Searching for Grace Kelly

by Michael Callahan

  “What I see,” Vivian said, “is a girl very much like Grace Kelly in all the ways that count: beautiful, clever, and who doesn’t show all of her cards. And who I suspect is far more adroit at keeping men off balance than she cares to admit.”

  As Ruth began to warble the opening verse, Laura folded her arms, trying to concentrate on the music even as her mind flooded with conflicting images: feature stories from Mademoiselle, Box Barnes smiling at her in the coffee shop, Box Barnes demeaning her at the Stork, the dust particles flitting against the dirty windows inside Connie’s bookstore in the Village, Pete the bartender’s cocky smile, the roses sitting upstairs, demanding an answer.

  She wondered if Grace Kelly had ever sat in this very room listening to another girl sing, and if her head had been similarly cluttered, wondering which door to choose, which road to go down. Which life would ultimately be her own.

  Laura thought she would be more nervous, but perhaps being disorganized was actually helping. It would be enough just to accessorize the right shoes and belt. She wouldn’t have time to worry about what came afterward.

  She had fought for sleep and lost. After the recital she and Dolly had gone down to the coffee shop for dinner, making sure to stop on the way out to tell Ruth what a lovely performance she’d given. It hadn’t been true, of course—Ruth had sounded like a maiden aunt summoning the courage to sing at the family reunion after one too many brandies Alexander—but the Barbizon was about nothing if not civility.

  Dolly had gone to the TV room to watch Milton Berle as Laura went upstairs and took a long bath, then returned to the room to rummage through her curated wardrobe and find the appropriate outfit for her first day at Mademoiselle, a maddening exercise that had her second-guessing everything she’d brought and doing something that a week ago would have seemed impossible: looking forward to Marmy’s visit. At least it would result in something new to wear.

  Dolly returned and sank into a deep and blissful sleep seemingly within minutes. Laura lay awake for hours, unable to shut down the traffic inside her head. She had considered writing Box a thank-you note but decided against it. He didn’t deserve a response. A bouquet of flowers and some witty lines jotted down, all no doubt executed by some family servant, weren’t enough to mitigate his behavior at the Stork.

  Her thoughts had then settled on an unlikely subject: Vivian. Here was a girl she certainly had no faculty to understand and yet fascinated her. Some of it was her sheer exoticism—the red hair, the tweedy accent—but there was an intangible quality to Vivian, a whimsy that came easily to her that would appear odd and affected on someone else. Her carefree attitude and dramatic bearing were elixirs, perfumes that made you notice her when she walked into a room. There was a certain power, a seductiveness, to that, one that Laura hated herself for wanting. She had come to New York to forge a career as a writer, to be admired for her words, her intellect, and yet here she was, staring up at the ceiling at two in the morning, fantasizing about what it was like to be the vamp.

  Her memory had drifted back to her coming-out party at the country club, which she’d begged Marmy to let her out of. There had been a part of her that was secretly happy she’d lost the argument, the part that had stood for the fitting in the tight-bodiced ball gown with the flowing skirt, the part that had mastered the rhythmic sway of the waltz. But standing upstairs on the landing with the other girls waiting to be announced and descend like swans down the winding staircase, she had felt like a fraud. She listened to the other girls’ talk of the vacant boys who would serve as their escorts, about the extravagant gifts they’d extracted from their mothers for enduring this charade.

  There had been one girl who had stood apart from the others. Laura had seen her at a few of the rehearsals but had never spoken to her. Tall and clumsy and swathed in filmy white, she seemed to stand out even more. Her long neck hooked back into her head like a question mark, and her thin, bony arms seemed too frail for her opera gloves. Struck by the girl’s obvious discomfort, Laura had walked over to her.

  “Hi. I’m Laura.”

  It seemed to take the girl a few seconds to realize someone was speaking to her. “Oh, hi.”

  “It’s all a bit much, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” The girl had looked at Laura intently. “You’re very pretty.”

  “Thanks. So are you.”

  “No, I’m not,” the girl replied matter-of-factly. “But it’s nice of you to say.” She hitched up her skirt. “I feel like Mother Goose in this thing.” She walked away.

  A few minutes later the nine girls descended the staircase in order, each announced to a ballroom packed with their families and their families’ business acquaintances, distant relatives, and glommers-on. Halfway through the evening, Laura had sought out the odd girl but couldn’t find her anywhere. Stepping out onto the veranda of the club, she’d caught the tail end of a discussion between the girl and her mother, a formidable-looking matron in the Marmy mold clutching a small beaded handbag in her gloved left hand and pointing accusatorily at the girl with her right. The mother was alternately pointing at the girl and then shaking her head. Laura slowly walked toward them.

  “I just don’t feel comfortable making all of this small talk,” the girl pleaded. “I’m trying—”

  “You’re not trying, Mariclaire, and I for one—”

  “Laura!” Mariclaire had caught her eye. “Getting some fresh air?”

  Mariclaire’s mother turned around, her face softening in an instant as they were introduced. “Of course, the Dixons’ girl,” she’d said. “How lovely you look, my dear.”

  “Not as lovely as Mariclaire,” Laura said. “We’ve all been so envious of her dress. It’s definitely the prettiest one here.”

  A few minutes later, Mariclaire’s mother went back inside. “You didn’t have to say that. About the dress,” Mariclaire said.

  “It’s true.”

  “It’s bullshit.”

  Laura had never heard a girl swear. Not even the “bad girls” at her country day school would have said such a thing. “I’m . . . I’m sorry. I was only trying to help.”

  Mariclaire grabbed her arm. “No, no . . . I’m sorry. That was rude. You seem like a nice girl. None of these others has ever said a word to me, and I took dance lessons at the same place as two of them. It’s just . . .” She looked around. “All of this . . . I don’t belong here. They want me to, but I don’t. And I know it and they know it. And sooner or later, we’re all going to have to face it. This kind of thing was made for girls like you, not me.”

  “That’s funny,” Laura said. “Because I don’t feel like this was made for me at all.”

  “But you can survive in it. Maybe even thrive in it. I never will. I don’t have the right smarts for this. And I really don’t want to.”

  “What do you want, then?”

  Mariclaire smiled for a few seconds, as if she knew the answer but was somehow afraid to share her joy in what it was. “Freedom.” She took Laura by the hand. “C’mon, let’s take a walk.” She tugged, answering Laura’s look of doubt. “C’mon, just down to the marina for a minute, to look at the water. We’ll come right back.”

  They galloped down the path to the weathered gray dock, their respective white dresses fluttering in the night breeze. Several small boats bobbed in the water. Laura looked back up at the country club, its windows blazing with candlelight, the faint whisper of soft music echoing out onto the pier. The two girls walked down the catwalk that jutted out onto the lake until they got to the end, looking at the dusky night sky, streaked in shades of baby blue and purple and pink. “It’s so beautiful,” Laura said.

  A mischievous look swept over Mariclaire’s face. “A perfect night for a moonlight swim,” she declared.

  Laura laughed. “Oh, yes! I’m sure that would go over well.”

  Mariclaire stepped back, kicked off her satin shoes. “C’mon. Live a little.”

  For a few seconds Laura lost her bearings. “Wait . . .
You’re . . . you’re not serious. You can’t do this! Are you insane?!”

  “Maybe,” the other girl replied, shrugging. And with that she gathered up her ball skirt, turned, and leapt into the water.

  Later, after all of the hullabaloo and the scandal and the tittering of the other girls watching from the windows, Mariclaire—still sopping wet and bundled in a fluffy beach towel from the club—walked, head high, to the family car, trailing her parents, still tomato-faced with embarrassment and rage. Laura impulsively bolted from Marmy’s side and hustled down the embankment to the parking lot, where it was now her turn to catch the other girl by the arm.

  “I don’t understand,” she said breathlessly. “Why?”

  Mariclaire smiled. “Sometimes,” she said, “you just have to save yourself and jump.”

  SIX

  Dolly was passing the window of the Barbizon coffee shop when she spied Laura inside sitting at the counter, reading a book. She stopped to hastily look at her watch, then hustled inside.

  “I thought you’d already left for Mademoiselle,” she said, sliding onto a stool. “You don’t want to be late for your first day of work.”

  Laura put down the book, took a sip of coffee. “I have time. I didn’t sleep well last night. And I don’t have to be there until nine thirty. They start late in publishing.”

  “That’s because they’re all out every night going to parties and generally being swell.” She waved off the counter guy approaching with the coffee pot. “I wish I had time for coffee. I’m so bad in the mornings. I envy Vivian—she sleeps in every day.”

  “Vivian is also on her feet every night, in heels, selling cigarettes to lecherous men.”

  “Yes, but at least they’re rich lecherous men.” Dolly picked up the book on the counter. “Will the Girl and Other Stories, by Christopher Welsh,” she read. “What kind of title is that? And who’s Christopher Welsh? I’ve never heard of him.”

  “I haven’t gotten to the title story yet. It’s the book Connie gave me. You remember, the sweet man who runs the bookshop down in the Village? The shop you couldn’t wait to run out of on Saturday?”

  Dolly rolled her eyes.

  “The writing is actually quite good,” Laura continued. “Intimidating, really. I read stories like this and wonder if I can ever produce prose like that. Connie was right,” Laura said, pointing to the book, “this guy is going to be a famous writer someday.”

  Dolly patted Laura’s arm. “So will you.” She looked again at her watch. “I’m going to be late. Gotta run.”

  “You know, all this talk about my new job and all this time I’ve completely forgotten to ask anything about yours. Where it is it, again?”

  “Julian Messner,” Dolly said, awkwardly sliding off the stool and almost tipping over. “Damn, these stools are a pain to get off of in a fitted skirt.” As she adjusted herself, a look of panic swept across her face. “Oh my God!”

  Laura leapt up in alarm. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Did you just hear that?” Dolly whispered urgently. “I think my skirt just ripped. Oh, Lord, don’t tell me I just did that. God couldn’t be that cruel, could he? To have me rip my skirt at a coffee shop when I didn’t have the pie?”

  Laura turned Dolly around, traced her hand over the back. “I don’t see anything,” she said. “I think it’s okay.”

  Dolly smoothed down the front, grabbed her clutch off the counter. “Oh, thank God. Anyway, what was your question? Oh, right. Messner. I started, what, last Tuesday? Right before you got here. So it’s only been a few days. It’s a small publishing house, but everyone seems nice. I just sort of float around between departments, filling in for girls on vacation. I was lucky to get it.”

  “I’m sure you’ll have all of the office gossip by the end of the week.”

  “I hope so,” Dolly said, smiling as she headed toward the door. “God knows I can’t rely on you for any. Ta-ta!”

  Going to work was Dolly’s favorite part of the day. Other people complained, loudly and often, but to her each trip was a reminder that she was not buried in Utica but rather living in Manhattan, where anything could happen. Hadn’t she just landed at the Stork Club? She didn’t understand pessimism. Why look on the cloudy side when there was always a bright side? Her bright side was getting shinier every day. She’d made new, interesting friends, she was acing her classes at Katie Gibbs, and in no time she would be working in a big office packed with eligible men. Or maybe, she thought, I’ve already found him.

  She was sitting at her desk an hour later when another girl brushed by. “Mr. Shaw wants to see you in his office,” she said airily. “He said to give him five minutes, then go in.”

  Dolly felt her face go hot. Bertrand Shaw was the assistant director of accounting at Julian Messner, and from the moment she’d walked into the building, she’d had trouble getting him off her mind. He was hardly tall—maybe five eight—but incredibly dapper, and had movie-star presence in an environment that desperately needed it. Dolly had pictured a book publisher as an elegant spot brimming with men in tweed jackets (okay, maybe seersucker—it was summer) and women spewing Dorothy Parker one-liners but instead had found your standard-issue Manhattan office, with rows and rows of interchangeable faces typing, answering phones, picking up and dropping off files, clearing out twice a day—once for lunch, then for home. She had hoped that was because she had just gotten here and had yet to work on the publishing side, with the editors, artists, and designers whom she was sure had to be more interesting than the number crunchers and administrators.

  Except for Bertrand Shaw, of course. With his starched shirts always rolled up at the sleeves, his bulky body taut in his signature suspenders, he was more than simply attractive—he was a dreamboat. In the way Box Barnes was, even if Laura was too stupid to see it. Laura still hadn’t even acknowledged Box’s flowers, despite Dolly’s repeated protestations. How could you not acknowledge flowers sent to you by one of the biggest catches in New York City? Why were the pretty girls the ones who never knew how to handle men?

  She, Dolly Hickey, had no such hesitations. From her first day last week, she had been making casual eye contact with Bertrand Shaw—at the water fountain, in the occasional hallway pass-by. On Friday she had been inside a deli ordering a sandwich when she caught sight of him walking by outside; she’d feigned sudden illness, shouted to the coun­terman that she was canceling her order, then bolted across the street, running down a block and then coming back up, so that she and Bertrand Shaw would “happen” to enter the building right at the same moment. She’d prayed he hadn’t seen her breathing heavily.

  As she reached for her steno pad, she thought of Frank, still back in Utica. Did he miss her? Maybe, maybe not. It wasn’t like there had ever been a promise or understanding between them. And there were always those rumors around, that he had been seen with another girl at the movies or driving back from Oneida Lake. He was a good guy deep down, she knew. They’d grown up in similar families, knew similar people, had lived similar lives in many ways. He was the kind of solid, dependable guy your mother was always telling you to marry. But he didn’t call when he said he would, which had driven her to despair more than she’d ever cared to admit, and twice he’d actually stood her up, leaving her by the front door, powdered and perfect, looking out the window for a date that never materialized. She’d been thankful when her father had overruled her mother and allowed her to go to secretarial school in New York. When she’d told Frank she was going, that she would be living at the legendary Barbizon Hotel for Women, the only thing he could manage to say was, “Honestly, Doll, I don’t see you as a New York career girl.”

  She’d show him. She’d show them all: her sister, her mother. She couldn’t wait to go home for her next visit. She’d get a new hairdo. Maybe she’d ask Vivian for some makeup tips. And then she’d make a date with Frank, and he would pick her up in his cousin’s Olds and take her on a long, leisurely drive, and be so dazzled by her beauty and
sophistication that he would realize he would be nuts not to scoop her up right then and there. And maybe she would accept his proposal and maybe she wouldn’t. Because, what about Bertrand?

  The intercom on her desk blared to life. “Mr. Shaw is waiting, Miss Hickey.”

  She pressed down on the button. “Of course, sorry. Coming. Right away.”

  Bertrand Shaw’s office was near the far right corner and included a small anteroom where his secretary sat, which led to an oak door that had his name affixed in officious white block letters. A temp sat at the vacationing secretary’s desk, answering phones and taking lunch orders, but Bertrand Shaw’s typing and dictation had been farmed out to a bunch of the other girls, including Dolly, who had taken suitable pride in turning around two letters before any of the others had even finished her first. Now, as she nodded to the temp and quickly rapped three times on his office door, she wondered what task he needed her for now. Or could it just be an excuse to see her? No, that couldn’t be.

  Could it?

  “Come in,” came a deep voice, and as she entered she took in the surroundings. The office itself was pro forma, a desk, two chairs in front of it, boxy windows to the right with blinds turned to block the midsummer sun, a tidy bookshelf stacked with accounting volumes. Dolly instantly noticed there were no photographs in the office. No silver-framed portrait of an adoring wife or towheaded children.

  He was standing behind the desk. Blue suspenders today. They brought out his eyes. “Please have a seat,” he said. As she complied, he thrust a raft of papers at her. “I need these typed up. There’s four letters here. Nothing terribly urgent, but if we could get them out this afternoon, that would be great.”

  “Of course,” Dolly said, thumbing through them. “You know, Mr. Shaw, I take excellent dictation. You don’t have to write these out going forward.”

  “I’m sure you do. Old school, I guess. Just easier for me to scribble them out.”