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Dinner is a cozy affair, with crab soufflé, lamb, two wines, crêpes, champagne. Bishop tinkles his glass and affectionately tells everyone how Muni had set the world record in attending schools no one had ever heard of. Like many a deb before her, Mimi is not obsessed with academe. She favors tennis, jogging and "a lot of needlepoint." She spent a year at a school high enough in the Swiss Alps to ensure that everyone majored in skiing, and she also attended Alfred University in upstate New York, where she had heard that they had a great ceramics department. "I used to do a lot of pottery," she explains. For the moment, she's a full-time deb.
Mimi and her parents dash out of the dining room before the champagne is gone to get into the receiving line. Mal Fitch and his twelve-piece band, fixtures on the Dallas debutante scene, strike up some Glenn Miller. The guests snake out of the ballroom, through the foyer, to the front door, where fleets of limousines are still depositing the newly arrived. The men emerge crisp in white or black tie; the women are elegant in gowns of every description, occasionally worn under the pelt of some endangered species.
Mimi's ball is a slam dunk affair, with two bands, countless bars, and tables groaning under mountains of pâté, strawberries and cheese. All this is matched by ample dollops of gossip and boredom. Was this bigger than last week's ball? What about the decorations? Where did that dress come from? What do you think this cost? And where in God's name did Mimi get those rubies? "I think they went through the telephone directory," complains one older gentleman, unhappy at the size of the ball. "I could invite anyone I wanted, and I did," a radiant Mimi says. "It's wonderful, beautiful." That is what her mother thinks too. "I'm having a ball at my ball," she booms again and again.
Coming-out parties are like weddings: parents seem to enjoy them as much as their children. "It's the one time of year when wives spend their husbands' money, and the men can't complain," Mr. Martin explains. And the bills are not inconsequential. Estimates vary wildly, but a first-class debutante ball starts at close to $50,000 and can run into hundreds of thousands. Some fathers take it better than others. Tom England, whose daughter Kyle, 22, made her debut a week before Mimi, has a secret survival tactic: "Drink a lot and nap a lot."
The decibel level rises as the evening goes on. Young stags huddle around the bars, looking steadily more glassy-eyed. Older couples float around the room in time-polished two-step, while the younger couples try to avoid each other's toes. But when Cole Porter gives way to rock 'n' roll, it is the older group that looks a tad silly dusting off their versions of the jitterbug, while the baby boomers twitch admirably to the new music.