She was still writing when the plane landed.
On the drive into Manhattan she concentrated on her notes, not looking up until the limo passed above the East River. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot from working in the pressurized cabin. “Althea never could bear people laughing at her,” she said aloud.
Having secured the key to Althea, she flipped back through pages of neatly written observations. At the Regency, the desk clerk handed her a message slip: “See you at 5:45. Althea.” Marylin let out a relieved sigh. It goes without saying that she had fretted about her course of action if Althea did not show. (Would she need to camp outside of Althea’s apartment building, or what?)
Miniature liquor bottles stocked the mini-fridge under the bathroom counter, but she ordered fifths of Scotch and vodka to be sent up at 5:15 along with an hors d’oeuvres tray. The next two hours she absorbedly prepared herself as she would for the camera, shampooing under the shower, blow-drying her brown hair, applying cosmetics in her magnifying travel mirror, donning a black silk jersey exactingly selected to dignify rather than glamorize her small body.
At precisely a quarter to six, the door buzzer sounded.
Marylin took a deep-breathing-exercise breath before answering.
Althea stood there in a honey-toned midi-suit with matching boots.
It had been years since Marylin had seen Althea, and she stared across the threshold at her sister’s friend. She, too, was prey to that indefatigable arch devil, Time. Lines were pressed at the corners of Althea’s eyes, and a fine wrinkle showed near the base of the still-firm throat.
Althea stared back, her head raised haughtily.
In this moment of empathy, however, Marylin recollected that Althea had always hidden awkwardness behind a facade of snooty reserve.
“Come in,” Marylin said with a surprising note of affection. “Althea, I was so very sorry about your father.”
“Yes, I got your condolence note.”
“Won’t you sit down? Let me fix you a drink. Vodka? Scotch—there’s everything else in the refrigerator.”
“Why should we clutter the occasion with social amenities?” Althea inquired in an abrasive drawl. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”
Marylin’s misplaced generosity faded. “I want to talk about Billy.”
Althea’s mouth formed a quizzical smile. She said nothing.
“He told us he was going to make a movie and had arranged financing. He made a big mystery about who was putting up the money. Sari thinks you were pretty darn interested in him.”
“And clever little you put two and two together.”
“Then it’s true, isn’t it?”
Althea shrugged her elegant shoulders. “Marylin, maybe in Hollywood people play this sort of game with each other, but I find confrontations vulgar and distressing.”
Althea’s disdain might be a front, but it chilled regardless. Althea had her claws in Billy. Marylin’s mouth had gone dry, and dread swirled through her, but she managed to abdicate her inner ravages in favor of her particular discipline. Deciding that her diminutive stature was against her—she had played a similar scene with Barbara Stanwyck in Recaptured Past—she sat in a wing chair, her spine erect. “Distressing?” she asked. “How about the smirks when people see you with a boy younger than your son?”
“I couldn’t care less what’s in their nasty little minds,” Althea retorted.
“I’m not throwing myself on your better nature, Althea. Whatever Roy says, I’m not sure you have one. I’m only pointing out that you and Billy as an item aren’t likely to escape being in the trash newspapers.”
Althea smiled as though she were thinking of a wickedly risqué jest. “I don’t set out to be in them, dear heart.”
“Yes, but if there were some sort of scandal . . .”
“As I live and breathe, a threat. You’ll set the paparazzi on me, is that it?”
“I won’t have to. You’re a Coyne, and they know it. As soon as they figure out Billy’s my son, they’ll swarm.”
“So I’d be wise to drop him, is that your gist?”
“It’s the only sensible thing.”
“How do you think he’ll feel?”
“It has to end eventually.”
“I haven’t let myself think about that, Marylin, but Billy has. Oh, hasn’t he just. He’s talking marriage.”
Marylin could not control her tremors; she clasped her hands tightly to hide the shaking. “Wouldn’t that make a headline? ‘Billionairess Bags Baby as Fourth Husband.’”
“Ouch,” Althea said. “But, Marylin, dear, there’s no point in discussing this with me. Your dear Billy is the one who’s pushing for wedding bells.”
“He doesn’t understand what he’s getting into.”
“He’s a full-grown man, a terrific, immensely talented man.”
“I’m his mother. I know that.”
Althea raised her chin. “Joshua helped your career, and it seems to me there was a minor age discrepancy—aren’t I right? I do seem to recall you mooning after his son.”
You bitch, you unutterable bitch, Marylin thought. “My marriage,” she said with all the dignity she could muster, “is not what we’re discussing.”
Althea shrugged again. “I only imagined that Billy might remark on it, he might say something.”
“Believe me, Althea, I know the media. They’ll have catch-phrase jokes on the six-o’clock news. They’ll print your very worst photographs. You’ll be sold at the checkout lines. The public eats up this kind of story the way they do candy bars. Oh, how they love to feel superior to the rich.”
“Dear heart, I’ve already caught your point.”
“You and Billy as a couple is the next best thing to a juicy society murder.”
“There’s no need to hammer away. I’m really quite subtle.”
“Wait until they’re hounding you.”
“Marylin, you have a one-track mind. Let’s not prolong this discussion.”
“It’ll get a hundred times more coverage than your marriage to Firelli. In those days, news of the men coming home from war kept everybody occupied.”
Althea rose and glided to the door. “Byeee.” She said it almost gaily.
And with that, she let herself out.
A draft swept the room.
Marylin’s slight body shuddered. Some fight I put up, she thought. Less than ten minutes. She didn’t crack one iota. I’ve probably shoved her into marrying Billy. She destroys everything she touches, especially talented men. That poor German refugee killed himself, probably Gerry did too.
A nauseating odor like decaying flesh filled the air-conditioned air. Marylin realized that the smell came from the uneaten canapés, whose aroma she had considered appetizing a few minutes ago. Grabbing up the silver tray, she started for the door to put it in the hallway; then, fearing she might see Althea, she veered to the bathroom, gagging as she flushed the creamy pink morsels down the toilet.
* * *
Down the corrider, the floor was tilting like a slant board, and Althea had to hold on to the wall. Her breathing was harshly audible. She couldn’t have been in Marylin’s suite much more than five minutes, yet she was a defeated and broken shambles.
She had come to the Regency filled with memories of Roy’s sister—ethereally beautiful and soft-voiced—anticipating some sort of gentle maternal concern that she could handle. This Marylin, though, had been an avenging deity out of myth, an implacable earth goddess who was dressed in smart black jersey and endowed with the superhuman power to obliterate any who offended her. She transformed and transcended herself—like Mother, Althea thought with a tortured little gasp.
Faint music drifted through the corridor, and Althea made her way along the tilting floor to the elevator. A couple dressed for the evening emerged from a nearby room. With a delicate sneer, she rode down with them.
As the taxi wove through the Saturday-quiet streets, she let her head rest on the torn plastic seat cover
and closed her eyes. Her mind jumped tormentedly along the well-worn steps from that old impotent rage to utter helplessness.
Oh, God, now I’ve done it. Now I’ve done it!
Made a public spectacle of myself.
Her fears touched on Charles. If he hears about me and Billy, he’ll see me as a sex-crazed, pathetic old bag. Oh, I’ll die. What is that noise? Is the driver playing a classical tape? Calm down, think it through. This is a civilized, quiet affair, discreet. I can ditch out before that hillbilly Hollywood slut spills any beans, before she strips me naked to my enemies.
The taxi halted. Calling to the doorman to pay the fare, she entered the foyer unsteadily. Inside the building, a metamorphosis occurred in her mind. From her previous frenetic free association, her thoughts began moving with unnatural slowness and intensity.
I will not be a mass laughingstock, she thought over and over.
She stepped into the elevator.
I will never risk losing Charles’s esteem.
Billy was stretched on one of the living-room couches, a large yellow legal pad propped on his knees: from both Marylin and Joshua he had picked up the note-making habit, and since he’d been assured of the financial feasibility of his movie, his quick, fertile brain swarmed with comedy routines.
Setting down the pad, he puckered up in a harsh wolf whistle. “Hey, hey, pretty lady, that’s some nifty outfit.”
“I aim to please,” she said. Did she sound lightly pleasant? Was this a normal kind of remark? “You haven’t moved a millimeter since I left.”
“I thought of an ending. It burst over me like Fourth of July fireworks. Interested?”
“Speak on,” she said, sitting near him, gazing at him a little too devoutly.
Billy’s mouth opened and closed, he gesticulated and gestured, and she knew he was drolly recounting an antic finale, but his words were meaningless.
She had never been quite clear up to now what she felt for Billy. He rejuvenated and revived her. He slept curled in a fetal position. He spoke exuberantly with—what was that throat-clearing word everyone was using now? Chutzpah. His blue-green eyes adored her. His cock was endlessly hard—why do I need it so much the last couple of months? You’re a supah lady, he would say. In his arms, she felt like a normal person.
Billy was staring at her. “Well?” he asked.
“Fabulous.”
“You’re hiding that enthusiasm well.”
She stretched her lips in what maybe was a smile.
He regarded her soberly, then came over, bending to kiss her, a long, tender kiss, stroking her hair. “The mean blues got you again?”
“I’m tired, that’s all. Last night—” She tried a leer. “—left me a peu weary.”
“Listen, don’t try to kid old Doc Fernauld. He’s a specialist in you. Tell me what’s wrong, and I’ll kiss it again and make it better.”
“I just saw your mother.” She stopped abruptly. Was this a wrong thing to say?
“My mother? Marylin Fernauld, aka the beauteous Rain Fairburn?”
“Yes.”
“When I talked to Dad last night, he said she’s secluded at a fat farm.”
“She’s at the Regency. Suite 1803.”
Billy sat down slowly on the ottoman, his hands bracing his bony knees. After a moment or two he said, “Let me guess. She’s come incognito to the Big Apple to plead that you throw me back into the sea of amorous girls through which I routinely swim.”
Music played far away.
“And?” Billy flexed his fingers. “You said to her?”
“I was so blind angry, who can remember.” Althea flicked her head. “Billy, is the radio on in your room?”
“No. What did she say?”
“That’s strange. It sounds like Mozart.”
“Can you remember mentioning I’m quote serious, unquote?”
“When I did, she retorted: ‘Get thee hence, crone.’”
“God, what gall! Here she marries a guy older than my grandmother, and then kicks up because I fall for a lady a few years my senior.”
“There’s always a slight advantage being on the younger side of the situation.”
“Did Great-Grandpa Firelli tell you that?”
The music was louder, absolutely that dread Mozart horn concerto. “I’m positive there’s a radio on, or a stereo.”
“Will you quit changing the subject?” Billy jumped up. “If you want to know, sometimes it crosses my mind you’ve offered me financing for Capers as a consolation prize.”
“Whatever happens, you have backing for your movie.”
“That’s reassuring,” he said snidely, but his face had a look of anguish.
“Billy, please go and turn it off?” She could not control the quaver.
“There is no goddamn radio on!” Suddenly he darted across the room, pulling her roughly to her feet, wrapping his arms around her, pressing himself close to her.
She went wet and shaky with desire.
Sullenly she resented everything about her responses, resented the way the ground now seemed level, resented her lips kissing his mouth, resented her wanton hands as they caressed inside his jeans, resented the quivers in her pelvis.
Yet, surrounded by a fortune in ancient Greek vases, she clung to Marylin Wace’s son.
“The bedroom,” he muttered, picking her up, and the wiry strength of his thin body as usual astounded her. She groaned with frantic delight as he forced her to kneel at the side of the bed. He yanked down her panty hose as far as her boots permitted, thrusting himself into her. She cried out again, this time an ecstatic wail that rose, then fell uncontrollable octaves.
As twilight darkened the lavender stripes between the slats of the shutters, they undressed and shifted onto the bed, twining their bodies in a variety of positions, and she utterly lost herself in the plunges from orgasm to orgasm—her rampaging descent into the pit of carnal oblivion was marked with uninhibited coital moans and cries.
It was dark when they finally lay spent side by side.
He switched on the light, peering at her, his eyes naked without his glasses. “You love me,” he said as if stating an axiom.
“Yes, darling, I know it,” she said. Had he not calmed her crazy imbalance, silenced the baleful chords? Yet she could not have the world laughing at her, could she?
She could not risk losing Charles’s respect.
* * *
The next morning, when Billy went off for his regular Sunday tennis date, she had coffee in bed. Leaning against the pillows, she telephoned all her friends whom she knew were in town. The question that popped up over and over again was: But where have you been, darling? She would give a ritualized trill of laughter and reply that she hadn’t felt much like circulating since her poor father died, and then on the other end would be a murmur of condolence followed immediately by a brightly spoken invitation or a suggestion of lunch? A weekend on the boat perhaps? A few days at “our place by the shore—we’re having some interesting people.”
Invitations.
Dozens and dozens of invitations.
When Billy arrived back at the flat, she was showered and dressed in beige slacks and a creamy striped silk Giorgio Armani shirt. Over brunch she informed him she had quite a few engagements this week.
“Engagements?”
“You know, lunch and dinner dates.”
He gazed across the omelet and brioche. “So,” he said, “the Rain Fairburn school of acting got to you.”
“Time I went out again.” Was it a shade off-key, her voice?
“Am I included?”
“You’d be bored. My friends aren’t exactly the jeunesse dorée.” There. That was better.
“Jesus Christ! I’ll dye my hair gray and walk with a cane, how about that?”
His caustic outburst was accompanied by a pleadingly intense glance that, magnified by his glasses, struck her as inordinately funny. Her laughter bubbled out.
“God, Althea, it wasn’t that excr
uciating,” he said. “Okay, so we’ll see each other when you aren’t on the social seesaw.”
“Maybe I’ll go over to Sweden for a few days.”
“You destroying bitch! How can you take off when you just told me you’re too busy to pee!” His shout was more like a wail.
“Don’t pout, dear heart.”
Colorful Italian pottery and crystal clattered as he jumped up from the table. He barged from the elegant dining room, his shoulders slumping as if he’d been lashed with a wet whip.
And she heard that music again.
66
When Marylin arrived home on Sunday evening, Joshua was out. He always slept until after ten, so they had not had a chance to talk in the morning, either. As she drove back from Channel 5, he awaited her on the front patio.
With a flourish, he opened her car door. “Welcome home, angelpuss.” He kissed her. “Eaten yet? Or did they put you on a fast at that cockamamie spa?”
She took his arm. “I wasn’t at the Golden Door.”
She felt his thick bicep tense.
“So where the hell were you?” he barked furiously. His jealousy had increased in direct ratio to his inability to avail himself of his conjugal rights.
“New York.”
“Who’s there?”
“Billy.”
“Billy?” Joshua’s muscles relaxed. “So how goes it with our boy?”
“He’s living with a woman—”
“So what else is new?” Joshua interrupted, winking. “How is he? What’s with him?”
She explained tersely that she had not seen their son, and that the woman involved was Althea Cunningham Firelli Wimborne Stoltz.
“So that’s how our stud comedian’s getting his financing.” Joshua chuckled lewdly. “For services rendered.”
“He wants to marry her.”
“No need to look like the apocalypse is descending on us, Marylin.”
“Didn’t you hear me? He’s begging to be the fourth Mr. Althea Coyne Cunningham.”
“Put your sweet mind to rest, little mother, he’s merely spinning her the oldest line. Stop worrying about our Billy, he’s grown, and endowed with more than enough moxie to take care of himself.” Joshua glanced back at the massive ironbound front door, which he’d left ajar, then spoke in a lower tone. “Sari’s the one we should be fretting over.”
Everything and More Page 49
