Dear Cary

by Dyan Cannon

  “Should I send him up, Miss Cannon?”

  I didn’t want to see him. Or, more accurately, my head didn’t want to see him and my heart remained unsure. “No,” I said. “Don’t send him up. Just put him on the line please.” Of course, I melted when I heard his voice. I told him I was on my way out to dinner and I didn’t want to see him anyway, but he wore down my resistance.

  When I let him in, the first thing he noticed was my half-built tuna-fish sandwich on the kitchen counter. He tossed me a soft rag of a smile and said, “Having an appetizer?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “You stopped taking my calls.”

  “Can you blame me?” I said.

  “I’m not sure I understand,” he said.

  “You gave my number to Clifford Odets!”

  He seemed taken aback, incredulous even. “Is that what this is about?” he said.

  “That’s exactly what this is about,” I said, my voice shaking. “What did you think it was about?”

  “But—”

  “No, Cary. I don’t want to hear any excuses. We’d been dating for months. Why would you let him think I was available?”

  “Maybe because the two of you seemed to hit it off so well . . . when you drove on instead of following me home, I thought maybe you were going back to Clifford’s.”

  “Are you crazy? Yes, you’re crazy. I was tired. I just wanted to go home and sleep!”

  He shuffled his feet, ever so slightly—and deflected my challenge like a judo master. “How about dinner Saturday? I miss you.”

  “No, Cary. No.”

  “Why?”

  “I just don’t want to. I’m sorry.”

  He stood there for a long time, looking disappointed, but like a spoiled kid who wasn’t getting his way. “Well, I’m sorry, too,” he said finally, then turned around and let himself out of the apartment.

  I went to the kitchen counter and looked down at my pathetic tuna-fish sandwich. I smashed it with the flat of my hand and sat down and cried. Then I washed my face and without much conviction told my reflection in the mirror that I’d done the right thing.

  The phone rang again. It was Victor, whispering, “He left, but he came back. He would like to speak to you.”

  “All right then.”

  “Dyan,” he said. “I was halfway home when I realized I don’t have your new phone number.”

  “Good,” I said. “That way Clifford Odets won’t have it either.”

  I hung up.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Nobody’s Perfect

  “Honey, you can’t expect perfection from anyone,” my mother said. “Not even from Cary Grant.”

  Three days after Cary’s unannounced visit, Mom had parachuted in to rescue me.

  “This isn’t about perfection, Mom. He gave my number to a friend of his, like I was a bottle he could just pass around for everyone to take a swig. It really makes me wonder about his mental state.”

  “His mental state isn’t a big mystery. He was jealous. Jealousy is the most useless emotion in the world, but guess what: three-quarters of the human race are eaten up with it.”

  “Then what do I do about it? Something inside of me is really questioning his behavior.”

  “Don’t make more out of this than it is.”

  “I don’t know what it is, Mom, but something’s off. I can feel it.”

  “Something is always ‘off’ with everybody most of the time. When my mother used to say ‘nobody’s perfect,’ I thought she meant they didn’t rinse out their coffee cup. What ‘nobody’s perfect’ really means is that everybody has some kind of character flaw to deal with. It’s going to be that way with anyone. You just have to decide if it’s worth it or not.”

  She looked at me and shook her head. This was my dear, sweet mother, Clara Portnoy Friesen, who had seen real suffering in Russia. A little romantic turmoil did not add up to tragedy in her book, but she empathized. “Okay, time to stop moping!” she said. “Let’s go out and smell the roses.”

  I took her to Frascati for lunch, and then we went to have our hair done. My mother was quite young when she had me, and now, barely in her midforties, she was still extraordinarily beautiful. Her long hair fell in natural black ringlets, and the other hairdressers kept coming over just to touch it.

  Mom was serious about smelling the roses. On our way home, she insisted on buying flowers for the apartment. When we got back, she set to trimming the stems as we ran through our dinner options. We’d just settled on Bob’s Big Boy when Stan, the night doorman, called to tell me I had a delivery.

  “I’ll pick it up when I come back from dinner,” I said.

  “But it’s food, Miss Cannon. And it’s hot.”

  Moments later, a young Chinese man was at the door with two large paper bags. “Greetings from Hoi Ping!” he said, bowing and handing me the bags. “Mr. Ling send his happiness regards!” I passed the bags to Mom and fished a tip out of my purse as the aroma of a Chinese feast bloomed throughout the apartment. Mother picked a note from the top of one of the containers. “It doesn’t taste the same without you,” Cary had written.

  My mother took a long look at me. The note had touched her, but she kept her opinion to herself. We dug in and stuffed ourselves, then we collapsed in the living room, full and happy.

  “Mom, what do you really think of marriage?” I asked. We were totally relaxed and lounging.

  “Depends on whose marriage,” she said.

  “I know you and Daddy had some big battles. How did you hang in there?”

  “Simple. We love each other.”

  “I love Cary. But is love really enough?”

  “Not without patience. And forgiveness.”

  “Mom, will you marry me?”

  “On this and every day, honey.”

  In the morning, as penance for overeating the previous night, we took Bangs for a long walk. When we got back, Victor opened the door with his usual aplomb, then crossed to the front desk and pressed a vase of fresh-cut flowers into my mother’s arms. “These are for you,” he told my mother.

  “Me? Not my daughter?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said. “The delivery guy was very specific. He said, ‘These are for Mrs. Freezing.’ ” Freezing, Friesen—close enough.

  We went upstairs. There was a note from Cary to my mother. “Dear Mrs. Friesen, I’m very fond of your daughter. I do hope we meet soon.”

  “How did he know I was here?” Mom asked.

  I thought for a second. “Addie.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” my mother said. “Maybe he comes here and does some flips for you and then you’re happy. Life is short, so short. So you decide. Either let him back in, or leave him behind.”

  A couple of days after Mom left came the terrible news of Marilyn Monroe’s death, which was ruled as a “probable suicide.” I thought about Cary, knowing that he’d been very fond of her. He’d only met her a couple of times, but she touched him deeply. “Something about her just cries out for protection,” he’d told me. I thought he might need someone to commiserate with, so I called him and I was right.

  “Poor girl,” Cary said. “She didn’t trust herself, so she was constantly putting herself in other people’s hands. She tried to be who they told her to be. Drugs didn’t kill her. Confusion did.” He sighed. “Well, we’re still here. Doesn’t it make you appreciate how fragile life is?”

  “She was only thirty-six,” I said. “What a waste.”

  “Dyan, life is too short for two people who love each other to go on bickering like this. Will you meet me for dinner?”

  “Mr. Grant, as always I am your humble servant.”

  Restaurateurs tended to bow a lot when Cary showed up, but in contrast to Ong Ling’s discreetly respectful bow, Michael Romanoff’s bow was a sweeping and grandiose firework display of theatrical sycophancy. He curled his vowels with a hard-to-place east European accent and every gesture had the deliberation of a novice silent movie actor
. As Cary said later, he could have been a Russian who had learned to speak English late in life, or an American hoping for a part as a Soviet spy who had hired an alcoholic dialect coach. In reality, he was a Lithuanian peasant who grew up in Brooklyn and who did his best to conform to a Hollywood notion of what Russian royalty would act and sound like.

  “And—oh my goodness—to behold such beauty!” He was talking about me now. He folded his hands and swiveled his eyes toward the heavens. “Your table awaits you. This way!” Another Bolshoi-big sweep of the arms.

  “My goodness!” I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Well, he is a prince,” Cary said with a wink.

  “Really?”

  “Prince Michael Dimitri Alexandrovich Obolensky-Romanoff, nephew of Czar Nicholas II. Or Prince Et Cetera for short. That’s if you listen to the optimists. Or, if you listen to the cynics, he’s Harry Geguzin, former Brooklyn pants presser.”

  “Whom do you throw in with? The optimists or the cynics?”

  Cary gave a gentle laugh. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s just as much Prince Et Cetera as I am Cary Grant. Live and let live, darling! That’s my policy. We’ve all got our foibles.” With that, he gave me what I can only call a meaningful glance. Just as meaningfully, I looked away.

  “Dyan, you have to let go of this,” Cary said. “I made a mistake and I can’t unmake it. Clifford was quite taken with you. I was mad as a hornet when he asked for your number and I gave it to him. I was damned upset.”

  “Upset? What reason did you have to be upset?”

  “I guess I’m spoiled and like to get my way.”

  “What happens when you really don’t get your way, Cary? Are you going to start writing my phone number on bathroom walls?”

  Cary exhaled and clenched his jaw as if bracing himself.

  “It’s very hard to explain,” he said. “It . . . ah . . . well . . .”

  I waited. I looked at him in complete amazement and said, “Mr. Grant, is it possible that you are at a loss for words?”

  “Um, I, well . . . yes.”

  “Is that as close to an apology as I’m going to get?”

  Cary flexed his throat muscles as if he were trying to swallow a sausage whole, and though it may have been my imagination, I was sure that his head clicked forward by a good half inch, which I interpreted as a nod.

  “Well then, I accept.”

  “Then can we just get on with this?” he asked softly.

  “Addie! Addie? Addie!”

  “Dyan, what’s wrong? Have you had an accident?”

  “No, Addie. Yes. No. But I need help.”

  “Are you in jail?”

  “No-no-no. I need—I need—”

  “Dyan, shut up and take three deep breaths.”

  And so I did as I was told.

  “Now, tell me,” Addie said.

  “I’m cooking dinner for Cary.”

  “Oh dear.” Addie knew better than anyone that I couldn’t find the right end of a can opener. “How did you get yourself into that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said with a sigh. “He asked if I could cook—”

  “And you told him yes?” Addie replied with alarm.

  “But it’s worse than that! The shoot ran really late. I don’t have anything in the fridge. Nothing!” Plus, Corky’s housekeeper hadn’t shown up and the place looked like a bunch of frat boys had held an initiation party in it.

  “I’m your agent, and I’ll get you jobs, “ she said, “but I’m not coming over to cook for you and Cary Grant!”

  “Addie, I’d never ask you to do anything like that! No, I’m going to call La Scala and order takeout. Cary loves their rosemary chicken.”

  “Better order a vegetable too.”

  “Great idea! He loves their creamed spinach too.” Neither of us could cook, but when we put our heads together, we were unstoppable when it came to ordering. “Oh,” I added.

  “Oh?”

  “I was going to ask you to pick it up for me. The apartment is wrecked and I’m a mess. He’s due at eight.”

  “Dyan, let me ask you something. What creature are you most afraid of?”

  “Snakes.”

  “Your next role will be Ismelda the Snake Lady.”

  “Who’s Ismelda the Snake Lady?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to have a screenwriter working on it by tomorrow morning.”

  With that, I whipped through the apartment like the White Tornado. I washed the dishes, polished the dining room table, stuffed my dirty clothes under the bed, and vacuumed. Then I took a quick shower and—with one bold sweep of the hand—dumped all of my cosmetics into the top drawer of the vanity. Then I got out the new hand towels my mother had sent me—they were pink and black, with little poodles embroidered in rhinestone on one side—and I hung them with great flourish. Done!

  The next moment, Addie was at the door with the contraband chicken that I would brazenly pass off as my own creation. She hurried inside and helped me slide the food into ceramic dishes. “I’ve got an idea!” she said. “If you turn on the oven, he might really believe you cooked!”

  “There’s a place in espionage for us, Addie!”

  “What do you have to drink?”

  “Oh.” The good bottle of champagne I’d picked up for the occasion was still in the freezer, where I’d forgotten it that morning. Now it was frozen solid.

  “Okay, champagne-sicles,” Addie said. “Good-bye and good luck!” She then gathered up the incriminating La Scala bags, kissed me good-bye, and hurried off.

  Cary must have pulled up just as Addie drove off. I flung myself back on the couch with an open book and tried to look pleasantly drowsy. That’s the kind of girl I was—I could act, I could cook, I could read. No, sir, life didn’t faze me! Then I remembered my cooking apron and put it on so that I could greet Cary at the door like a perfect 1950s housewife.

  “You’re right on time!” I said, beaming.

  “Yes!” he said. “And I’m famished. It smells great.”

  “Rosemary chicken.”

  “Great,” he said. “I’ll go wash my hands.”

  I went to the kitchen and made a convincing racket—banging plates, slamming the oven door, opening drawers—then I slipped into a pair of oven mitts and took the warm plates to the table. Ha ha ha, my grandest culinary deception since I claimed credit for my high school boyfriend’s birthday cake.

  Cary came out of the bathroom holding his hand vertically. It was gushing blood. “One of your poodle towels attacked me,” he grumbled. He had cut his hand on one of the rhinestones. “Maybe I’ll trade you Gumper for those towels. They’re certainly a lot more dangerous.” His sense of humor was masking some genuine irritation.

  “Let me find a Band-Aid.”

  “Oh, a simple tourniquet will do. Poodles. Most treacherous dogs on God’s green earth. What did we expect from the French?”

  I found a Band-Aid and patched him up, then set the bottle of frozen champagne on the table. Cary looked at it balefully and popped the cork. He held the bottle upside down and watched a meager trickle of fluid dribble into each glass. “Here’s to new beginnings,” he said.

  That sounded promising, so I drank. “Yes,” I said. “To new beginnings.”

  I rushed back into the kitchen, made some more noise, and returned with dinner. “I hope you like it,” I said. But how could he not? It was one of his favorite meals. I watched as he dug in and ate with great relish, pausing only long enough to rave: “This is divine! Your chicken is so good I may never have to eat at La Scala again!”

  I smiled into my plate. If I looked at him, I was done for. It wasn’t until after I’d taken the dishes away that I could look him in the eye. I made us some tea and we just relaxed. We laughed a lot together. By now, I was completely comfortable with him, never feeling as though he were waiting to make his move on me.

  “I feel I’ve gained a few pounds devouring your delicious dinner,” he said when it was get
ting close to eleven. “Really, Dyan, it was wonderful. You’re one of the rare actresses in Hollywood who can cook!” I shrugged like it was nothing and looked away.

  He kissed me good night, gave me a warm hug, and was off.

  We were back on track. I had taken my mother’s advice and proved that I could be forgiving. I’d also proved I was a great cook. And a good nurse. And a pretty good fibber.

  Life was good.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Enamored

  A few weeks later, I was in San Bernardino, a desert town about an hour and a half east of L.A., for a two-week run of the musical The Most Happy Fella. It was a tight, polished little regional theater production, highly professional but pleasantly relaxed, and I was thrilled to finally be cast in a musical. Cary came down for the third night of the show; he’d wanted to come to the opening, but I preferred to find my footing before I had to perform with him in the audience. He got to the hotel late morning and we decided to go out for lunch.

  “Should I take Bangs?” I asked. Of course, I’d brought Bangs to San Bernardino, and though I don’t think the desert heat agreed with her northern English terrier blood, she, as always, was good-natured about it.

  “They might not let her in the restaurant, and it’s too hot to leave her in the car,” Cary said. I hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the door to keep Bangs from barking in case the maid came in.

  When we pulled up after lunch, the hotel manager came running out of the office. “Miss Cannon, we’re doing everything to find her, but your dog got loose when the maid went in to clean.”

  “But I left a Do not disturb sign on the door.”

  “It must have blown off. We’d never enter a room if that sign were on the door. We’ve called the police and we’ve got a man driving around looking for her.”

  Cary had his hand on my arm. “It’s okay, Dyan. We’ll find her. I’m certain we will.”

  I felt like a stake had been driven through my heart. I started to cry.

  “Don’t worry, miss,” the manager said. “She’s only been gone a few minutes. She couldn’t have gone far.”