Cheat and Charmer (51 page)

Of course Dinah had much to do, and the old, aching invisibility that had stolen over her the moment Veevi came into the den was partly absorbed by the obligation to greet her guests and set them up with drinks and introductions. Some of the Laskers’ friends had already met Veevi at various parties, and some remembered her from her pictures and others from her politics. Even the comedy writers from Jake’s radio writing days on the George Joy show, who had always preferred the track and poker games to Party meetings and left-wing fund-raisers and who, like him, had moved successfully into screenwriting, producing, and directing, knew that she was, as one of them secretly remarked to himself, a “high-class broad,” with an impeccable marital pedigree (Ventura, Albrecht) that remained unblemished by the breakup with Mike. Milty Ostrow, who had attended Party meetings but had never joined, had signed a loyalty oath at Marathon and was now a much sought-after composer and arranger of movie scores, went right over to Veevi, got down on one of his knees, lifted his watery blue eyes to hers, and shrilled loudly, “You’re here? You’re actually here? This is unbelievable. Veevi Milligan’s back in town, and I can die happy now.”

Veevi, slightly embarrassed at first, laughed softly, her eyes half closing with pleasure. Saul Landau, the man who had kept a place for her on the sofa, moved closer to her, as if acknowledging that even if he could never play the fool as Ostrow just had, he would nevertheless be the first to concede that adulation to the point of hyperbole was nothing less than Genevieve’s due.

Saul, Dinah estimated, had been in love with Veevi since approximately 1935, when he had been a shy young Communist radio producer who showed up at meetings and was a weekend regular at the Venturas’ house.
He had left radio to produce movies and was blacklisted in 1948 for refusing to testify. Nowadays, he made a modest living running a charter-fishing-boat business in Trancas and a jazz club in Venice. With Dinah’s encouragement, Veevi, who had gone out to dinner with him a couple of times, had invited him to the Laskers’ tonight. He had greeted Dinah and Jake with the curtest of nods, thus indemnifying himself against the risk of moral contamination by treating them, in their own house, as if they were bellboys or elevator operators.

Dinah didn’t care what he thought of her or Jake. What mattered was that at last a man had appeared who was romantically interested in Veevi. Saul Landau was a real “candidate,” as she said to Veevi—not especially rich or talented, and hardly well-known for his achievements, but someone from the old days who adored her in the old ways; that is to say, he would gladly cut his heart out for her were she only to ask.

Other men approached. Mel Gordon, one half of the writing-producing-directing team of Gordon and Morocco, came up to welcome Veevi home and to say that he would remember her all his days as Liza, the young ward of Alice Brady in Stefan Ventura’s
Queen of Spades
. Dick Telford, the very East Coast WASP producer, came over with his chic wife, Louise, each clasping one of Veevi’s hands: they had last seen her two years ago in Paris, with Michael, and heard what had happened. Dinah saw the half-aghast, half-hilarious “what on earth are we doing here with these bumpkins in Hollywood?” look Veevi gave them—the look that managed to lift them in conspiratorial fellowship above the present moment and spirit them away to the worldly expatriate crowd that was their real milieu at the red-hot center of the earth. But Dinah recognized that trick from long ago: it was the very old and familiar arrangement of Veevi’s holding court, surrounded by admiring men and women, with Dinah herself standing invisibly by on the sidelines. The only difference was that it was now taking place in Dinah’s own house.

But that was just the way she wanted it, Dinah reminded herself. This was Veevi’s coming-out party, her debut. “We’re gonna launch you like a r-r-r-rocket to the m-m-m-moon,” she’d said in her dressing room that evening, as the two sisters had sipped Scotch on the rocks and curled their eyelashes.

Where was Jake? She wanted to find out if they were both noticing the same things. She scanned the room and discovered him seated on an ottoman, talking to Groucho and Wynn Tooling and the “winsome” and
“gamine” Maureen Tolliver, from whose puzzled expression Dinah realized she had mistaken Groucho’s gripes for insults. Tooling and Tolliver had joined again to make a new movie together and this time won Gordon and Morocco, and were probably making what Jake had referred to as a little “pre-production whoopee” while they waited for the principal photography to begin.

On the pretext of seeing whether either of the two stars needed a new drink, Dinah approached them in time to catch Jake telling a story she loved—about the time his celebrity-loving mother had come over on a Sunday and asked if he and Dinah had met anyone famous at the party they’d attended the night before. “Well, actually, Ma, I did,” Jake told her. “The playwright Lillian Hellman.” “And what was she like, darling?” Rose Lasker inquired. “When I first laid eyes on her, she was the ugliest dame I’d ever seen. But the minute she opened her mouth this really grotesque-looking little woman took on a strange fascination. She was not only magnetic, intelligent, and witty; she was intensely seductive and sexual, and before I knew it she had turned into one of the most attractive women I’ve ever seen in my life.” At this point Rose Lasker had paused, and pondered, and then remarked, “Just like Mrs. Diamond in Chicago.” Dinah watched and waited for the expected laughter, which came exactly as she knew it would.

As she moved about the warm and richly paneled room, Dinah caught snatches of conversation. Almost everyone there was a screenwriter. Norma Levine, who had been subpoenaed in 1948 and had testified and now didn’t even cast a glance at Veevi, was leading two other couples, the Copelands (he was a Bob Hope writer) and the Sussmans (producer and head writer on a comedy series about the principal of a midwestern high school), through a methodical and detailed report of changes she and her writing-partner husband, Lenny Korman, were making to the screenplay they were adapting from their last Broadway play,
Beyond the Beyond
. She saw Evelyn Morocco talking with Saul Landau, who wouldn’t take his eyes off Veevi. For her part, Veevi had come over and sat down beside Groucho, and was listening to him as he held a cigar between his fingers and whispered something that made her laugh so hard she had to wipe her eyes. Jake had insisted on inviting the Moroccos, and Evelyn had been cordial at the front door, as if the incident four years ago between her and Dinah at Mort Berman’s had never taken place. Izzie Morocco and Manny Steiner traded Harry Cohn stories with Milty Ostrow: “It’s ‘schmucks with
Underwoods,’ for Christ’s sake,” cried Ostrow in his high voice, referring to the legendary studio head’s definition of screenwriters. “Not ‘schmucks with typewriters’!” Gerry Sellers—the former Geraldine Stanhope—who had stopped acting in the mid-thirties when she married the journalist-and-Algonquin-regular-turned-screenwriter Norman Sellers, was discussing the fine points of bonsai cultivation with Anne Gordon, Mel Gordon’s wife. Audrey Sears, Jack Sears’s wife, was having an earnest discussion about Aldous Huxley’s work with Dorshka, whom Dinah had insisted upon inviting to the party, and who had known Huxley for many years.

Finally, just when Dinah was thinking she ought to tell the caterers to serve dinner, the Engels arrived.

“The goddamn phone,” Irv apologized, kissing Dinah on the cheek. “I spend my life on it. And it’s always New York, always. What a curse that three-hour difference is.”

“Where’s that beautiful sister of yours?” Anya said, offering neither her hand nor her twisted cheek in greeting.

“Come on—I’ll take you to her,” Dinah replied.

Anya spotted Veevi snugly ensconced in her corner of the sofa, her shoes on the carpet, her legs tucked up demurely beside her. “Oh, isn’t she still the eighth wonder of the world!” Anya murmured to no one in particular.

Enough of this, Dinah thought. At the same time, her fluttering heart told her how nervous she was about introducing, or, rather, reintroducing, Veevi and Irv. Don’t let this go wrong, she prayed. Taking the plunge, she said, “Vee, you remember Irv Engel—”

“I certainly hope so. I’d be crushed if you didn’t, Miss Milligan,” Irv said. He bent slightly and took Veevi’s hand. “I was a great admirer of yours when you were the youngest star on the Marathon lot, and I remain a worshiper of Stefan Ventura’s work.”

Dick Telford promptly left Veevi’s side and gallantly gestured for Irv to take his seat. Dinah, feeling her heart would simply stop, looked at Veevi, who saw her but gave no indication of her intentions. “I’ve often felt that my father did not treat him with the respect and encouragement he deserved,” said Irv, arranging himself next to Veevi. “I hope you realize that I always stood up for him and believed in him.”

She reached out her hand and smiled, enigmatically, brilliantly. “But, Irv, you know perfectly well that if Stefan were alive today you wouldn’t allow him to work at your studio.”

Dinah froze. Oh dear God, she’s going to blow it, she thought; she’s going to fuck it up right here, right now, before dinner is even served.

But Irv only put another large, fleshy hand on top of Veevi’s. “I’m afraid you’re probably right, my dear,” he said soothingly. “These are tragic times for America. And I don’t think there’s a man alive who deplores it more sincerely than I do. But tell me, how do you find us, now that you’re back?”

It was an agonizing moment. Dinah didn’t know what Veevi was going to say. Then she saw Veevi making room for Anya on the sofa, and thought she would faint with relief. Saul lit his pipe, staying proprietarily close to Veevi. Dinah wished she could get rid of him—drown him, do anything just to get him out of the way. By God, she thought, he’s useless and socially inept, with his principles and his resentments. Desperate for ammunition should things go terribly wrong, Dinah remembered how cruel Veevi had been to him; well, not to him directly, but about him. He had come out to Los Angeles from New York with a fellow named Lester Weissman (now a moderately successful director), who had also fallen for Veevi and told her in spiteful rivalry that on the train out to California, Saul had masturbated so vigorously all night, every night, that the berth above his had shaken so much that he would wake up out of a deep sleep thinking the train had derailed. One Sunday afternoon at the Malibu house, lounging by the pool and surrounded as always by admirers, Veevi had glimpsed Saul, dressed only in his bathing trunks, and said, “Oh God, here comes Landau, that mover and shaker!” Then she revealed what Lester Weissman had told her to her circle of worshipers, each of whom believed himself to be exempt from similar remarks because he, unlike the others, had a secret bond with her.

Dinah doubted that Landau had ever found out about this remark. Looking like everybody’s cliché of a college professor in his tweed jacket and leather elbow patches, corduroy trousers and sober tie, he did have a boringly kind demeanor, and from his quiet, weathered face, she knew that he would never hurt Veevi. But she also knew that Veevi didn’t think he was sexy, and that if she didn’t want sex with him she would never accept anything else he had to offer. Was he still a Communist? Well, maybe, but who cared? As long as he was there to court her sister, and behaved himself, and didn’t have a seizure of righteous indignation, he was welcome in her house. He had a drink and a pipe to puff on, but he made no attempt to talk to anyone and seemed not just content but in a state of pure bliss to be breathing the same air as Veevi.

What Veevi said in response to Irv’s question, Dinah didn’t know. Veevi had motioned to him, and then to Anya, to draw in close—excluding Saul—and was whispering something to the two of them like a child telling a naughty secret to her parents. Then both of them, Irv and Anya, threw their heads back and laughed. Dinah couldn’t help feeling that Veevi was in some way making fun of her, or her house, or the other guests.

Dinah checked her watch. It was nearly nine. The hum of steady talk had filled the den. Everyone had arrived. She motioned to the bartender and told him to let the catering crew know that dinner could be served.

“Two Jews meet on a road,” Jake began an hour and a half later. Dinner was over, and everyone had moved into the living room for coffee. “One is from Minsk and one is from Pinsk, and they compare rabbis. The one from Minsk says”—Jake spoke in an understated Yiddish accent—“ ‘You should see our rabbi. Such a learned man! Studies Torah night and day—never stops even to eat. And he’s wise, fair, and just.’ The man from Pinsk replies, ‘That’s nothing, for not only is our rabbi wise, fair, and just, but he is now ninety-two years old, and every night for the past seventy years he has had sexual intercourse with his wife.’ ‘Every night?’ says the man from Minsk. ‘Yes, every night,’ says the man from Pinsk. ‘When the clock strikes midnight, twelve angels come and pick the rabbi up out of his bed and put him on his wife, and at one o’clock in the morning one angel comes and takes him off his wife and puts him back in his bed.’ The man from Minsk asks, ‘Why does it take twelve angels to put the rabbi on his wife and only one angel to take him off?’ ‘Ah,’ the other answered. ‘The rabbi fights!’ ”