Cheat and Charmer (47 page)

“True,” said Dinah, remembering that point, after Veevi had started dancing at Marathon, when life had opened up for her and lifted her up and out, and she had left Dinah and their parents without even meaning to.

“I thought that the beauty”—Dinah noticed how she said “the beauty,” not “my beauty,” as if she were talking to a doctor, the way Jake’s mother did when she said “the limb,” “the womb,” “the foot”—“the beauty gave me so much power over people that I assumed that nothing could ever hurt me. Dumb, wasn’t it?” She turned and looked down at Dinah. “I mean, breathtakingly idiotic, don’t you think?”

“Well, no, Vee, not really,” Dinah said. “On the c-c-c-contrary. It kept you brave. Maybe you saved a lot of l-l-l-lives because of it.”

Veevi seemed not to have heard her. “I’ve got to do something about my hair,” she said, holding up one lifeless brown clump. “Jesus, look at me. Where the hell did it all go?”

Dinah said that Ken, her own hair guy, would take care of Veevi. Veevi could go with her to her next appointment. They could go to the Griffith Park Observatory afterward, have lunch somewhere. But Veevi didn’t respond. She kept trying on and taking off new outfits and looking at herself in the mirror, and rambling, “My skin is terrible … I’m too fat … I look lumpy … I’m too short. Why couldn’t I have gotten your legs? … I’d trade my face for your figure … I look like hell in this. Christ, no wonder Mike found himself some little French number.”

Dinah had an answer for every lament: “The light in here is terrible. Your skin is fine. But if you like, we’ll go to Elizabeth Arden for facials. You’ve never been too fat. Your legs are great. You have a waistline; I don’t. I’m built like a boy; you’re not. You have a really feminine figure. P-P-P-Perfect pr-pr-pr-proportions. I’m too short-waisted. Everything about you is just right. Mike’s a shitheel, and the sooner you realize that the better. You’re still beautiful; you’ll always be beautiful. Your face is sensational, Vee. There’s no one in the world as beautiful as you,” she chanted.

She heard herself conjuring up in fashion-show mumbo jumbo—the kind they had always laughed at in the old days—a wonderful life in which every item of clothing would have infinite uses.

“Now, try those bl-bl-bl-black pants on with the white shirt. You can wear it for company or just hanging around the house, and you can wear it out, too—to a c-c-c-cocktail party, or to Chasen’s.” She began exaggerating the fashion-show voice, turning it into parody: “And try on that black jacket, too. You can coordinate these ‘separates’ ”—she snickered at the word—“elegant for evening but still sporty. ’Cause, you know, we’re so fucking sporty out here you can put one outfit on in the morning, shop for groceries, pick up the kids, take a swim, have a drink, meet your husband at Ciro’s, and never have to change.”

Veevi was laughing now. “You think?” she said. She was wearing the black pants and the white shirt and black jacket. Finally, she looked good, very good, and smiled at herself in the mirror.

“Well, why not? It’s not Paris, but it’s not the asshole of the universe either, you know. You might actually meet some people you’d like out here. Including some fellas.”

“Who the hell is going to invite
me
anywhere?” She was getting back into her old blue slacks and a white silk shirt whose seams, Dinah noticed, were frayed. In Dinah’s lap, however, was a sizable haul of new outfits. She picked up each piece and looked at it and folded it on her lap, patting the accumulating pile with satisfaction.

“A lot of people. Everyone we know, to b-b-b-begin with. And then you’ll meet people on your own. Before you know it, you’ll be surrounded by worshipers and adorers, just as you’ve always been.”

“I’m not twenty, Ina, I’m not beautiful, and I’m not married to somebody famous or important,” Veevi said with bitterness.

“Veevi, you
are
beautiful. Look at yourself. You look great in that outfit. To hell with age—just forget it. What you’ve got left over is more than most girls start out with. And I promise you in two years at most you’ll be married again—to somebody terrific. Don’t forget who you are, Vee. You’re a class act, a prize. You always were and you always will be, and I could kick that son of a b-b-b-bitch Mike for making you forget it.”

Veevi made a bubby face full of doubt and fear.

After Dinah had paid for the new clothes and given instructions for the delivery of the packages, the sisters left the store and were just setting out into the late-morning Los Angeles haze to have lunch when they ran
smack-dab into Belle Pomerantz. “My God,” she screamed, nearly dropping her Dick Carroll box on the pavement. “I don’t believe it! Veevi Albrecht! Dinah Lasker! Both at the same time! How lucky can I get?”

Belle was the wife of Clement Pomerantz, one of the great songwriters of the century. After several heart attacks, he was now a semi-invalid, but they still lived in stupendous luxury on his ASCAP millions, in a fifty-room palazzo high above Sunset. Belle entertained lavishly and frequently, often for the Democratic Party, to which they were famously generous donors. The Pomerantzes had come to Hollywood in the early thirties, almost as soon as talkies appeared, after innumerable successes on Broadway, and had instantly become Hollywood aristocracy. They had great respect for the refugees, and had courted Stefan and Veevi until Stefan told Veevi how much he disliked going to their overcrowded, amorphous affairs, which were ostensibly given for good left-wing causes but served the more general purpose of feeding Belle’s insatiable appetite for social domination. She was now a stout, expensively and tastefully dressed woman in her late fifties, with a large mouth, a firm jaw, and a cap of silver hair. Dinah saw how she instantly registered the changes in Veevi and her glance shuttled inquiringly from one sister to the other. She had obviously got wind of the Albrecht breakup, and no doubt read about Dinah’s testimony, too.

“Well, honey, what brings you home?” she asked Veevi. The sisters weren’t deceived by her motherly warmth, which, they understood, concealed a raving nosiness.

“Europe began to bore me,” said Veevi, smiling. “And I began to crave the food served in my sister’s house—corn bread, lima beans, and anything that goes with ketchup. You know our grandfather was from Little Rock, don’t you, and served in the Confederacy? Seems we’re always on the wrong side, our family.” She smiled at Belle, squeezing Dinah’s arm in an uncharacteristic gesture of protective and pre-emptive complicity.

“Dinah Lasker,” said Belle, who was given to calling people by both their first and last names. “I simply have to tell you—Clem and I ran
Cousin Jonnycake
the other night, and when I say we loved it, I mean we
loved
it. Merv and Ethel Kramer were over, you know, and he said, ‘That Jake Lasker’s a major talent.’ And Clem said, ‘You can say that again,’ and you know what? He said it again: ‘Jake Lasker’s one hell of a major talent.’ ” Merv Kramer, Dinah later explained to Veevi, was the head of Coronado Pictures, one of Marathon’s major rivals and, like the Engels, part of Hollywood’s old guard.

“Oh, how nice of you to tell me,” Dinah said, beaming, though not so brightly as to let Belle think that her compliment was all that out of the ordinary. “I’ll p-p-p-pass it along to my husband.”

“You know,” Belle offered, her throat husky from cigarettes and depleted estrogen. “Looking at you beautiful girls”—she bent her head forward confidentially and fixed them with a momentous stare—“I can’t help thinking: you two could be a power in this town.”

“Oh, that’s your job, dear,” Veevi said quickly, giving Belle one of the most winning, flattering, and completely phony smiles Dinah had ever seen.

“I mean it, you know,” said Belle, clearly pleased at Veevi’s rejoinder. “You two could have this town at your feet.” She kissed Veevi on the cheek, which she stroked with her hand. “All it takes is one party—one perfect party. I know the best caterers, too, let me tell you. And I’d give you my guest list.” She twinkled.

Then she said pointedly to Veevi, “Come see me someday. We’ll have lunch and you’ll tell me all about it. And who knows—maybe I know a fellow or two you might want to meet. Though who could be good enough for you, huh? Well, not everybody out here’s a schlepper, right?” Her expression became shrewd with matchmaking possibilities. “And Clem would love to see you. It would do him good. God, how he used to talk about you. ‘Prettiest girl who ever lived,’ he’d say. ‘And so smart. Who ever thought a beautiful gentile could be so smart?’ ”

“Do send him my love,” Veevi said girlishly. Dinah realized that Clem Pomerantz was no doubt one of the enchanted suckers on whom Veevi had bestowed her favors once, and only once. Belle probably suspected it and might even have used it to get something she wanted—a great piece of jewelry, for instance, or a trip to Washington to have dinner with the Roosevelts.

The Pomerantzes had never invited the Laskers over for an intimate evening. Jake and Dinah had gone to their big parties, the ones that were held in their acres of backyard with two or three hundred people and for which they’d first had to make a sizable donation to the Democrats, but that was all.

“Well, girls, I’m off with some new shirts for Clem,” Belle announced. “I buy him two dozen every month—can you believe it? Grew up on Rivington Street and now he’s got a thousand shirts.”

“Is he still writing?” Veevi asked.

Now that, Dinah thought, shows how long my sister’s been away from Hollywood. She would have to remind her: you never ask people what they’re doing; they either have something good to tell you or they don’t. But you
never
ask.

“Nah,” Belle said, waving her hand dismissively. “We’re too rich. He talks to the stockbroker four, five times a day and the business manager another half dozen. He says somebody’s got to know where everything is. God knows I don’t. We get him up and dressed, the chauffeur takes him to Hillcrest; he has lunch with Groucho and the boys, comes home, takes a nap, we have dinner, somebody comes for bridge or a movie, we see our grandchildren—it’s a nice life. Every weekend, we drive to the Springs and the nurse takes him into the pool, and when they think I’m not looking she plays with his weenie.”

Both sisters laughed with Belle, who shrugged “Whaddya gonna do?” She had a long string of marble-size pearls around her neck, which Dinah figured must have cost somewhere between seventy-five and a hundred thousand dollars, and a square-cut sapphire nestled against her wedding band. Her red lipstick, rouge, and powder didn’t conceal the many tiny wrinkles all over her face, but there was still something soft about her full cheeks, and she was handsome in her sky-blue wool suit.

This is how she dresses when she comes into Beverly Hills, Dinah observed—as if she were walking down Fifth Avenue. Belle had the look of a woman who spent whatever she liked on herself and had stopped worrying about the results. After all, she could wake up every day and go to sleep every night secure in the knowledge that she was entirely safe and limitlessly comfortable within a world that she thoroughly understood and to which she completely belonged. Her husband was beyond the possibility of failure. He would never surprise her again with an achievement; perhaps, Dinah mused, she missed being around the ferment of work—his work. But that was a wisp of romantic regret, hardly important compared with the infinite protections of her life, or so it seemed to Dinah.

Again, Belle looked at Veevi and Dinah and shook her head. “My God, you girls could run this town. I’m serious. With your looks”—a nod to Veevi—“and your personality”—another to Dinah—“you could
enslave
this whole stinkin’ place.” She sighed at the opportunities she could feel them passing up, blew kisses, clutched her package, and, with a brief wave, marched over to a waiting Rolls and chauffeur.

The sisters went in the opposite direction, toward Wilshire, and when
they reached the stoplight and were certain that Belle Pomerantz was out of sight, they turned to each other and burst out at the same time: “ 
‘A power in this town!’ ‘A power in this town!’
Ha! Ha!” They laughed long and hard—Dinah with her machine-gun laugh, Veevi’s breathier, almost choking.

“So, look, you’ve been here over two months, Veevi. Are you ever going to tell me what happened?” Dinah said some twenty minutes later, putting down her BLT and looking fixedly at Veevi.

“Oh, all right,” said Veevi, lighting a cigarette. She leaned forward and began to talk in her whirring hummingbird way. “Mike loves Paris as long as it’s cool. Fall is good for him. He’s disciplined then. Writes for hours at a stretch. When it gets cold, though, he wants to ski, and when it’s warm, in the summer, he needs tennis. So, when was it—three years ago? Two? I was pregnant with Coco. So it was whenever that was. The Crandells and the Knights took a place together on Cap Ferrat—Hunt and Ben were working on a screenplay and they invited us down. I wanted to go, but I’d been bleeding a little and the doctor at the American Hospital told me to stay in town. Also, Claire was in school. Mike said he’d stay, but I could see he was dying to go and get that last taste of summer before the cold set in. He’d been so standoffish when we first met the Knights, a couple of years after the war. Such a snob, really.
Hacks. Pretentious hacks
, he’d say. But by now he and Ben and Hunt were inseparable. He knew, too, that Ben was as good as they come. And Ben and Hunt got Mike to do all the things they loved to do.”