An American Love Story (19 page)

“Thank you. You are a good girl. Thank you so much.”

“I have to go home now,” Bambi said, rising. His mother walked her to the door.

“And you won’t tell him about our little talk, will you? Let it just be … private.”

“Of course,” Bambi said.

Simon’s mother took Bambi’s face in her hands and kissed her on the corner of her mouth. Bambi forced a little smile and walked quickly down the street away from her, and as soon as she was out of view she wiped off the kiss and spit on the ground. You bet your ass our talk will be private, she thought.

When she walked into her own house the phone was ringing. It was Simon. “Where have you been?” he said. “I’ve been calling.”

“My mom made me go to the market. My parents are having some people for dinner tonight.”

“Then you and I will go to the library, okay?”

“Perfect,” Bambi said.

She would never tell him what his mother had told her to say. He did not belong to his mother, he belonged to her; it was settled; and they would go away to college together and live together and be special together. For the rest of their lives. Nobody else would ever get him; she would see to that.

12

1971—NEW YORK, HOLLYWOOD, LONDON, PARIS

S
usan had never been so loved in her life as she was by Clay. He acted so vulnerable, so sentimental, so dependent; the anxious suitor who knew he didn’t deserve her love because he was unworthy of her: married to someone else. When she was out he would leave not one but six messages with her answering service, who knew him by now and laughed when they said he had called yet again. Whenever he came back from California he would rush into her apartment desperately when she opened the door, his eyes wide with anxiety: he would say, “I was afraid you wouldn’t still be here,” even though she had given him a key. He brought toilet articles and placed them neatly in her medicine cabinet, asking her first, timidly, if she minded. And when he finally began using the key, finally comfortable in her apartment, he would always walk in calling her name, and when she ran to him he would glow with relief and joy.

This was the side that others never saw. There was the
public, affable Clay, displayed when they went out for drinks with his business contacts before the two of them went off alone for dinner; the Clay Bowen who was invincible. This Clay never bothered to explain Susan’s presence as his dinner companion, and no one ever questioned it. This Clay also occasionally said: “Laura and Nina are fine,” without being asked. Susan knew he was doing it to allay suspicion, but it hurt a little and she would look away.

She still refused to go on the trip to the South of France with him, so he went alone. Afterward he came back to her apartment with a large tissue paper wrapped package and laid it out on her couch. He opened it and it contained three Hermès scarves and three identically styled handbags from La Bagagerie. One bag and scarf were dark and subdued, another were vivid and chic, and the third were pale pastel. “You get first choice,” he said.

She looked at them, surprised that she didn’t feel jealous. He pushed the brightly colored scarf and bag toward her, just a fraction of an inch. “I thought that was you,” he said. “The other is …”

“For a wife.”

“Too old for you,” he said. “And the pink is nice for Nina, I thought she would like them.”

Susan thought how inappropriate these expensive presents were for such a little girl, but said nothing. She wondered what Nina would have to look forward to when she grew up. She could see what had happened; Clay had gone into the boutiques he had been told were the best, bought three of the same, and left the fashion decision to her. “These are lovely,” she said, picking up the scarf and bag he had wanted for her all along. “Thank you.”

If you had to share, you might as well be first choice.

Summer was here and he wanted her to come to visit him in California. His family was in East Hampton, and Susan could stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel with him. He could have the hotel open the door to the room that adjoined his living room. He had a private phone line with a service on it, in addition to the hotel switchboard, and Susan could be reached through the switchboard;
it would be safe. He wanted her to see the way he lived. She could see her friend Dana, wouldn’t she like that?

Yes, she did want to see Dana, and talk about what had been happening to her life. In spite of how much she loved Clay, her romance with him was so new that she still found herself dancing toward him and away again, still afraid of being hurt. Maybe when she talked to her best woman friend she could sort a few things out. She had always wanted to be independent, and yet she wanted Clay to take care of her, to be there for her. She wanted both: total freedom for her career and his unconditional love, and she wanted never to have to choose between them. He admired that she worked; he had told her to get some assignments in Los Angeles so they could be together more; and then he told her he would always love her even if she decided she never wanted to work again.

It occurred to her that she was less afraid of losing this man than she had been at the times when she had really liked a man who was free. It was Clay who was afraid of losing her. Those women she had known who waited unsuccessfully for their married lovers to leave their wives had waited in secrecy, living on scraps and promises. She knew she could never live like that, and Clay didn’t expect her to. She would never be a woman who let her real life go by while waiting for her life to begin. She went with him to California.

In the dazzling sunshine she walked around his bungalow touching things, trying to learn his secrets. The closets were filled with his suits, the summer ones and the winter ones neatly separated, ties bulging from their rotary holder, shiny shoes plumped out with brass trees. There was nothing feminine there at all. It was obviously his lair. He had his books and papers, a few personal mementos, a photo of Nina when she was much younger, a photo of Laura when she was still a dancer, the photographs half hidden by piles of scripts. There was a tape player with all the newest tapes, and a completely stocked bar. She used her bedroom for a closet, and after a few days the hotel maid stopped turning down the bed.

She invited Dana to the hotel for lunch and they sat by the
enormous pool under the palm trees and clear blue sky, and had salads brought to them by a waiter. Clay had made it clear that Susan was to sign for anything she wanted, that this was his home. It was hard to believe that only a year ago she had been fighting for her life in this same city, being betrayed by Ergil Feather, when all the time Clay Bowen had been living so near by, waiting to happen to her, to love and protect her, to be on her side.

Dana was more beautiful than ever, and people turned to look at her. She had started to work fairly regularly in television, and now had her own apartment in West Hollywood. “I play the person who dies,” Dana said. “First I was the corpse before the title, then I finally got lines before they knocked me off. I have croaked of an obscure disease on
Marcus Welby
, been shot on the
Mod Squad
, poisoned on
Mannix
, and appeared alive and sick again on
Medical Center
before my demise. They don’t seem to know I’m the same person: I’m thinking of changing my name to Lazarus.”

Susan laughed. “And you’re happy.”

“Happy? Are you crazy? I’m never happy. What would make me happy would be not to die, so I could come back somewhere as a continuing character. And I don’t even like television. This is how far I’ve sunk; I want to be a permanent fixture in an industry I don’t even want to be in. God, how I miss my old dreams about the theatre.”

“I know. We had fun in those days. Also misery.”

“You’re happy now, though,” Dana said.

“Yes. I really am.” As always, Dana was completely nonjudgmental. Clay being married had nothing to do with anything as long as Susan was okay. “And you—are you seeing anyone special?”

Dana shrugged. “I’ve been celibate for three months. It’s restful. I think the next man I fall in love with I’m going to go for the big M.”

“The big M?”

“Marriage. It’s the Seventies; I’m tired.”

Clay came back early and invited Dana to come to the bungalow for a drink with them. Susan knew he had wanted to meet her
and was pleased. He and Dana talked about people they knew in the business, and after a while she left.

“I thought she’d never go,” he said.

Susan was surprised. “I was positive you liked her.”

“She’s crazy,” he said.

“She’s not crazy, she’s funny and unique. She’s my best friend.”

“I’d rather be alone with you,” he said. He pulled her to him gently and she sat on his lap, curled up, her head on his shoulder, his arms around her. “I’m so content with you,” he said. “I just want to make you happy. We’re going to have such a wonderful life together.”

The summer weeks went by and Clay made no move to go back East to visit his wife and daughter. He would call them in the evenings, before he and Susan went out to dinner, and sometimes he held the receiver to her ear so she could hear Nina’s earnest precise little voice telling her daddy about the grown-up book she had just read, the art project she had started on her own, her latest hard-won athletic achievement. The poor little thing tries so hard, Susan thought. It’s as if she’s really doing all this to please
him.
But she said nothing.

When he listened to Nina on the phone he beamed, but when Laura began to talk to him his face changed to boredom and then to anger. It was a monologue, not a conversation, and more often than not he would end it by slamming the receiver down. The powerful unknown wife who lurked outside Susan’s dream no longer seemed so threatening.

Finally, in August, it was Susan whose conscience made her go back to New York for a visit. She had needed the hours lying in the sun with an empty mind, the swimming, the time to read, and above all the emotional rest of being with him; but in the meantime her bills were piling up unpaid, her mail unread, and now she needed to get an article assignment—for her identity as well as financial reasons. She had to reclaim her territory.

“When will you come back?” he wanted to know.

“Ten days. I’ve set up my meetings already.”

“You could have done everything on the phone,” he said.

“Not my bills.”

“You could have left checks with your parents and they could pick up the mail from your doorman.”

“Oh my God, I have to have some privacy,” Susan said. “I don’t want them going through my mail. My mother is still nagging me to give them a key.”

“You don’t know how to make plans,” Clay said.

“I know. I don’t even have enough clothes with me.”

“Buy them here.”

“You could come to New York with me,” Susan said.

He chuckled. “Oh no. Then I’ll have to visit my family in East Hampton. I can’t stand it; Laura and I always have a fight. I bought her that beautiful house there to get her as far away as possible.”

She took a nap and awoke to find Clay looking down at her tenderly. “I love to watch you sleep,” he said. “You look so sweet. We must always sleep in the same bed.” She knew that several years ago he and Laura had started sleeping in separate rooms. “You and I must always sleep in the same bed whenever we’re together,” he said again.

“I promise,” Susan said.

“I know you’re used to having your own life and I don’t want you to think I’m trying to butt in or push you around,” Clay said. “I know you have to feel free. Your work
is
you. You love it the way I love mine. Just come back soon.”

“I will.”

Her apartment at home in New York already seemed strange, as if she didn’t really live there but was only visiting. She piled everything into her ten days like a tourist: movies, theatre, friends, a haircut. She saw her parents. She had told them she was going to Hollywood to work, not mentioning Clay’s existence. How she would have liked to be able to talk about him, to bring him to them with pride, to make them satisfied at last; but they would never understand, they would be miserable and frightened for her. As usual her mother asked her if she was dating anyone seriously, and she lied and said no but she was looking.

As eager as she had been to go to New York, Susan was as eager to return to her quiet life with Clay in California. This time she
had her typewriter with her, and an assignment. She flew back and settled into their routine.

During the day they each had their own work, at the end of the day they met again and had dinner, together or with other people. Sometimes he had to go out without her, or stay at the office for a dinner meeting, and she went out with Dana, either the two of them or with some of Dana’s friends. No matter what else happened, Saturday was always Susan’s day with Clay alone. They went to brunch, walked a little through Beverly Hills, came back to the bungalow and made love all afternoon. At brunch in the restaurants she would see groups of wives, their husbands off playing tennis or doing whatever husbands liked to do, and she felt blessed that she and Clay only wanted to be together.

It was obvious that he had never used the kitchen in his bungalow. One day they bought a black iron pan with small circular indentations in it to make Swedish pancakes, along with the ingredients and a recipe book, and tried to make them. Since neither of them knew how to cook, it was a gluey disaster. Thick batter slipped over the sides of the pan, and when Clay tried to toss it as he had seen done in movies and TV, the pancakes stuck to the pan or hit the wall. The bottoms were burned and they were both covered with batter in various stages of incompletion. They couldn’t stop laughing. Finally they were eating pieces of pancake with their fingers, like children, dipping them in lingonberry jam.

“From now on we eat out,” Clay said, and they fell into each other’s arms.

Sunday was a transition day: he read scripts and prepared for the wars that would resume on Monday. Susan felt a little sad seeing their weekend pass so quickly. On those silent Sundays he always wanted her near him—even absorbed in work it was as if he had extra eyes. She would walk into the other room for a moment and when she came back he would be standing right outside the doorway. “Toll,” he would say, barring her way, and bend to kiss her. She thought it was so original and sweet, but in the back of her mind (not jealously but with curiosity) she wondered who had taught him that, or if he had thought it up himself. She didn’t ask.