The Last Princess (21 page)

Luckily, Lily had recently hired a wonderful couple who were utterly trustworthy, and whom the children liked, so she felt she could go with Harry, but she was afraid the atmosphere in Los Angeles would make him more self-important. Her only consolation was the hope that the change of scene would bring renewed life to their marriage.

Unfortunately, despite the glorious California weather, the first couple of days Harry was almost as obsessed and unavailable as he had been when trying to finish his first novel. Sitting alongside the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Lily soon began to regret that she had come. Harry had to attend endless conferences at the studio, where debates raged hot and heavy, with constant changes demanded by the director which had to be written at once. Harry was infuriated by the need to cater to the various temperaments involved, and being the perfectionist he was, he lost all track of time. Night after night he forgot to call to tell Lily that he wouldn’t be back in time for dinner.

The first few times she understood, but after a while she could no longer excuse his selfishness and one evening she found herself in tears. She ordered a steak sandwich and a double Scotch from room service and when Harry finally came home she feigned sleep.

The next morning, sitting across from Lily at the breakfast table on their little patio, Harry said sheepishly, “I’m sorry about last night.”

“The least you could have done was call.”

“Darling, you have no idea how involved those sessions get. You lose all track of time.”

“Don’t you eat?”

“Well, we sent out for sandwiches.”

“Couldn’t you have called then?”

“I’m really sorry, Lily.”

Dammit
! she wanted to scream.
Am I so unimportant that you can simply forget I exist?

But a little voice inside her whispered that if she pushed him too far, he might respond, “If you don’t like it, you can … ,” and suddenly she didn’t want to put it to the test.

“I understand, darling,” she forced herself to say. “But I’m beginning to realize that you’re just so busy I might as well go home. After all, you came out here to work, not for a holiday. I think perhaps the sensible thing would be for me to go home. Maybe you’ll make more progress without having me here to worry about.”

Harry wasn’t sure how to respond. He had deluded himself that writing for the screen would be far less demanding than working on a novel—a few hours a day and he and Lily would be free to play. But it hadn’t turned out that way. And it was certainly better that she go home than stay and feel neglected.

Reluctantly he said, “You’re probably right, Lily. I don’t see that the situation is going to improve.”

At the station he hugged her tightly. “I’m going to miss you terribly, darling. I’ll be home the second the script is finished.”

She felt a wrenching loss as the train pulled out, but by the time she was crossing the Rockies, she found herself thinking not of Harry but of the children. How desperately she longed for them.

She had hoped that they would be home when she arrived, and would run to her with open arms, crying, “Mommy, Mommy! We missed you.” But instead the house was empty and silent. Randy was at Boy Scouts, Drew at baseball, Melissa at her ballet lesson. They didn’t come home until shortly before dinner. They kissed her perfunctorily and retreated to their bedrooms. Melissa promptly got on the phone with her girlfriends, Randy busied himself with his homework, and Drew was in the middle of a project. It seemed they needed her as little as Harry had, but at least at home she had more to do to fill the empty days.

Life settled into a reasonably settled routine until the morning two weeks later when she was sitting in bed having coffee and reading the morning paper. Turning to Hedda Hopper’s column, she read:
The newest man in town, who has all the ladies agog, is Handsome Harry, who was seen dining in the shadows with Jennifer Quinn at Chasen’s last night. From the look of things, it was like bringing Kohles to Newcastle.

Lily thought that she would die. Jennifer Quinn, that young, blonde, voluptuous starlet, newly cast in the screen version of
Archie Sanger,
and Harry? But Lily had just spoken to him last night! Even if the two of them had been spotted together, surely they could have been dining to discuss some aspect of the ongoing production. Or so Lily tried to reason. Then again, she thought, Hollywood was a seductive place, where infidelities were merely winked at. And just what was Harry doing wining and dining—for business or pleasure—when so recently he had had time only to send out for sandwiches?

In the end, Lily’s doubts and fears overcame her. She seized the phone and called the Beverly Hills Hotel. It was nine o’clock her time, six in the morning on the coast, she’d better find Harry snug in his own bed.

When she heard his sleepy voice, she could barely find strength to speak. Relief began to wash over her, but then she remembered what had prompted her call. “Harry?” she began uncertainly.

“Lily! Is something wrong?”

“I should say there is,” she said sternly, in spite of herself. “Have you seen today’s paper?”

“Of course not. I’m sleeping.”

“I think you should take a look at Hedda Hopper’s column.”

“What for? Can’t you just tell me?”

Lily sighed wearily and read him the piece.

Harry snorted a laugh. “And that’s what’s bothering you? That I had dinner with one of the actresses in our movie?”

“Yes,” she said, bitter that he refused to acknowledge this was reason to be upset.

“I’m really surprised at you, Lily. It’s just idle gossip, grist for the mill—didn’t that occur to you?”

“Frankly, no.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Lily! She’s just a little actress.”

“And I’m just your wife. When I was out there in Tinseltown, you never had time to call me, let alone take me to dinner.”

Harry’s tone was grim. “I took her out because the director asked me to.”

“So if I want to have dinner with my husband, I’m to speak to him?”

“Lily, this doesn’t sound like you. You’ve never been a jealous, suspicious wife.”

Lily sighed. Harry was right. But she was determined to see this through. “Well, I’ve never had my husband linked with a starlet in a gossip column before.”

There was a silence. Then Harry said quietly, “Lily, I’m coming home.”

Lily tried to control herself, but already she’d been pushed to her emotional limit. “You must be feeling terribly guilty to come as far as that.”

“Lily, I love you. And if I have to come to New York to tell you in person, dammit, I will!”

No sooner had she hung up than she regretted having called. Harry had never given her cause for worry. If only she’d never seen that gossip column.

Lily was still mulling all this over when Harry called back. His voice sounded conciliatory. He seemed genuinely glad to be coming home. Lily’s eyes brimmed with tears as he told her when his plane would arrive. He asked haltingly if she would meet him.

“Darling,” she said, nearly breathless, “you know I will.”

Harry couldn’t get there soon enough for Lily’s taste. She ached for him from the moment they hung up the second time to the moment his arms were flung around her.

Feeling like honeymooners, they took a suite at the Waldorf. They each felt an urgency to reaffirm their love, with no questions asked, no problems posed.

For one blissful week, they reveled in each other’s company. Harry showered Lily with attention reminiscent of their first days of courtship yet now more resplendent thanks to his hard-earned wealth. They danced until dawn, went to the theater, strolled through the city by moonlight.

But from Hollywood, the desperate telegrams and phone calls were unending. Harry was holding up production.

Lily was the one to return to reality. “Darling, I love you. And these past few days have been my happiest yet. But I know you’ve got to complete the picture. You have to go back.” Even as she said this, Lily cherished the hope that Harry could somehow complete the rest of the script at home.

They toyed with the idea of Lily returning to Hollywood with him, but Lily knew this would not be for the best. She made the excuse of the children. Harry was sorry she wouldn’t be coming, but he did understand. Lily smiled to herself ruefully. If Harry only knew: The children barely needed her.

Standing at the terminal windows, Lily felt desolate as she watched the plane become airborne. After this wonderful interlude, she could barely stand the thought of being parted from him. She finally turned away sighing, walked outside, and found her car. She sat behind the steering wheel and stared ahead of her. What was she going to do today? She could go home, but the glow of those few days had left her feeling for the first time in many years less like a mother, more like a woman.

Lily felt a sudden urge to book the first flight out, but that was impossible.

She found herself turning off on Fifty-ninth Street and veering toward Fifth Avenue. Back at the Waldorf, she gave the keys to the attendant and re-registered, asking for the same suite as before. She needed desperately to hold on to the feeling she had had here with Harry.

After the bellboy left, she looked around the sitting room, then through the open door to the bedroom, trying to recapture the events that had taken place there. But that was impossible; only Harry’s presence could do that.

She grabbed her purse and all but ran down the hall, but once out on the street her steps slowed. Aimlessly, she walked down Park, then over to Fifth, and then turned back to Madison. The shops were magnificent, and the mannequins in the window seemed to beckon to her.

Two days later, she drove back to The Meadows, with a trunk full of boxes and bags, hardly able to remember what she had bought. It was all so ridiculous, as was the total pampering of herself at Elizabeth Arden.

There was nothing wrong with a woman’s wanting to look beautiful, but this compulsive shopping spree had happened for all the wrong reasons. None of it was a substitute for a husband.

The moment Harry opened the door to his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the phone was ringing. Thinking that it might be Lily, he ran quickly to answer.

“Hello?”

It was Percy Levine,
Archie Sanger’s
director. “Harry? It’s about time you got back.”

“I’m sorry. As I told you, I had some personal business back East.”

“Well, at least you’re back now. I want you to come to dinner this evening. We’ve been having a little trouble with Jennifer. She simply refuses to work unless you’re here to write every word that comes out of her mouth. I’m going to put you next to her at the table tonight and I want you to charm her into a more reasonable frame of mind.”

“Charm her? I can’t stand her. The woman’s totally brainless.”

“Maybe, but she’s the hottest thing in britches right now, and the boss insists we use her. Since you’re the only person who will satisfy her, you’re the one to see she cooperates with us a little more than she has been.”

“The sacrifices I have to make,” he said in mock exasperation.

After spending the evening with her, he had to admit that, dim as she was, she was one of the sexiest girls he’d ever been near. And however shallow Jennifer Quinn was in person, she could project incredible depth on the screen. When Harry saw the daily rushes, he was stunned by the emotions she could evoke in her role as a southern blonde harlot: the vulnerability, the hidden sweetness, the sense of being a helpless victim. But he almost laughed at the irony of Lily’s being jealous of her—that dinner with Jennifer had been one of the most boring he had ever had.

Tonight again, as they sat together, he was struck by how utterly vacuous she was. Did she ever think about anything other than herself? The truth was that Jennifer was secretly convinced that if she could ensnare Harry, he would build up her part so that she could eclipse Ingrid Bergman. This movie could secure her place in the Hollywood pantheon.

But as they dined, her fluttering eyelashes, heaving bosom, and breathless voice had no effect on Harry; when she suggested Ciro’s, he excused himself, saying, “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m really tired from my flight.”

Jennifer was taken aback. Usually her ploys had more effect than this. She had thought Harry would jump at the chance to see more of her.

Still, she was clever enough to control her pique. Smiling sweetly, she said, “I hope we’ll get together again soon, Harry.”

He said politely, “I hope so too.”

God, was he glad to be back in his bungalow! The last thing he had wanted was to spend more time in a nightclub with Jennifer Quinn. His mind dwelt on the week he had just spent with Lily. With her was where he longed to be.

But Lily was three thousand miles away. It was no use torturing himself. To help console himself, Harry poured himself a Scotch. He took off his shirt and pants, all the while taking long swallows of his drink.

With the water running, he almost didn’t hear the knock. But then there it was again, louder. Harry slipped on a robe and pulled the sash tight around his waist and then answered the door. There stood Jennifer Quinn, wrapped in a Black Diamond mink coat, with a bottle of champagne and two glasses.

She smiled her Scarlett O’Hara smile.

Harry just stared at her. She was the last thing he’d expected to see.

He hesitated for so long that she finally laughed. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

She handed him the bottle with a coy smile. “It’s already chilled,” she purred.

Harry cleared his throat and said abruptly, “Jennifer, this is a lovely idea—but as I told you earlier, I’m really very tired tonight. I was just getting into a hot tub. Now, if you’ll just let me …”

Jennifer smiled again. “I understand. But how about just a sip of champagne? It’s sure to relax you.”

Harry tried to be diplomatic. He didn’t want to offend his head star. “Okay—maybe one glass. Just let me turn off the water before the tub overflows.”

When Harry returned to the room, he stopped short. Jennifer stood before him totally nude, except for a black, rhinestone-studded garter belt, sheer black nylons, and black high-heeled pumps.