by Kerri Maher
Then she really did have to tell Rainier, and the mere thought of doing so made her oatmeal go gluey in her stomach. You can always back out, she told herself. Lord knows you’ve gotten good at that. Making excuses. But Grace Kelly didn’t make excuses. Grace Kelly had negotiated her contract with MGM, had made sure she got the part of Georgie Elgin in The Country Girl. Yes, she’d had to do Green Fire in exchange. There was always an exchange.
She continued not to tell him. Yet. Instead she ordered boxes of books from George Whitman, whose Paris shop, Shakespeare and Company, was modeled on Sylvia Beach’s long-shuttered store by the same name and was the resource for books in the English language in France. Wordsworth, Tennyson, Byron, Bishop, Dickinson, Cummings, O’Hara (one of Uncle George’s favorites), Sexton (because she was feeling bold). On Whitman’s suggestion, she added in a few books by a poet named Maya Angelou.
When the books arrived, she secreted them away in her office. First, she set them on her desk with a satisfying thud, using her stainless steel scissors to slice the wide tape that held the seams of cardboard together. Parting the flaps of the box released a scent of ink and freshly cut paper, and she breathed it in deeply. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was on top, and she picked it up and let the tight pages fan out beneath her thumb, sending a light breeze onto her face. She found the title poem, which she’d read years ago and forgotten. Grace nearly choked when she got to the line “a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams.” She put her hand over her mouth as she read the rest, her eyes running swiftly over the short stanzas, looking for hope, an answer. There wasn’t one, not exactly, for a lesson from school came back to her as she read: poetry doesn’t offer ease and comfort, but depth and recognition, which she found in Angelou’s free bird that “dares to claim the sky.”
She’d done that once.
Dare.
That was it, wasn’t it?
Daring.
The morning she was to leave for Edinburgh, she sat down with Rainier to a fine breakfast—yogurt, berries, muesli, toast, cured meats, and cheese.
“What’s the occasion?” he asked, hungrily tucking into a bowl of peaches and yogurt drizzled with honey. Grace sipped at her coffee, her own plate of fruit and cheese and bread untouched. She might have to take a box of breakfast with her in the car that would be driving her to the airport.
“Well, I thought I’d leave you with plenty of your favorite things, while I’m gone for a few days,” Grace replied.
“Remind me where you’re going?” he asked as if she’d already mentioned this trip, and it had slipped his mind.
“The Edinburgh Festival,” Grace said, as if it was nothing. The market.
“Going to take in some culture? Meet some friends?”
“I am meeting friends,” she affirmed with a nod. “Gwen, and Cary, you know. But I’ll also be appearing in the festival myself.” Grace’s blood was pounding in her ears.
Rainier stopped chewing and looked at her. He swallowed. “Oh?” he asked.
“I’ll be reciting poetry,” she said expansively. What a lark. A whim. Nothing to bother about.
“Reciting poetry?” He blinked uncomprehendingly. She couldn’t very well blame him for not grasping it right away. The idea had seemed incredible to her as well. “Like Caroline and Albie did in school?” he further clarified.
“Not precisely like that, no,” said Grace. “I’ll be performing with Richard Kiley and Richard Pasco of the Royal Shakespeare Company. It’s all very upper-crust,” she said in an English accent. “I can’t wait,” she added in the same accent.
“Performing,” he repeated her word, as if groping around for some of his own.
Grace looked at her watch and said, “Oh my, look at the time. Must dash to catch the plane.” No time for the to-go box. There were worse problems.
Sliding off her kitchen chair, she went over and pecked her startled husband on the cheek. “I’ve left a ticket for you on your bureau, in case you want to join me. My hotel suite will be more than big enough to accommodate both of us. It might make a nice getaway.” She tried to layer promises she didn’t really feel into her voice. But the risk was low, since she knew he would never come. And if he surprised her, well then . . . maybe the surprise of his arrival would ignite her desire.
* * *
It had been years since she’d seen the castle in Edinburgh, that magnificent medieval fortress atop a rocky hill. In that way, it reminded her of the palace in Monaco: both were the geographical crowns of their respective kingdoms. Well, in Monaco’s case, a principality, not a kingdom, but why quibble with details like that? she thought as she stood in her richly upholstered and tapestried hotel room, looking out the picture window at the castle, a pot of tea steeping on the table behind her.
Though Monaco was by far more colorful, Grace felt right at home in the predominantly gray stone and green grass of the Scottish capital. It was mid-August and blazing hot in the home she’d left behind, but Edinburgh was bright, blue skied, and barely warm enough for short sleeves, reminding her of late September in Pennsylvania. She could wear a jacket outside if she wanted to.
After that one private moment in her quiet hotel room, Grace’s agenda was filled with engagements, as was typical of festivals. But for the first time in ages, she didn’t resent the events. Alone in her room, she bathed and dressed herself—though she did hire a local woman, a real magician, whom Gwen had suggested, to do her hair and makeup before her performances. Then she floated from her rooms, down the antique elevator, and into the much-perfumed lobby, where she waved at familiar faces or exchanged a few words with the concierge before hailing a cab to her destination. Because the city was jammed with famous performers that week—actors, rock stars, and socialites galore—no one paid her much attention. She felt like she was twenty-three years old again in New York City.
The first time she stood on the intimate stage at St. Cecilia’s Hall for a rehearsal with Richard Kiley and Richard Pasco, both of whom greeted her warmly, as if she were one of them, Grace nearly cried. But she swallowed it back as she shook the actors’ hands and said, “Goodness, I haven’t been on this side of a theater in so long.”
“Too long,” said Richard Pasco. “Rear Window is one of my all-time favorites.”
“You’re too kind,” said Grace, flushing with embarrassment at the compliment. “Hitch did make movies feel more like theater. The rigor, and also the fun. The camaraderie.” Even though Grace was overcome with the memory of how special she’d known Rear Window was, it was Georgie Elgin’s words from The Country Girl Grace heard in her mind now: There’s nothing quite so mysterious and silent as a dark theater, a night without a star.
Rehearsing with the Richards was not a facsimile of those early plays and movies; it was its own theatrical experience; but it pulled out of her all the lessons about drama and acting and reacting to her fellow players that had lain dormant inside her for so long. She left their first reading breathless with excitement, ravenous for more. There simply could not be enough, especially since their program was short compared to a play or a film.
Of all the poems she read during those exhilarating days, her favorite was Elinor Wylie’s “Wild Peaches,” which was so profoundly American in its celebration of Chesapeake Bay and “brimming cornucopias” and “the Puritan marrow” of the poet’s bones, Grace feared she might get choked up when she performed it with the ironically British Richards. To help distance herself from the material and protect her heart and voice just enough from the way the poem touched her, she gave herself a character with a slight Southern accent and was amazed at the way her old skills came back to her. Oh, she still did impersonations and little monologues from time to time as a party trick with old friends who asked for it, but to create a character from Wylie’s poem was an exercise she hadn’t attempted in more than two decades. It felt like unearthing a favorite old sweater found in the corner
of a closet, and discovering that it was still soft and miraculously intact, nary a moth hole in sight.
Still, the accent was risky. The night of their performance, her stomach was churning so riotously she thought she might actually be sick. Unlike in the old days, she didn’t have an image or goal in mind for the night—it wasn’t like her father was going to rise from the dead and sit in the front row, and she didn’t even fantasize about the unlikely event of Rainier appearing with an armful of long-stemmed roses. No, what she was really worried about was embarrassing herself in front of hundreds of people. Tripping on the words, flubbing the accent—or, worse, doing what she thought was a great job and then reading in the paper the next day, “Grace Kelly should have stayed in Monaco.”
When she stepped onto the stage and felt the hot white light from above, the rapt silence of the audience was palpable. They were waiting . . . for her. For her to reclaim herself or to make a complete fool of herself. What had she been thinking, trying something like this? Though as Princess she regularly appeared in front of crowds larger than the one she was in front of that night, she never expected to feel as inexperienced and naked in front of an audience as she had in her Academy days. When she swallowed, her saliva trickled down a parched throat. It was now or never. With a smile, she looked out at the audience, a blessed blur as always without her glasses. And then she began to speak. Using the accent from rehearsals, she recited the poetry with Richard Pasco and Richard Kiley, and just as had been true in her old theater days, she eventually stopped feeling the intensity of all the eyes on her. She became immersed in her work, overtaken by it and the interaction with her fellow players.
When they finished speaking, there was that telltale beat of Really? It’s over?! silence before the audience erupted into applause and whistles, a standing ovation of gratitude for a job well done.
Grace smiled widely again, her nerves gone, her body so light on the stage, she might have floated away, had she not been holding hands with the Richards for a bow. The audience kept clapping. Kept whistling. Slowly, Grace began to feel her body again, beginning with her cheeks, which burned from the width of her smile. Gallons of hot, celebratory blood rushed through her veins. She couldn’t believe it. She was home.
If there was a price to be paid for this pure joy, it would be worth it.
Chapter 37
If there was a price, it was Rainier’s silence. Not only did he not come to Edinburgh, but he asked nothing about her reading, nor did he comment on the rave reviews. He said nothing about the next reading or the next—for the invitations came pouring in. His muteness had a different texture from the silent treatment her father had used to punish her when she was young. It didn’t feel mean-spirited, but rather utterly clueless, as if Rainier had decided a few poetry readings just weren’t worth arguing about. Grace guessed that someone close to him had told him exactly what Grace herself had thought about the readings: it’s poetry. Great Works. No violence, nothing sexual. The engagements required little of her in the way of rehearsals, and each performance was a one-shot; no long runs in theaters away from home. For each, she could be there and back in just a few days.
Though, usually, she stayed longer. “I think I now understand what you always saw in London,” Grace said to Caroline on the phone. “Harvey Nichols and Selfridges are wonders, and how did I live before Fortnum and Mason’s tea?”
“Are you really saying your beloved Fauchon isn’t as good?”
“Weeeelllll,” Grace said lightheartedly, “they are equal. Let’s leave it at that. Before, I couldn’t have agreed to that. But now I see the error of my thinking.”
Caroline laughed. “It’s nice to hear you so happy, Mom. Is it really Wordsworth and Shelley that have done it?”
“Yes, them, and the other actors I’ve discovered who love them as much as I do.”
“Do you think it’ll lead to anything else?”
“I haven’t even thought about that,” Grace said, surprised to discover it was really true. “I’m just enjoying it for what it is.”
At another time in her life, Rainier’s indifference to her new passion would have wounded her or made her feel lonely. But the poetry was its own reward; she kept quiet, contented company for many hours with poets whose collections were always stashed in her handbags and sitting around the living quarters of the palace. The volumes became her most sought-after company, for they never failed to help her feel less alone. She was always underlining phrases and stanzas that spoke to her deeply, like Robert Duncan’s lines from “Childhood’s Retreat”: “my secret / hiding sense and place, where from afar / all voices and scenes come back.”
When Grace and Rainier were together, they didn’t need to discuss poetry in any case—there was plenty to discuss when it came to the problem of Caroline and Philippe Junot. Their daughter’s relationship was only becoming more intense, and Grace and Rainier could talk for long stretches about what to do about it. “No one seems to know what it is he does,” grumbled Rainier one early-fall evening at Roc Agel. Grace was filthy from a day spent in the garden, pruning and weeding and selecting the best of the late-season blooms for her dried flowers. She’d taken to combining these two loves of hers by reciting poems as she performed the ritual of preparing blooms for drying. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers,” and of course Shakespeare, “Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”
“What are we going to do about him?” Rainier asked as he poured her a cup of Bandol.
“I wish I knew,” sighed Grace, plopping into a chair next to Rainier and peeling off her gardening gloves. This little table was their favorite spot on an overgrown hillside near the house. “I’ve been trying to distract myself away from it, as you’ve always advised. I’m attempting not to hover.”
“There’s a time for hovering,” he said moodily.
“What makes you think this is it?” she asked, draining her tumbler of water before picking up the wine. A breeze riffled the long grasses and wildflowers around them, and bees buzzed toward a hive nearby.
“I’ve never seen her so smitten with anyone,” he said.
“But she’s only nineteen. Well, close to twenty now,” said Grace, surprised at this reversal in their parenting roles. The wine was delicious, and the day had been warm and productive. Her lungs were full of fresh air.
“I know a cad when I meet one,” snarled Rainier. “This Junot, he wants something from her.”
“But what? He seems to have plenty of money.”
“Seems.”
“Ah,” said Grace, her husband’s concern becoming clear. She took another sip of wine. Goodness, it was delicious—and strong. She’d need to go easy. And eat something soon. She couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten. “And none of your contacts have heard of him? That is strange.” Because the world they inhabited was rather small.
“Supposedly he is some sort of investor. But what does he invest in? And where does he find the time? He’s out every night if the papers report correctly.”
“Maybe he’s a vampire,” said Grace, surprising herself at her own playfulness.
“Be serious.” He glared at her.
“I am!” said Grace. “And you know better than to believe those rags that call themselves newspapers. Frankly, I’m relieved she’s decided to continue her studies instead of drop out. She’ll see sense with Junot, just like she did with school.”
Rainier pursed his lips. Secretly, Grace was glad he was finally getting a dose of the anxiety she’d been experiencing for years about their daughters, even if it was only a thimbleful by comparison. It appeared that after all the years of worry, she’d developed a gift for patience and waiting things out that Rainier did not possess.
Well, she thought to herself, there had to be a silver lining in all that strife somewhere.
* * *
Nineteen seventy-six was t
urning into quite a year, Grace reflected as she buckled her seat belt in first class and asked for a glass of champagne. Why not? She had things to celebrate. Her poetry readings, her new détente with Rainier, a period of relative calm with her daughters, and now a trip to New York to sit on the board of Twentieth Century Fox that would include a long weekend in Massachusetts with old friends and then Albie, who was living in a dorm at Amherst.
When Jay Kanter, who was now at Fox himself, had called to offer her the position, Grace’s jaw had nearly dropped open. “You’ll be the first woman on the board,” he’d said. “We need someone with experience not just in the industry, but in running a big show. And what show’s bigger than Monaco?”
She very nearly said that her husband was really the one running that show, but then stopped herself because in fact she was responsible for a great number of important things in their principality. Her charity work, which had started in once poor and now world-class hospitals and eventually branched into the ballet, the theater, and now the Princess Grace Foundation, kept her very busy and was—she saw suddenly, talking to Jay—experience that could be applied to the board of a motion picture company.
Unlike the sporadic poetry readings, a board seat was a big enough commitment that she felt she ought to run it by Rainier first. She described it as “a natural extension of my behind-the-scenes work in the arts. And what a tremendous excuse to see Albie more often! He won’t feel like Mummy’s just coming to check up on him.”
To her surprise, Rainier agreed without a fight. “I hope it sets an example to Caroline and Stéphanie,” he said. “That they can aspire to greater things than boys.”
Grace bit her tongue, but Rainier’s unexpected fatherly feminism irritated her. He’d never been able to see her acting career this way. Why was it different for his daughters? The answer came to her in a flash: because boys would take his daughters away from him in a way that work would not. Romantic love was just about the only thing that could supplant filial devotion.
