Man of the People

There were about a dozen girls of various sixes and shapes milling around the elevator in the Sheraton-Plaza. They all looked as if they were poured from the same mold at the same time about sixteen years ago--and they all wore variations on a formless fur-collared coat.

"When's he gonna come down, hey?" one asked a bell-hop answered. "Uses the back way."

"He's been in and out several times today,: the bell-hop answered. "Uses the back way."

I walked over to the group and asked for whom they were waiting.

"Julie", a fat one replied. "Dontcha know that Julie's upstairs? On the sixth floor."

"She means Julie LaRosa", said a thin one. She must have been able to tell I wasn't a connoisseur.

At the other end of the lobby a crowd came out of an elevator. One of the men wore a trench-coat and a hat low over his eyes. The fat girl squealed.

"Yeah hey. Kids it's JULIE." She ran down the hall. The man was with a tall, slim blonde with narrow eyes. "It's Rosemary Clooney, cried another girl.

The man and the girl paused at the bell desk. The fat girl stumbled, and fell sprawling on the floor when she was thirty feet from them. "Oh," she panted, "I'm terribly sorry. I thought you was someone else, sir." The man and the girl walked out into Copley Square.

The fat girl shuffled slowly back to her friends, rubbing her knees. "Geez, what a fool I am. That ain't Julie."

A hotel official came over to the group and asked if they would wait somewhere else. He walked away and they started to grumble.

"Some of us were here all yesterday, too," said a girl in a dirty red coat. "Every time we go up to his room, he's downstairs. Then when we get down, they tell us he's in his room."

One of the girls stationed by he stairs came running down the length of the lobby. "He's outside," she shricked. "He came out the side door."