Pat lit a cigarette and passed her silver monogrammed case Alicia’s way.
“Do you smoke? I can’t recall.…”
“I’m fine for now,” Alicia said, and shook her head, thinking of the cigarettes they once shared on the porch in Hyannis Port.
“You still with Don Class?” Pat asked. “Living in the bungalow? With the other girls?”
Alicia beamed in awe. Well, look at that. Where she’d tracked Jack, perhaps Pat had tracked her, too. She wondered if siblings shared confidences about parties they’d attended and the people they’d seen. For a moment Alicia wished Coop were with her, tax authorities be damned.
“Yes, I have three roommates,” Alicia said. “Daisy, Yolanda, and Fa—”
“Fannie!” Pat snapped her fingers. “That’s the one I was thinking of! Raven-haired?”
“No, actually, her hair is orange. Are you thinking of Yolanda?”
“Yes!” She snapped again. “One of Peter’s friends is bonkers for her.”
Pat tilted forward. The smoke from her cigarette curled up into Alicia’s nose, and through her meticulously styled hair.
“You think you could get him a date?” Pat asked. “With Fannie?”
“Yolanda. That shouldn’t be a problem. She’s not specifically attached.”
“Brilliant! I’ll let him know.”
Pat leaned closer. She smelled sweet and smoky, her eyes a deeper purple than Alicia remembered.
“It’s Frank Sinatra,” she whispered. “If you must know.”
Pat sprang to her feet.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have to go peeps. Are you going to Louella’s after this?”
“I’m not sure,” Alicia said. “I’m thinking about it.”
Pat ground her cigarette into the coffee table. She left the butt sitting there, damp, lipsticked, and smoldering.
“If I don’t see you at Louella’s,” she said, “keep in touch. I’ve always liked you, which is a compliment, as Jack usually has the worst taste in broads.”
The new light in Gary Cooper’s blue orbs is caused by Alicia Darr, Viennese starlet.
Hollywood Today, by Sheilah Graham, March 14, 1953
HOLLYWOOD
Alicia convinced Coop to risk his tax situation so that he might woo her in Hollywood.
The gossips took fast notice. Coop offered a lot more prestige than Hugh O’Brian, and Alicia should’ve lit this fire sooner. From Fairchild’s, to the Beverly Wilshire, to coastal excursions in Coop’s convertible Mercedes, the papers mentioned it all. Spies were even at the Fish Shanty to capture him playfully dropping toothpicks down the front of Alicia’s dress.
Their relationship was pure Hollywood glitz, but with a kick of old-fashioned romance. When Coop returned to set, his director accused him of being too tan, too glowing with happiness, and asked him to please tone it down.
At over fifty years old, Coop was not a young man, but he was as stouthearted and red-blooded as they came. Alicia adored the cowboyness of him, his pure American verve. Once she overheard him tell a scriptwriter to “just make me the hero,” and Alicia thought, yes, that was his perfect role. Not that any role wasn’t perfect for Coop. He had won an Academy Award the previous week.
Now he was in Mexico City, filming Blowing Wild. He’d begged Alicia to join him but she was shooting a scene for Brady’s Bunch, plus she still didn’t know what was required of a displaced person wanting to travel abroad. Something about an “Affidavit of Identity in Lieu of Passport,” but Alicia didn’t have the time, or the funds, to hassle with that sort of paperwork. Not to mention, which identity would she use?
Also, she was expected at a luncheon, in the Sun Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel. The event was hosted by Enrique “Heini” Schöndube, a Mexican playboy and industrial heir. Alicia questioned why a “Mexican” might have such a German last name, but Heini was adamant about his heritage. He paid a mariachi band to follow him around.
Heini’s table decorations were as repugnant as the mariachi band, with red and white carnation centerpieces and pink glassware. It was almost enough to distract Alicia from her mission, which was to be delightful and bright.
“That’s the best thing about you,” Don Class had said. “Anyone can be pretty, but your ability to string together more than five words makes you stand out.”
At the luncheon, Alicia listlessly sipped her champagne. Beside her, Kay Spreckles prattled on about her divorce from the sugar magnate. She was dubbed a gold digger; he beat her with a shoe. Now Adolph planned to marry his twenty-four-year-old nurse.
Alicia answered with the usual. Nods. Frowns. “What a dirtbag!” She’d heard this story a dozen times before. It could all get so very tiresome.
With another sip of champagne, Alicia’s eyes flicked down the table, toward Jerry Lewis, Nancy Davis, and Ronald Reagan. She saw her roommate flirting with Heini, and good for her. Daisy didn’t get the same attention as the others. She hadn’t even gotten a movie role yet.
Once the dessert plates were cleared, and Kay rotated to harass some other sap, Alicia took the opportunity to sneak off. She didn’t say good-bye to the host, or his pack of trucklers, or any other guest. No one would miss her, as there were plenty of starlets to go around.
After snagging her coat from the coat-check girl, Alicia strode out the hotel’s front doors. When she reached the end of the porte cochere, Alicia glanced at the bold stripes overhead. She closed her eyes and remembered what it was like to walk inside the Beverly Hills Hotel for the first time: as though she were stepping into a candy box. Maybe life wasn’t so ordinary after all.
Alicia opened her eyes. With a firm shake of the head, she reminded herself that this was what she came for. Days like these, sunny and champagne-filled. An actor to her right, a sheikh to her left, all of it inside a grand, pink hotel.
Although it often felt like she’d been in Los Angeles a decade or more, Alicia understood that time was an illusion, like happiness and success. Unlike so many others in this town, she was not some battle-weary starlet dragging her tail. Alicia Darr was just getting started and the best was yet to come.
* * *
“Really, Alicia?”
She froze in her driveway. Goose bumps scattered across her skin.
“Who’s there?” she asked as her stomach dropped clear to the floor.
A figure moved, near the porch.
“I couldn’t believe my fucking eyes,” the man said. “Of all the bastahds in Hollywood, you picked goddamned Gary Cooper.”
“Jack.”
She gasped. Her mouth was drier than a Palm Springs afternoon.
“In the flesh,” he said.
Jack Kennedy hopped down from a bougainvillea-covered wall and stepped out into the full sunlight, grinning his high-voltage smile. He was beautiful, golden almost. Alicia struggled to catch her breath.
“You need to be careful,” she said, her voice thin.
Alicia pointed to the pink flowers, and their prickly vines.
“Bougainvillea is beautiful,” she said, “but it has thorns.”
“That’s one helluva metaphor.”
He let out one of his deep and gutty Jack Kennedy laughs. Alicia’s heart swelled. Her eyes watered and she had to turn away. It was too much to take him in. You didn’t stare at the sun. You didn’t eat a full cake in one sitting.
She hadn’t seen him in nearly two years. On first blush, he looked every bit the same, but on the second and third, Jack Kennedy seemed bigger somehow. He took up more space. A happy fact, she supposed, given the newspaper photos of him on crutches. She’d been worried about his health.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I came to see you, of course,” Jack said, looping his thumbs into the waistband of his baggy, wrinkled pants. “Jesus, Alicia. Gary Cooper. You really know how to break a guy’s heart.”
“What do you have against Coop?” she asked, pretending not to recall. “He’s a swell guy. Just won an Academy Awar
d, in case you didn’t see the news. It was his second.”
“I saw the news all right.” He rolled his eyes. “What a feat, beating out a dog for best actor.”
“Rin Tin Tin is very talented.”
“Are you upset he’s dating a ‘Viennese starlet’ as well as you?” Jack asked.
“I see your wit is still intact.”
“What do you see in the guy?” he said. “Do you know I once sat beside him at a dinner party and he said exactly three words the entire evening?”
“Still waters run deep,” Alicia sniffed. “He’s not one of those types who likes to hear his own voice. He’s not a Kennedy.”
“Right, right. I’m sure his brain is boiling over with the world’s most important thoughts.”
“You’d be surprised. And, he has other charms. You know what Tallulah Bankhead said about him, and why she went to Hollywood.”
Jack grunted.
“Yeah. And there was that vaudevillian actress who accused him of lacking proper thrust.”
“The exact quote was that Coop ‘has the biggest organ in Hollywood but not the ass to push it in well.’ Pardon the rough language,” Alicia said, and fanned herself, as if she were blushing. “You’re hardly in a position to criticize someone’s flat ass. And, as for the first part of the statement, I’ve found it to be true, though I’ve not sampled all available choices.”
Jack’s features dropped, and with it, Alicia’s heart. Scoring a verbal victory against the whip-smart, impossibly droll Jack Kennedy didn’t feel half as good as she’d presumed.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and sighed, eyes fixed on the ground.
A lizard skittered by.
“I didn’t mean that,” she said. “I’m just thrown off. You’re the last person I expected to see. Why aren’t you off doing senatorial things, or finding your perfect wife? You always said you’d marry, if you won Lodge’s seat.”
“I did find my perfect wife,” he said. “But she ran away, dumped me via the Hyannis Port post.”
Alicia looked up. Jack stepped forward, and wrapped both arms around her waist. Then he dipped in for the softest, lightest, most patient of kisses, a kiss so tender it almost stopped her heart. Normally, Jack would’ve had her naked and up against a wall ninety seconds after he said hello.
“I didn’t run away,” she whispered, taking in the scent of his shampoo, his aftershave, his clothes. “I finally accepted what I should’ve long before, that you and I could never be.”
“Alicia Dahr-ling, you never gave me a chance to fix anything.”
Jack rested his chin on her head. Alicia ran her hands across his bony, ramrod back. She felt for his brace. It was bulkier than she remembered.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she said. “Nothing is the same. No one is the same. Not even ‘that divine Gary Cooper.’”
He kissed the tip of her ear. Alicia smiled, for suddenly she felt something familiar, occurring on the front side of his pants.
“Same old Jack,” she said, and pushed her pelvis into his.
“We’d better get inside,” he said. “Before I screw you right here and ruin your reputation. I don’t care about mine.”
She laughed, feeling like herself for the first time in years.
“That’s not true at all,” she said.
“I’ve waited twenty months, Alicia Darr. And I can’t stand one second more.”
* * *
They woke at four o’clock in the afternoon.
Alicia’s mouth was sweet and dry thanks to the champagne luncheon, a nap, and, of course, Jack.
They’d gotten to the sex briskly, in the typical Jack Kennedy sprinting fashion. Not two steps through the front door and Jack had yanked down his khakis. He took Alicia up against the bar cart, metal clanging and whisky spilling onto the rug.
When it came to lovemaking, Jack had all the grace of a runaway freight train, and while Alicia guessed some girls might find it off-putting, she liked it, because it was so very him. In all things, Jack was cerebral and quick, and she loved his urgent, pleading way.
Now they were lingering in bed. Any of the girls might walk in at any time, but Alicia didn’t mind if they saw the wreck. She was proud of it, in some way.
“I’ve missed you, kid,” Jack said, his right leg hooked over her left.
His hairs scratched against her skin as he squirmed in search of a more comfortable spot.
“You haven’t had the time to miss me,” she said.
“It’s not about time. You’re always … there. Tell me, Alicia…” He flipped onto his side. “What are you doing, hanging around here?”
“I’m trying to make it as an actress, you know that.”
“Like everybody else in this town. What about your art?” Jack inched closer. “What have you painted lately?”
“I’m not doing that anymore,” she said.
“Why not? Anyone can be beautiful, but to have your talent is something truly worthwhile.”
“My so-called talent didn’t get me anywhere before,” she said, thinking of her failed gallery show, and the painting of the synagogue hanging on Joe Kennedy’s wall.
That wretched thing.
Alicia turned toward the window, and the sunlight coming through the trees. California was a funny place. Beautiful and temperate, yet also harsh. She wondered about the rattlesnakes and coyotes and skunks outside.
“What are you doing here, Jack?” she asked.
“What do you mean? I’ve come to rescue you.”
Alicia gave him a once-over.
“Who says I need rescuing?” she said.
“You’re palling around with Gary fucking Cooper, to start.”
“If I’d known you’d be this upset about Coop, I would’ve started dating him sooner.”
“Come with me,” Jack blurted. “To Washington.”
Alicia laughed.
“Jack Kennedy, don’t say things you don’t mean.”
“I’m serious. Come. Be with me.”
Alicia clamped her lips together, trying to suppress the fantasy, the vision of a charming brick town house with white trim and black shutters, its house number written in script:
One Thirty-Five
“I can’t go to Washington,” Alicia said. “I need to make a living. I’ve finally found a hospital for my mother that I can afford.”
“Your mother’s still alive?” Jack said. “How about that? Terrific! And I’ll pay for the hospital. Hell, I can have her outta there by tomorrow. Tell me who to call.”
“It’s not that easy. And what would I do in Washington?”
“Paint.” He shrugged against the bed. “Attend art school. Make love to me.”
“Hmmm. This sounds familiar. And where does Papa Joe fit in?”
“It’s different now. I’ve distanced myself from him. I got elected with no wife, didn’t I? Dad can’t argue with victory, or my winning smile.”
“Good grief.”
Alicia lurched out of bed. Her behind jiggled as she walked. She’d been eating out too much these days, thanks to Coop.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” Jack sniffed. “I’m hurt.”
“You’ll get over it.”
Alicia rummaged through her closet. The flowered, gathered-waist dress she’d worn to the luncheon was much too much for that time of day.
“I’ll prove it,” Jack said. “You’ll be my date to Eunice’s wedding in May. What can anyone say to that? Surely Dad will have to zip it, and more so, you.”
“Eunice’s wedding. Really.”
Alicia glanced over her shoulder, then zipped her sheath halfway up, as far as she could reach. Jack made no move from the bed. He was not the sort to help a lady get her clothes on.
“So, she finally agreed to marry Sarge?” Alicia said.
She never understood his pursuit, nor Eunice’s reluctance, as Sarge was a handsome man.
“Yeah, she’s marrying the bastard,” Jack said. “As she says, ‘I searched a
ll my life for someone like my father, and Sarge came closest.’”
“I’m sure he gave her a nice rock,” Alicia said with a smirk. “Given his experience in selecting gems.”
“I chose your engagement ring,” Jack said, eyes darting toward her left hand. “Guess I shouldn’t have expected you to still be wearing it.”
“I sold that long ago. A girl has to eat.”
She reached back and pushed her zipper ninety percent to the top.
“You’ll come with me,” Jack said. “To the wedding. It’ll be fun. I’ll parade you across the dance floor, proud as can be.”
Alicia smiled and closed the closet behind her. She walked several steps toward the bed, her feet padding against the cool tile floors.
“Well?” he said, grinning wide as the world. “Whatcha think?”
She sighed, and shook her head.
“I’ll think about it, Jack. But I question your ability to keep that sort of plan.”
KENNEDY’S DAUGHTER WED AMONG SPLENDOR
The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 24, 1953
NEW YORK
Alicia held the card in her right hand. Admittance to church, it read.
At the wedding of Eunice Mary Shriver, Alicia felt every bit as fraudulent and on guard as she did at the convent posing as a Catholic girl. But Alicia pushed away the thoughts. This wasn’t the same. For one, her life was not in danger. Also, the Kennedys already knew that she was a Jew.
In the last row at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Alicia sat jittery, all tumbling belly and shaky hands. Had she worn the right dress? Would she say the right things? More importantly, would Jack?
Tonight would be their seventh time together since his unexpected appearance amid the bougainvillea. Their relationship was solidifying, settling into some kind of normalcy, though they lived on opposite coasts. The arrangement suited Alicia, for now. Keeping Gary Cooper on a string helped, though he was increasingly suspicious of the senator.
“I know how that guy works,” he’d said, when he called from Mexico. “And he doesn’t want to be your friend.”
These past few months, Jack paid regular visits to Los Angeles. He and Alicia dined and danced and attended all the good parties, sipped all the best champagne. Although, it was not glamour all the time. One night, Jack insisted on the Malibu Cottage, a dreadful bar with tattered stools and sawdust on the floor. Alicia preferred the Mocambo, and its live parakeets and macaws, but down-at-the-heels places were a novelty for Jack.
The Summer I Met Jack Page 27