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Among the Celebrities. Besides all this, Margaret's singing has brought her a good measure of the independence that may have been its initial attraction. Her family permits her to keep a 3½-room apartment in Manhattan with her mother's secretary as companion. There, in a fashionable apartment hotel, Margaret practices her music (an hour or so each day), pays her own bills, cooks her own breakfast ("toast, coffee, milk, fruit juices and sometimes an egg"), entertains her friends, and lives her own life as far as she is able.
Secret Service men are always close, family friends in New York have been told to keep an eye on her. Blair House is on the telephone daily. But within this circumspect frame, Margaret finds more freedom than she has ever known.
Recovering from a slight cold last week, Margaret kept close to her apartment,' where she did some practicing and discussed business with her manager. She did find time, however, to join some friends at a matinee of the D'Oyly Carte's Gondoliers and an evening performance of Iolanthe. "I've been so busy humming the tunes ever since," she complained later, "that I've neglected my practice." After Iolanthe, Margaret dropped in at Sardi's.
Next to playgoing and shopping, she likes best to pay an occasional, well-chaperoned visit to Manhattan's better-known night spots. There she drinks milk or Cokes (she can no longer stand the tomato juice which was once her teetotaling tipple) and stares happily at the celebrities. She is still refreshingly unaware that most of the celebrities are staring back.
Margaret's major annoyance at the moment is the fact that the newspapers are still trying to marry her off. She is an expert dancer who has no trouble finding escorts. But so far, there is no one among all the candidates selected by the gossip columnists who has earned the right to share even a rumor with her. She is too busy with other things. "Music," says Margaret Truman, "is the real romance right now."