An American Love Story (59 page)

I really must be desperate, he thought, as he found himself dialing Laura’s number. If she answered he didn’t even know what he wanted to say to her. But she was out. Then he realized
that she might be in East Hampton. He called her there, but the telephone rang and rang. He went back to the terrace.

Dusk was falling, the beautiful gaseous colors of polluted air, the sudden descent into velvet dark. He began to feel he had skidded off the edge of the earth, invisible, forgotten. Somewhere in the near distance was the voice of someone calling, someone answering. Then silence. A car swept down the street and was gone. For the first time Clay was overwhelmed with the realization of how lonely he really was.

He went to his dresser and opened the small drawer on the side that held his socks, all neatly rolled into balls from the laundry. On top of them was Susan’s picture, unframed, taken many years ago; his totem. He had hidden it there when it was first taken so he could look at it every day, and all through the years he always did. Nobody knew. When he had moved out of this apartment and gone to live with Bambi he had put the photo into his attaché case so it would continue to be with him all the time, and when Bambi wasn’t around he would look at it.

He took it out and held it in his hands.

An image came into his mind of the two of them, years ago, laughing and tossing pancakes against the kitchen wall. It was a moment out of time, so untypical of him that no one would have believed it. She had brought out everything in him that was playful and good. He thought she was the only person who had ever made him feel truly happy—and then it was not enough. She was the only woman he had ever really loved—and that was not enough either.

He remembered once, long ago, when he had been driving down the street he had seen a woman lying on the tarmac on a stretcher, the victim of a hit-and-run driver. The red hair and the face reminded him of Susan, and for a terrified instant he had thought it was she. He had screeched to a halt, the blood draining out of his body the way hers was; and then he had seen it was not Susan at all and he felt he had been given a second chance.

Long forgotten memories … Best kept that way. He put the picture back into the drawer.

I have no one, he thought. His heart began to pound. No matter
how often he had these anxiety attacks he never escaped the terror that he was going to die. He sat on the chair, feeling his heartbeats filling his whole chest cavity, his stomach, his head. He was in a cold sweat, unable to catch his breath without a daggerlike pain. This was different. The pain shot up his jaw, and he felt a squeezing sensation, iron hands trying to stop his monstrous thudding heart.

I’m dying, he thought; and this time he knew it was true. I’m dying, all alone.

He put his cool hand on his forehead in a gesture of benediction because there was no one else to do it.

42

1989—HOLLYWOOD

S
ince Clay and Laura had never gotten around to being legally divorced, she had to arrange his funeral. Poor Clay, she kept thinking, poor Clay. She also thought poor Nina, who had shared so little of him and known him hardly at all. She never thought poor Laura; she was much too busy working out the details, and her grief had been spent long ago. By now Clay seemed to her like a once worshiped distant relative. She was his family, so naturally she would take charge.

She got the other teachers to take over for her at the ballet school and rushed out to California. She had decided to bury him at Forest Lawn, because he really belonged in Hollywood. His secretary Penny was a great help, calling everyone in her Rolodex, and putting the announcement in the newspapers. Laura thought it would be nice to have the people who had been close to Clay get up at the funeral to say a few words, and she would have liked to ask Anwar to be a part of it, but she couldn’t find
him. They had never spoken. Perhaps he didn’t know she knew. Penny said: “
Anwar?
What do you want
him
for?” and laughed. She probably didn’t know. Laura dropped it. Everyone who cared about Clay whom they might have omitted would have read the announcements in the papers and would be there.

It was going to be a lovely funeral, a tasteful burial. It had felt very strange to be flying out to Hollywood again after all these years, as if he should be waiting for her … But of course he was.

Nina stood in the family group at the cemetery with her mother, Aunt Tanya, and Uncle Edward, and quietly moved a few steps away from them so she could be alone. The sky was bright blue, the grass bright green, and the place was very big. Under the tree where she stood it was peaceful and cool.

She had been surprised to see so few people at the funeral. Somehow she had always thought that her father’s life, which did not include her, had been richer than that. She was partly still in shock, partly in grief, and partly angry at him for dying before they resolved anything. She supposed she was still a baby to think that they ever could have. During the past few days, every once in a while without knowing it was going to happen she burst into hysterical tears, but when people tried to comfort her she pulled away. She did not want to be crying in that violent tumultuous way. He was finally gone and he had never been there and now it was too late. After a lifetime she should have learned to know better. Why had she kept expecting something to change?

All my life I loved you so much, she said to him silently, looking at the great shiny coffin that made her shudder. I only wanted you to love me too. I just wanted you to be pleased with me, to give me your approval. In a way I was always a little scared of you, waiting for you to disappoint me again and make me feel I still wasn’t good enough for anybody to love.

You drove away everybody who loved you. My mother, me, Susan … Maybe not Bambi; maybe she just left. I’ll never know. You never told me anything, and then finally when you did
I realized I didn’t know if I could believe you. I feel sorry for you, Daddy. I do.

There are so many things I can’t forgive you for. But you know something? Every time you did the slightest tiny thing to be nice to me, for that moment, until you forgot me again, I was ready to forgive you everything.

And I suppose, after a while, I still will.

Bambi looked around. So here’s the famous Forest Lawn, she thought. Our hometown graveyard. Disneyland of the dead. Celebrity mausoleums, tombstones of regular people; outside they had even passed a tourist bus. You had to keep remembering that no matter how many of life’s silent soldiers were buried here, this was a company town.

She stood by herself, her new power hair teased and sprayed and bristling with a life of its own, her expensive power suit too hot in the sun, her high heels sinking into the ground. She knew she looked like some of the most important women executives and producers in Hollywood; she had copied them.

There were Clay’s ex-wife and daughter and another couple. There, in another group, were a few men from the industry’s “good old days,” many of whom she knew. There was Penny with her husband; poor old loyal Penny, a secretary forever. And there was Susan Josephs—what luck. Bambi had a particular interest in meeting her.

At first when she had heard that Clay died she hadn’t wanted to go to the funeral, and certainly not to the cemetery. But Vaughan had said it was too bad about her old boss, and she had thought about the years they had lived together, and she had changed her mind. Besides, you never knew who was going to be there. Now she was glad she had come.

She said a silent good-bye to Clay. She didn’t feel sorry for him; nobody wanted to die, but he’d had his life. Unlike Simon, who had been much too young … But the most important thing to remember was that you had to take advantage of every minute. There really wasn’t that much time for anybody.

Susan kept trying not to think. If she could keep her mind blank and attend to what was happening she would be all right. Her friends had asked her why in the world she wanted to come to California for this anyway, and she had said lightly the famous Hollywood line: “I just want to be sure he’s really dead.” That was part of it. Perhaps that was the whole of it.

How could you not think? She felt raw inside. She had not cried a tear, as she had not cried the first time he had left her. She would never hear his voice again. She had known Clay for twenty years; when they met he was younger than she was now. At that time she had thought he had saved her life. If she could rewrite her destiny she would not want it never to have happened, even knowing how it would end.
Back to the origin of our destiny
 … She remembered the song he had sent her and her stomach turned.

She glanced at Laura. Her nemesis for so many years was just an ordinary woman, who had probably suffered as much as she had. And that was Bambi. Her true nemesis. But if Clay had not met Bambi he would have found someone else. She knew that, but looking at Bambi set her teeth on edge. Don’t let yourself think.

No, it’s all right if I think as long as I don’t let myself feel. Feel what? The minister was saying a prayer, the coffin was lowered into the ground. That was only Clay’s body, not his spirit. She could hear Nina crying. What do I feel?

I feel the deepest sadness, and an incredible lightness. Beloved Clay, I feel in the strangest way that you finally set me free.

As soon as the coffin was lowered the mourners turned to leave, heading toward their long black limousines. Suddenly Susan felt someone next to her; she turned and it was Bambi practically breathing on her. “Ms. Josephs?” Bambi said.

“Yes?”

“I’m Bambi Green. I’m with Vaughan Soskins Associates. I loved
Tiny Tombstones.
I read it twice. It would make a wonderful movie.”

“Thank you,” Susan said.

“May I call you Susan?”

“Yes.” She kept walking and Bambi trotted right along beside her.

“Susan, here’s my card, and I really want to talk to you about our company producing
Tiny Tombstones
as a three-hour movie for television. I’ve already thought about the sections I’d like to use, but of course we want to consult with you at great length. We have a deal with Universal and a great track record. How did you get here—would you like to ride back in my limo with me?”