I’m quoting Hilary. A lot of men would have been glaucous with envy at the prospect of my late supper with Lara in her Riverside Drive penthouse, but the reality of thawed quiche, wilted salad and stale croissants only would have been marginally palatable if washed down with large drafts of Veuve Clicquot or at the very least, a few pints of Watney’s Red Barrel. I got mineral water, uncarbonated. Lara’s apartment was lofty and slightly sumptuous. Florid floral arrangements graced polished mahogany bureaus, hand-woven straw placemats held down with sparkling silver service rested on a great curved glass dining table. Delicate crystal figurines danced motionless in carved shadow boxes on textured-paper walls that matched the deep-pile carpeting. The obligatory actor’s stock-in-trade of Stanislavski, Herman, Spolin, Corson and innumerable softcover playscripts filled the shelves of a tall lacquered oriental bookcase next to a beige armchair adjacent to a Lucite magazine caddy neatly stuffed with the latest numbers of Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Glamour, People, Variety and Back Stage.
