One other story on the subject. One time my husband (then) and I were at a party for a writer-friend’s thirtieth birthday. She comes from one of those large, Catholic, blue-blooded New England families (let’s just say). Anyway, there were a bunch of tables set out in her livingroom, and couples were split up. My husband was hanging with a bunch of people he didn’t know, and a pretty young woman showed up late and sat down at his table. People continued to talk, and he said to her, “Hi. I’m Andrew—what’s your name?” And the table went silent. He said he knew that he had done something wrong—had committed some terrible faux pas. She paused, and then she said, “I’m Caroline.” And he realized—Doh!—she was Caroline Kennedy. I loved him for that—for his innocence and his friendliness, even though he was always self-conscious and somewhat awkward at chi-chi parties. Anyway, one is not dutchess a hundred yards from a carriage, as Wallace Stevens said (I think). Fuck em.
