Naked in LA (21 page)

I never found out if she was joking.

There were thirteen onyx and marble bathrooms but just four bedrooms. I never figured out why, perhaps Mayer had a bathroom fetish. There was also a fifty-foot heated pool, and beside it, lying on a sun bed in a bikini, was Angie Dickinson. She didn’t look up from her magazine as we walked past. Judy Garland was in the pool tossing a beach ball to Cliff Robertson. They waved.

By the time we had finished the tour and got back to the house, the beach football was finished and the house was a bedlam of sweaty men, children and dogs. Pat looked horrified. One of the eight year olds was dragging a tangle of brown seaweed behind him. “Do
not
bring that mess in here!” she shouted at him and shooed him back outside. Then she pointed and shouted at Peter: “There’s shit on my white carpet!”

“Well I didn’t do it,” he said, lighting a cigarette.

“Get these dogs out of here!”

A man in shorts and an open-necked white shirt laughed and then turned his million-watt smile on me. “Hi, I’m Jack,” he said, and that was how I met the President of the United States.

Chapter 28

If there was one thing you couldn’t do with Jack Kennedy--apart from mention Marilyn--it was bore him. All through dinner he was drumming on the table with his fingertips, his foot was constantly tapping out a tattoo on the floor. He was always smiling, but his eyes were restless, never talking too long to just one person in case there was a funnier, more challenging conversation at the other end of the table.

He was constantly glancing in my direction; I was flattered, as Kim Novak and Angie Dickinson were sitting at the same table.

Bobby’s wife, Ethel, sat herself down next to me and kept up a constant stream of chatter. She wanted to know all about my latest picture and was fascinated when I told her that I played a nun.

“I was actually considering becoming a nun,” she said.

“That was after she met Bobby,” Peter said, and Jack laughed.

“Now I couldn’t be less of a nun. He keeps me so busy having kids I barely have time to say the rosary.”

Bobby smiled and shook his head.

“How many children do you have?”

“I don’t know. Jack, you’re the mathematician in the family. How many is it now?”

“Seven, I think.”

“Do you have children, Miss Montes? No, of course you don’t, what am I saying? You have glamour instead. Tell me how you got your start in the movies.”

She was irrepressible; surrounded every day by the most famous and powerful people in the world, she acted as if she herself was perennially star-struck. When I told her I was just lucky, she laughed. “Don’t you buy any of that! When men do something great, it’s skill; when a woman does it, it’s luck. Like the touchdown I scored down on the beach, right, Peter?”

“You just stood there,” Bobby said. “The ball practically hit you. You put up your hands to protect yourself.”

“You see what I mean?”

“An old friend of mine got me an audition with a film producer right out of the blue.”

“Who was the friend?”

“His name’s Reyes. Reyes Garcia.”

I saw Bobby’s eyebrow go up but he didn’t say anything.

“I don’t know him,” Pat said. “Do you know him, Jack?”

“I know a lot of people.”

“You see? He gives a politician’s answer, even to his own sister.”

“Peter tells me you’re from Cuba,” Jack said, leaning forward.

“My father owned a small nightclub in Havana. In fact I saw you there one night. It was called the Left Bank.”

“I don’t remember the club, but I’m sure I would have remembered you.”

Bobby looked over and shook his head.

“I was only eighteen then. You just stayed for one drink and then left.”

“I probably went back to my hotel for an early night,” Jack said, and there was laughter around the table at that. He turned back to me. “When did you get out?”

“Just after Batista left. My father was sick, and Reyes helped me catch a plane that night.”

“You’re no admirer of Fidel then?” Bobby said, his eyes suddenly like flint.

“He has destroyed my country. In my opinion, he shouldn’t have gotten where he is now, I think American policy in Cuba was...” Everyone stopped talking and stared at me. “...misguided.”

Jack smiled. “You mean Eisenhower.”

I nodded, avoiding the trap.

“What do you think Ike should have done?”

“I think by supporting a corrupt regime he strengthened the rebels” hand.”

“He could hardly support the communists.”

“They weren’t communists then. If I can speak frankly?”

“I thought you already were,” he said. “But please, go on.”

Beside me, Ethel stared in frank admiration. This was something new, a starlet in a tight dress who had political opinions.

“I think we’re making the same mistakes in Vietnam. By backing a corrupt president like Diem, we’re lending power to the communists, just as Eisenhower did to Castro.” There was a strained silence. I guess they all thought actresses couldn’t read newspapers or watch the late night news. The fact was I hadn’t known anything about Vietnam until Reyes gave me his grade school primer that night in the bedroom. Since then, I’d done a little research.

“You think we should pull out of Vietnam?” Jack said.

“No, but I think we should rethink our policies there before we’re thrown out.”

“Really?” And here was the President of the United States smiling at me, nodding at me. I was getting all this special attention from the most powerful man in the world and I really felt like I was something special.

“Withdraw your support for Diem before it’s too late.”

“But if we don’t support a strong president like Diem, the communists will take over. If Vietnam falls the rest of Asia will follow.”

“Cuba fell and the other Caribbean islands didn’t elect leaders with ugly beards who smoked cigars.”

He laughed at that. “Well, I don’t intend to fall between two stools like Eisenhower. We will not let the communists take over in Vietnam as they did in Cuba.”

“But...” I was about to ask him what lessons he thought America had learned from Castro, but then Pat squealed: “Peter, did you just drop cigarette ash on my carpet?”

She threw down her napkin and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray before he had the chance to protest. Jack said something and Bobby laughed. The talk turned to different things.

I had had my moment in the sun. I could feel Jack watching me with intense interest the rest of the evening. Here was something new, an actress who could argue politics as well as he could. He looked like he had just discovered the unicorn.

Chapter 29 

The next morning the telephone rang in my apartment. It was Peter Lawford. He told me Jack had enjoyed my company at the party very much and he wanted to see me again before he flew back to Washington.

For a moment I didn’t know what to say.

“Are you still there?” he said.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. Just be ready tomorrow night around eight o’clock.”

“I can’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“I have a boyfriend,” I said.

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Miss Montes, the President of the United States would like to see you tomorrow night. You don’t say no the President.”

“Who else is going to be there?” I said, but I already knew the answer. I closed my eyes and saw the two-dozen red roses in Marilyn’s dressing room.

“Is that important?”

“Please thank him for the invitation. But I can’t.”

Another stunned silence. “Well, I don’t know what Jack will think about this, Madeleine. He’ll be very disappointed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I want you to think this through. This could be very important to your career, you do know that?”

“You mean he could hurt my career?”

“No, I mean he could transform it. You know that English writer, Fleming? When Jack told
Life
magazine that
From Russia with Love
was his favourite book, he became the best selling crime writer in the whole of the United States practically overnight. He could do the same for your career. One word from Jack and the world is yours.”

Here I was, about to climb into bed with Angel again. But I told myself that this time I was going to be better than that. “I can’t do it, Peter.”

“I can’t tell Jack you said no. Think about it. I’ll call you back.” He hung up.

“Peter called me this morning,” Ted said to me. “He says he’s having a hard time getting hold of you.”

It was twenty-four hours later and we were sitting in his favourite booth in Chasen’s

“That’s your third
mojito
. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Ted raised his eyes to the heavens:
well if you say so.

“What’s Lawford doing calling you? You’re not his agent.”

“No, dear heart, I’m yours.”

“So does he have a part for me?”

“No, but I think his brother-in-law does,” he said. It was the first time Ted had ever said anything lewd. I was shocked.

“I’m an actress not a hooker.”

“Oh, come on,” he said, apparently amused.

“You want me to sleep my way to the top?”

“Well, it’s the easiest way. Otherwise you have to rely on your acting or your singing. I’m not saying you can’t do both, but dear heart, there’s nothing as common as talent in this town. Bet on a level playing field and anyone can win.”

I ordered another drink.

“Steady,” he said.

“The answer’s still no.”

“Listen to me, sweetness, I got a call a couple of days ago from Sinatra’s people. He’s looking for a leading lady for his new film. He’s going to produce so he has the final say. Now do you want to be a star or don’t you?”