The Love Machine

by Jacqueline Susann

  Amanda broke away and raced to the telephone. Ethel followed her. “Can’t it wait? This is important.”

  Amanda ignored her as she dialed. She was conscious of Ethel standing and glowering. Jerry came and stood close at hand, protectively. This time there was no busy signal. It rang once, twice, three times. After the tenth ring, she hung up. Her dime returned. She dialed again. The same monotonous ring, and Jerry and Ethel were watching her. She could see the beginning of a smirk come to Ethel’s lips. She straightened up. She was Robin Stone’s girl! She wasn’t going to let them see Robin Stone’s girl crumple. He wouldn’t like that. When he held her in his arms last night, their bodies close, he had stroked her head and said, “You’re just like me, baby—resilient. No matter what anyone does to either of us, if we hurt, we hurt inside and no one will know. We don’t cry on anyone’s shoulders, or even to ourselves. That’s why we belong together.” She forced herself to think of this now, as the phone kept ringing to emptiness. She hung up and casually took the dime from the coin box. She faced Ethel and Jerry with a smile. “You know I’m an idiot, I guess I was so nervous about the show that I completely forgot—” She stopped, groping for some alibi.

  “Was it still busy?” Jerry asked sympathetically.

  “Yes! And you know why? He told me he was going to take the receiver off the hook so that no one would disturb him. And I forgot!” She turned to Ethel. “So let’s take the pictures, then I’ll dash to his place as we planned. And Jerry, would you be an angel and call Cadi-Cars? Tell them to send a limo for me.”

  Then she walked toward Christie Lane and stood between him and Bob Dixon, flashed her brightest smile and quickly squirmed out of Christie’s arms as soon as the picture was taken. Fortunately he was so mobbed with the agency men he didn’t see her slip away.

  Jerry called for the car. He wondered about the phone story and thought it odd that she would forget. But her smile was too genuine. She was absolutely sparkling.

  Ethel had also noticed Amanda’s assurance. God, to be going home to Robin Stone—!

  But once Amanda was in the protective darkness of the limousine, her smile dissolved. She gave the driver her home address. Well—eight dollars shot down the drain for the limo. And there were plenty of cabs around. But this had been the only thing to do. She had gone off with her head held high—she was Robin’s girl, and this was the way he would want it.

  Robin phoned bright and early the following morning. “Hello, star,” he said lightly.

  She had been awake half the night, vacillating between hating him, renouncing him, alibiing for him, and, through it all, wanting him. And she had promised herself to play it cool when and if he did call. But the early morning call caught her off guard.

  “Where were you last night?” she demanded. (Oh Lord, this wasn’t the way she had intended to act.)

  “Watching you,” he said, in his same bantering tone.

  “You were not!” She was breaking every resolve, yet was powerless to stop. “Robin, I called you right before the commercial and the line was busy. I called you after the show and there was no answer.”

  “You’re absolutely right. The damn phone started to ring just as the show went on the air. Not that I minded—it was Andy Parino, and I’d rather talk to him than listen to Christie Lane. But after I got off with Andy, someone else called. And I wanted to catch your great performance without any distractions, so the moment you came on, I turned off my phone.”

  “But you knew I’d call right after the show.”

  “As a matter of fact, I forgot I had turned the damned thing off.”

  “Well,” she spluttered, “then why didn’t you try me? I mean, even if you forgot you turned it off you could have called me. Didn’t you figure I’d want to be with you after the show?”

  “I know what it’s like after a new show goes on. It’s insanity backstage. I was positive that you’d be the center of attention with your sponsors. I thought you’d probably go off and celebrate with them.”

  “Robin!” she moaned in absolute helplessness. “I wanted to be with you. You’re my guy, aren’t you?”

  “You bet I am.” His voice was still light. “But that doesn’t mean total commitment on either side. I don’t own you, or your time.”

  “Don’t you want to?” she asked. It was a wrong move, but she had to make a stab.

  “No. Because I could never fulfill my end of the deal.”

  “Robin, I want to belong to you—totally. I want to give you all my time. You’re all that matters to me. I love you. I know you don’t want to get married,” she rushed on, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t belong to you in every sense of the word!”

  “I want you to be my girl, but I don’t want to own you.”

  “But if I’m your girl, then you must know I want you to share everything with me. I want to be with you through everything—and when you can’t be with me, I want to be home waiting until you come to me. I want to belong to you.”

  “I don’t want you to get hurt.” His voice was tight.

  “I won’t get hurt. And I won’t nag—I swear.”

  “Then let’s put it this way: I don’t want to be hurt.”

  After a pause she said, “Who has hurt you, Robin?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can’t be afraid of being hurt unless you’ve been hurt. That’s why you’ve erected a steel door to put between us every now and then.”

  “I’ve never been hurt,” he said. “Honestly, Amanda, I’d like to be able to tell you that some siren broke my heart when I was a boy in the war. But nothing like that ever happened. I’ve had girls—lots of them. I love girls, and I think I care for you more than I’ve cared for anyone.”

  “Then why do you hold back a part of yourself—and force me to do the same?”

  “I don’t know, I really don’t know. Maybe I’ve got some crazy sense of self-preservation. Some instinct that tells me that if I didn’t have that door, as you call it, I might get my head blown off.” Then he laughed. “Oh hell, it’s too early in the morning for soul-probing. Or maybe I haven’t got a soul. Maybe if I opened that steel door, I’d find there was no one home.”

  “Robin, I’ll never hurt you. I’ll love you forever.”

  “Baby, nothing is forever.”

  “You mean you’ll leave me?”

  “I could go in a plane crash, a sniper’s bullet could hit me—”

  She laughed. “A bullet would bend if it hit you.”

  “Amanda.” His voice was light, but she knew he was serious.

  “Love me, baby, but don’t make me your life. You can’t hold on to people. Even if they love you, they have to leave you.”

  “What are you trying to tell me?” She was dangerously close to tears.

  “I’m just trying to explain how I feel. There are certain facts we all know: one, you can’t hold on to people; two, one day you have to die. We all have to die—we know it, but we ignore it. Maybe we feel that if we don’t think about it, it may not happen. But deep down we know it will. I feel much the same about that steel door. As long as it’s there to clang shut, I can’t get hurt.”

  “Have you ever tried to open it?”

  “I’m trying right now, with you.” His voice was quiet. “I’ve unhinged it because I care enough about you to want you to understand. But I’m slamming it shut right now.”

  “Robin, please don’t! Love me all the way. I know what the door is—it slams on feeling. You’ve closed that part of your brain. You feel love … but you refuse to think about it.”

  “Perhaps. Just as I refuse to think about death. No matter when I go, even if I’m ninety, it will be a hell of a disappointment to have to check out. But maybe if I don’t care about anything too much, I won’t be too sorry to leave.”

  She was quiet. He had never opened up this much to her. She knew he was trying to say something else.

  “Amanda, I do care about you. And I admire you, because I think y
ou also have your own steel door. You’re beautiful, you’re ambitious, and you’re independent. I couldn’t love or respect a girl if I was her sole reason for existing. I think in a curious way, the rocks in your head fit the holes in mine. Now: are we squared away?”

  She forced herself to laugh lightly. “Everything’s fine. Unless you stand me up for dinner tonight. Then I’ll bash those rocks in your head into little pebbles.”

  His laugh matched her own. “Well, I can’t risk that. I hear you Southern belles swing a mean right.”

  “Southern? I never said I was from the South.”

  “You never tell me anything, my beautiful Amanda. Maybe that’s part of your charm. But when you talk, every once in a while some Georgia or Alabama comes through.”

  “Wrong states.” Then after a pause she said, “I never told you anything about myself, because you never asked. But I want you to know about me, I want you to know everything.”

  “Baby, nothing is as dull as a woman without a past. And once you know all the details there is no past. Just a long dreary confessional.”

  “But actually you don’t know anything about me—aren’t you curious?”

  “Well, I knew you had been around the turf when we met—”

  “Robin!”

  “I mean it in the nicest way. I’m too old to start up with a virgin.”

  “There haven’t been so many men, Robin.”

  “Careful. Don’t disillusion me. I’ve always been hung up on broads like Marie Antoinette, Madame Pompadour—even Lucrezia Borgia. Now if you tell me there was just that nice boy you met at college, you’ll ruin the whole thing.”

  “All right, then I won’t tell you about the South American dictator who tried to kill himself over me, or the king who offered to give up his throne for me. Meanwhile, shall I do the steak and salad bit for tonight?”

  He laughed. The mood was broken and she knew she had put him at ease.

  “Okay, baby. Steak and salad, and I’ll bring some wine. See you at seven.”

  She fell back into bed and cradled the phone. Oh God, she just couldn’t go on playing games like this. But she knew she would, she had to, until she had gained his complete trust. Then his guard would relax, and… . She jumped out of bed and turned on her bath. She felt wonderful. Even though she had two rough sittings, this was a marvelous day. The greatest day in her life. Because she knew she had the key to Robin Stone. Play it cool, demand nothing. The less she demanded the more he would give. And soon he would find that he did belong to her—it would happen so gradually he wouldn’t even be aware of it.

  For the first time, she felt confident. She knew everything was going to be just fine.

  TEN

  AMANDA’S NEW BURST OF HAPPY CONFIDENCE remained with her throughout the day. When a pose grew tiring, she relived her telephone conversation with Robin and forgot the lights, the kink in her neck and the pain in her back. Dimly she could hear the photographer say, “Yeah, baby, oh yeah, hold that look!”

  Her final session ended at four. She checked with Nick Long-worth’s office.

  “You’ll like tomorrow’s bookings,” Nick sang out. “Eleven tomorrow at Vogue—and your old buddy Ivan Greenberg is doing the layout.” She was delighted. The first job wasn’t until eleven. That meant she could sleep until nine. She could make Robin breakfast… .

  It was an unnaturally warm day for February. A haze hung in the sky and the air seemed thick enough to cut. It wasn’t supposed to be healthy weather, but it was fifty-five degrees and she could walk without freezing and she was happy, and to her it was the most beautiful day in the world.

  She went home, fed Slugger, set the table, made the salad and got the steaks ready.

  She was never able to eat when she was with him, she just picked at everything. She had lost ten pounds during this year with Robin. Five foot seven and only weighed one hundred and eight. But it was great for photography and so far it hadn’t affected her face.

  She turned on the television set to IBC. Robin liked to watch Andy on the seven o’clock news. She usually sat snuggled in his arms while he watched, or sometimes she sat across the room and studied his profile. But tonight she’d watch it—she wanted to be interested in everything that concerned him.

  Gregory Austin was also waiting for the seven o’clock news. Once again he had to hand it to Robin Stone. He had been right about using Andy Parino. Funny—he had actually brought Robin in to do news, and he was turning out to be one hell of an executive. Robin was a good man but he was a phantom—he rarely saw him. You’d think someone who traveled so much on IBC’s money would at least check in and say hello when he returned. In Depth received excellent notices—the ratings were rising all the time—you’d think he’d want to take his bows.

  Danton Miller always came fawning for his praise. The son of a bitch was on the phone the moment The Christie Lane Show went off the air. Well, it just proved you couldn’t overrate the intelligence of the television audience. They were a bunch of slobs. The Christie Lane Show was a piece of tripe—Judith hadn’t even been able to watch it! And the reviews in the morning papers were brutal. But the overnight Nielsen rating was sensational. Of course the two-week national Nielsen would tell the story.

  He thought about this as he sat in the paneled den of his town house and switched on the built-in color set. To him, the best thing on television was the old technicolor movies on The Late Show. They didn’t make girls like Rita, Alice Faye and Betty Grable anymore. Sometimes when he couldn’t sleep, he’d raid the refrigerator and sit and watch the movie glamour girls he had been secretly in love with. He had Judith to thank for the color set. In fact, the entire den had been a surprise. She had it done last year while they were at Palm Beach. He had wondered about all those surreptitious calls—those quick trips she had to take to New York to see her dentist. And when they had returned from Palm Beach she had presented him with the den. Even had a big ribbon tacked on the door. He had been touched. Judith had great taste. The room was completely masculine. He knew that each piece of furniture had been carefully selected and had a history. The big world globe was supposed to have belonged to President Wilson. The desk was an antique. He didn’t know the period, he didn’t care about those things. He could tell you the exact date Amos and Andy went on radio, and proudly show you the set of earphones he had built as a kid. But antiques, Oriental rugs, Ming vases—that was Judith’s world and she understood his taste and didn’t foist her own on him. She got him antiques, but by God, they were strong ones, none of those faggy thin-legged French jobs. “Your domain,” Judith had said. “I’ll only come when I’m invited.”

  A frown crossed his forehead. He felt a vague feeling of disharmony. He couldn’t put his finger on it but he had felt the same way when they had moved here from the Park Avenue penthouse seven years ago. When Judith had pointed out the two master bedrooms separated by a small wall of closets: “Isn’t this divine, Greg? Now you’ll have your own bedroom and I’ll have mine. And we each have our own bathroom.”

  He had liked the idea of “his” and “her” bathrooms, but had suggested turning one of the bedrooms into a sitting room. “I like sleeping in the same room with you, Judith.”

  She had laughed. “Don’t worry, my love—I’ll snuggle with you each night as you read the Wall Street Journal. But when I go to sleep, at least I’ll sleep. I won’t have to poke you eight times during the night to tell you to stop snoring.”

  She was right and it was practical. In the beginning he hadn’t really believed he snored—until the night he had purposely set the tape recorder by his bed. The following morning he was in a state of shock—he couldn’t believe those unearthly snorts had come from him. He had even gone for medical advice. The doctor had laughed. “Nothing wrong, Greg—everyone snores after they hit forty. You’re lucky you can afford two bedrooms. It’s the only civilized way to keep romance going in a middle-aged marriage.”

  After she had given him his den, she had graduall
y taken over the large library. Fancied it up, changed the color scheme, the drapes and some of the furniture. He hated the room now. It looked like one of those VIP suites at the Waldorf Towers. His autographed pictures of Eisenhower and Bernard Baruch had been transferred to his den. Silver-framed pictures of her relatives had replaced them on the fancy desk of the library. Oh what the hell, why shouldn’t she have her relatives on display? She had the classy ones. Why shouldn’t her twin sister who was a bona fide princess have her mug in a silver frame? And the two little princesses she had begot. And it was right to have that oil painting of Judith’s father over the fireplace. God, the old man looked like an ad for some vintage wine. Gregory had no pictures of his father. They didn’t take pictures to put in silver frames in the North of Ireland. Besides, Judith needed a library. She and her social secretary worked there every morning. He smiled at the thought of the word “work” applied to Judith. But then, maybe it was work planning all the parties, heading the charities, staying on the best-dressed list. He had to hand it to Judith—her personal publicity had been so great that people actually believed she had a personal fortune of her own when she married the two-fisted self-made Irishman named Gregory Austin. He smiled. Sure, she was social, went to all the right schools and studied abroad, but the family didn’t have a dime. The rush of publicity when her sister married that prince had elevated the two girls to sudden fame. And now he felt Judith actually believed she had been wealthy in her own right before her marriage. So what—it must have been tough for her, watching her friends make their debuts and scrounging to keep up with them. She had been dropped from the Social Register when she married him, but he had brought her a new kind of society—the society that broke through every social barrier. Celebrity society. Talent was the greatest equalizer in the world. A Danny Kaye could be presented at court. A top politician could dine with a king. And the chairman of the board of IBC was welcome everywhere. Judith was a great girl and he was damn glad he had been able to supply the one missing ingredient in her perfect life. Judith Austin was society today. She was more than society—she created society. She made fashions, she was on the front page of that newspaper all the dames liked—Women’s Wear. Whatever she wore became a trend. He still couldn’t believe she belonged to him. She still seemed unattainable. He had felt that way the first moment they met, and he still felt the same way.