The Girl in White Gloves

by Kerri Maher

  “Well,” said Grace, heaving an enormous sigh that cleared her lungs, “that I can help you with. I’ll give you an exclusive interview, a look into my real life, in exchange for this great favor to me. I want people to read your book!”

  Grace felt triumphant by the end of her two hours with Gwen. So encouraged and euphoric, in fact, that she decided to fill Rainier in on all the details the following night, on his return to Monaco. So after dinner, when he said he wanted to take a walk in his zoo, she volunteered to go with him.

  He eyed her suspiciously, since she hadn’t gone willingly into the zoo for years, but he didn’t stand in the way of her coming. In the soft tangerine twilight, Rainier pointed to this macaw and that tamarin, and Grace feigned interest, just as she had early in their marriage; at least then, she’d wanted to be interested; now it was harder to pretend. As they strolled slowly toward the exit of the zoo, she said, “Guess who I had tea with yesterday.”

  And she told Rainier all about Gwen and the biography, feeling proud of herself and thus open about all the details. But she was discouraged not to see Rainier smiling as she continued with her story.

  “How do we know we can trust her?” he asked when Grace had finished. He’d stopped walking, and so she did, too.

  “I can tell,” Grace said.

  “Women’s intuition,” he remarked derisively, looking from Grace back out into the jungle leaves and water surrounding his hippos.

  Something in Grace snapped, like a guitar string that had been overplayed. “You think all your precious animals have anything other than intuition, Rainier? You accord them more respect than you do me, your own wife.”

  He sighed, sounding so unbelievably long-suffering. She couldn’t stand it. “Fine,” he said reluctantly. “If you trust her, I am willing to play along.”

  And if I’m wrong . . . Well, I’m just not going to think about that.

  With that thought, something inside Grace shifted. It felt a bit like her old confidence, the daring that had led her to the Academy, to Hollywood and Jamaica, and even to Monaco. Was this what Maree had been talking about? Could you be more than Princess of Monaco? Could the woman she’d been, whom she’d been ignoring so long, remake herself once more?

  Chapter 20

  1955

  The pictures Howell Conant had taken of her couldn’t come out fast enough, but Collier’s had delayed their publication until June. When she returned from Jamaica to her spacious, newly decorated New York apartment on Fifth Avenue, Grace couldn’t believe how lonely she felt despite the many bouquets of flowers in every room, all sent by Oleg in apology for the jealous tirade she’d been mulling over for weeks. Oliver trotted up to her and licked her ankles, and she sat down on one of the fine Persian carpets, leaning against a velvet sofa and fondling his soft ears, kissing the top of his curly head. She surveyed the room, all richly colored and textured choices befitting a movie star, which her decorator had assured her that magazine editors all over would want to photograph. Oliver sat on her outstretched legs and enjoyed the affection. “I missed you, too, sweet boy,” said Grace, feeling tears rush to her eyes. What did it mean that she’d missed her dog more than any person in New York?

  Her phone began to ring, on receivers in no fewer than four rooms—she couldn’t ever remember how many telephones she now had. Fearing it was Oleg, she let her maid answer it, and a minute later, Greta came in to quietly announce that Edith Head was on the phone for her.

  Gratefully, Grace picked up the receiver, then held it between her ear and shoulder while she continued to pet Oliver. “I’m so glad it’s you,” she said to Edith.

  “Dore is a bastard,” said Edith. “I heard they won’t even dress you for the Oscars.”

  Grace sighed. “Yes, well, they’ve put me on suspension.”

  “Because you’re doing good movies instead of the trash they send you?” Edith muttered a few choice epithets, then said, “It’s a good thing my sewing machine is off-site, then. And I have a perfect dress for you.”

  Grace almost didn’t trust herself to speak. “Oh, Edith,” she choked out. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t let them get to you, Grace. You’ve been very strong. When you win the award for a movie they nearly didn’t let you do, they’ll have to eat their contract.”

  “I’m not going to win, Edith,” said Grace. “Judy’s going to win. Everyone knows that.”

  “You never know in this town, Grace. You never know. Look at Audrey, who won last year for Roman Holiday, and Georgie Elgin’s a far more impressive role than a princess. Listen. The big night’s in just a week. When can you get here?”

  Bolstered by Edith’s friendship, Grace kept Oliver on her lap while she called for plane reservations, then rang some friends, inviting them over for a dinner party in her new place before heading west. She’d need a party after her next engagement: meeting Oleg at Bemelmans Bar that night.

  Even the cheerful murals of Madeline’s creator couldn’t do anything to lift her spirits, though. She and Oleg sat across from each other at a corner table, and she said, “I thought and thought while I was away, and I just can’t do this anymore.”

  Oleg rubbed his lips together, then thrust out his lower lip and blew air upward. Then he took out his silver cigarette case and lit one and took a drag before responding, “I made you the dress.”

  Instantly, her eyes were blurry with tears. “I can’t wear it. . . . It would make me too sad,” she whispered hoarsely, thanking heaven again for Edith, the only other designer whose dress could possibly take her mind off Oleg’s.

  As if experiencing a sudden jolt of inspiration, Oleg stubbed out his cigarette and said, “Then don’t be sad. Be happy, with me. I love you, Grace.”

  “I know that, Oleg,” she said, her resolve tightening in her chest. She didn’t want to remind him of the real reasons this was happening, because she didn’t want to go over it all again. The fact that she was true to him, that she’d never so much as looked at another man since committing to him in France, hadn’t mattered to him—not enough, anyway. She might have been with other men in the past, but she’d chosen each and every one of them, and she’d been faithful to them while she was with them. She hadn’t let her own father make her feel bad about the choices she’d made, so she wasn’t about to let Oleg Cassini.

  “I hate to think of you with someone your parents might choose for you,” Oleg went on, “the sort of man who’d make you give up your career to be barefoot and pregnant, wearing a frumpy apron.”

  Grace laughed. “I’d never agree to that, Oleg. You must know me better than that.”

  “That’s the problem, Grace—I know you too well.”

  Grace simmered silently in her seat. Where was her damn drink?

  Ah, there it was. As soon as the waiter left, she took a long sip of the tequila on ice she’d ordered, thinking of Katy Jurado. What was it the other actress had said to her about the difference between being hard and being strong? Grace couldn’t remember, but ordering the tequila made her feel both, and that was what she needed tonight.

  “Who is going to dress you for the awards? Edith, I assume?”

  That’s it, Grace thought, as if she even needed reminding. That’s why this is ending. Oleg couldn’t stand Edith’s presence in her life any more than he could her male costars or her romantic past. He wanted to be the only one who had dressed her and bedded her, ever.

  “I’m not your doll, Oleg,” Grace said.

  Oleg lit a new cigarette and inhaled deeply. “True enough. You’re not my doll,” he said at last. “And I hope you’ll never be anyone else’s, either.”

  Just as she opened her mouth to say that his jealousy knew no bounds, he put up a finger to stop her, and added, “Not because I want you to myself—although I do, that’s now beside the point—but because in spite of myself, I admire you, Grace. It pains me to no end
that you won’t be wearing my dress on March thirtieth, but I respect your reasons. And the reasons behind your reasons, even if you don’t even realize what all those are.”

  This response, which Grace felt to be both a dignified admission of loss and an infuriatingly patronizing put-down, reminded Grace of Jeff Jefferies in Rear Window. And Bernie Dodd in The Country Girl. Hell, he reminded Grace of most of the lead male characters in most of the movies she’d been in or seen her whole life. Surely there was something better out there.

  Not wanting to have the same old argument with this man to whom she had devoted her heart for more than a year, whom she still loved in spite of it all, Grace plastered a sad smile onto her face and replied, “Thank you, Oleg.” She couldn’t wait to get home to Oliver, to sit on the kitchen floor with him on her lap while her heart bled from all the places it was broken. But she ordered a second drink and made strained small talk about Oleg’s summer line, before both of them bade each other adieu with Continental kisses and glassy eyes, almost as if they’d never been anything more than close friends.

  * * *

  The sunshine and routines of life in Los Angeles began to stitch together her shattered heart. There were hours in New York when she had to leave her apartment and walk Oliver just to avoid picking up the phone and calling Oleg. It wouldn’t do any good, she kept telling herself. After an initial rush of relief and romance—both of which she craved like a woman dying of thirst craved water—getting back together would only land the two of them in the same unhappy positions.

  Sunglasses on, Grace took time to have a few meals with her favorite people and take long swims in the sparkling teal water of the Chateau’s pool. She was feeling happy and even excited when she arrived for her fitting with Edith, but the carnation-pink dress the designer had set aside for her was strangely garish. “I can’t believe it,” said Edith, standing back and observing Grace in amazed frustration.

  “This would be better on Rita,” agreed Grace, panic rising in her throat. “But what am I going to wear, then?”

  “The blue dress,” said Edith without hesitation.

  “The duchess satin one I wore to the premiere?” Grace asked. She loved that gown. It was probably her favorite of Edith’s fairy-godmother concoctions.

  “Wear it with these,” said Edith, handing Grace opera-length white gloves. “And those drop pearl earrings of yours. No necklace,” she said, tapping her lips with a pen. “We want to show off those milky shoulders and collarbones. And we’ll sweep your hair up and back.”

  “Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo,” said Grace.

  Edith frowned. “Do you think that sugarplum grew up eating pickled herring and bagels for breakfast? I doubt it very much.”

  “Magic is magic, Edith,” said Grace.

  Edith pointed a bony finger at Grace and said, “No parties before the big night. Drink plenty of fresh-squeezed orange juice and water. Get some sleep. You look like you need it. Is everything okay?”

  “Oleg and I are done,” Grace said glumly, suddenly aware of her tender heart.

  “Good,” said Edith, who was on her second marriage, to Wiard Ihnen, and had never cared for Oleg. “You weren’t his muse, and yet he was possessive of you.” Tutting with her tongue, Edith shook her head. “Let him find another girl to dress. Someone more compliant.”

  “Will I ever find someone who will understand me, Edith?”

  “Perhaps,” she said cautiously, and Grace could hear the doubt in the designer’s voice. “But first you must understand yourself.”

  “I do,” Grace insisted.

  Edith ran her right hand gently up and down Grace’s left arm. “You’re too young to really understand,” she said kindly. “But don’t worry about any of that now. Sleep and juice. That’s all you need for the next two days.” Grace tried to take Edith’s advice, adding in a few more swims and a long walk through the hills, plus a steak-and-salad dinner at Musso & Frank with Rita.

  “We’re eating with the blue hairs,” complained Rita.

  “Six in the evening is a perfectly reasonable time to eat dinner,” said Grace, cutting herself a bite of tenderloin.

  “If you’re sixty,” said Rita, pushing salad around on her plate.

  “I have to get to bed early tonight,” said Grace. “I don’t want to look a fright tomorrow.”

  “You could never look a fright, Grace,” said Rita.

  “Be real, Rita.”

  “All right, all right,” Rita said. “I can’t believe Judy’s not even going to be there,” she said. “What a badly timed baby.”

  “I heard there’s going to be a whole camera crew in her hospital room,” said Grace. “Can you imagine? How awful. I’d rather just issue a statement after the fact if I couldn’t float down the aisle in one of Edith’s designs.”

  “Maybe she’s trying to show she’s a real person, not always a fashion plate,” said Rita.

  Grace gave her friend a you know better than that look.

  “What? I try to give people credit,” said Rita. “Besides, I feel bad for her. She’s had a tough time of it.”

  “She has,” agreed Grace. “Do you think Judy’s problem was her early fame? Or would she have been troubled no matter what life she found herself in?”

  “Destiny or free will? I always come down on the side of free will,” said Rita.

  “I’m not so sure,” said Grace, thinking about her parents. They had made her of themselves, from their own clay. But they had also raised her. It was hard to untangle the two.

  Grace yawned.

  “Maybe you should get to bed now,” her friend observed. “Sometimes the moment passes me by, and even though I could have hit the pillow before eight, I wind up awake at midnight.”

  “Good idea,” said Grace, yawning again and covering her mouth with the back of her hand, feeling completely exhausted.

  When she lay in bed, however, she couldn’t sleep, puzzling over the unanswered questions from her conversations with Edith and Rita. She did know herself, didn’t she? And she was distinguishing herself from her parents, wasn’t she? She was Grace Kelly, in spite of everything John and Margaret Kelly thought of their third child. Or was she Grace Kelly because of what they thought, how they’d made her?

  Unexpectedly, the most consoling image, the one that finally sent her to sleep, was of Judy Garland accepting the Best Actress award from her hospital bed, her newborn baby cradled in her arms.

  Chapter 21

  William Holden, who’d won Best Actor the previous year for Stalag 17, and with whom she’d costarred along with Bing in The Country Girl, smiled with pure pleasure as he read, “Grace Kelly!” off the little white card. Grace froze—for a moment, it seemed she couldn’t breathe, and her heart had actually stopped beating. Then, as the applause and congratulations from all around the theater filled her ears, she realized she had to move. Slipping her little blue satin purse up her gloved forearm, she walked the short distance to the stage and took the golden statue from William, smiling and stupefied. She’d prepared nothing to say.

  As she looked out on the blurry audience full of other actors and actresses, directors, producers, and cameramen—Bing and Cary and Hitch, Frank and Ava, Katy, Rita, Clark, and Audrey, who’d won the year before—all clapping with genuine appreciation, what she felt most of all was gratitude. She was here because of their support. And Don and Sandy and Jaybird. And Fordie. And Uncle George. She so hoped he was watching. (What on earth is Judy Garland saying in her hospital room right now? Grace was glad for the other actress, that she was off camera so she could say any damn thing she liked.)

  Names and images and phrases whirled in her mind, but she couldn’t grasp the right ones, couldn’t put the names or words in the right order. She didn’t want to disappoint anyone by not thanking them! The press was cruel to actors who accidentally left out their mothers or spouses.

 
Mercifully, just as the applause died down, a few words came to her mind. “The thrill of this moment keeps me from saying what I really feel,” she said, wondering how her voice sounded to the theater full of people and the viewers at home watching on the television. In her own ears, she sounded strained, winded. “I can only say thank you with all my heart to all who made this possible for me.” Perhaps most of all in that moment, she was grateful to Edith for putting her in a dress that held her up.

  Everything after that was a hazy whirlwind. Offstage, she was hugged and kissed by dozens of people, and before she knew it, she was being posed with Marlon, who had won for On the Waterfront. “We just made Jay the biggest man in Hollywood,” he whispered in Grace’s ear, and she giggled with him about their agent. She couldn’t wait to hug him and Judybird. But that was hours in the future. First, there were photos, photos, and more photos, interminable chats with reporters, and then clapping so hard her hands hurt when Waterfront won Best Picture.

  Of all the nice things anyone said to her that night, the nicest came from Bing: “I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful and gutsy costar, Grace. I owe the rest of my career to you.”

  “No,” Grace said earnestly, her fingers cold and shaky on his warm hands, “I’m the lucky one, Bing. You took a chance on me, and I’ll always be grateful for that.”

  “We’ll just have to agree to disagree, kid,” he said. “But we may get to do another picture together. Schary wants to do a remake of Philadelphia Story, but with singing. I told him you should do Kate’s part.”

  “But I can’t sing!” she protested. And Oscar or not, she couldn’t imagine stepping into Katharine Hepburn’s shoes on-screen. What was Bing thinking?

  “Nothin’ to it,” he said. “Don’t worry your pretty head about it tonight. We’ll talk soon.” And he kissed her on the cheek and left her standing alone at the MGM party, until the next person accosted her with flattery and plans.