five well-chosen words why she was against leukemia. She had conferred about dinner, told Taylor’s wife how she wanted the table set, given the most manly guest room a careful once over. She had dressed herself to the teeth and spent the past three hours in this hot,noisy room. When she got home she would have to dress herself all over again and then commence entertaining a reporter from a sinister magazine known as Worldwide Weekly. He was an unknown quantity and she would have to rearrange her personality for today and the next four days to suit his. He could be one of those relentlessly bullying reporters of the tough school; he could be a sly pansy who’d go through her drawers, her medicine chest in search of the Real Sheila; he could be. . . . Well, one thing she knew he’d be was trouble. Busy!
    The public