She blinks. “When is Mort coming? What should I say?”
“Tell him you were playing softball.”
She spends the afternoon rummaging through her closets and drawers. Blue jeans she remembers as loose fit her like a girdle now.
Stewart comes into her room with a couple of her mother’s old sundresses. “These might fit. I remember you really loved this yellow flowered one on your mother—your eyes are so much like hers.”
“Hello? Anybody home.” A man’s voice downstairs.
In the kitchen, Dr. Mason moves her head like a doll’s. “Boy oh boy. Should I ask?”
A flash of Jackie comes to mind: elegant hands on bridle reins, photographs of Bobby and her together on horseback. “Riding,” she says. “Guess I’m not the equestrian I thought.”
He sighs. “I’d much rather do this in an operating theatre. But your father says it’s a problem, the press and the tabloids—quite a superstar since I last saw you, young lady.”
She raises a Jackie-esque hand to her nose.
“We could do it tonight. It’s a relatively simple procedure.” He sits on the edge of the table, turns her face again. “I can’t guarantee your profile will be exactly the same.”
“That’s all right. A change won’t kill me.”
For the next week, she lives in dreamland, coasting on painkillers as Stewart brings cold compresses and lemonade. Summer break at the university allows him hours to concoct purées and soups. He throws her cigarettes in the garbage and pillow-props her in the chaise lounge under the apple tree, monstrous sun hat on her head. He offers to play Scrabble with her, cards, but she says she’d rather read. He does his best to give her space.
A call from Annie after three or four days chafes her. She’s just quit smoking, Celia explains, “if I sound a little cranky. And the painkillers make me tired. Can we talk later?” She asks Stewart to say she is sleeping if Annie calls again.
Soon the splint is replaced with bandages.
“That’s a damn nice nose, if I do say so myself,” Mort exclaims. “It’s delicate though, keep your head elevated now that the packing’s out.”
Mort leaves her outside in the shade and is quickly replaced by Stewart bearing tea and biscuits. “The bruising’s really subsided, hasn’t it?” In the interest of keeping her nose elevated, he dashes to pick up what she drops.
She nods and takes her book from him.
He stands staring as she reads. “Your friend called again. I think she’s worried.”
She keeps reading. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he says. “You don’t need to speak with anyone.”
The following night Stewart prepares an elaborate dinner. On the record player Mario Lanza sings, “Santa Lucia.” Celia watches from the table and sips from her glass. “I better watch this wine-and-painkillers thing,” she muses aloud. “I’ll turn into Monroe.”
Stewart turns. “Ever meet her along your travels?”
“Ohhh, yes.”
He laughs, working hard to lighten the mood. “You met ’em all, kid!”
“You’re sure full of hops tonight,” she says, almost feeling sorry for him.
“It’s a special night.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” he says taking lamb from the oven.
As they eat, Celia tries to make half-decent conversation, or at least do better than her usual monosyllabic responses.
By dessert, Stewart has started to fidget. Taking a last forkful of peach pie, he raises his port glass and calls for a toast. “To new beginnings.”
She raises her glass then blinks into it a moment before she looks at him. “Thank you. For taking me in.”
His face brightens. “My god. How could I say no?” He takes a breath. “Audrey. You know my heart literally aches when I think of how things ended up. I’ve thought over and over how I could make things right …”
Her stomach rolls. “Stewart …” she says with a sigh, hoping to keep things from getting maudlin.
“Shh, just let me … it means a lot to me that you let me be the one to help. You have no idea.”
She puts a hand to her forehead, hoping he’ll take the hint.
“I knew when I saw you that first day home—” he reaches into his pocket “—that you had come back to me for a reason.” He takes out a small box. “You can’t go back. You want things to change. Let me change them.” He opens it in front of her. The ring sparkles.
Both hands come to her temples. “I feel sick.”
“Oh god, I’m sorry. I know it’s a lot to absorb—I never should have let you drink so much. Here …” He stands and helps her off the chair. She tries to pull away but she’s too dizzy. “Let me bring you upstairs. You’ll be okay.”
On Dr. Kildare, she thinks, they said it was good for pregnant women to have a drink each day. It calms them. She doesn’t say this. She hasn’t said anything about a baby.
Bunching pillows, he eases her onto her bed and tugs the cover up. He smoothes the hair from her forehead. “Should I bring you a cold compress?”
“No.”
“I love you, Audrey,” he says softly and backs out the door.
Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire looked quizzically from the fading cover of Photoplay still tacked to the wall. A brittle magazine ad beside it reads: Cyd Charisse Loves Lustre-Creme Shampoo. Celia’s eyes limp back to Photoplay in time to catch Cyd’s head shake in dismay. “What did I tell you?”
“You were right,” Celia whispers, falling into the dark as Fred tsks.
Soon she is dancing round and round, her skirts whirling, the room expands with the orchestra’s rendition of “Santa Lucia,” the ceiling rises, the floor falls, the walls slide back. Vibrant skirts in cherry red, the plums of royalty, cornflower and lemon, colours and colours as he waltzes her round the ballroom. Those sweet rabbit teeth, she thinks, laughing and breathless. It’s okay, I’m here, a uniformed soldier says in her ear from behind. After tomorrow the war will be over. She lets her head fall back on his shoulder and he puts a small glass candle holder in her teeth. She rights her head and faces Bobby, who parts his jaws, takes the candle, flame to his throat. His skull glows.
Back in the hotel, catching a nap before her show. A girlish voice says, It’s okay, I’m here. Celia smells her perfume, feels the weight of her on the sofa, soft hands on either side of her face, the platinum blonde, the red bow of a mouth. You’re very sweet to me. Sets a pillowy kiss onto her mouth and runs a hand over her forehead. We have to go before they bite us.
“We have to go,” Celia agrees. “We have to go.”
“It’s okay, I’m here.”
She drags her eyes open and just as she sees white-white skin, the music stops. She looks at Stewart on the edge of her bed. “You were having a bad dream.” He smoothes a hand over her face.
Squinting toward the ballerina clock on the opposite wall, she tries to focus on the limbs as they move round the dial, a leg on the six, and one on … something. A rattlesnake coils in her belly, tensing and tensing. “How long have I been …”
“A couple hours. I wish I could keep you from ever having a bad dream again.” His eyes droop like a hungry basset’s. “I love you so much.” Her jaws clench. He looks into her eyes then leans and brings his mouth to hers.
The snake’s tail shimmies now. Can’t breathe. Suffocating. “Stop it!” She shoves him back. “You’re taking bites. You’re just like everybody else, swallowing!”
Startled, he sits back. “Honey, it’s me. It’s Stewart.”
“I know who you are. You’re my father. I’m not your girlfriend. Your wife. Ever. Stop touching me.”
“What kind of game are you playing, Audrey? Or Celia, whoever the hell you are? You came to me.” He throws up his hands. “You love me when? When you want something?”
“I came to you for help because you’re my family.”
“You think you can play with my emotions like this? Flirt and torment me?” His voice levels a
nd he adds, “You’re a sick girl,” before his shadow slams from the room.
As her eyes adjust to the dark, the pink of the ballerina’s limbs cluck round. Her face, normally in profile, turns to Celia now with a hideous grimace. Celia closes her eyes, wipes tears before they reach the bandage and opens her mouth for air.
It seems as if she’s been awake all night until she hears Dean, Frank, and Sammy come up the stairs, Dean singing, “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head.” Logic burbles as she tries to remember where she is. Unable to get her eyes open, she tries to deduce.
“She’s in here.” Dean. I miss Dean. If only she could wake up; she wants to look nice.
“I guess she’s still sleeping.” Stewart is with them? If she could just make real noise, it would bring her into the daylight.
“Audrey … You’ve got to get up now. Come on, we’re taking you back to New York.” The rust of early sun scrapes his face as Agent Dodge jostles her.
Spinning out of the sky, she slams back down in Scarsdale. Her bedroom. The ballerina’s hand is on the eight, her pointe shoe on the three. Stewart stands at the door with Richards. “Careful of her bandage. Her nose was broken.”
“Since or prior to her arrival?” Richards asks.
“Before. She had some sort of mishap the night Senator Kennedy was killed.”
On her feet, with the assistance of Dodge, she stares at Stewart.
“Do you want to change your clothes or shall we head out?” Dodge asks.
She looks down at her mother’s dress. “I’d like to change.”
Twenty
BETWEEN THE LACK OF SLEEP AND THE ECSTASY HANGOVER, I was consumed by anxiety and gloom. “How long did they keep her?”
Annie’s mouth formed a frowning moue. “I don’t know. Few hours. They took her to some motel outside the city and put a scare into her. I was thinking of her when all that Monica Lewinsky crap was going on. Did that to her too, held her in a room, told her all kinds of this and that if she didn’t testify. And everybody arguing whether she was an innocent or a tramp.”
“So, what happened? She came home?”
“Yes. I thought she was still up in Scarsdale and the next thing I know, she’s standing in the doorway looking like a wet rat. Scared the hell out of me. And she was making strange. You don’t know who to trust sometimes, you know. But she couldn’t keep a secret to save her soul. Not from me anyway. They made her wear a bug-type of thing and they parked out front.”
Annie watches Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. There’s a storm outside, and the apartment is dreary and dark. Blue light from the television traipses over her blank face.
A key slides into the lock.
Her face jerks. She reaches under the couch and barks, “Who’s there?” The door handle turns. She pulls out a baseball bat, raises it over her head as she creeps forward. “Who’s there?”
“It’s me,” a small voice says. Celia stands in the entrance dripping wet, bedraggled bandage across her nose, Annie’s pants sagging off her hips.
The bat drops. “What are you doing here?”
Celia droops. “Things didn’t work out.”
Grabbing the blanket off the couch, Annie drapes it round Celia’s shoulders and hugs. “Jesus, what happened to you? Did you have it reset?” She rubs Celia over the blanket, steers her toward the sofa. “What happened?”
Celia is sitting on the motel bed, maybe fifty miles outside New York City. Dodge and Richards have their coats off and their sleeves rolled up as they pace, asking if she knows this one or that one, for how long and how did they meet.
“I don’t know,” and “Not to my knowledge,” dominate her side of the conversation.
“Did you ever deliver a package or briefcase for Rosselli?”
“No.”
“Did you deliver a message to Senator Kennedy from Rosselli?”
“No.”
“Were you in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel on June 4?”
“No.”
“Your stepfather says you were.”
“He also asked me to marry him. He’s delusional.”
The men exchange glances. Dodge goes into a leather satchel, pulls a polka-dot dress from the bag. “Everybody keeps talking about a girl in a polka-dot dress. Does this look familiar?”
No response.
“We can prove that you have been intimately involved with several organized-crime figures. What do you think these guys’ll do when they realize you are going to testify? You think Rosselli’s going to save you? What if it leaks to the press that you had a sexual relationship with not only an assassinated presidential candidate but hoodlums like Rosselli and Teddy the Ghost and Micky D …?”
Her stomach somersaults and she bends and throws up. Dodge stares down at his shoes.
“Stewart asked me to marry him.”
“He what?”
“He’s crazy,” she says dully.
“Are you expecting someone?”
Celia wraps the blanket tighter. “No. Why?”
“You keep looking at your watch. Lemme see.” Annie turns Celia’s wrist over, examines it. “Stewart give you that?”
“Yes, I guess he did.”
Annie’s eyes drift to Laugh-In, John Wayne saying, Well, I don’t think that’s funny. “I think someone broke in here a couple days ago. My suitcase was open and stuff was—oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’m losing my mind.”
Celia’s eyes glaze on the TV dancers as they wiggle between jokes.
“Shit, I almost forgot, Marty keeps calling. He says Dean wants to book you on his show.” The phone rings. “Probably him again.” She gets off the couch. “I told him you were in Jamaica … Hello? … Oh! Johnny.” She eyes Celia for instruction. “How’re you? … As a matter of fact …” She hands the phone. Celia takes a deep breath before saying hello.
“You’re back. All suntanned?”
“No, I went to my family’s instead.”
“Hmm. I thought that’d be the last place you’d go.”
“Should’ve been.”
“I’m sorry. How are you doing, sweetheart?”
“I’m all right.”
“You sure? Whatever happened with that subpoena?”
“They want me in court in a couple weeks.”
“Well, you never know. Sometimes people change their minds about these things. I’ll be in town tomorrow. Can we have dinner?”
She nods at her watch.
“How’s that sound?” he asks.
“Fine. Sorry, I had a little accident. I’m still feeling kind of wonky … painkillers.”
“You okay?”
“Yes. Just my nose. I fell and I have a bandage on it.”
“Oh no! You tell me all about it tomorrow. If you wanna have it looked at, I know the best nose-guy in Hollywood.”
That night she dreams four FBI agents stand as bedposts. Nobody notices.
Johnny shows up at seven on the dot. As they step into the evening air, he merrily waves to the dark van across the street. “They been here all along or just since you got back?”
She hesitates, her pulse thumps. “That’s them? How do you know?” She stares over her shoulder as he opens the passenger door.
We’ll be with you the whole time. You might not see us but we’ll be there.
Celia looks back to see the van coast off in the opposite direction.
Johnny glances in his rearview. As they pull out, a black car coasts in behind them. “Christ, they sure turned it up on you.”
“Why do they have to look so ominous?”
“Intimidation is part theatre. Let’s have some fun.” He stomps the gas and peels around the corner. The car behind jumps the curb, battling to keep up.
“No! Please, Johnny.” She puts her hands up.
He slows and glances at her bandage. “Okay, okay. What the hell happened anyway?”
“Oh, it was nothing. There was an announcement about Bobby at the airport and, ah, people got all upset and I got pushed a
nd fell. Stupid.”
“Why do you keep looking at your watch? Am I late?”
She shifts her look out the window. “I was just thinking it’s early for dinner.”
“Thought we might take a walk in Central Park. Build up an appetite.”
“Central Park?” she repeats a little loudly.
“Yes!” he bellows back. “Nice this time of year, and who knows when I’ll be out here next. Maybe the trial won’t go so good.”
She looks at his frost-blue eyes, the contrast from pupil to iris. “We’ll be fine.”
When they park, he comes round and opens Celia’s door. “Madam …”
“Thank you, sir.”
Slipping his arm around her, he watches the black car park on the other side of the lot. The van rolls by without stopping. “I thought we might have a conversation but this is putting a damper on it. Bad as L.A.”
About to check her watch, she looks at the rhododendrons instead. Johnny speaks but her mind has slipped through a hole back into the motel room with Dodge and Richards, the watch they laid on the bedspread. A passage from Bobby’s crime-fighting book came to mind. “… he had been using a recording device concealed in his watch. Suddenly the face of the watch dropped off and hung dangling from wires that were attached to the recorder…”
“This is different,” Dodge insisted. “It’s a tiny bug—the technology is far more advanced than what we had ten years ago. We can also monitor your whereabouts. If you read the senator’s book then you know what these people are capable of. Why go without protection?”
Rosselli looks at her now for a response.
“Sorry. I’m having such a hard time concentrating.” She opens her purse, pulls a tissue. Seeing Bobby’s red heart, she snaps it shut.
“Better take it easy on those pills.” He squeezes her, steers toward a busy promenade.
Fifteen or twenty yards away, a long-haired hippie strums guitar and sings Dylan songs. He winks at Celia. She flicks her eyes away. Johnny throws a buck into the case as they pass. “I think we should figure out this thing.” He keeps an overtly breezy manner. “I leaked to the papers last year about Cuba, just a little something so they’d know it’s a bad idea putting me on the stand.”
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