Free The Pink Hotel by Patrick Dennis & Dorothy Erskine Page B

Mom had been a wonderful woman, she reflected, and called Room Service.
    But the trouble was that with Maume dead, Nona Westbury didn’t know any more whom to like, what to do. Mom had always told her things like that. Maume was, now, a presentable shade, a marble mother with blind eyes, eyes blind now to calculation, to the sensible bettering of one’s self.
    Mrs. Tewksberry wasn’t even refined, Mrs. Westbury thought. Mrs. Tewksberry was fat and wore that awful pink hair and told dirty stories about everybody but she was terribly important. Her sly barbs and her great, booming laugh were considered formidable indictments among people who counted. Mrs. Westbury felt that she ought to like Mrs. Tewksberry, with her own island and that armful of bracelets and her yacht—not that it was such a very big one.
    Mom could have told her what to do in a minute. Mom had had the instinct. Mom used to tell Nona whether or not to like the most impossible little girls, with no more to go on than the quality of their hair ribbons.
    If it hadn’t been for Mom, Nona didn’t suppose she would ever even have married E. J., but Mom had recognized his possibilities while he was still in knickers and time had proved her right. Nona had set herself to liking E. J., since it was the thing to do, and it hadn’t been very long before he was taking quite a lot of notice of her. When E. J. was fourteen, he had been fattish and his nose had run a lot, but now it simply frightened Nona to think of his income tax.
    Ernie, the room-service waiter, wheeled in Mrs. Westbury’s breakfast.
    Mom had seen her married to E. J. and then, her mission complete, had died. In a way, it was probably better that Mom had died. She wouldn’t have fitted in with the kind of people that E. J. knew now, but it would have been wonderful to have been able to go and see Mom sometimes, all by herself, and have Mom tell her what to do.
    Mrs. Westbury picked at her avocado. “Nasty, greasy, tasteless thing,” she said, but she supposed that she had to eat it. Everyone who counted raved about avocado so she supposed that probably it was pretty good. It was just that she couldn’t learn to like it. She thought some more about her dream. She could like Mrs. Tewksberry better, she decided, if only she could manage to see a little more of her. They had met twice and that had been that.
    And she had thought that she was going to have such a good time down here. She had some really wonderful clothes. She wore them, of course, but what good was that if no one saw them who really mattered. Mrs. Westbury finished her avocado resolutely and went to the bathroom with considerable satisfaction. Mom had been a wonderful woman.
     
    After Mrs. Westbury made up her face, she felt pretty lonely again, discouraged. It was terrible, trying to think up things to do, get through the day. At home, where she could talk to the children or go to the movies or give detailed instructions to the maid and the man, it was bad enough.
    She could go to the movies here but that wasn’t what she had come South for. She had thought that here, in Florida, she would finally meet people who really counted. Back home in Grosse Pointe she had seen herself the center of a gay, laughing group of the elect, but the nearest that she had come to gay, laughing groups had been in the bar, and they had all been at other tables.
    E. J. certainly wasn’t any fun, not that he ever had been.Although she supposed that he was having a good enough time in his own way. E. J. got up early and played golf all day and got back to the hotel just in time to dress for dinner. After that, he drank double bourbons until bedtime. Mrs. Westbury sighed. She wished that E. J. would drink Scotch instead of that old bourbon. Everyone who really belonged seemed to drink Scotch but she couldn’t get E. J. to change. He just said he didn’t like the damned stuff.
    Mrs. Westbury decided finally that she would go down and have a swim. She