Searching for Grace Kelly

by Michael Callahan

  Dolly had bounded onto her bed at nine like a five-year-old on Christmas morning, pulling at the covers and asking for every “delectable detail” of her evening. Laura rolled over, covering her head with her pillow, but Dolly had upped the ante, leaving the room only to return in fifteen minutes to relay that Vivian was joining them for brunch to get the whole story.

  Vivian had come in a bit later, wearing a man’s white oxford shirt, blue jeans, and sandals, and told the pair she was (a) famished and (b) would not consider going to brunch if they were going to be surrounded by “those old hens” at Hicks or Elizabeth Norman, and that the Barbizon coffee shop was a non-starter. In a moment of lunacy she’d actually suggested Monte’s on the Park, with its spectacular view of Central Park and its equally spectacularly priced brunch ($2.25 a person); Dolly looked sick. She wanted the Automat. (“Of course you do, dear,” Vivian had replied drolly.) The entire thing was giving Laura a splitting headache. Either that, or she’d drunk far too much champagne at Elmo’s.

  They’d settled for Café Renaissance on East Forty-Ninth ($1.75—still pricey, but Dolly was willing, in order to hear the dirt). Vivian sat with a fruit cup, two poached eggs, and a bloody mary, sucking the straw so hard, her cheeks caved in. She was sporting her oversize sunglasses once again, and Laura was certain it wouldn’t be long before Dolly started yelling at her to take them off. She suspected Vivian now wore them just to provoke. Silverware clanged all around them, worsening her headache.

  Vivian put down her drink. “That’s the ticket,” she said lustily, smacking her lips. “Positively delicious.” She turned to Laura. “Afraid time’s up, ducky. We’re going to end up at hospital with this poor girl if you don’t start telling. Let’s hear it.”

  The more detail Laura gave, the more insatiable Dolly became, interrupting to ask for additional details as Vivian slurped her way through another bloody. Though Vivian had some queries of her own, as it turned out. Questions ranged from the celebrities present, the dresses, and the handsome men (Dolly) to the musical selections, the jewelry, and the dangerous men (Vivian). And then there were all the questions about Box. By the time Laura had wrapped up with the cab ride back to the Barbizon and Box’s tender kiss at the hotel door (“Divine!” Dolly exclaimed), Laura felt as if she’d just read War and Peace aloud.

  “A chaste peck at the door, after all of that?” Vivian mused. “Doesn’t sound like a swell date to me.”

  “It sounds unbelievably perfect and romantic to me,” Dolly said. She cast a glance at Vivian. “You know, not everyone’s date ends horizontally.”

  “Pity,” Vivian said, taking another draw on her straw.

  “So, when’s your next date?” Dolly asked.

  “Her next date,” Vivian interjected, “isn’t with Box Barnes.” She lit a cigarette as she smiled at Laura. “Remember . . . two glass slippers.”

  Pete. It was amazing how quickly he’d flown out of Laura’s head after she’d heard the orchestra’s first notes. Maybe—

  “No,” Vivian said, reading her mind.

  “No what?”

  “No, you are not going to cancel your date next Saturday with Pete. Insurance isn’t just for dads and motorcars, Laura. Risk must be spread out in order to be reasonable and smart. You’ll have plenty of time to commit to one of your Prince Charmings. One lovely night doesn’t mean you should go arse over tit for the first man who takes you dancing.”

  “Vivian!” Laura whispered. “Keep your voice down!” She looked around to make sure no one had heard. “You were the one who told me yesterday that if I had an amazing time with Box I could cancel with Pete.”

  Vivian shrugged. “Reconsidered.”

  Dolly sighed. “I should have such dilemmas.”

  “Well, ladies, it’s time to settle the bill and move on,” Vivian said, reaching for her purse. “I’m sure there’s some other tragic soprano singing Gershwin in the conservatory that Ethel must rush back to.”

  “First off, it was Rodgers and Hammerstein, and it wasn’t tragic. You’re just afraid to admit you actually enjoyed it.” Dolly reached over, plucked Vivian’s passport peeking from the side pocket of her purse, and flipped it open. “Oh, look at this glamorous photo. Vivian . . . Dwerryhouse?” She looked up. “I thought your name was Vivian Windsor.”

  Vivian reached over, snapped it back. “Really! You’d think you were the reporter rather than Miss El Morocco over there. Don’t be daft. If your last name were ‘Dwerryhouse,’ wouldn’t you change it? It literally translates into something like ‘dweller at the dwarf house.’ I couldn’t think of a better, or more fitting, new one than that of the royal family.”

  Dolly was hysterical. “I swear,” Laura said, “sometimes I can’t believe you’re a real person. Being with you is like living in a drawing-room comedy.”

  Vivian began to defend herself in earnest—it was hard being an original, she argued—as Laura looked to Dolly, but Dolly’s attention had drifted elsewhere. Two tables behind, to be exact. Laura turned to see a man eating alone. Even seated, he exuded the burly presence of a linebacker. He was sopping up the remnants of his eggs with his rye toast, every once in a while taking a casual sip of coffee and stealing a glance over at their table.

  At Dolly.

  “Oh my,” Vivian said, taking in the scene. “Ethel’s baited the hook.”

  “Do you know him?” Laura asked.

  “No,” Dolly said, her mouth turning into a bright smile as she caught the mystery man’s next stolen stare. “But I’m going to.” She scooped up the cash they’d left on the table. “You girls head on back. I’ll settle the check.” She snuck another glance. “I’m going to treat myself to one more cup.”

  “You know, you’re sort of like Marilyn Monroe.”

  “Really,” Vivian replied. She and Nicky were strolling through Times Square. They’d just left the theater. The thick night humidity was a tonic after the frightful air conditioning inside the movie house. She’d thought her toes were going to have to be amputated. “How do you figure that?”

  “Easy. For one thing, you’re sexy as hell,” he said, taking her hand in his. “Second, you got great boobs, like she does.”

  “That’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

  “Not all women with good boobs are sexy. You gotta know how to show ’em off, but still be classy about it.”

  “Let me remind you that I am neither blond, speak like I have just run five blocks, nor bat my eyelashes as though it were a sport.”

  “You’re right,” he said, stopping to graze at her neck. “You’re way better than Marilyn.”

  This, she knew, was highly doubtful. She had always been torn about Monroe—she loved her brash ownership of her sex appeal, while at the same time wishing she was just a bit, well, smarter. Like Jane Russell, who had those killer knockers and still looked like she could beat any man at poker, or a duel, or math, for that matter. But she was a brunette, and men, at least American men, were all about blondes. And, to her good fortune, the occasional redhead.

  They’d just left the seven o’clock showing of The Seven-Year Itch. Vivian thought the plot a bit contrived—too many fantasy sequences involving some middle-aged dullard’s erotic daydreams—but it hadn’t been a total loss. In one scene Marilyn had airily announced she kept her underwear in the icebox to keep it cool during the summer. That seemed a capital idea if Vivian had ever heard one.

  They started strolling east again. He’d promised her food, and for once not Italian. “What’s going on with your friend?” she asked as they crossed Forty-Third Street.

  “What friend’s that?”

  “You know, the friend you told me about who knows the talent agent. You said you could get him to give me an audition.”

  “I will, baby, I will. I’ve just been busy. These longshoremen in Brooklyn are killing me right now. I gotta focus on business. But I’ll do it. Don’t I always do what I say I’m gonna do?” He smiled at her.

  “No. I seem to also re
call you told me you were going to look for your own apartment.”

  “I said I’d think about it. And I thought about it. It don’t make any sense. I got a perfectly good setup with Mom and Pop. Why am I gonna go rent some shitty place in Chelsea and throw my money all into some Jew’s pocket? I’m saving up to buy a place for after I get married someday.” He turned to her, smiled again, more broadly this time. “Wouldn’t that be nice, a nice house in Brooklyn? Huh?”

  I cannot think of anything more dreadful.

  They ended up eating at Karachi on West Forty-Sixth, Indian food, which Nicky hated, but she convinced him that chicken tikka masala was simply his mother’s stew with different spices, and this seemed to mollify him. There was no liquor served, which he also bitched about, but she told him she’d go with him afterward to whatever bar he fancied for a nightcap.

  She should break up with him—what was the point of all of this? She was beginning to really resent that he had just assumed her nights off were his. What was it with Italian men? They all seemed to have such strong-willed mothers, formidable matrons who pulled their sons by the ears into the first church pew when they got out of line, yet when it came to their own relationships with women, they wanted to call all the shots. The American Italians were the worst—constantly blessing themselves with rosary beads and lauding Mama’s meatballs while leering at everything in a skirt.

  Still, Vivian couldn’t bring herself to cut the line. Not yet. There was the matter of his friend’s friend the agent; she’d grown desperate for an introduction to someone, anyone, with a connection in show business. If she ever hoped to drop the cigarette tray, she had to get somebody—preferably a paying somebody—to hear her sing.

  And then there was the matter of Nicola Accardi himself.

  Yes, he lived with his parents. Yes, he had a flaring temper that was on the border of scary. But she wasn’t going to marry him, so what did it matter? He was fun, he took her out to nice dinners and the occasional play—they’d just seen The Pajama Game last week—and most important, he worshiped her. He told her how beautiful she was all the time. He always smelled nice. He knew what went into a good martini. He had plenty of money to keep things interesting, his brass money clip always fully occupied. He had an even more sizable endowment inside his trousers and knew how to make the most of that, too. He was also the only man she’d ever met who could wear a straw fedora in summer and not look utterly ridiculous.

  Most of all, he wasn’t one of the rotund “How you doin’, baby?” guys, with their perspiring foreheads and acrid breath, who seemed to populate the Stork in ever-increasing numbers, casually caressing her bottom like a showroom Chevy.

  No, she’d hang in a bit longer, see if she could get him to cough up the introduction. Autumn, she thought. If he doesn’t come through by autumn, I’ll move on. Tell him I’m too busy, picking up extra shifts at the Stork. Or perhaps that there’s someone from England who’s come back into the picture. She’d figure it out.

  They’d only taken a few steps back on the sidewalk after dinner when Vivian felt a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, pretty lady.”

  She whirled around to see the speaker’s face, then instantly flung herself into his arms. “Oh, Act!!” she screamed. “Darling Act! Oh, cheers! How are you?!”

  They pulled apart and he appraised her lovingly. “Still beautiful, still breaking hearts, I can see that,” he said, smiling excitedly at her. “You look great, kid!”

  Vivian turned to Nicky, now standing a few feet away. He’d just lit a cigarette. “Oh, Nicky, come over here. This is—”

  The man stuck out his hand. “Jimmy. Jimmy Stewart. But everybody calls me Act. Because I got the same name as the actor, you see? Vivian and I, we used to work together at the Stork. Nice to meet you.”

  Nicky looked warily, shook his hand briefly. Vivian explained that Act had left the Stork a few months ago to take a job with Toots Shor, and that they were old friends and he was a great guy and, oh, the fun they’d had. For the next few minutes, they caught up on each other’s news, Vivian chuckling throatily upon hearing the rumor about the former Stork hat-check girl who’d evidently been invited onto Ari Onassis’s yacht. “He has no idea what he’s in for,” she said. “He’ll throw her overboard before the second drink.”

  “And she’ll still be talking!” Act roared.

  Vivian found herself devolving into girlish giggling, something she generally abhorred. She couldn’t even blame the wine—hadn’t they just come from a no-alcohol-serving Indian restaurant? She turned to Nicky to share in her giddiness when his cold stare stopped her in her tracks. She turned back to Act, leaned in for the briefest peck on the cheek. “So lovely seeing you, darling,” she said. “Must run.”

  Act was still saying something—actually, semi-shouting as they walked away—but Vivian kept her head high and eyes forward. She slid her arm into Nicky’s, picked up the pace. This had happened once before, with another man she knew whom they’d run into at a fish restaurant. Nicky had darkened almost instantly, pouted for a good hour afterward, until she’d figured out he’d been jealous, the subsequent ridiculous allegation of flirting dripping from his lips like drops from a leaky faucet. She chalked it up to the fact that he’d been embarrassed by his own emotions, which made her happy. He should have been embarrassed. That was yet another thing about Italian men. They all wanted to leer at any décolletage or shapely set of legs within twenty yards, but you were supposed to be like a thoroughbred at the races, locked into your blinders and greeting any of the male species with strictly perfunctory hellos and how-are-yous. Except your dad, perhaps. Dads were probably permitted a bit of affection. Not that he had to worry about that with her.

  What had she done in that case to break the spell? She racked her brain to remember. A bawdy joke? No. Didn’t matter. What she wanted to do was to tell him to bugger off, walk back to the Barbizon, pick up Laura and Ethel, and go to a lounge and flirt with men as they all got good and pissed.

  Odd, she thought, that she would strike up a friendship with those two. So different from her they were, and yet she had to admit she was enjoying them. She’d never had close girlfriends growing up—she wasn’t the kind of girl other girls warmed to. She was the girl their boyfriends did.

  Perhaps it was an opportunity for her, for the first time, to impart some wisdom, to be a teacher, or the big sister that Mary and Emma couldn’t be to her. It was rather thrilling, if she was being completely honest with herself. Laura was a diamond who had no idea she was a diamond, a pretty girl who had been kept in a very lovely cage for her entire life, and who now, fluttering around Manhattan like a nascent dove, spent half her time darting her eyes all around her, fearing she was going to do something wrong or inappropriate and earn the family name a red slash in Burke’s Peerage. Or whatever the American version of Burke’s Peerage was. The other half of the time Laura spent loathing herself for how she was spending the first half. All she needed was a little push. Permission to be unguarded. To not know every answer.

  Ethel, she was another story. Cackling like a hen with the other Barbizon wallflowers, cold-creaming their faces nightly to the texture of mayonnaise in the hopes of attracting dreamboat dates who never materialized. They watched too much telly, ate too much sugar, and read too many glossy magazines, all the while laughing at the Women they were inevitably becoming. But Ethel was a good egg. Vivian had her work cut out for her there; it was like trying to tame a puppy who always leapt on you every time you entered a room. Not that Ethel ever greeted Vivian any way but coolly. But Vivian wasn’t fooled. Ethel’s offhanded greetings belied a naked, desperate yearning to be liked that Vivian recognized all too well in the girls who watched the Barbizon comings and goings like a pack of convent nuns. But perhaps things were turning for Ethel—Actually, I must start calling her Dolly, she thought, I’m being rather unkind—with her potential bulky beau at the coffee shop last Sunday. She hadn’t seen either of the girls since. Must get a report.


  She heard the rumble of the Seventh Avenue subway beneath them.

  Rescue.

  Vivian galloped ahead down the sidewalk, perching on a grate just as the whoosh of the train sent a gust of air bursting up from underground. For a few seconds her pleated skirt went swirling around her, as she pouted her lips and attempted to halfheartedly push the dress downward. “Well?” she shouted in her best kittenish voice. “Am I like Marilyn now, sweetie?”

  Even as he walked closer, his face becoming more and more prominent, she couldn’t read his expression. Was that a mischievous smirk creeping up, just barely, from his lips? Oh Christ, do I even care? Gorgeous or no, theatrical agent contact or no, this was all getting to be too much bloody work. Living with his mum was one thing. Mollifying his jealous mood swings were another.

  To her surprise, he put his hands firmly around her waist and lifted her straight off the ground, his face breaking out into an odd expression she couldn’t quite identify. He did a full turn, swinging her around the sidewalk like a little girl. “You like that, honey? You like being Marilyn for me?”

  Before she could answer, he carried her into an adjacent alley, forcefully throwing her against a cool brick wall and pinning her. With the shadows cast from the streetlights, he was almost completely silhouetted, though his black eyes glittered in the darkness. His breath was hot, labored; his chest seemed to almost be heaving. There was an air about him—something primal.

  He pressed his body against hers, shoved his hand up her skirt. His fingers, rough and urgent, threaded underneath her corselet, and she gasped, her head crashing back into the bricks, as she felt two of them plunge inside her.

  “You like being bad for me. C’mon, baby, tell Nicky,” he whispered, his lips now on her neck, his fingers probing coarsely. Pain zinged through her body. “Tell me how you like to be bad.”