An American Love Story (24 page)

The air was mild, the sun was shining, it was a perfect day. The guests, seventy-five of them, were sitting in little gold rented chairs on the lawn. There were flowers arranged everywhere, white and pink. The minister was standing in front of a bank of them, wearing a blue suit, and the two sets of parents were seated in the front row. There would be no giving away of the bride to the groom: they were giving themselves away to each other. Bambi and Simon had discussed walking down the aisle together, but after much soul searching of equality versus attention she had decided they should walk down separately.

Simon came first, briskly. The flute player began one of Bambi’s favorite songs, “Close to You.” And then, slowly, with measured
steps, smiling, she walked to join her husband-to-be. They faced each other, took each other’s hands, and spoke their promises.

“Bambi, you are my best friend, my lover, my partner and my soul. I will love and cherish you, take care of you, and respect your individuality.”

“Simon, you are my best friend, my lover, my partner and my soul. I will love and cherish you, take care of you, and respect your individuality.”

“Bambi, your happiness will be mine too, in all things, and I will always be open to your feelings, as I will always freely share mine with you.”

“Simon, I will always be there for you, and our minds and hearts will merge, our love grow ever deeper, and our destinies entwine for all our lives.”

“For all our lives,” he repeated.

He put the simple gold ring on her finger, and she helped him on with his. She had insisted he wear a wedding ring too: she didn’t want any girls to get the idea he was available. She looked into Simon’s eyes and he into hers and they tried not to burst into a laugh of sheer joy.

“Married …” the minister was saying.

Married!

They kissed. Simon’s lips were gentle and sexy. It felt strange to kiss in front of all those people. They touched tongues mischievously and kissed again, and finally pulled away. The flutist was playing “Hallelujah.” Bambi and Simon, holding hands, ran happily back up the aisle toward their reception, but not so quickly that she could not scrutinize the faces of the audience. There were tears; they had been touched. Some of the faces were even shiny with tears.

The wedding had been a success.

16

1979—NEW YORK AND HOLLYWOOD

F
our years had gone by, and it was going to be Clay’s forty-ninth birthday. Laura, holding fast to her decision to keep up the facade, had decided to give a big party for him in California. She thought a forty-ninth birthday celebration was better than a fiftieth; it was whimsical, fun. The message was: Enjoy the last year of your forties! He had been grumpy and nervous lately, more irritable than usual, and she thought this would help cheer him up. His birthday was in December, near Christmas, and she had been planning the party for months.

At first she had wanted to make it a surprise, but then she realized that Clay’s schedule was so unpredictable this would be impossible, so she told him when he came to New York on business. He tried to talk her out of it.

“Don’t waste money on me,” he said.

“I want to.”

“Where are you having it?”

“In California, at the Beverly Hills Hotel, your old stamping ground.”

“You don’t know how to arrange a party in California; you live here.”

“Your secretary is helping me,” Laura said, proud to be so efficient.

“Penny?”

“Yes. She has a list of all your friends and business associates, and the invitations have already been sent out so there’s nothing you can do. We’ve both been on the phone with the hotel a million times, reserving the private room, planning the menu, the wines, and I’ve even chosen the flowers. I’m coming out a week before to be sure everything is perfect. You’ll love it, and so will your friends.”

“I have no friends,” Clay said.

“That’s not what Penny’s Rolodex says.”

He lowered his head like an angry bull and glared at her. “I don’t want parties.”

“Don’t be silly.” Nothing he said or did could quell her excitement. Having a project had made her manic, and this particular one meant a great deal to her. No matter what he did with Susan Josephs, no matter if that woman was his girlfriend or not, she, Laura, was still his wife.
She
would give his birthday party,
she
would be the hostess, and the television community would see that she still had importance. No matter what Clay did behind her back, she was permanent.

A wife had power. A wife was there. And his mistress would be absent.

“Where do you think you’re going to stay in California?” Clay asked nastily. “There’s no room at my place, you won’t like it.”

Let the bitch move out, Laura thought. “It will be perfectly fine,” she said. “Penny said you have a week of business meetings in New York just before the party, so I’ll stay at your apartment and it won’t even bother you. Leave the keys to your car.”

“I have to put it in the shop for a checkup,” Clay said. “It’s an old car, it’s delicate. Have Penny rent you one.”

She was winning. She smiled at him. “You’ll see how much fun it will be,” she said.

“Just watch the drugs,” he said.

“Oh, Mr. Gracious, Mr. Charm.”

He peered at her suspiciously. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m happy,” Laura said. “It’s a condition you haven’t seen me in very often for a very long time.”

“Are you planning to put a bomb in my cake?”

She laughed.

It was true she was more erratic lately, more unpredictable. The amount of pills she was taking was larger, the combination more complicated, ever since the shock of finding out about Susan, and Nina’s attempted suicide. But Nina had been normal since then, and surprisingly undamaged; studying harder than ever, at Yale now, her first choice, majoring in psychology. Nina had said she couldn’t go to the party because she had so much work at school. Laura didn’t try to dissuade her, knowing by now it was useless to try to change Nina’s mind about anything.

A week before Clay’s birthday party Laura flew to California. It was the first time she had ever seen his apartment, the probable love nest. It was not as small as he had complained it was, and she was quite comfortable, although she knew she would have done a better job of decorating it if he had allowed her to. The sheets on his (his and Susan’s?) bed had been freshly changed, but she looked at it with revulsion. She couldn’t bring herself to sleep in it, choosing instead the comfortable couch in the den. There was ample closet space and an empty bathroom for her use.

One of the closets had a lock on it, and she wondered what he kept in it. Some of Susan’s things perhaps? But after all these years Laura had learned not to pry. It was enough victory that Susan had been temporarily banished … and maybe, just maybe, she didn’t actually live there, she only visited. When Laura had finally made Clay say something about Susan he had said that she was a platonic friend, someone he knew through business, and that he suspected she was a lesbian.

It was things like that which kept Laura off balance. Was Susan really a lesbian? Would that matter? Maybe she was a bisexual;
some men found that a turn-on. People in Hollywood were so depraved. But it didn’t matter now. This was the first time Laura had given a big party, the first time she had gone anywhere all by herself, and she was enjoying it. She even had her old ballet classes to go to. And when Clay returned for the party they would be in his apartment together. She knew he would sleep in his own room and not with her, but no one else would know. He would not be here with another woman, he would be with his wife, and everyone would be damn sure to see it.

Clay flew back the day of his birthday party. He took a tranquilizer on the plane to make him be able to walk into the apartment. A part of him wanted to strangle Laura for being such a master of bad timing. She had no idea yet what he had been doing the last two months, or in New York, but by now it was on the grapevine, and next week it would be in the trades. It was common knowledge that both of his two on-air pilots had flopped. They were too good; he was too good. But who would understand that? All they would hear, or perhaps had already heard, was that his deal with RBS was over. He was out.

He had been meeting with independent TV production companies. There was resistance. He told himself, and Susan, that people were afraid to have someone as prestigious and experienced as he was come in and compete with them; someone who would quickly rise to replace them. He had to find a company in need, or one that was stagnating, whom he could convince he was the man to save them. He blamed his few past bits of bad luck on the “chaos” at RBS, and said he didn’t want to stay with a dying mastodon; he wanted a company that was smaller, more exciting.

Now he was finally about to close a deal for his new position, and as soon as the papers were signed he would take out a big announcement in the trades.

The press release would say that he had joined Sun West, an independent TV production company. It would not say how small Sun West was. Nor would it say that Clay Bowen had accepted—had traded—a much smaller salary for a generous expense account that would enable him to keep up appearances.

Appearances were everything. You had to tough it out. No matter how well he handled this, some people were bound to say he had lost his job at RBS because he had lost his touch, and sometimes, on a sleepless night, he worried that he had. He was only forty-nine, no longer the golden boy, but not old. His problem was that he had been spoiled by such an early success.

Laura was out having her hair done for the party. He wondered whether he should tell her before the party or wait until afterward, taking the chance that no one would mention his change of employment. Laura was so unpredictable, so emotional, he didn’t know what she would do. He decided to wait.

He called Susan in New York. “How’s the monkey?”

“Okay. How are you?” She knew about his new plans. He had told her Sun West would give him more freedom to do what he wanted, and when he complained about making less money she had said that it seemed like a great deal. What did she know?

“I’m dreading tonight,” Clay said.

“I’ll be thinking of you.”

“The monkey will be with me,” he said in the voice he reserved only for her. It was the way a man spoke to his beloved child. “In my pocket, next to my heart. The monkey always goes with me.”

“The monkey will put its paw out of your pocket and grab the best hors d’oeuvres and eat them up,” she said, in the little girl voice she used for their banter. “And I’ll leave crumbs in your pocket.”

“And monkey shit.”

“Yeah.”

He chuckled, with love. “Oh, you’re a tough monkey.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re the only person who can make me laugh. I love you.”

“I love you,” Susan said.

“I’ll call you tomorrow from the office.”

“Okay …”

“Good night, sweetheart.”

“Good night …”

They both waited, reluctant to be the first to hang up. The air sang along the wires joining them together so fragilely. He could
hear her breathing. He knew she would never hang up first, so finally, reluctantly, he did. At moments like this, surrounded by burdens and fears, tired and angry, he felt she was the only good thing in his life.

Before he walked into the party with Laura, Clay took another tranquilizer. The last thing he needed was to have an anxiety attack here. The room was beautifully decorated; she had done a good job. But in that warm and tasteful room, smiling to greet him, were most of the people he had known through the years, who knew him as the powermaker, and now were gathered to see if he would even survive. He smiled at them, shook hands, turned on all his charisma. There was Henri Goujon, with that dippy actress friend of Susan’s … what was her name? Dana. She looked as if she couldn’t decide whether to keep mauling Goujon or look for the nearest pay phone to make her report on The Wife.

“So I hear you’re moving on,” Goujon said.

“Yes, yes,” Clay said jovially. “To a new and better place.” That was what you said when someone died. “You and I will do something together. I have some ideas.”

“So do I,” Goujon said. “We’ll have lunch.”

At least he had one supporter. Clay began to feel better. It was his birthday party, they wouldn’t have come if they didn’t think he was still important. He made sure to spend some time with each one of them. He still knew how to work the crowd. “Exciting … new … surprise developments … opportunity …” He looked like a man who had never been happier. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Laura, like a whirling dervish. He hoped she would stay away from the bar.

She came over then and linked her arm in his like a possessive wife. He felt as if her eighty-seven pounds were a burden made of rock. “Let me do some business,” he whispered in her ear, pretending to be affectionate, and moved away.

By the time they were ready to sit down to dinner Clay was feeling almost normal. He believed everything he had told the others, as he believed everything he said.