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Some Enchanted Tea Time

Cabbages and Kings

The afternoon were on, and studying began to seem inevitable. The roommates were all riffling through huge dusty books, and even the telephone looked preoccupied. As I glumly eyed my collection of paperback summaries and other people's notes on political theory, the one roommate for whom I have hope leaped to his feet. He announced to the scandalized grinds that he was off to photograph Debbie Reynolds, movie star and all that. Entranced, I slipped into an Oxford button-down, seized my sketchbook, and raced off to the Hasty Pudding, where they had the red carpet rolled all the way up to the Hayes-Bickford trash cans. Presently a thirty-foot Harvard limousine with flying bridge and machine guns drew unobtrusively to the curb, and a crowd of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer publicity agents piled out and began shaking hands.

A small girl in grey got out, looked wistfully around, and was just stepping back in when an alert Pudding grecter grabbed her and began bubbling incomprehensibly in a Beacon Hill accent. Wiping bits of moisture from her face, she turned to a tramp who was lounging on the steps and cried, "Sitting around? Mercy! I thought you boys studied all the time!" She dashed in and I followed, but a policeman turned me away and I had to climb in a window. I ran around to the front door and asked the cop if I could go out, but he wouldn't let me until I said I was Eddie Fisher trying to get some fresh air. I went back in, and spied Debbie cavorting on the stage with some hula girls. From time to time she would draw her skirt up to a chalk mark four inches above her knee, cry "Mercy!" as the flashbulbs popped, and hurriedly drop it. She let me hold her silver fox wrap, and a lady from Universal-International, sensing my importance, sidled over and told me Debbie had just flown East for a few days to see Eddie Fisher. She winked and a slab of pancake makeup crashed to the floor. Waiting until my ball pen was working, she told me about Debbie's next picture for Paramount Studios, which is a thriller-diller, but I've lost my notes and I can't remember much else about it. Then Debbie walked over near us with a bunch of Puddies in tow, and I noticed her nicely tailored grey flannel dress, which fit like a soaking-wet nightgown. The lady from RKO lent me her hanky so I could wipe my chin and introduced me. Ripping out my pen, I made the accompanying sketch as she turned to another interlocuter and then asked her if I could have a few minutes alone with her. She said okay and then scampered off to the piano and sang a song which she insisted we all sing with her. We all sang dum-de-dum like we do in the Stadium, and she danced around while we sang. She's awfully cute.

I went over to a man with silver sideburns who looked like her father and asked him if I could have a few minutes alone with Debbie. But he turned out to be just another publicity agent from Republic and told me Debbie had taken a vacation to fly East and be with Eddie. "Keep it under your hat," he said, wiping his hand on my shoulder.

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