Myra-Breckinridge-Gore-Vidal

always happy when people resort to the storehouse ofmovie myth in order to create for themselves attractivepersonas. I was not prepared, however, for her nextobservation. "There is really only one talented student inany of my classes and that is a girl called Mary-AnnPringle." I sat up, almost spilling the dregs of my coffee.Had I missed a trick? "But I know the girl. I have her inPosture. She is a complete nothing." "Except," said BlackBeauty, "for her connection with Rusty Godowsky. I havehim in Atavistic Rhythm, and I am here to tell you that thatofay boy has really got sex appeal in spades!" (All in all, nota happy figure of speech, I thought.) "I know what he's got," Isaid too quickly, and not quite accurately. "Then you knowhe is absolutely total man, or, as we in Bahai believe...""What," I turned to Miss Cluff, drowning out Mother Africa,"is so talented about Mary-Ann Pringle?" "Her voice! It isthe pure, the white bel canto. Untrained, of course, like asmudged diamond, but a jewel no less. She could be a starof the same magnitude "Kathryn Grayson?" Miss Cluff istoo young to know from experience the Forties and too selfabsorbedto attend films seriously. For her the movies aresimply a pretext for getting girls onto the back seat of hersecondhand Oldsmobile. "She could... she must singopera." But Darkness at Noon saw, perhaps rightly, anotherfate for Mary-Ann. "As long as that young man wants hershe won't have a career. And from what I've seen of himthese last two years, he shows no sign of losing interest.Every girl in Atavistic Rhythm has made a play for Rusty,and no dice." Miss Cluff looked grim. "Women's rights are