by Nyna Giles
Born on November 12, Grace was a Six of Scorpio. Her tarot card was the nine of cups, representing “Pleasure.” According to the book, she was possessed with “magnetic charm, showmanship, creative imagination and staying power.” People born under the sign of Six of Scorpio, the author wrote, “take center of any stage, as by divine right, and occupy it successfully with popularity and charm.” For Grace, still a struggling actress, this was comforting, confirmation she was on the right track. But although Six of Scorpios “contain the greatest creative power, they are also capable of the most compelling harm.” On the negative side, Six of Scorpios are prone to disregard the feelings and sufferings of others. “Their one desire is to succeed, to gain possession of what they want, or to get their own way by imposing their will on other people, and this desire is so strong that it outweighs everything else, especially kindness or justice.”
In order to achieve happiness in life, the book advised, it was important to keep both negative and positive elements in the correct balance.
Carolyn was born on August 19 and was a Seven of Leo. Her tarot card was the seven of wands, representing “Valor.” People born under this sign have “courage and resourcefulness, imagination and intensity.” This was absolutely true of Carolyn, who had come to New York alone, with nothing more than two suitcases and her wits. But Seven of Leos, the book explained, struggle with a central conflict, namely their desire to succeed and their tendency to “scatter their energies so widely that the effort to concentrate on a number of things at the same time destroys their mental balance, making them highly irritable, nervous and undependable.”
Malcolm was born on February 25, so his sign was Eight of Pisces. His positive qualities were his “constructive intelligence, compassionate intensity and practical executive ability,” a description that he loved. On the negative side, the book explained, those born under Eight of Pisces can be “intolerant and narrow minded, self-righteous, and unfriendly … ultra-critical of other people’s ideas, behavior and actions.… When negative, their human sympathy turns destructive, taking the form of cruelty and bitterness toward people who do not conform to their rigid standards.” Malcolm’s tarot card was the eight of cups, “Abandoned Success.”
Grace and Carolyn revisited the pages of The Pursuit of Destiny often, searching for new insights and explanations. Grace was still only twenty-one; Carolyn, twenty-two. The larger part of their lives lay ahead, not behind; their characters were still only half formed. Grace was at the beginning of her career—she’d just made her first film, Fourteen Hours, appearing on-screen for about two minutes in an uncredited role. Carolyn was about to become a mother for the first time. How would her marriage and life change? Could she keep her career? For both young women, on the cusp of everything, the notion that the planets were in control—that character was innate and waiting to be revealed—offered a kind of consoling reassurance.
* * *
CAROLYN’S FIRST CHILD was born via C-section on June 19, 1951, after a labor that stalled for too long. Malcolm chose the name Deborah Jill. Carolyn brought their new daughter home to Manhattan House the following week. Carolyn only had one person in mind for godmother, and when she asked Grace to guide Jill and take care of her spiritually, Grace immediately said yes.
That first summer with the baby, Carolyn found herself absorbed in the small duties of being a new mother, the urgently compelling but rarely recorded moments that make up a new parent’s day: the cries from the nursery in the morning that sent Carolyn hurrying to Jill’s crib, the bottles to be made and rinsed, all the tiny outfits to be neatly folded and put away. Then there were the walks over to Central Park in the hazy late afternoons of July and August, with the baby in her shiny new carriage, a white cotton cap on her head. In those first few months, Jill passed her earliest milestones, the first smile, the first cold, the first tooth.
As the baby grew, Carolyn found herself reshaped. She no longer saw the world from her own solitary perspective; now it was refracted through the experience of her daughter. There was no doubt that little Jill would grow up in a home that was financially stable—Malcolm’s career in advertising was going so well—but even so, Carolyn kept one eye on the family bank account those first few months. Her husband liked to live well; they were going to miss her income. Eileen Ford made it clear that the doors were open whenever Carolyn was ready to come back; Eileen herself had quickly returned to work after the births of both her children. Carolyn knew she was lucky in this respect: while most employers in 1951 told their pregnant employees to leave and never come back, Eileen actively encouraged her girls to return to work after having children—as long as they had shed their baby weight, of course.
So in the new year of 1952, six months after giving birth, Carolyn left little Jill with her nanny and made the short walk over to Second Avenue and the Ford offices. Here, Eileen took out her tape measure, wrapped it once around Carolyn’s waist, and declared her back to form. Soon after, Eileen decided she was ready to promote Carolyn from a “junior” to a “miss.” While “juniors” worked exclusively for the teenage market, “misses” appealed to slightly older customers as well: brides-to-be, newlyweds, and young mothers. By June, Carolyn was on the cover of Family Circle magazine wearing a pale pink taffeta wedding gown, complete with crown and veil, holding up a spray of roses and with a large diamond engagement ring on her finger. That same summer, she posed as a “young modern newlywed” next to a white-jacketed husband to advertise tablecloths: “When all eyes are on their table they make sure it’s at its very best.”
It felt natural to be back in front of the camera. Carolyn knew how to widen her eyes to keep them looking bright, to turn her head to show her most appealing profile, to hold her back straight and her shoulders square while she angled an arm or leg this way and that. In the magazines, Carolyn played the ideal of the modern woman—smiling, polished, self-assured, married or about to be married, awash in postwar prosperity, with every appliance and product at her disposal. When she ran back home at the end of the day to baby Jill, she felt that she was doing her part to fulfill the fantasies she promoted in those photographs. She was doing her duty, keeping the baby neat and smiling, the apartment organized, and her husband happy.
* * *
CAROLYN STAYED CLOSE to Manhattan House, but Grace was its satellite, in almost constant motion. Her movie career was taking off, and she was traveling all the time. She made High Noon in California opposite Gary Cooper, then Mogambo in Africa and England with John Ford. From there she was called back to Hollywood for her first film with Alfred Hitchcock, Dial M for Murder, closely followed by Rear Window. Although she had signed a contract with MGM, she made it a condition that she would be able to live in New York when she wasn’t filming, so when each shoot came to a close, she returned to the Manhattan House and her “family” there: Carolyn, Malcolm, and Jill. Then, in the spring of 1953, Carolyn announced she was pregnant again, and that October, she gave birth to another daughter, Robin Brooke Reybold.
Malcolm picked out the name, as he had done with Jill. After enduring another C-section, Carolyn was pale, but it was nothing that a daily swipe of red lipstick wouldn’t fix. Grace took the elevator upstairs to the eighteenth floor to visit whenever she could, spoiling little Jill as she adjusted to having a new sister. By now, Jill had grown into a toddler with a mop of light brown hair curling around her ears and eyes that had turned to deep brown, just like her mother’s.
Robin was just a few months old when Carolyn returned to modeling. The family needed the extra income more than ever. Malcolm had been flying home from a business trip when he began spitting blood. Plagued by ulcers for many years, Malcolm was suffering from complications, and they were severe. The doctors removed three-quarters of his stomach, some of his upper intestine, and part of his pancreas. It would be many months before he would be able to work again. The medical bills were piling up, and someone needed to pay the rent.
After weeks of trying out for j
obs and failing to win a single one, Carolyn finally secured a booking for the May issue of Seventeen. After that, she didn’t appear in another magazine until July. The months crawled by, with Carolyn going up for job after job. By the time 1954 was over, she had appeared in only one small feature and a mere five advertising campaigns. Eileen Ford did her best to drum up more work, but the reality was that Carolyn’s greatest success had been in magazines for teenagers. She was twenty-six years old now and the mother of two. For every job, she was competing against fresh-faced young girls who were actually teenagers. And while friends like Grace had built second careers as actresses, Carolyn had no plan B.
CHAPTER 10
Nina
Out on Long Island, my mother was so isolated, away from Manhattan and the friends she had made there. I was barely ever at school, so I can’t remember her socializing with the other mothers she might have met if I’d attended regularly. The only friend of hers I can recall was Marlene Colgate.
Marlene lived in Manhattan but spent July and August at her family’s beach house, just a few miles away from our home. She had four children, all of them my age or younger. Marlene was petite with long reddish-brown hair and freckles, a natural beauty, never overly concerned about appearances. She was a liberal and a free spirit who wore flowing Indian dresses. She’d grown up in New York City, gone to Smith College, and studied ballet. Marlene talked about politics, about making the world a better place, and how we all had to do our part to save the environment. My mother must have been drawn to Marlene because she was so different from your typical buttoned-up Lloyd Neck resident, but I think my mother also enjoyed time with Marlene because they were so different from each other. Even on the beach, my mother was quiet and self-conscious in her modest one-piece. Marlene, by contrast, was relaxed and confident, wearing her long bohemian dresses and openly breastfeeding her baby on the beach.
Those days with the Colgates were such a breath of fresh air for my mother—and for me, too. When we went to visit them, instead of being just two of us, my mother and I were part of a group. My mother would sit with Marlene, the two of them huddled together on their beach towels, heads almost touching, speaking in hushed voices. Marlene nodded and knitted her brow, putting a hand on my mother’s arm, listening to her, reassuring her. Marlene also took my mother’s concerns for my health seriously. She offered to introduce us to her own doctor, Dr. James J. Farley, a homeopathic doctor she described as “a genius” and a “real country doctor.”
Marlene’s eldest boy, Gibby, was the same age as me. Even though we were already old enough to figure out that boys and girls weren’t supposed to play together, we made an exception for each other, wading off into the water at the edge of the beach to look for minnows. Then came Wim, the second boy, two years younger than Gibby and me; Haven, the toddler; and Ted, the baby. For once, I was with a family where I was one of the eldest and where the other children were all close in age. One time, Gibby and I went too far down the beach, and the Colgates’ neighbor, an older woman, came out waving a shotgun, telling us we were trespassing on private property. My father came to our rescue; it’s the only time I can remember him being with us out at Marlene’s.
Malcolm didn’t enjoy the beach. He sunburned easily, and preferred being with his friends to spending time with his family. On this one occasion, he stayed for only a short time before he got up to leave, saying something to my mother as he turned to go. I didn’t catch the words, but I saw the look on my mother’s face: it was one of furious mistrust. I looked over at Marlene. She was also looking at my mother, observing the whole scene, her face furrowed with concern. As I remember it, Marlene’s reaction was one of the only times someone from outside the family gave me any context for what was happening between my parents. Her worried expression let me know that the way my father behaved was not right; that what was taking place within my family was far from normal.
* * *
IN NOVEMBER OF 1967, at my third-grade parent-teacher conference, I had already been absent so much of the year that it was impossible for my teachers to report accurately on my progress.
“Mrs. Reybold was extremely depressed and described the lengthy medical examinations that have not yet resulted in a diagnosis of Nina’s ailments,” my teacher wrote. “As far as we can ascertain Nina is keeping up, but it is impossible to know. Mrs. Reybold took additional homework for Nina ‘if she is able to do it’ but did not take the report card. ‘Throw it away,’ she said, ‘It’s useless.’”
In January, the school requested another physical report, so in March I went to see a Dr. Estes at the Sound Shore Medical Group. His recommendation was “full activity.” At this point, Dr. Estes sent the following note to our school nurse: “I think I have convinced Mrs. Reybold to return Nina to school. Please advise the school nurse not to call Mrs. Reybold when Nina comes to see her, but give TLC for 5 to 10 minutes and return her to her class. She may only be sent home if she has a fever of 101.”
However, by the end of the school year, I had been in school for only ten days in total, so they decided to hold me back and make me repeat third grade. My second time in third grade, I did a little better, but I was still present for only fifty-five days.
In January of third grade, I had another examination with Dr. Estes who found nothing wrong with me and again recommended full activity. That same month, the school nurse, Mrs. McNulty, noted that she had spoken to my mother, who explained that I was just not well enough to attend school because of “an occasional low-grade fever.”
By February, the notes report that I was in the care of “another Dr.” who was “trying to prove my anemia.” That month, we went to visit Dr. Farley, the doctor recommended by Marlene. He gave my mother a handwritten note informing the school that I was now under his care. In his note, Dr. Farley stipulated that I have home teaching as I currently wasn’t fit to attend school. A few days later, I had my first session with my teacher, Mrs. Johnston, at my home. The sessions didn’t last long. By March 4, my mother was canceling them, claiming I wasn’t strong enough.
I remember Dr. Farley very well. His offices were on 178th Street near the George Washington Bridge, at the top of a long, narrow staircase. In the waiting room, the chairs and couches were tattered, with splitting seams, as if all the patients sitting here waiting over all the years had worn them all to pieces. Dr. Farley was from Ireland and had an accent that I couldn’t always understand, but even so, I felt safe with him. His belly was large and round, he wore wire glasses on his nose, and his balding head was rimmed with white hair. He was always kindly and smiling when we saw him. My mother felt comfortable with him, too. She said he reminded her of her doctor in Ohio. While the other doctors we visited looked at us skeptically, Dr. Farley was different. He didn’t judge us. He believed my mother when she told him something was wrong with me. He listened to us. When we left his offices, my mother always seemed so relieved.
Lying on Dr. Farley’s dark green examining table, I could see across the room to his desk area. On the far wall, behind the desk, there was a Norman Rockwell painting of a doctor and a little girl wearing a red hat. The doctor had a stethoscope, and the little girl was holding up a doll so that the doctor could listen to the doll’s heart. The girl looked shy, maybe even a little worried. The doctor was an older man, red-cheeked and kindly, with white hair. As he pressed his stethoscope to the doll’s chest, he stared up into one corner of the room, just like Dr. Farley as he examines me. I liked the painting very much.
When my school requested another examination by a Board of Education medical officer, Dr. Farley wrote again, this time asking them to kindly hold up the procedure until I had seen another doctor.
“We will have to assume that Nina is being ‘illegally detained’ unless we receive the proper documentation,” the school principal, Mr. Bedford, wrote in April 1969. The school needed official authorization for the home teaching. That same month, Mrs. Johnston wrote in my progress report that since I had misse
d every single day of the marking period, it was impossible to give a progress report at all. In fact, I had been absent for 138 days and present for only 55 days. “I am forced to consider that Nina does not have the skills necessary to progress to Fourth Grade,” Mrs. Johnston explained.
At this point, the school insisted I see a physician approved by the Board of Education. Reluctantly, my mother drove me into Manhattan to visit Dr. Edmund Joyner, the chairman of the Pediatrics Department at Roosevelt Hospital. Dr. Joyner gave me a full physical exam. After that, he sent a note to the school explaining that I was in good health and “capable of taking part in school activities suitable for her age.”
My mother conceded defeat and sent me back to school. However, my return didn’t last long. One day, I was walking to my desk after collecting an assignment from Mrs. Johnston when my knees buckled under me and I fell. I was sent to the school nurse. As instructed, the nurse did not send me home but returned me to class. Later that day, when I told my mother what had happened, she immediately booked an appointment with an orthopedist. The doctor looked at my X-rays and told my mother it was possible my legs had stopped growing. Starting the next day, my mother kept me home again.
On April 24, Dr. Farley sent a letter to my school principal to explain that I was seeing a Dr. Michael Lepore at St. Vincent’s Hospital and that the school should arrange for home studies until I was ready to return. My principal had finally reached his breaking point. That May, my mother was summoned to appear in family court charged with unlawfully keeping Robin and me home without cause. Dr. Farley sent a note to the Family Intake Unit of Suffolk County to say that my mother would be unable to attend because “she must take the child Nina, age 9, for treatment of a serious illness to Dr. C. Flood.”
