People Like Us by Dominick Dunne

dies.”
    “You don’t have to tell me all this, you know, Justine. I can pay the bills. I intend to pay the bills,” said Bernie.
    “Music to my ears,” said Justine. She laughed at her joke. “I’ve heard since I was five years old to beware of everyone, even the girls I went to school with, because they were only interested in the money. It’s an awful way to grow up, you know, distrusting everyone.”
    “I’m never really gonna understand people like you,” said Bernie.
    “You know something, Bernie? You’re my least suitable suitor, in terms of family and that kind of thing, but you’re also the only suitor I’ve ever had who really didn’t give a damn about the money. The things I could tell you about Jean-Claude St. Cloud, for instance, whom my mother had all picked out for me.”
    “I guess I’m just filled with middle-class values,” said Bernie.
    “More music to my ears,” answered Justine.
    “A couple of things I want to talk about, speaking of middle-class values,” said Bernie.
    “Yes?”
    “I don’t want to live in the same building your mother lives in, and, I have to tell you right now, I hate cabbage-rose chintz.”
    Justine laughed again. “Okay,” she said. “Goodbye to Fifth Avenue, and good-bye to Cora Mandell and cabbage-rose chintz. But I don’t want to live in your building either, and I don’t want the minimal look.”
    “A deal,” said Bernie.
    “One other thing, so everything’s out in the open.”
    “What’s that?”
    “I’m a spoiled girl, Bernie,” Justine said. “I adore you, worship you, in fact, can’t get enough of you, love to look at you, every part of you, but I’m not going toget up every morning to fry your eggs, over easy, when I have a perfectly good cook who can do that sort of thing far better than I can.”
    “Good. I hate to talk when I’m reading the
Times
.”
    “We’re going to get along great, Bernie.”
    “Here’s to us, kid.”
    “Want me to come over?” she asked.
    “It’s two o’clock in the morning.”
    “I know.”
    “I’m not shaved, and I stink,” he said.
    “All the better,” she answered.
    “I need a fourth for bridge,” said Lil Altemus, over the telephone. “I’ve got Matilda, and Nonie, but Loelia has backed out on me. Loelia’s always backing out on me these days, and that boring Baba Timson has an appointment with her daughter’s analyst that she won’t break. Be here at two, will you, or earlier if you want lunch. Matilda’s coming for lunch.”
    “I can’t, Mother,” said Justine.
    “Why?”
    “Just because I can’t.”
    “What am I going to do?”
    “I hear Rochelle Prud’homme has taken up bridge with a vengeance.”
    “That’s what Matilda said, but I don’t think Rochelle Prud’homme is quite right for our little group. You can’t talk freely in front of people like that.”
    “I thought you liked Rochelle Prud’homme.”
    “She does do wonderful things for charity, but this is just old friends playing bridge.”
    “It’s Matilda who got Rochelle to learn bridge.”
    “And why would Matilda do that, for heaven’s sake?”
    “Because Rochelle Prud’homme wants to play bridge with Lil Altemus and Loelia Manchester.”
    Lil listened, but as a matter of principle, she refused to show undue interest in anything Justine related,preferring to receive her information from other sources. “And why can’t you play?” she asked.
    “Because I am otherwise engaged.”
    “People are talking about you and that television announcer.”
    “I think we should talk about it, Mother.”
    “This is not at all right, you know, Justine. I’m sure he’s very nice and all that, but, darling, listen to your old mother, these things have a way of just not working.”
    “Oh, please, Mother. Don’t say listen-to-your-old-mother to me. You don’t know how hilarious that sounds coming from you.”
    “You’re just asking for trouble, Justine, with people like that.”
    “Have lunch with