Dreams Are Not Enough

by Jacqueline Briskin

  “But he didn’t send for me. Or his parents, or Beth, or anybody else. He sent for you.”

  “He didn’t tell them who to get in touch with.”

  “No?”

  “He was asleep when I got there, and seeing me came as a total shock.”

  “Alyssia, the police couldn’t have picked an unlisted number out of a hat.”

  “Oh, stop badgering me!” she snapped.

  “I’m not. I’m trying to figure out your relationship.”

  “It’s an ex-relationship.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “What should I have done? Not pay his fine?”

  “If you’d asked my opinion, I’d have told you to let somebody else go. Like Beth. She’s his twin, she’s closer to him. Or PD—he’s the agent.”

  “Hap, Barry’s drowning. I’m sorry, but I didn’t stop to figure out the protocol of which Cordiner should throw in the life preserver.”

  A car swept around the curve, its headlights illuminating the various sized houses that clung to the steep, chaparral-covered walls of the canyon.

  “These past few months,” Hap said in a low voice, “have been the best of my whole life.”

  “Mine, too, Hap.”

  “God, how it hurt, all those years that you put off the divorce.”

  “But you knew exactly how I felt about you.”

  He walked slower. “Did I?”

  “The only thing I missed was a skywriter spelling out ‘Alyssia belongs to Hap.’ Believe me, I’m only helping out of guilt. Why won’t you understand?”

  “Do you understand it completely?”

  “Barry and I got married too young. I didn’t realize that I didn’t love him. I screwed up his life.”

  “That’s open to interpretation.”

  “Anyway, you will admit that he didn’t drink before he married me.”

  They had reached their driveway. Halting at the steep, cracking asphalt, he gripped her shoulders. “Alyssia, you have to understand where I’m coming from as well. I’m crazy about you. Everything about you turns me on. The way your eyes turn almost black when we make love. The way you smell, earthy and sweet. Your voice. Your walk when you’re not being a movie star. Your courage when the whole deck is stacked against you. Your generosity, your loyalty.”

  “You’re treading on my lines,” she murmured shakily.

  “Love, let me finish. However much you mean to me, I can’t go back to the way we were. Too much self-loathing was involved.”

  “Has anyone ever told you you’re too decent?”

  “Decent? Barry was married to you, he hung on to you, he’s my cousin.”

  “What’s the point going into this now?” she asked. “In exactly three weeks and two days we’ll be married.”

  40

  Barry drank nothing the day of his release from jail, yet when he awoke the following morning his hangover, rather than lessening, had become monumental. His tongue felt like a length of thick hose, sourness packed his chest up to his gullet, and his eye throbbed meanly. His greatest misery, though, was his belly, which seemed packed with sharp hunks of steel. He’d had stomach pains before, but none had ever approached this intensity. Every movement was agony, and it took him several minutes to crawl out of bed.

  I’m killing myself, he thought. He had never been so terrified. As he drank black Nescafé, the phone rang, and he answered before the second buzz, blazing with the hope that it was Alyssia.

  It was. “The place is called Villa Pacifica,” she said. “Here’s the number and the name you’re meant to contact.”

  Humiliated by his tears of relieved gratitude, he snarled, “Can’t wait to get me there, can you?”

  As soon as she hung up, he dialed 805, the Santa Barbara area code, arranging to enter Villa Pacifica the following morning, Thursday.

  He went through the emptying of bottles. Wincing, he raised an open fifth of Wild Turkey theatrically high above the sink. How many times had he performed this rite? Best not to remember. When the last bottle of alcohol had gurgled down the drain, he dressed. Moving slowly because of the pain, he packed his bound scripts, the stained old typing paper boxes that held his two unpublished novels, his dishes, sheets and books, leaving the cartons on the floor for the manager to cart down to the storeroom.

  He completed stowing away his worldly possessions around seven that evening. By then his gut-ache had receded to bearable proportions, and although the thought of eating brought a wave of nausea, he knew from experience that food would make him feel better, so he shoved a frozen Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese in the oven. While waiting for it to heat, he suddenly asked himself how he would get to Santa Barbara.

  His beat-up Peugeot wouldn’t start, which was why he’d walked to Fat Fred’s the other night, and Beth was in New York negotiating on Magnum’s behalf for a best-seller. He had no real friends to call on. It was out of the question to ask his parents.

  So he phoned Alyssia.

  In a tone of subdued reluctance, she agreed to pick him up at nine.

  A headache started behind his neck. Villa Pacifica, he thought. Did they confine “guests”? Did they use aversion therapy? He’d heard that it resembled medieval torture. Or did they prefer drug therapy? He cringed from injections as if from rattlesnakes. What about psychoanalysis? If a shrink were obligatory, he might as well stay home.

  Pulling on his argyle sweater, he headed south along Westwood Boulevard in the direction of Vendome, whose gondolas displayed an impressive number of fine wines and liquors.

  At half past nine the next morning, when Alyssia arrived at the apartment, she found Barry deep into the belligerent stage of inebriation. Shouting that she was dragging him to Bedlam, he refused to pick up his suitcase. She lugged it to the Jaguar: he sat in the car, staring straight ahead, ignoring her effort to hoist the heavy valise into the trunk.

  As they passed through Calabasas, Thousand Oaks, Camarillo, the small towns that were joining the megalopolis, his pugnacity lessened.

  “Remember in the château how we used to snuggle in bed when it snowed?” he asked. “In those days I drank a bit of wine, that’s all. We’d still be happy if Hap hadn’t gone after you. He always looked down on me because Dad’s poor and Mom’s Jewish.”

  “Oh, Barry,” she sighed.

  “You still care. If you didn’t, would you be going to this kind of trouble?”

  Hap had posed the same question in different words.

  She looked out the window at the flat, fertile land of the Oxnard plain where, in another life, she had stooped at Juanita’s side. Why hadn’t she shucked her legal bonds to Barry years ago? Pity, yes. She was drenched with pity whenever he pleaded that she hold off on a divorce. Guilt, yes. She blamed herself for his failures, his drinking. But were pity and guilt the sole emotions that held her?

  Why this stubborn refusal to give him up? She stared at the immense celery fields. The very worst part wasn’t the picking, she thought. It was having no family, the sense of not belonging anyplace.

  • • •

  Villa Pacifica, hidden in the green folds of the Santa Barbara foothills that climbed from the ocean, had been named by the oil baron who had built the Italianate mansion decades earlier.

  Entering the security gate, they passed a trio of middle-aged men strolling in and out of the blue shadows of tall old trees, then an oversized pool churned by a single swimmer, a gazebo where two young women sat. Mixed foursomes bounded on both of the red clay tennis courts. Alyssia was buoyed by the sense that she was bringing Barry to a weekend party. Then she saw the white-clad nurse slowly walking along the terrace with a frail-looking man and the two, large, watchful orderlies.

  As she parked in the flagstoned courtyard, a French window opened and a short, bald man wearing an Izod shirt and slacks came onto the terrace. “Welcome,” he said with a broad, Eisenhower grin. “I’m Al Ryker, the chief psychiatrist here.”

  “I’m Alyssia Cordiner.”

  �
�I’m not blind,” he said, laughing. “And you must be Barry Cordiner. I can’t tell you how I’ve admired your movies and your teleplays. They have a real feeling.”

  The compliments alleviated Barry’s qualms about psychiatry. “The grounds are superb,” he said.

  “We think so. I’ll show you around before lunch.” Dr. Ryker paused. “Mrs. Cordiner, why not have a bite in Santa Barbara, maybe catch up on some of your Christmas shopping. We’ll talk around three.”

  “Come back?”

  Hap had raised no arguments when she explained she must drive Barry up here, but when he left this morning (he was looping the film they’d just completed for Orion) she promised to be home in the early afternoon. Santa Barbara was a long two hours’ drive from Los Angeles, and in the late afternoon traffic, it took more like three.

  “We believe family involvement is vital for the treatment’s success,” Ryker explained.

  The doctor, apparently not a devotee of journalistic trivia, didn’t know about their separation. She looked at Barry, hoping he would clarify matters. He gazed studiedly at the tennis players.

  “It’s not obligatory, of course,” Dr. Ryker said, his brown eyes judgmental.

  “Three,” she acquiesced.

  Stopping at the first gas station, she called home, telling Juanita to explain to Hap that she would be late. Picking up a taco at Taco Bell, she ate as she drove aimlessly through the University of California at Santa Barbara. The campus spread above the beach, and quite a few of the tall, tanned students were carrying surfboards.

  At quarter to three she was waiting in Dr. Ryker’s large, bright office. She kept getting up to peer edgily out the French windows. At twenty past three, she gathered up her purse, scarf and dark glasses.

  Before she reached the door, it opened, and Dr. Ryker came in. He had changed to a brown suit.

  “Sorry about the delay,” he said in a flat voice. “I’ve been with Barry at the hospital.”

  “Hospital?” She returned to her chair, sinking down.

  “He was late to lunch so I went up to his room. He was on his bathroom floor, vomiting blood.”

  “God. . . .” Shuddering, she remembered those lumpy, rusty stains on his shirt.

  Ryker moved briskly around his desk to sit facing her. “Dr. Olesham, our staff internist, has ordered tests.”

  “Barry didn’t look well, but I thought it was the fight and the hangover—” She paused. “I hadn’t seen him for quite a few months.”

  “Yes, while I gave him the grand tour he told me that your marriage is on the skids.”

  “We’re in the process of getting a divorce.”

  “That, he didn’t mention. But he’s extremely disturbed about your relationship with his cousin—”

  “Hap and I’ve been together many years.”

  “Yet you’ve remained married to Barry?”

  “The decree will be final in less than a month,” she said. “How long will Barry be in hospital?”

  “At this point we don’t know. Probably three or four days. But the length of his stay isn’t important. Mrs. Cordiner, I won’t mince words. He’ll be dead within the year if he continues this drinking pattern. So the major problem is to reclaim him from his dependency.”

  “That’s why he’s here.”

  Dr. Ryker tapped his pen on his desk. “About the divorce. I’m going to ask you to consider waiting.”

  “But why? I’ll handle the expenses. I’ll visit him.”

  “Barry’s on extremely fragile ground right now. His marriage is all he has to hang on to.”

  “All he has?” Her voice was shaking. “Didn’t he tell you about his family? He’s very close to his parents; he has a twin sister he sees all the time. Uncles, aunts, cousins—”

  “In his mind, when he married you he cut them off.”

  “That’s about as far from the truth as you can get!”

  “We’re not discussing truth, we’re discussing Barry’s emotional responses.”

  “For years Barry’s manipulated me,” she said.

  “And you,” the doctor pointed out, “have let yourself be manipulated.”

  She bit her lip.

  “Alyssia, look. I’ve talked less than an hour to Barry, but I can tell you this. He has a great many problems, and we must deal with them before he can give up his crutch. He’s not manipulating you now. I am.”

  “You’re saying it’ll be my fault if he leaves here and starts drinking?”

  “He’s exceptionally proud of you. Being your husband is a major part of his self-esteem. Without your total support it will be nearly impossible for us to make any headway.”

  “We’ve put off the divorce far too long,” she said.

  “Of course I can’t make your decision for you.” Dr. Ryker got to his feet. “But right now Barry’s a very ill, very frightened man.”

  She sighed and stood up, too. “Tell me how to get to the hospital.”

  41

  The large room on the second floor of Maude FitzSimmons Memorial Hospital had windows overlooking the ocean, but the fine view was wasted on Barry. He lay flat in the bed, and the way he turned on the pillow as she came in told her he was too weak to lift his head. She couldn’t reconcile this gray-faced invalid with the belligerent then plaintive man who had sat next to her in the car this morning.

  “One good thing,” he said in a thin voice as she set down the floral arrangement she had bought at the gift shop. “I’ll have plenty of material for a medical series.”

  “Young Doctor Kildare Returns?”

  “Good title,” he said, reaching for her hand. His grip was lax. “God, Alyssia, I feel like I’ve stepped into somebody else’s nightmare.”

  “Doctor Ryker said you’ll be out of here in a couple of days.”

  “Ulcers,” he said. “I have bleeding ulcers and other as yet unknown ailments.”

  “Want me to call your folks?”

  “No!” His head jerked up an inch or so, then fell back. “Don’t do that. Mom’s been having chest pains, so I told them I’d borrowed a friend’s cabin to work on a screenplay.”

  “Beth?”

  “She’s in New York until the day after tomorrow.” He had not released her hand. “When I started to vomit I felt so rotten that I lay down on the bathroom tiles. If I’d been at home, I would’ve passed out and drowned in my own effluvium. Hon, you bringing me here to Santa Barbara saved my life.”

  “You’re going to be fine.”

  He closed his eyes.

  “Tired?”

  “I keep drifting in and out.”

  “I can come back.”

  “Stay.”

  She sat by the bed until he slept. Then she went up the broad, airy hallway, the hospital staff goggling after her. Using the wall phone, she called the Laurel Canyon house. Hap answered and she outlined Barry’s physical symptoms.

  “The poor guy,” Hap said.

  “He looks so awful. I kept wanting to cry.”

  “I’ll come right up.”

  Hap was in Santa Barbara before eight, PD driving him.

  The childhood affection binding Hap and Barry reasserted itself, and Hap leaned down, hugging his cousin. “Barry,” he said huskily.

  “Hey, that’s some shiner,” PD said. Another embrace.

  Barry blinked away tears, mumbling, “You should see the other guy.”

  To the sounds of masculine laughter, Alyssia slipped from the room.

  In less than five minutes a wiry black male nurse banished the other two visitors.

  Emerging into the corridor, PD shook his head. “Did you ever see anyone look crappier? Hap, he’s our age, our exact age.”

  Hap nodded. His shoulders were slumped, his hands balled into his pockets.

  They had reached the waiting area, where Alyssia sat staring down at an open but unread magazine.

  “That was short,” she said.

  “The nurse shoved us out,” PD said.

  “Can we go
back later?” she asked.

  “The nurse said not tonight,” Hap replied. Then, as if forcing himself from his despondency, he said, “Well, what about dinner?”

  “Three’s a crowd,” PD said.

  “Come off it, PD,” Hap said.

  “There’s a big bash for a client.” PD glanced at his watch. “If I go like hell, I can still make it. Ciao.”

  They watched the short, well-tailored man strut to the elevators, then Hap hugged Alyssia’s shoulders.

  “Any ideas where to eat?” he asked.

  “I booked us into the Biltmore,” she said. “How about room service?”

  • • •

  They ate guacamole dip and steaks in silence. They were often companionably quiet, but tonight the lack of communication had a strained quality. Alyssia’s mind was filled with her conversation with Ryker, but she couldn’t bring herself to broach the subject.

  When they were in bed, lying side by side in the darkness, she was finally able to say, “Doctor Ryker thinks this is a rotten time for the divorce.”

  The surf beat loudly against her ears.

  Then Hap’s voice. “Did he explain why?” He sounded the way he did on the set, sincere and questioning, holding his own thoughts in abeyance until the other person had voiced an opinion.

  “The drinking’s killing Barry, and if he keeps it up he’ll be dead in a year.”

  “That’s laying it on the line.”

  “He also said there won’t be any headway in the drying-out process without my total support.”

  “Alyssia, look. I’m not going to push you anymore.” Hap’s voice was drained and flat.

  “But if I don’t go ahead with the divorce. . . . What will happen?”

  He sighed deeply. “I wish I could hang loose like Maxim.” Currently on Izumel with the young actress wife of a complaisant engineering magnate.

  “Barry won’t be like this forever,” she said. “For the time being, why can’t we keep on the way we have been?”

  “We could,” he said quietly. “Except for two things.”

  “What are they?”

  He took her hand, holding it to his chest. “First of all, Barry’s never going to get better.”