An American Love Story (36 page)

Simon had left a five hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy. She was rich. She had known about it but she had never given it any thought, because he took care of such matters. Finding out he had cared so much about her only made her more depressed, although she was certainly glad to have the money.

His silent partner, an older man, had put his nephew Oliver in to manage the coffeehouse. Oliver was tall and thin and had just graduated from hotel school. Bambi had a meeting with him right away to see if he was smart enough.

“I’m thinking of adding liquor and a larger food menu,” Oliver said.

“No,” Bambi said firmly. “No liquor except the beer and wine we already serve. The help will steal you blind if you don’t watch out every minute. It’s too easy to water liquor. An extra case sneaks in and somebody takes it home. Or, the bartender brings in his own bottle of vodka and sells his own stock not ours, and keeps the money. And the tips. Simon taught me all the tricks. You can’t steal much with jug wine. The customers here don’t care anyway.”

“What about food?” Oliver said. “Those french fries and soggy focaccia we have now …”

“No! The more food there is the more gets stolen. If we have hamburgers, chopped meat will be walking out under somebody’s coat. More utensils mean more thievery. We are not here to furnish somebody’s apartment. It’s bad enough we have to give them coffee spoons.”

“You’re a tough woman,” Oliver said admiringly.

“I’m a smart woman. Simon was the best there is. You have a lot to live up to.”

“I know,” he said.

She let her spiky haircut grow a little so she looked softer; gamine instead of punk rocker. The Young Widow, brave sad waif. She watched Oliver until she was sure he would do everything
the way Simon had done it, and then she concentrated on her career.

She thought everything was going along normally until, six months after Oliver came in, the accountant called and told her that for the first time ever they were showing a loss.

“Who’s checking the invoices?” he asked.

“Oliver.”

“Don’t you go over anything?”

“Well, no,” Bambi said. “I hire people to do that.”

“I think you should do it,” the accountant said.

“Would you do it for me?” she asked, in her pathetic voice of The Widow. “I just can’t deal with business right now.” Or ever, she thought. I hate business, ugh.

He agreed, and two days later he called her again to tell her that while Simon was managing Simon Sez they had been purchasing a Colombian coffee they called Simon Sez Custom Blend, for three dollars a pound wholesale, but ever since Oliver had been doing the buying they were getting Jamaican Blue Mountain for twenty-four dollars a pound. Bambi confronted Oliver and screamed. She was irritable, miserable, and frightened, feeling she had betrayed Simon somehow.

“What do they teach you in hotel school anyway, you moron? You’re getting completely ripped off—there’s no such thing as real Jamaican Blue Mountain in this country, and twenty-four dollars wholesale is the most outrageously stupid buying I ever heard.”

“I thought I’d upgrade …”

“Upgrade? This is a coffeehouse, not the fucking Bel-Air Hotel! I couldn’t even taste the difference between that stuff you’ve been buying and what we always served, and besides, most of our customers drink beer.”

She called back their accountant. “I’m going to have to fire that nephew,” Bambi said.

“And then who will you hire?”

“Someone else.”

“You should try to learn the business,” he said. “You should go over the invoices, check the till every night, do what Simon did.”

“But that’s why we got a manager,” Bambi said. “I was never
meant to run the business. That was Simon’s department. I was the creative one, the artist. That’s
my
department.”

“When you run a restaurant, even a coffeehouse,” the accountant said, “the only person you can trust besides yourself is a relative.”

“Oliver is Richard’s relative and look what we got,” Bambi said.

She didn’t know what to do. And then Richard, the silent partner, the uncle, came to her and offered to buy her out for a great deal of money. “Of course you’ll still stay on,” he said. “No responsibilities, just be yourself. You’re the heart of this place. You continue to be the hostess, to sit in your booth, to mingle. And if you find you don’t want to come in, you’re free as a bird. Think about it.”

She thought. She didn’t want to learn how to be another Simon: his dead-end life had been what had precipitated all their troubles in the first place. If she had to run Simon Sez she would be stuck here forever and her dreams would be over. But she felt guilty about selling it. She had the feeling, far in the back of her mind, that she was being conned in some way, but she wasn’t sure why or how. The offered money was good, and Simon had wanted her to be taken care of. She could go on networking for her career and not have to worry anymore. Wouldn’t Simon be glad about that? They had never discussed it. He hadn’t planned to die.

She finally decided to sell out. After the brief agonizing was over the decision was a great relief. Her accountant invested her money in Treasury bills and she bought a new wardrobe of widow’s weeds. She came in every night just as before, and nobody treated her any less well. The customers didn’t even know.

Now there was a group of people in from New York to shoot a television commercial. They were staying at the Sunset Marquis and they had dropped in to Simon Sez after dinner to hang out and watch the acts. The producer of the commercial was a woman; Sally Exon, forty and really bright. She had directed and produced television too, and had just gotten a development deal at Universal. She still did the occasional commercial because she was much in demand and the money was good, but she was, she said, “phasing out.” She was exactly what Bambi wanted to be.

Bambi had been sitting in their booth, admiring and sweet. The second night Sally told her they would be filming nearby the next day and she could come to watch if she wanted. Did she want to! Bambi was there promptly at nine.

They were using someone’s real house, but they had put different furniture in the room they were using as a bedroom. The real furniture was piled up on the lawn. Clean clothes were hanging on a line under bright lights, a fan blowing them to simulate a breeze. The sheets on the bed were brand-new, even though the commercial was for a detergent. They were very expensive Ralph Lauren sheets, and there was a fashion person standing in the kitchen ironing everything so there were no wrinkles. The ideal family, who had presumably slept all night without ever moving on these pristine sheets, consisted of a perfect young dad, a perfect young mom, and a sugary blond little girl who giggled exactly the same way through take after take as she leaped in to snuggle between her parents.

Bambi had never in her life leaped into bed between her parents, much less been welcomed, and the little scene, which at first seemed ridiculous, unexpectedly gave her a lump in her throat. She wanted a big man to be happy to see her. She missed Simon. Then she put it out of her mind and concentrated on learning.

At the lunch break she cornered Sally. “Do you need an assistant? I can do anything.”

“I don’t need anybody,” Sally said. “Are you having fun?”

“Oh, yes, thank you. Can we have lunch together one day?”

“We work through lunch,” Sally said.

“Well, dinner? I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me, it’s my pleasure.”

“But I want to take you to dinner,” Bambi said, “I really do.”

Sally smiled pleasantly. “We usually go out in a group. You could hook up with us tonight if we’re not too tired to go out.”

“Great!”

Bambi went with Sally Exon and three men to an Italian restaurant, where she listened to them talking about people she didn’t know and shoots they’d been on in places she’d never seen, and she wanted desperately to have all that. She inspected Sally’s
clothes: jeans, white turtleneck T-shirt, tons of silver bracelets and rings, clean white sneakers with no laces. Maybe she should start to dress that way. She had been in mourning for a year now.

After dinner one of the men paid for everybody and refused to let Bambi contribute a cent. He said they were on an expense account. She invited them to come back to Simon Sez as her guests, but they refused, saying they were exhausted. They got up very early every morning.

“I wanted to talk to you about my career,” Bambi said to Sally in her waif voice. “You are exactly the woman I want to be. I admire you so much. I’ve been writing for years, and performing at Simon Sez, but I really want to get into production. I know I belong in TV. You could give me super advice, I know it.”

Sally looked at her silver watch. “Well, hey, it’s late. I’m fading. We’ll talk another time.”

“Tomorrow? Can I come to the set?”

“We’re not shooting tomorrow. I have to do some other things.”

“I’ll call you at the hotel,” Bambi said. “Maybe we could have a drink at the end of the day. Unless you’re open for lunch since you’re not shooting?”

“Call the hotel and we’ll see how it flows,” Sally said. “I know lunch is out.”

Bambi called the Sunset Marquis six times and left two messages. She didn’t want to appear pushy. The second message was because you could never be sure if the person really got the first one. At the end of the day she drove down to the hotel and went into the lobby with the intention of either leaving a thank-you note at the desk or running into Sally and buying her a drink. Just as she was finishing writing the note she saw Sally come in. What luck!

“Hi!” Bambi said. “I was just leaving you a note.”

“What about?”

“Here it is.” She held it out.

Sally read it quickly. “That’s sweet. Thank you.”

“Let’s have a drink.”

“I can’t. I have to take a shower and pull myself together to go out to dinner at seven.”

“With the group?” Bambi asked brightly.

“No, this is a business meeting about something else.”

“Oh.” Bambi stood there, eyes downcast, hands clenched in front of her, the picture of dejection. “I’ve never been able to get my life in order since my husband died,” she said. “I just want to learn the business, I’ll do anything, anything, be a gofer even. But I don’t know where to start.”

“Networking,” Sally said. She picked up her messages and riffled through them, sucking in her cheeks.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do.” Bambi said.

“Well, you must meet lots of people in Simon Sez.”

“I met you …”

“Oh, God.”

They stood there.

“All right,” Sally said. “Coffee at eight tomorrow morning. I’ll meet you here in the lobby. I’ll try to think about what to do with you.”

Bambi was so excited she couldn’t sleep all night. Maybe Sally would give her a job. No matter how menial it was she knew she could work her way up quickly, all she had to do was get the first step through that elusive door.

She was in the lobby promptly at eight. A minute later Sally emerged from the elevator, followed by a bellman with luggage. She tipped him and turned to Bambi. “We’ll go to the coffee shop.”

“You’re leaving,” Bambi said.

Sally smiled happily. “Yes, I’m going to Maui for a week before my next gig.” She was walking so fast Bambi had to hurry to keep up with her.

“You’re so lucky,” Bambi said. “Do you need somebody to carry your bags?”

“Sit,” Sally said, indicating a table. They sat and ordered coffee. “You said you’d done some writing,” she said. “Do you have anything you could show as a kind of resumé?”

“Lots,” Bambi said. “Do you want me to send it to you in Maui so you can read it on the beach, or wait and have it ready for you here when you come back? Unless you’re in New York … I
don’t even have your home address or number or anything.” She started rummaging through her purse for a pen. “How does a development deal work, are you going to move here when you develop things for Universal or commute or …? I guess so.”

She was so excited she was babbling. Should she give Sally the script about Simon that she’d hidden? No, it might put her in a bad light for having had a lover and destroy the mystique she’d built up about Simon after his death. And what if Sally wanted to develop
it
and then the whole world knew?

“It’s not for me,” Sally said.

“Oh. Not you? Then who?”

“You want to learn the business. I just thought of a producer who knows everything. I think he’d be willing to see you. You can call him and use my name.” Sally took a piece of paper out of her Filofax and copied a name and number from the address book.

“Is he an important producer?” Bambi asked.

“He’s definitely an important producer.”

At last, at last … “Thank you,” Bambi breathed.

Sally handed her the piece of paper. “His name is Clay Bowen.”

25

1985—NEW YORK, CALIFORNIA, PARIS

T
hat was a very happy summer for Susan. Everything was coming together; she felt fulfilled and pleased with the new maturity she was finally bringing to her writing and her conclusions. At the end of every day, when her interviews had uncovered something no one else might have gotten, when the text flowed and she knew it was good, she felt relieved and euphoric. The summer days were long, the sunsets her reward. And always there, to love and support her emotionally, was Clay with his sweet phone calls, morning and evening. “I’m doing this for us,” she kept telling him. He called it “our project.”

Every three weeks she went to California to visit him. He had hardly any food in his refrigerator and it seemed hastily bought. She always went to the supermarket the first day. It bothered her that he didn’t seem to care about himself anymore; he wasn’t taking care of himself. “My next job will be in California,” she promised him.

“No, you must do what you have to do,” he said. “I wouldn’t love you any other way.”

She sat on his small terrace in the sun, trying to read, distracted by the physical beauty of her surroundings. The sky was so blue, cloudless, the air was like syrup. The area around their apartment building was filled with tropical foliage, and large green plants grew on the terrace in terra-cotta pots. The leaves were enormous, shaped like fans. There were Spanish tiles in her shower, dark blue and golden yellow, and she thought few things were as pretty as the late afternoon sunlight striking them in a certain way as she stepped into the shower to wash off her suntan lotion and be ready for drinks and dinner with Clay.