Searching for Grace Kelly

by Michael Callahan

  Oh, how foolish I’ve been. How utterly, totally, completely foolish.

  Because England was where her road had really diverted, she realized now. Back there, at the engagement party, where she’d decided just for devilment to see if Emma’s fiancé would go a round with her if she worked him hard enough, just so she’d always have that for herself, the knowledge that she could have had him if she’d wanted him, that Emma—smart, educated, always-our-good-girl, always-better-than-Vivian Emma—had, for once, lost in a battle of the Dwerryhouse sisters. Every year growing up, she had watched her parents dote on Emma, praise Emma, nurture Emma, leaving her the prodigal daughter who just hadn’t left home. Until she did.

  If only Mary hadn’t found them. What harm would have come of it? A knowing smile, a wink to herself in the years hence, a silent satisfaction that for once she had triumphed? But Mary had found them, out by the shed in the rose garden, and had of course done what Mary always did, run and tattle, and of course Aunt Maude had been close enough to see the two of them hurrying up the path, Devin’s shirttail still untucked. They’d only kissed, maybe a bit of fondling, but the damage was done.

  Emma had milked it for every ounce, canceling the wedding, shrieking that her life was over, that Vivian had always been jealous, always hateful, always there to trip her up when she had been nothing but kind and giving. Her parents’ wrath had been swift, brutal, and, it now appeared, permanent.

  And what had she cared? She had always planned on coming to America anyway. So she took the money they shoved at her to disappear and happily obliged. And things had been going good—or at least okay—until Nicky had showed up. Slick, pretty, possessive Nicky and his wad of bills, asking her to sing to him that night, filling so many of her nights afterward. She had been so casual, so sure she could discard him into the bin like a piece of used tissue, as she had done with the men who had come before. She’d stupidly hung on too long, clinging to the chance for the audition and succumbing to the dark pleasure of channeling Monroe.

  And that’s when the trouble had really started. He had begun popping up unexpectedly, checking on her. They’d have a down-and-out row—they’d just had another two nights ago—and she would think she was free of all of it, only to have him reappear three days later, yellow roses in hand, begging forgiveness and confessing to the sin of simply loving her too much. He’d become addicted to spontaneous, dangerous sex, which had left her no time to plan. Which is how she had ended up sick as a dog on the floor of the loo.

  There was no money and no one to send passage. England was out. She knew no one outside of New York. And she had to get out of New York. Especially now. It was going to be extremely difficult to break it off under normal circumstances. If he found this out, he’d never let her go. Ever.

  But suppose I do get out. Then what? she wondered. Spend nine months in hiding? Give the little thing up, then saunter back into the Stork, pick up her cigarette tray, and start serving again?

  There has to be a way out of this. I have a little time. I just need a bit more thinking to find the answer.

  And then the answer walked through the door of the Stork Club. Vivian heard him before she saw him.

  “Hey, Babs! Looking great, kid! How ya doin’?!”

  Act.

  It was still a half-hour before opening, and Vivian was stocking her tray. She quickly darted out of the supply closet and found none other than Jimmy Stewart himself, her Jimmy Stewart, “Act,” leaning by the entrance to the coatroom, charming the knickers off of wide-eyed Barbara.

  Vivian was not a person of faith, despite how handy the church had turned out to be as a cover for her Sunday-morning entrances back into the Barbizon. But surely this was not merely Act. This was an Act of God.

  “Well, if it ain’t Rita Hayworth herself!” he said as she walked toward him, arms outstretched. He hugged her tightly. She could not recall a time in her entire life when she had ever been so glad to see another person.

  He looked good, as he always did, just as he had that night in June, the night of the infamous post–Seven-Year-Itch shag in the alley that had sent her tumbling down the rabbit hole in which she now found herself trapped. He wore a dark gray suit and a navy raincoat and held a black-banded gray fedora in his hand.

  “You look terrific, kid, as good as the last time,” Act said, holding her by the arms as he appraised her. “You still kicking around with the Eye-talian?”

  “Something like that,” Vivian managed. “What brings you here, Mr. Stewart?”

  “This,” he answered, waving a long white envelope with the Stork logo emblazoned in the corner. “Been thinking about moving on from Toots. Me and the bandleader not seeing eye to eye these days. Mr. B. was nice enough to offer a reference if I needed it. So I decided to swing by and pick it up. And you, sweetheart? How you been? Life treatin’ you good?”

  This was her chance.

  Take it.

  “Why don’t I tell you all about it as I walk you out,” Vivian said, threading her arm through his. “Barbara, I’ll be right back. Just going to do a quick catch-up with our Act here.”

  Telling the truth turned out to be far harder than she’d anticipated. Five minutes of inane small talk had passed outside the club, and she hadn’t gotten to anything of importance. He looked at his watch. “Well—”

  “Act, darling, I need a favor,” she blurted out.

  Her desperation mushroomed through the air. He placed a hand on her arm. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  Vivian looked around, careful that no one was within earshot. She found herself shivering. She looked him squarely in the eye. “I’m in trouble, Act. The worst kind of trouble a girl can get herself into.”

  She forced herself to look at him. There was no recrimination, no harsh verdict. Only grave concern. “I see. How far along are you?”

  “Not much. But enough. I need help. And I have no one to turn to. I’m so sorry to put you in this position, darling. If I—”

  He grabbed both of her hands in his. “Hey, hey, there’s no need for that kind of talk. We’re friends, Viv. Always. You had my back with Mr. B. more than once, and don’t think I forget it, neither.” He looked up, as if searching the sky for options. “I have a sister in Ohio. I could call her—”

  “No, Act, you don’t understand. I need to correct this situation. To make it . . . disappear.” She watched the impact of her request slowly creep across his face. “I know you know a lot of people. All sorts of people. Maybe the sort of people who help girls out.”

  He nodded. “I got ya,” he said softly. He was quiet for a bit, and she couldn’t tell whether he was thinking of how to help her or having some sort of internal moral debate. “Let me see what I can do. I’ll call you here at the club in a few days. A week, tops. Don’t do anything or talk to anyone about this until you hear from me, okay? We’ll get you all taken care of. Good as new. Don’t worry. Act’s got your back, sweetie.”

  Vivian flung her arms around his neck, kissing him on the temple. “Oh, darling, darling Act. I knew I could count on you,” she said. “Thank you.”

  In her rush of relief, she never noticed Nicola Accardi standing in a doorway across the street, his latest bouquet of yellow apology roses wilting in his hand.

  “So, what did you think?” Dolly asked as they walked out of the movie theater and headed up Forty-Second Street. They were going for pastry and hot chocolate at the Coffee Mill on West Fifty-Sixth.

  “I don’t know,” said Ruth, with a bit of a whine. Dolly had come to notice that whenever Ruth was in a bad mood or commenting negatively about something, she always sounded like she was in the midst of a terrible stomachache. “I’m getting tired of all of these movies where the women are either sexpots or absolute drips. For once I’d like to see myself in a movie.”

  “Oh, that would sell tickets!” howled Miriam. Dolly had finally confirmed it was Miriam, not Marion.

  They’d just left a screening of My Sister Eileen, which Dolly had
originally wanted to see with Laura, given that it was about a girl trying to be a writer in New York, but pinning Laura down had become downright impossible. “I kinda liked it,” Dolly chimed in. “But I like this sort of stuff anyway. I thought the songs were catchy. And that Jack Lemmon . . . swoon!”

  “Double swoon!” added Miriam, patting her heart.

  They were about to make the left to go uptown at Seventh Avenue, still giggling over Lemmon, when Dolly saw him standing in the flashing glow of Times Square, laughing.

  His back was to her, but she knew it was him. Frank. Her Frank. Frank from Utica, Frank who had been her fella but who had never quite embraced her as his girl, who had ridiculed her for her weight and always kept her at arm’s length, like a shopper mulling over a purchase but really convinced there was a better deal to be had two racks over.

  Dolly unconsciously began drifting toward him to get a better look. The girl on his arm was short, shorter than Dolly by at least an inch, but slim and sandy-haired. She kept turning in profile to say something to him, exposing beady eyes that were too close together, giving her the appearance of a slightly softer, younger Miss Gulch, without the bicycle and the agenda to kill Toto.

  Dolly couldn’t stay away, even as she was engaged in an internal dialogue begging herself not to do this, to not be that girl. She ran up behind them, put a gentle hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Hey, stranger!” she said, in a syrupy voice she didn’t even recognize.

  Miss Gulch whipped around first, followed by him. Dolly took a step backward. A stranger’s quizzical face looked back at her. “I’m sorry, do I—”

  “No,” Dolly hastily replied. “I’m . . . I’m so sorry. I thought you were someone else. I’m sorry. Sorry.” She began backpedaling down Forty-Second Street, bumping into pedestrians as the man shrugged and walked away with his date.

  “Honey, what is it? What’s the matter?” Ruth was saying, tugging on her jacket sleeve.

  Dolly turned, plastered on the biggest fake smile she could muster. “Nothing! I thought I saw someone I knew. Now,” she said, walking ahead authoritatively, “I hope they have rice pudding. I’m starving.”

  By the time they sat down at a table, the voice inside her head, the one she had paved over with inane jibber-jabber during the walk here, returned in full force. Because no, it had not been Frank in Times Square with another girl. But he was out somewhere with another girl. While she was here, dating a phantom who had once again begged off this week, vanishing into his cave. Wherever that was.

  There is just something missing in me. They all have something I don’t, and I’m tired of trying to figure out what it is. I can’t be Laura. I can’t be Vivian. I’ll never be them. I am Ruth, and I am Miriam.

  I am the Women.

  I go to movies and I am going to grow old alone and be an aunt and grow geraniums in pots and volunteer at church bake sales and work in an office until one day they hand me a bouquet of flowers and a silver picture frame and wish me well in retirement. That is my destiny. I need to accept it. I need to stop believing there is a guy out there for me. Because there isn’t. There just isn’t.

  She ordered coffee and a slice of apple pie à la mode, then slowly tuned back into the conversation, Ruth fretting about how she was ever going to save enough money for that alpaca coat at Bonwit’s.

  NINETEEN

  Like Mrs. Blackwell herself, editorial meetings at Mademoiselle were brisk and officious. The senior staff met weekly and sometimes more than that in her soigné office, but once a month the entire staff poured into the conference room for an update on the current issue and logistical planning for the next several. Laura had attended her first meeting in July, and like her fellow “college editors” at the time had served merely as window dressing, there to look pretty, stay quiet, and observe. Now, as an editorial assistant, she was supposed to take diligent notes on anything to do with features, and to have with her any and all backup material that might be associated with stories that were scheduled for upcoming issues.

  She was stationed in her usual spot, in the back with the other entry-level girls, away from the long, shiny conference table. Mrs. Blackwell sat at the head, perfectly accessorized in a gray Mainbocher suit and pearls, peering over her reading glasses as she looked over a contact sheet of fashion photographs. She appeared peeved.

  “I asked for hats with the coats,” she announced. “Half of these photos have no hats.”

  There were a few seconds of awkward silence before one of the art directors spoke up. “Well, yes, I know that’s what we’d discussed, but some of the hair was so beautiful we thought it was a shame to hide it all under hats, so we—”

  “Must I go on every photo shoot to ensure that my instructions are carried out? Is that where we are, Bill? Because no self-respecting girl goes out in the middle of winter with a lovely coat and no hat. Because, you see, it doesn’t matter if her hair looks smashing if it’s covered in sleet and snow. Or if she catches the flu as a result.” She flung the contact sheet back on top of the file. “I want the red Vera Maxwell and the beige Scaasi reshot—with hats.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Blackwell,” Bill replied, writing furiously in his copybook.

  The rest of the meeting passed by in a similar vein—Mrs. Blackwell complaining about a boring story on the overshirt trend (“If it were any more dull we could prescribe it for insomnia”), wondering why she was being forced into hosting a luncheon for wives of the armed forces (“They’re not our readers, and I don’t understand who decided my time was so irrelevant that I could do this”), and pointedly dressing down two beauty assistants in the rear of the room who were caught chewing gum (“This is not the girls’ room at Chumley’s, ladies”).

  Woo boy, Laura thought as she exited the meeting with the others. I’d hate to be in her crosshairs today.

  She was halfway down the hall, coming back from the managing editor’s office, when she spotted them sitting on top of her desk, a tall crystal vase of what appeared to be two dozen long-stemmed lavender roses.

  There were a handful of girls congregated around her desk as she approached, their faces conveying the mixture of giddiness, envy, and jealousy she had come to recognize since the day she’d walked back into Mademoiselle after the item about her and Box had been published in Nancy Randolph’s column. Last week her name had popped up in Ed Sullivan’s, as the “young Mademoiselle editor who’s charmed Box Barnes.” Still, flower deliveries weren’t uncommon at Mademoiselle. It was, however, unusual to see this many girls standing at her desk, ogling.

  Laura downplayed her own bursting of joy—better not to appear gloating—and plucked the card from the bouquet and opened it. Inside were three simple words.

  LOOK BEHIND YOU.

  She spun around, and there stood Box a few feet away. The tittering over the flowers suddenly made sense. “Surprise,” he said, walking over and kissing her. Laura could hear the sighing all around her, felt her cheeks reddening with conspicuousness. “Have time for a quick cup of coffee?” he asked.

  A few minutes later they were in a diner around the corner. “What are you doing next Saturday night?” he asked.

  “Don’t know yet. Hopefully whatever it is you’re doing next Saturday night,” she said, laughing.

  “I was counting on you saying that. My folks have decided to throw an impromptu cocktail party for their thirtieth wedding anniversary, and I wanted to know if you would come with me. They were actually supposed to have it for their twenty-fifth, but then Dad ended up having his gallbladder out. So they’re going for thirty. What do you say? Ready for the whole Barnes experience?”

  Meeting the family. Wouldn’t Marmy be impressed.

  “Of course, I’d love to. Where is it?”

  “Their place, Seventy-Third and Park. I’ll pick you up around seven.”

  Laura nestled into the booth. “What will I wear? This is pressure.”

  “Well, as it happens I—”

  “I know, I know, you know a
great department store. That was not a hint. I’ll buy my own dress.”

  “Why don’t you just wear the one I bought you for our night at Elmo’s?”

  “Because the Barbizon has already seen me in that. And what fun would that be?”

  He provided a few more details, and the more she heard, the more nervous Laura got. This was not going to be some idle cocktail party for two dozen people. This was a full-blown extravaganza, with a band and butlers and Veuve Clicquot inside the Barneses’ Park Avenue penthouse. She was half listening, trying to figure out how she was going to afford a decent dress for a soiree this fancy, when she caught a snippet of his lament about a singer. Evidently the band’s female singer had been called back home on an emergency of some kind, and Mrs. Barnes had reluctantly decided that a strictly instrumental affair was her only option.

  Laura leaned forward. “Vivian could sing!”

  “Vivian the British redhead?” He’d met her one night after the theater, when Laura had arranged for them to see Vivian and Nicky for a drink. Any hopes for fraternal bonding among the boys had quickly dissipated. It became very clear, immediately, that Nicky thought Box a spoiled prig, and Box thought Nicky an uncouth thug. Reading his thoughts, she said, “She wouldn’t bring the Italian. It would be work. But I know it would mean so much to her to sing in front of a crowd like that. Please, please . . . can you just consider it?”

  He put his hand on hers. “I will consider anything for you. Tell you what: Why don’t I come to the Barbizon this week and hear her sing something? Although I don’t know if those prison-guard matrons will let me outside the lobby.”

  “No, no, they will. You can bring male guests to some of the lounges if you get a pass. I’m sure we could get you into the one with the piano. Oh, this is going to be great!”

  Back at the office, Laura spent the afternoon peppily typing correspondence. For the first time since she’d come to New York, she was feeling the true magic of the city. She had a job at one of the nation’s most prestigious magazines. She was dating a handsome man who adored her. She’d made wonderful friends—and gotten out from underneath the oppressive watch of her mother. Everything was falling into place . . .