“It’s not always that simple,” Lee says. “And he’s clearly been on the hunt for some time. He tried to contact you at Georgetown. Come on, Serena. You have to at least think about it.”
“Why are you so pushy about someone else’s affairs?”
Lee joins her at the table.
“You should have the money,” he says. “If that’s what Alicia Corning Clark wanted.”
People inherit things from long-lost friends and quasi aunts all the time. Well, not all the time, but it’s not unheard of, it’s not a Nigerian prince. On the other hand, Lee must acknowledge the fact that he wouldn’t push so hard if the letter requested her presence in New York, or Chicago, or some other place. Lee is from Los Angeles and he’ll be there until August, when he starts his Silicon Valley job. He’d love to spend the summer with Serena, so the letter feels like a potential windfall for him, instead of for her.
“Are you going to deny a woman her dying wish?” he asks, a pinch desperate.
Serena grunts, then ponders his view. Meanwhile, Lee removes a tube of burro cacao from his pocket, the ChapStick that he applies and reapplies, all day long. It’s an endearing habit, although Serena should not be thinking about Lee Perenchio’s mouth right now.
“I can’t leave,” she says. “It’s prime tourist season.”
The rationalization sounds thin in Serena’s ears. She’s a tour guide. She shuttles people around, through, and below the Colosseum and takes them to her favorite pizzerias. She leads them to Palatine Hill and the Forum and provides lists of the most underrated places in Rome. And if she’s not there? Some other person will do these exact things. No one will miss her at all.
The thought rattles Serena. No one will miss her. Exactly zero people, now that Novella is gone.
“I can’t leave a job I just started,” Serena adds halfheartedly, still thinking of her nonna. “To travel to the other side of the world for a chat.”
“You wouldn’t be going for a chat, you’d be going to collect your inheritance!”
“I must tell you,” she says, and smiles, “money is the least compelling aspect of the proposed journey. There are better reasons to go.”
“Oh really?” Lee wiggles his eyebrows.
He’s trying to be playful, to mask his neediness yet still convince this foreign beauty to spend a summer in the California sun.
“Are you referring to a certain charming guy you’ve recently met?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Serena says.
Can an orphan like her latch on to a handsome American boy? It is probably more dangerous than exciting, she thinks.
“You are very cute,” Serena allows. “And you most certainly sweeten the idea. But I must admit, this lawyer…”
She sweeps a hand toward the letter.
“He knew Mrs. Clark for fifty years. Nova did too. She told me countless stories, each more fantastical than the last. In my childhood, Alicia loomed like a fairy godmother, or a witch who’s both a little bit good, and a little bit bad. Alas, I’ll forever have Nonna’s side, but suddenly I’m anxious for Alicia Corning Clark’s.”
PART II
Alicia Darr has Hugh O’Brian breathless.
New York at Night, by Bob Farrell, March 6, 1953
HOLLYWOOD
Alicia slapped the newspaper onto the blue-flecked Formica table.
“I leave Hugh O’Brian breathless,” she said, grinning with wonder. “How about that?”
It was her first time in the gossip pages, and she barely had to try. If Mother wasn’t impressed by the money Alicia sent, she might find her daughter’s rising stardom better compensation.
“Are you going tonight?” asked her housemate, striding into the kitchen as she fluffed her hair.
Poor girl, she could primp and fidget all day long, but it was hard to rectify the flossy orange abomination atop her head.
“Of course I’m going,” Alicia said.
She gestured toward her outfit: skintight silver dress, ermine stole, egret feathers in her hair.
“I don’t dress like this for fun.” She paused. “Or do I?”
“Sheesh, no need to be testy,” Fannie said. “It’s a fair question. You’re a bit of a wild card.”
Fannie pried open the metal blinds, scanning the street for Fred and his Caddy. They were due at a party; the usual concoction of Hollywood bigwigs, starlets, and oilnaires. For a fee, Don Class provided window dressing at such events, in the form of Alicia and her roommates. The girls called this “mixing” and it was quite the side job to look pretty and sip champagne for a hundred clams per night. Alicia would do it for fifty, which was what Fannie got.
Though she enjoyed it, the mixing wasn’t much of a choice, as the actress business was slow going. Alicia had scored a few B roles, here and there, but California’s landscape was drier than she’d anticipated, in more ways than one.
“Obviously,” George said, when Alicia called to complain last week. “Fewer movies are made now that studios can’t own the theaters. Are you not familiar with the 1948 Supreme Court decision?”
Alicia smirked as she pictured George standing at the pay phone, in the Center lobby, all the way in Hyannis Port. She couldn’t believe it’d been almost two years since she’d left.
“The studios can’t ‘block book’ a year’s worth of movies because they don’t control the theaters anymore,” George yammered on. “Which means no guaranteed income, which means fewer movies made. None of this is helped by the inexplicable popularity of television.”
“Somehow, George,” Alicia said, laughing, “whenever I call for a pep talk, you always make it worse.”
Alas, this was George Neill, same as forever. Who else could she say these things to? She had three housemates at Don Class’s bungalow in the Hollywood Hills, the orange-haired Fannie, plus Yolanda and Daisy, too. While Alicia liked them well enough, she did not trust them one hundred percent. She’d learned her lesson. Never get too close.
“He’s here!” Fannie cried, spotting Fred’s Caddy on the graveled drive.
She grabbed her pocketbook and hurried outside.
It was fun to flit from the Bay Club, to the Beach Club, to the Firelight Room at the Bel-Air Hotel. They spent many delicious weekends relaxing at the Polo Lounge, in the Beverly Hills Hotel pool, or all the way out in Palm Springs. All of these places made Alicia count her lucky stars, but it could be exhausting, and she longed for something more.
Fred honked his horn. Sighing, Alicia straggled into the living room and thought maybe she wouldn’t go after all. This was probably what Fannie meant when she called her a “wild card.” Alicia glanced toward the gossip magazines scattered across the low table and thought she’d rather curl up with one of those versus an oilnaire.
She might’ve done just that, if Alicia didn’t hate being alone in that house of wood: the furniture, the floors, the walls and the roof. It was unsettling, with the brush fires always tearing through the hills.
Someone pounded the front door. Fred, no doubt. Alicia didn’t answer, so he jiggled the knob, and let himself through. Another problem: there were no streetlights and the doors didn’t lock.
“Are you planning to join us?” he asked, waddling in, smelling of cigarettes and scotch.
Fred was the last person you’d expect in Hollywood, as he was broader than he was tall, sweaty no matter the weather. A former Los Angeles police officer, Fred now spent his time driving around in a chauffeured Cadillac, accompanying girls to parties to make sure they behaved. Don Class didn’t pay Fred much for this, he claimed, but he never talked about his “real” job. Yolanda insisted he was a private eye.
“We’re headed to the Graham party,” he said. “Yolanda is already there, along with half the honchos in this town. You should go. You’re certainly dressed for it.”
“I don’t know, Fred. I’m suddenly not in the mood.”
“What’s the problem?” he asked. “Hugh O’Brian pulling the jealous act?”
/> “He’s the last person who might control my schedule,” Alicia said. “How’d you hear about him?”
“From the paper, like everyone else. Didn’t realize you two were so hot and heavy. Couldn’t have guessed you left him … breathless.”
“Very funny,” Alicia said, and rolled her eyes.
Hugh O’Brian was fine, as beaus went. He was handsome, square-jawed and brooding. At seventeen, he’d been the youngest Marine drill sergeant in United States history, and Alicia appreciated a storied military career. He was a decent actor, too, though sometimes he came across as desperate, the sort of person who would do anything for a role. Alicia didn’t object to this necessarily, but he shouldn’t be so damned obvious about it.
“So, Hugh’s breathless and you’re…?”
Fred pulled a flask from his coat, took a sip, and released a throaty ahhhhhhh.
“Speechless, is it?” he asked.
Alicia shrugged, as one did in that town. It was something she’d noticed about Los Angeles. Lots of shrugging, the inability to commit and a reluctance to be dazzled.
“You’re linked with a famous guy for the first time and now you clam up?” Fred said. “Just so you know, coyness doesn’t pay much in this town.”
“I’m not being coy,” Alicia said. “I enjoy his company, for now.”
“And what of Coop?” Fred asked.
Alicia’s eyes went wide.
“Coop wasn’t in the papers,” she said.
“Not yet, but he’s been calling around town, inquiring about your ‘status.’”
Alicia smiled, flattered by his effort.
“Well, between you and me,” she said, “he’s been giving the hard sell, trying to get me to join him in Mexico, where he’s shooting some film.”
“I gotta hand it to you, Alicia,” Fred said with a wet sniggle. “You have some balls to cat-and-mouse Gary Cooper.”
“It’s not like that,” Alicia said, but had to wonder. “I don’t think I’m allowed to leave the States. Coop’s staying out of the U.S. to avoid paying taxes, thus the cat and mouse are stuck in separate countries.”
“I’m sure you could find a way to Mexico City, if you really wanted to.”
Alicia nodded. She was attracted to Coop, and who wouldn’t be? She liked his style, his swagger, the very American maleness of him. After the hours she’d spent ogling him onscreen at the Center, that he was pursuing her was worth something, no two ways.
For a second, Alicia contemplated the outcome if it was his name linked with hers, instead of Hugh O’Brian’s. Coop had been friends with Jack Kennedy, long ago. Jack had traveled to Hollywood expressly to see what made Gary Cooper tick.
“How is he that charismatic?” he’d wondered.
Jack was looking for some tips but in the end found only more questions. Namely, how could a man be so magnetic while also being an utter bore? It drove Jack bonkers that Coop remained a screen god, that people made the sorts of comments Tallulah Bankhead once did:
“The only reason I went to Hollywood,” she proclaimed, “was to fuck that divine Gary Cooper.”
“We’ll have to see about Mexico,” Alicia told Fred, then adjusted her dress, which was starting to cling to the wrong places. “Though it sounds better by the minute.”
“Lucky guy,” Fred said. “Okay, doll, ya coming or not? You can’t stay in, you’ve got some major va-va-voom tonight. Is that dress low-cut enough, do you think? I can almost see to Timbuktu.”
“Don’t be a wolf.”
“And don’t be a drip. Let’s roll over to Sheilah’s for a cocktail and to celebrate the love of Hollywood’s newest newlyweds.”
“They’ll last a year, tops,” Alicia said with a snort.
“I’m sure they’d both agree. All the bigwigs will be there. One of them could give you your break.”
Alicia checked the mirror above the fireplace. In that low light, the tinctures and lotions she’d applied shimmered and glistened, from her collarbone all the way down. Maybe it was a waste not to go. She looked damned fine.
Plus, as Fred reminded her, you never knew who might be at a party, who might be the one to change your life. And Alicia could use the money. Los Angeles living was astoundingly fast and expensive. She earned more here than in Hyannis, but she spent far more.
“You sold me,” Alicia said. “Let’s go to Sheilah’s grand soiree.”
“That’s my favorite girl.”
Alicia reapplied her signature cherry-red lips. She watched in the mirror as Fred belched and then ran a hand over his slicked hair.
As they walked toward the door, Fred stopped at a small, square painting tacked to the wall.
“Whose house is that?” he asked.
“Oh.” She sighed. “It’s a place I once knew, on Nantucket Sound. I painted it myself, actually.”
“You did?” Fred raised a brow.
“Yes. I used to be an artist.”
It almost sounded like a lie. Sometimes, it was easy to forget the lives she’d led: schoolgirl, painter, counter clerk, maid. Fiancée of a congressman named Jack.
“Why, Alicia Darr!” Fred said. “That’s amazing! I had no idea!”
“Oh, well.” She exhaled. “That was a different person. A different life.”
A different dream.
Fred offered a good old Southern California shrug.
“Okeydokey, whatever you say, sweetie. Come on, let’s hit the road.”
* * *
Fred was right. Everyone was there.
Along with the bride (Sheilah Graham, gossip columnist) and her new husband (Stan Wojtkiewicz, no stated occupation) were a hodgepodge of stars and moguls and other Hollywood impresarios. Within seconds of walking through the front door, Alicia saw Mike Todd, Evelyn Keyes, Joan Crawford, and Marilyn Monroe, always with her publicity wagon and sack of pills.
“This is a scene,” Alicia whispered to Fred as they wandered through.
“I told you. It’s Sheilah Graham.”
“I cannot accept that she married someone named Bow-Wow.”
Sheilah called her new husband “Bow-Wow” because “Wojtkiewicz” was too Polish and impossible to say. A little odd, Alicia thought, not to know your spouse’s name. Then again, Bow-Wow was in his thirties, and Sheilah was almost fifty and had been through several husbands already, not to mention a love affair with the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, who died in her apartment. To someone like Sheilah Graham, proper pronunciation probably seemed nitpicky and irrelevant.
“Listen, I gotta see a guy about a thing,” Fred said, and released Alicia’s arm. “You good on your own?”
“Always.” She nodded.
“Holler if anyone gives you trouble.”
With that, Fred sauntered off.
Alicia snaked through the party, champagne glass in hand, necks straining as she passed. Eventually, Alicia found herself in the living room, where she zeroed in on an attractive couple nestled on a gold brocade sofa. The man was dark-haired and handsome, the woman auburn and bright. Her shoes were off, bare feet tucked beneath her rear. It was Pat Kennedy. Alicia’s heart locked in her throat.
She’d seen Jack’s sister often and from a distance these past two years, including at the Beach Club last week. The circles they ran in often touched, and it was a miracle Alicia had gone this long without saying hello. She’d eventually have to, and so, emboldened by the champagne and her ermine stole, Alicia decided this was the night.
“My goodness! Pat Kennedy!” she said, sweeping toward them. “How wonderful to see you!”
Pat smiled, a pop of recognition on her face as her eyes remained curious and searching.
Alicia extended a hand. A diamond bracelet dangled from her wrist. Pat pursed her lips at the sight, and conspicuously assessed the ice. Were the diamonds real? Were they top grade?
“I’m not sure if you remember me,” Alicia started, “but I dated your brother. Jack.”
Saying his name was a stab in the chest.
“How is your brother these days?” she asked, to get it out of the way. “I haven’t thought about him in ages!”
This was a lie. Alicia had tracked him, every step. It was easier now that he was a senator. Jack’s increased political clout meant more headlines every week.
KENNEDY WILL SEEK LODGE’S SENATE SEAT.
CAPITOL NEWSMEN VOTE KENNEDY HANDSOMEST.
LODGE REPLACED BY KENNEDY.
KENNEDY VICTORY SMILE.
“Alicia…” Pat said, and stood, wobbling on the way up.
Peter gave her a steady arm.
“Peter, this is one of Jack’s—”
“We were engaged,” Alicia said, curtly. “The name is Alicia Darr. Nice to meet you.”
She jutted out a hand.
“Likewise,” Peter said. He glanced at Pat. “I didn’t know Jack was engaged.”
“For a very short period of time.”
“This is true,” Alicia said. “Jack was a wonderful beau, alas, my background and religious inclinations weren’t satisfactory in the eyes of dear old Dad.”
“Father knows best,” Peter answered with his deep laugh, husky and rich, thanks to his British accent and fast-living life.
Alicia had met him a time or two, and heard enough stories to fill a book. She knew the way this fella worked, and Pat would probably do well to stay away. But Pete Lawford was handsome as sin and Alicia appreciated a man worthy of the fuss.
“Can I get you ladies a drink?” Peter asked. “Something with more balls than champagne?”
“I’m fine with this,” Alicia said.
“Whatever you’re having, babe,” Pat said.
As Peter walked off, Pat dropped onto the sofa, and slapped the seat beside her.
“Sit, sit,” she said. “Fill me in on what you’ve been up to since … Geez, how long it’s been?”
“I left Hyannis Port two years ago in July.”
Pat whistled.
“Doesn’t feel that long,” she said. “So, you’re in Hollywood now? Trying to make a go?”
“That’s the idea. I’ve had a few roles, nothing you’ve seen.”
“You certainly have the face for it,” Pat said. “Your accent is entirely kaput.”
The Summer I Met Jack Page 26