Is the definition of “fabulous” being in the audience at the Cafe Carlyle in New York as Debbie Reynolds performs an impersonation of Barbra Streisand, complete with wig and false nose, on the small slip of stage? It might well be.

We both wore green: Debbie had an emerald sequin gown slit to the thigh; I sported turquoise chiffon with a gold lamé motif. “It’s not easy being a superstar! I’ve never worked a room this small in my life!” Debbie’s smile is something to behold. “Do you even know who I am?” she asked a handsome 22-year-old fellow stage left.

I was sandwiched between a glut of theatre critics. A great many of the audience were women over 70, and me with the most wrinkles in the room! The garbled talk was ripe for the overhearing:

“Hey, see that young guy who walked in? He’s the hot new Broadway playwright!”

Or, “Betty Garrett: dead or alive?”

And, “Who played the mother in Mork and Mindy?”

It was almost more excitement than I could bear.That feeling characterised my recent trip to New York.

That night I was woken in the hotel by some kind of bad, tremendously loud TV movie playing in the suite above. It was 4am. The woman in the film was effing and blinding madly, shrieking over and over again, by way of punctuation: “Your behaviour is indefensible. It is indefensible.”

Then more cursing came tumbling out of her mouth, angry disappointment and bitterness in great poisonous streams echoing throughout the hotel. I have never heard the word “indefensible” used in an argument before, let alone on screen.

What kind of show is this? It must be a legal drama, I thought.

Fifteen minutes later the same bad scene was still going on. I never once heard the man. “Indefensible!” she hissed again and again, with the now familiar gun-fire of expletives. It became gradually clear to me that it wasn’t a film; it was real. What had the poor fellow done?

I thought, with alarm, if you scream at someone as loudly as that for this long, you have a good chance of being struck, so I called down to the front desk. Security was summoned.

Sleep was out of the question, so I picked up my new favourite book, an anthology of love quarrels in fiction called Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off. A DH Lawrence short story about a man and a wife and his secretary was so good it made me get up and start work on a story of my own.

On Saturday, a fellow writer gave a party for me at his apartment in a tall building named Silver Towers. An old schoolfriend picked me up for drinks en route. In the bar, a man played “How About You” on the piano and allowed me to sing with him. We ate cashews with incaution and wrote the pianist out an invitation on a cocktail napkin. Oh the glamour!

We could hardly drag ourselves away, but finally we rode a battered cab downtown. I wore a loose dress of cream muslin with black frills in odd places. “Didn’t you know it was a toga party?” I said to each person I saw.

In common with many natural hostesses I am not the best guest. I can whip up a tasty snack for 50 people in half an hour, no trouble, but I’m not altogether confident about how to proceed when not in charge. Can you put a record on if someone is giving a party for you? Can you dim the lights? Can you take a bottle from the fridge and hand it round? I know you can’t go to bed.

I heard my schoolfriend telling people about our formative years: “All the other girls in the class used to get up to no good in Hampstead Heath at weekends, but me and Susie would meet for tea and Danishes and we were so happy!”

It’s true, we were. I remember that even then this friend used the word “Danish” rather than “Danish pastry”, which is what we would have called them at home if we had mentioned them at all, which we did not. I thought her very sophisticated.

I talked to all the guests and the party started growing on me. If the scene had been happening to an acquaintance of mine, I’d have been most impressed. I was ecstatic, really, to put it mildly. All that worry had sure paid off.

susie.boyt@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/boyt