music student! All I wanted was to be left alone...
music student! All I wanted was to be left alone and not to have that goddamn crown sparkling like crazy up on top of my head! I never wanted any of it! Never!" It was a great help to him, driving home after one of those visits, to remember her as the girl she had really been back then, who, as he recalled it, was nothing like the girl she portrayed as herself in those tiradesDuring the week in September of 1949 leading up to the Miss America Pageant, when she called Newark every night from the Dennis Hotel to tell him about what happened to her that day as a Miss America contestant, what radiated from her voice was sheer delight in being herselfHe'd never heard her like that before--it was almost frightening, this undisguised exulting in being where she was and who she was and what she wasSuddenly life existed rapturously and for Dawn Dwyer aloneThe surprise of this new and uncharacteristic immoderation even made him wonder if, when the week was over, she could ever again be content with Seymour LevovAnd suppose she should winWhat chance would he have against all the men who set their sights on marrying Miss America? Actors would be after herMillionaires would be after herThey'd flock to her--the new life opening up to her could attract a host of powerful new suitors and wind up excluding himNonetheless, as the gucci backpack current suitor, he was spellbound by the prospect of Dawn's winning; the more real a possibility it was, the more reasons he had to flush and perspire They would talk long distance for as long as an hour at a time--she was too excited to sleep, even though she had been on the go since breakfast, which she'd eaten in the dining room with her chaperone, just the two of them at the table, the chaperone a large local woman in a small hat, Dawn wearing her Miss New Jersey sash pinned to her suit and, on her hands, white kid gloves, tremendously expensive gloves, a present to her from Newark Maid, where the Swede was beginning his training to take over the businessAll the girls wore the same style of white kid glove, four-button in length, up over the wristDawn alone had got hers for nothing, along with a second pair of gloves--opera length, in black, Newark Maid's formal, sixteen-button kid glove (a small fortune at Saks), the table-cut workmanship as expert as anything from Italy or France--and, in addition, a third pair of gloves, above the elbow, custom made to match her evening gownThe Swede had asked Dawn for a yard of fabric the same as her gown, and a friend of the family's who did fabric gloves made them for Dawn as a courtesy to Newark MaidThree times a day, seated across from the chaperones in the small hats, the girls, chanel purses with their beautiful, nicely combed hair and neat, nice dresses and four-button gloves, attempted to have a meal, something of each course, at least, between giving autographs to all the people in the dining room who came over to gawk and to say where they were fromBecause Dawn was Miss New Jersey and the hotel guests were in New Jersey, she was the most popular girl by far, and so she had to say a kind word to everyone and smile and sign autographs and still try to get something to eat"This is what you have to do," she told him on the phone, "this is why they give you the free room When she arrived at the train station, they'd put her in a little convertible, a Nash Rambler, that had her name and her state on it, and her chaperone was in the convertible tooDawn's chaperone was the wife of a local realestate dealer, and everywhere Dawn went the chaperone was sure to go--in the car with her when she got in, and out of the car with her when she got out"She does not leave my side, SeymourYou don't see a man the whole time except the judgesYou can't even talk to oneA few boyfriends are hereBut what's the sense? The girls aren't allowed to see themThere's a book of rules so long I can hardly read through it'Members of the male sex are not permitted to talk to contestants except in the presence of their hostessesAt no time is devil wears prada chanel necklace a contestant permitted to enter a cocktail lounge or partake of an intoxicating beverageOther rules include no padding--'" The Swede laughed "Let me finish, Seymour--it just goes on and on'No one is permitted an interview with a contestant without her hostess present to protect her interests'" Not just Dawn but all the girls got the little Nash Rambler convertibles--though not to keepYou got to keep it only if you became Miss AmericaThen it would be the car from which you waved to the capacity crowd when you were driven around the edge of the field at the most famous of college football gamesThe pageant was pushing the Rambler because American Motors was one of the sponsors There had been a box of Fralinger's Original saltwater taffy in the room when she arrived, and a bouquet of roses; everybody got both, compliments of the hotel, but Dawn's roses never opened, and the rooms the girls got--at least the girls put up at Dawn's hotel--were small, ugly, and at the backBut the hotel itself, as Dawn excitedly described it, at Boardwalk and Michigan Avenue, was one of the swanky ones where every afternoon they had a proper tea with little sandwiches and croquet was played on the lawn by the paying guests, who rightly enough got the big, beautiful rooms and the ocean viewsEvery night she'd come back exhausted to the ugly ceramic chanel back room with the faded wallpaper, check to see if the roses had opened, and then phone to answer his questions about her chances She was one of four or five girls whose photographs kept appearing in the papers, and everybody said that one of these girls had to win--the New Jersey pageant people were sure they had a winner, especially when the photographs of her popped up every morning"I hate to let them down," she told him"You're not going toYou're going to win," he told her"No, this girl from Texas is going to winNot a beauty but very, very cuteI'm scared to death of herShe's from some tacky little town in Texas and she tap-dances and she's the one "Is she in the papers with you?" "AlwaysShe's one of the four or five alwaysI'm there because it's Atlantic City and I'm Miss New Jersey and the people on the boardwalk see me in my sash and they go nuts, but that happens to Miss New Jersey every yearBut Miss Texas is there in those papers, Seymour, because she's going to win Earl Wilson, the famous syndicated newspaper columnist, was one of the ten judges, and when he heard that Dawn was from Elizabeth he was reported to have said to someone at the float parade, in which Dawn had ridden along the boardwalk with two other girls on the float of her hotel, that Elizabeth's longtime mayor, Joe Brophy, was one of his chanel cambon purse friendsNo comments:
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