by Ruth Harris
The next morning the American ambassador got Ames out of jail. A representative of the Swedish government kept the story out of the papers but insisted that Ames and Adriana be on the next plane out of Sweden. A police escort made certain that they were.
In Vienna, Adriana collapsed on stage. The next day, she called an unscheduled press conference to announce that she was canceling the remainder of the tour. Again the headlines flashed and the stories that ran under them reported on Miss Partos’s haggard condition and the convulsive shaking of the hands that had once held genius.
Ames heard the news, not from Adriana and not from the newspapers, but from an enraged Nicky Kiskalesi. Ames was in the manager’s office of the Vienna Opera House trying desperately to appease the manager, who demanded the advance back, in cash, that moment. The phone on the manager’s baroque desk rang; he answered it and handed it to Ames.
Nicky informed Ames Bostwick that not only was his two-million-dollar fee canceled but that also he, Nicky, would personally see to it that Ames Bostwick would never again be able to raise a cent as long as he lived.
“You can’t do this to me!” Ames cried into the phone.
“I can,” said Nicky, “and, what’s more, I already have.”
Nicky hung up without another word, leaving Ames with a dead line and — he realized immediately — a dead line of credit.
Nicky put down the phone and turned his attention to the woman on the bed next to him. Now that Adriana was away on tour, her replacement was Gail de Córdoba.
Nicky had once considered Gail to be featherbrained, but she surprised him by turning out to be a useful ally in his dealings with James Santana about the Denver oil shale concessions. Gail had a direct pipeline to her sister, the President’s wife, and Nicky discovered somewhat to his surprise that she was far more astute and socially connected than he had originally realized.
Nicky had read the newspaper reports about Adriana’s collapse and seen photographs of her looking worn and exhausted, her lush russet-colored hair greyed and sparse, her body skeletal. Nobody would envy the man who had Adriana Partos at his side.
On the other hand, Gail was fifteen years younger and looked twenty-five years younger. She was the President’s sister-in-law and had invaluable contacts in Europe and the United States. Nicky was glad to be with her again and he lay back on the bed, closed his eyes, and gently stroked Gail’s hair as her head bobbed up and down between his legs.
30
It was Adriana who found Ames.
Although she wasn’t going to perform, not ever again, she decided that she would take her shot anyway and went to Ames’s room at the Imperial Hotel in Vienna. When he didn’t answer, she got the manager to open the room for her. She had decided that even if Ames had gone out, she would have the shot even if she had to inject herself. She wanted it that badly.
Ames was lyingface down in his bathroom, a half-empty syringe near his outstretched right hand. The Viennese doctor who was summoned by the Imperial’s manager, had Ames admitted to a local hospital.
He told Adriana that Ames’s violent and erratic behavior was most likely an effect of the drug and said he was shocked by the amount of amphetamine contained in the syringe.
“There’s something wrong with it?” Adriana asked as they stood in the hospital’s reception area.
“There are only two medically justifiable uses for amphetamine,” said the doctor. “One is for hyperkinesis in children and the other is for narcolepsy—”
“Then why was Ames taking it?”
The doctor shook his head. “I don’t know—”
“Is Ames going to be all right?”
“I don’t know that, either,” he said. “But if you have been taking it yourself,” he added, looking at her gaunt figure and shaky hands, “I suggest you stop immediately. If you can—”
“‘If I can?’”
“Amphetamine is highly addictive,” he said. “If you’ve been taking it with any regularity, you should assume that you’re addicted—”
“Is Ames?” she said. “Addicted?”
“Certainly,” said the doctor. “It’s possible he might suffer permanent disability—”
“Disability?” asked Adriana, looking alarmed.
“Psychosis,” said the doctor. “Clinical depression. He might have to be watched constantly—”
“You mean suicide?” asked Adriana, remembering her own threats. She had thought it was the critics who had affected her so deeply. They had hurt, she realized, hurt deeply, but was it the amphetamine, the “miracle medicine,” that had caused her to react so violently? She shivered involuntarily.
“Yes, suicide,” said the doctor.
Adriana was shocked into silence. When she was able to speak, she quietly thanked the doctor and paid for Ames’s treatment. Then she returned to the hotel and secreted the kit Gavin Jenkins had prepared for Ames in her largest wardrobe trunk. She locked herself in her room and notified the hotel manager that under no circumstances was she to be disturbed.
For the next three days she had hallucinations so vivid they seemed real. She saw repulsive, pus-dripping insects crawling on her skin and into her flesh, trying to devour her. They covered her body like a second skin and burrowed their way under her nails and behind her eyes. She stuffed the corner of a pillowcase into her mouth to keep herself from screaming, fearing the manager might come up to investigate.
She vomited until there was no food left in her stomach, but the retching didn’t stop. She felt as if she were heaving up little pieces of herself. She looked in the toilet bowl, afraid that she would see part of her intestines floating there.
She shivered for hours and no matter how many blankets she wrapped herself in, she couldn’t stop trembling. For a long time she was convinced she was dying of exposure.
She lost sphincter and bladder control and rolled around on the bathroom floor in her own excrement. She had always been fastidious, bathing several times a day with perfumed bath oils. Now she didn’t climb into the tub and clean herself because she was terrified of drowning.
At the end of the third day, the ghastly symptoms disappeared and when Adriana saw Ames’s doctor, he was astounded by her self-discipline.
“I didn’t think it was possible,” he admitted. Then he told her she might have died. “Some people don’t make it,” he said and told her there had also been an element of good fortune. Fortunately, he said, her doses had been considerably lower than those with which Ames had been injecting himself.
“You were lucky,” he told her.
31
Adriana flew back to New York with Ames in the seat beside her. Under the blue Pan-Am blanket in which he was wrapped, he wore a straitjacket. He was unable or unwilling to talk, to eat, to watch the film that was being shown — the film, ironically, of the musical he had produced only a year before on Broadway. He was unresponsive, suspended in a twilight state hovering between consciousness and unconsciousness.
Adriana had wired Gavin and asked him to meet their plane but he was in Washington when the telegram arrived. Instead, Cleo decided to meet the plane herself. When the three of them were settled in Cleo’s car, Adriana asked where Gavin was.
“He wanted to be here, but he couldn’t,” Cleo said. She was not permitted to reveal that Gavin was treating the President and he had told her that even Suzanne didn’t know. “An emergency—”
“Emergency? Are you serious?” Adriana replied. She motioned toward the inert form of Ames Bostwick, still wrapped in the blue Pan Am blanket. “Look at him! Don’t you think Ames Bostwick is an emergency?”
Cleo didn’t answer. She couldn’t get over how gaunt Adriana looked. She was skeletally thin, there were dark, protruding bags under her eyes and deep lines bracketed her mouth. Always conscious of her appearance, she had not bothered with makeup or even a scarf to cover her straggly, greyed hair. Cleo knew the tour had taken its toll — she had read as much in the papers and seen the photographs — but
she hadn’t imagined she would see Adriana looking so ravaged.
“I’m not a doctor, I don’t know,” Cleo replied. “Gavin will have to answer your questions himself—”
“What answers can there be?” Adriana asked. “Ames isn’t able to tell you the horrors Gavin Jenkins put him through. But I am. Do you want to know what it’s like to be an amphetamine addict? Do you want to know what it feels like to walk out on a concert stage with three thousand people in the audience waiting to hear you play, but your hands are shaking so hard that you have to hold them together behind your back as you take your bow? Do you want to know what it feels like to want a shot so much that all you can think about while you’re on stage is the needle that will be in your arm in a little while?”
Cleo didn’t want to know. All she knew was that suddenly Adriana was dangerous, a potential threat to her husband — and to her. A woman who was blaming Gavin for the disastrous tour and who was threatening to go to the authorities.
“All I know is that before you left for your tour, you were raving about Gavin,” Cleo reminded her. “You were so excited about your comeback and you gave him all the credit—”
“I was right,” Adriana said bitterly. “He deserves all the credit for everything. His so-called treatment destroyed Ames and almost killed me. His license should be taken away from him—”
“I don’t know what happened to Ames or to you, but I can’t believe Gavin had anything to do with it,” Cleo said. “Talk to him. Listen to what he has to say before you make accusations you can’t prove—”
“There’s nothing he can say—”
“Will you at least to talk to him first?” asked Cleo, almost begging. “Before you do something rash—”
Cleo left Adriana off at her apartment and used the telephone in the car to call Bobbi who was on the board of the Hillside Sanatorium in Greenwich, Connecticut. She asked Bobbi to made arrangements for Ames to be admitted right away and requested that his bills be sent to her personally.
After the limousine service picked up Ames to deliver him to Greenwich, Cleo was free to concentrate on the most important matter at hand — how to keep Adriana Partos from ruining her life — and Gavin’s.
32
When Gavin got home from Washington, Cleo took him into the bedroom. She closed the door and told him what Adriana had said. She related every detail and when she was done, she waited for Gavin’s response.
“My fault?” Gavin exploded and began pacing back and forth. “She had the nerve to blame me? I’ll tell you what the problem is. Ames Bostwick is an idiot and he did it to himself. He’s lucky he’s even alive—”
“Only barely,” said Cleo but Gavin ignored her.
Cleo had never seen him so angry before. Cool, calm, contained Dr. Jenkins was red-faced and furious.
“My fault? She had the nerve to say it was my fault?” he shouted. “I’ll tell you what the problem is. The problem is Ames Bostwick. I warned him not to give himself shots. I told him a dozen times it was dangerous and those drugs should only be administered by a licensed physician. He said he’d be careful. He promised he’d never take more than the prescribed amount. I must have told him a thousand times how dangerous the wrong dosage could be.”
“He’s a goddamn idiot,” Gavin continued, his voice rising. “An I.Q. of minus zero. Of course he’s a vegetable. He’s lucky he’s alive. I told him over and over he was playing with fire. Liquid fire. ‘Be careful, Ames,’ I told him. ‘Don’t be stupid.’”
“Adriana’s worse than Ames,” he continued. “I told her all she needed was medication for her arthritis and I arranged it for her before she left for Europe. I gave her the name of a doctor in every city on her tour and wrote to each one of them myself, telling them exactly what her physical condition was and what treatment she required. She knew that! And did she consult them? No. Instead, she goes to Dr. Ames Bostwick—”
Gavin sat down and after a few minutes he seemed more in control. Finally Cleo dared speak.
“What are you going to tell Adriana when you see her?”
“See her?” Gavin snapped. “Why should I see her?”
“She thinks your treatments are dangerous—”
“Only in the hands of idiots like Ames Bostwick—”
“What if Adriana decides to go to the AMA?” said Cleo. “I asked her to wait and talk to you before she does anything—”
“Let her do whatever she goddamn pleases,” Gavin said. “If she wants to make a fool of herself by going to the AMA, that’s her problem—”
“It could be our problem, too—”
“‘Our problem?’” said Gavin. “I didn’t do anything wrong and you know it—”
Cleo barely knew what to say. Didn’t he realize a potentially explosive situation had developed? He seemed unhinged but, if he wanted to continue to practice, he had to behave rationally. Maybe he just had to sit down with Adriana and explain that Ames had abused the drugs. Wouldn’t that convince her not to go to the authorities?
Cleo was not about to sit back passively and let him throw his career away. Right now, Gavin was being just as self-destructive as he said Ames had been. And if she didn’t do something to change his attitude, he would succeed in ruining their lives. The Celebrity Doctor was her creation and she was not going to let him destroy it.
For the next month and a half, Cleo and Gavin lived almost as strangers. When she asked him about his day, he responded in monosyllables. When she suggested a movie or a restaurant, he waved her off. The only sounds in the house were Cleo’s efforts to make contact with him. More and more, as Gavin retreated into his own world, she felt excluded. She was lonely and blamed him for her isolation.
Gavin’s decision wasn’t sudden. He had been thinking about it for weeks as he listened to Cleo chatter away endlessly, demanding attention he didn’t want to give. One evening, he took out a suitcase and began to pack.
“What are you doing?” Cleo asked.
“Packing—”
“I can see you’re packing,” she said. “I didn’t know you were going anywhere—”
Gavin continued to pack and didn’t reply.
“You’ve never taken that much with you when you’ve gone to Washington—”
“I’m not going to Washington,” he said. “I’m moving out.”
“Moving out?” She suddenly became alarmed. “Moving where?”
“To the office.” Gavin didn’t look up. “I’ve decided to live there. I can get more work done—”
She could hardly believe what she was hearing. “You’re saying you’re leaving me?”
He didn’t look at her. “If you want to put it that way—”
“What other way is there to put it?” she asked. The whole situation was crazy. If she had been out for dinner that evening, would she have come home to an empty apartment? Would he have left a message? A note? “How can you move out of the apartment without discussing it first?”
“We’re discussing it now—”
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, feeling panicky and afraid. How could she live without him? Gavin Jenkins and his career had become her life. If he moved out, she would be left with nothing.
“I need more time for my patients,” Gavin said. “I can get more accomplished if I stay at the office—”
“Why?” Cleo asked, feeling dazed as she tried to absorb what was happening. She had never imagined any man would just pack up without any warning. “I don’t understand—”
“My patients come first,” Gavin said. “You know that. They always have—”
“But what about me?”
“You’ll be fine,” he said. “You don’t need me—”
“Don’t need you?” She was crying and angry and hurt and defenseless. “I love you—”
Gavin had never considered her point of view. She was right of course. She would miss him. But he couldn’t let her dependence affect his decision. His primary obligation was to his patients and his care
er. They came before everything else.
“It may take a little time, but you’ll adjust,” Gavin said. He felt sorry for her and tried not to sound too cold and indifferent. “What we had was wonderful, but it’s over now—”
“It’s not over,” Cleo said. She was crying. “Please don’t do this to me, Gavin. Tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you. You want me to change? I’ll be anything you want me to be. Do I talk too much? Does that bother you? Just tell me, and I’ll never say another word. Is my hair too long? Do I wear too much makeup? Are my clothes too expensive?” Cleo was almost hysterical. “Just tell me what you want and that’s what I’ll be. I’ll turn myself inside out. It will be easy to change. Let me know what will make you happy and I’ll do it for you—”
She waited for him to reply but all Gavin could feel for her was sympathy, mingled with pity. He recognized that the difficulty was not with her but with him. He needed more time to be by himself. He had so much work and so much responsibility. She would only interfere. Any woman would. How could he tell her she was in the way?
“I wish there was something I could say to make you feel better but there isn’t,” Gavin said. “And it’s not because I don’t appreciate everything you’ve done for me—”
Cleo began to sob uncontrollably. Her shoulders heaved and tears cascaded down her face.
“Don’t cry,” he soothed. Why did things have to end like this? He just wanted a clean break without any scenes. Why couldn’t each of them go their separate ways and let that be the end of it? “I’m not leaving New York. We’ll still see each other. It just won’t be as often as before—”
It was a lie and Cleo knew it. He had become more withdrawn every year and if he moved out, he’d turn into a hermit. Cleo gasped to catch her breath, wiped her eyes and swallowed. “Don’t do this to us, Gavin. We’ve had too much together for you to throw it away. You’re not just hurting me. You’re hurting yourself. Please. Don’t do something that both of us will regret—”
